PrepTest 153

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Must Be True

Stimulus Summary:
A city official cites rather stringent snow rules: Shovel snow within 24 hours. If your sidewalks are still snowy 24 hours after a snowstorm, the city may clear them and, if they do so, they will bill you. If your sidewalks are still snowy 48 hours after a snowstorm, the city will definitely cite you. If you get a citation, then you'll get a fine, if you don't have extenuating circumstances.

Answer Anticipation:
You could diagram this, but you don't necessarily need to. Homeowners in this city fit into 3 categories after a snowstorm: compliant within 24 hours (we don't care about them), non-compliant with snow cleared by the city between 24 and 47 hours after the storm (they'll be billed, but we don't know if they'll be cited), and properties that are still snowy after 48 hours (can be shoveled and billed, definitely will be cited and, if no extenuating circumstances, will be fined). The correct answer is likely to depend on your ability to understand what happens to each category of snow-shoveling rebel.

Answer Explanation:
This describes a homeowner in the "still snowy after 48" category. Those homeowners will definitely be cited. The city also still has the option to shovel for them, since 48 hours is more than 24 hours. Owners of properties shoveled by the city are billed. So, if 50 Hour Freddy's place is shoveled by the city, Freddy will get a bill and a citation. This all checks out.

Key Takeaway:
Diagramming is great, but sometimes you'll get a big pile of conditional logic late in the section like this one, and just as you finish diagramming it all, you realize you didn't actually need to use that diagram to get the correct answer. Notice that this stimulus is full of conditional statements, but none of them link together to form a transitive inference. If you don't have any new conclusions to come up with by diagramming, try a different way to visualize the information in the stimulus, like mentally categorizing households.

Incorrect. This could be true, but it could be false. The official only says the city has the right to shovel and bill. That doesn't mean they always follow through.

Incorrect. Not necessarily true according to the stimulus. The city might just cite people and wait for them to take care of the problem. The city might have limited resources and not be able to shovel on behalf of every snow scofflaw in town.

Incorrect. Too strong! We don't know how many of the city's residents have extenuating circumstances, or even how strict the standards for those are. (Does a hangnail count if it makes wearing gloves painful?)

Incorrect. The stimulus never mentions extenuating circumstances in connection with snow removal. All homeowners whose sidewalks are shoveled by the city will receive a bill.