#19 - It takes 365.25 days for the Earth to make one

[Dave Killoran]

Complete Question Explanation

Must be True. The correct answer choice is (B)

This is an all-time classic LSAT question, and a truly confusing one, so if you had trouble here do not despair!

The scenario described in the stimulus is very unusual. The proposal attempts to standardize the calendar so that the same date every year is on the same day. So, for example, if May 1st was a Saturday once the proposal was implemented, then it would always be a Saturday. This would be great for some things—your birthday would always be on the same day, and you wouldn't have to think about which day of the week it was on—it would always be the same (and let's hope it is on a Friday or Saturday

How would they accomplish this standardization? By adding one or two "free days" at the end of each calendar year. These days would essentially be unnumbered and undated, that is, they wouldn't be a Monday or a Thursday. Instead, they would be place holder days, a sort of free day. In this way, they can set January the 1st as a Sunday each year—and then it stays that way, forever. To make it happen that way it also means that December 31st isn't really the day before January 1st—there is a free day or two in-between. The calendar each year starts on Sunday, January first, and plays out regularly until they get to December 30th, and then they add in the one or two free days they need to balance with the orbital cycle.

The stimulus does not make it clear whether these no-man's-land days would be a working day or a vacation day. But one would imagine that for practical sake that they would end up being holidays.


Answer choice (A): Under the scheme, December 30th would always be a Saturday and December 31st would always be a no-man's-land day. This should not present any scheduling conflict because December 30th celebrators would still have their usual date, and the former December 31st celebrators would now have the first "free day" as their birthday. Since every year has a free day, their "birthday" is now just going by a different name.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. These people would have a conflict. In the first year of the scheme, this group of people would be fine during the first year this is implemented. Every seventh day they would take off, probably on Saturday or Sunday depending on their religion. But, what happens to this group at the end of the year? Those "free days" are still actual days, so they count for religious purposes, but they aren't on the calendar. So, all of sudden, in the second year when this group goes to take every seventh day off, they are now taking every Friday (or maybe Thursday—it depends on how this aligns). That's not really going to work over time, and it gets worse the next year, when they then have to count in more free days at the end of year 2. Eventually it comes back around and they get Saturday or Sunday off for the whole year, but most years, they'd be taking a day off in the middle of the regular work week, and that would cause a lot of employment problems (as well as simply being inconvenient since it wouldn't mesh with everyone else's weekends and time off).

Answer choice (C): Under the scheme, the calendar looks exactly the same every year (with the exception of the extra day at the end of leap years), so school districts could plan out their 180 days the same each year. No conflict here.

Answer choice (D): Under the scheme, the calendar looks exactly the same every year, so any given holiday would fall on the same day of the week each year. For any given holiday, either it generates a three-day weekend or it does not, every single year. (Assume that holidays are assigned according to dates on the calendar, rather than lunar cycles or something like that.)

Answer choice (E): Under the scheme, the calendar looks exactly the same every year, so people should not encounter any conflicts in planning ahead.

[GLMDYP]

Hi Powerscore!
For this question, I found the situation in (D) is equally troubling. Can you explain why (D) actually has no problem?
Thanks!

[David Boyle]

Hi Powerscore!
For this question, I found the situation in (D) is equally troubling. Can you explain why (D) actually has no problem?
Thanks!

Hello GLMDYP,

(d) may have problems too, though Jan. 1 is often a holiday anyway, which may solve some of the problem. But even if New Year's Day weren't a holiday, the most that things might get messed up is one weekend, maybe, near the end of the year. However, with religious people, the days off the calendar may mess up not only those days themselves, but all the days after them. (And maybe before them, too, since December 29 may be the sixth day, on which you normally prepare for the seventh day...but when is the seventh day?)

Hope that helps,
David

[GLMDYP]

Thanks David! I love your humor!

[reop6780]

Is this "must be true" question?

I lack the understanding of the stimuli...

Especially in the last sentence, how does January 1 fall into Sunday every year when last day of each year and an additional day every fourth year belonged to no week?

Do I need to understand this to get the correct answer?

Is there any other way to find the right answer?

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Hyun,

You've run across another all-time classic LSAT question

First, yes, this is a Must Be True question.

Second, this is a very odd stimulus, or at least the scenario they describe is very unusual. The proposal in the stimulus attempts to standardize the calendar so that the same date every year is on the same day. So, for example, if May 1st was a Saturday once the proposal was implemented, then it would always be a Saturday. This would be great for some things--your birthday would always be on the same day, and you wouldn't have to think about which day of the week it was on--it would always be the same (and let's hope it is on a Friday or Saturday

How would they accomplish this standardization? By adding one or two "free days" at the end of each calendar year. These days would essentially be unnumbered and undated, that is, they wouldn't be a Monday or a Thursday. Instead, they would be place holder days. In this way, they can set January the 1st as a Sunday each year--and then it stays that way, forever. They make it happen that way, but it also means that December 31st isn't really the day before January 1st--there is a free day or two in-between. The calendar each year starts on Sunday, January first, and plays out regularly until they get to December 31st, and then they add in however many free days they need to balance with the orbital cycle.

Now, who would that affect the most? In (B), this group of people would be fine during the first year this is implemented. Every seventh day they would take off, probably on Saturday or Sunday depending on their religion. But, what happens to this group at the end of the year? Those "free days" are still actual days, so they count for religious purposes, but they aren't on the calendar. So, all of sudden, in the second year when this group goes to take every seventh day off, they are now taking every Friday (or maybe Thursday--it depends on how this aligns). That's not really going to work over time, and it gets worse the next year, when they then have to count in more free days at the end of year 2. Eventually it comes back around and they get Saturday or Sunday off for the whole year, but most years, they'd be taking a day off in the middle of the regular work week, and that would cause a lot of employment problems (as well as simply being inconvenient since it wouldn't mesh with everyone else's weekends and time off).

An odd stimulus, but please let me know if the above helps. Thanks!

[reop6780]

Hi Dave, your explanation made me understand this stimuli much easier! Thank you.

[sdesousa]

Hi

I'm currently working through some problems in the LR Question Type Training book and I'm having difficulty with question # 43 on page 33. I have never encountered a question of this type and I can't get myself to understand why the correct answer is correct and why the incorrect answers are incorrect. I'm hoping someone can shed some light!

Thanks so much for all your help,
Sandy

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hey Sandy,

This is a rather unusual Must Be True question, requiring you to identify a scheduling conflict that would result from adopting the proposal, as it is described in the stimulus.

Let's take a look at the problem: this year,1/1 fell on a Thursday; next year it will fall on a Friday. The author hates that, and wants to to tinker with the calendar so that 1/1 always falls on a Sunday. If we adopted his proposal this year, 2015, we'll need to skip a few days at the end of 2015 and basically declare that 1/1/2016 is a Sunday, not a Friday. Whats the problem with that? Well, if you are a Catholic who needs to refrain from working every seventh day, you'll have a problem in 2016. You went to church on Sunday, 12/27/2015, and are counting the days - 7, to be exact - before you need to worship God again. But, instead of a Sunday, 1/3/2016 suddenly falls on a Tuesday. From now on, you'll need to take every Tuesday off to go to church, which could easily be a huge problem for you (and your employer). Thats why answer choice (B) is correct.

None of the other groups would have a similar issue. If your birthday is on 12/31 - answer choice A - you'll still celebrate it, it just that the day won't belong to any week. Big deal. The remaining answer choices are even less likely to be affected by the proposal.

Let me know if this clears thing up!

Thanks.

[Jleon25]

Hello,
This is my first post on this forum. Thus, if I am in the wrong area to receive an answer to my questions, please let me know!

I am completely confused on this "362.25 days" question. I chose answer choice (E), and I do now sort of see how that answer choice is incorrect. However, I still have two questions.

1.) What sort of prephase would be applicable in this situation? I tried using the generalized prephasing technique that you guys advocate in your Advanced Logical Reasoning Course, but I cannot seem to come up with anything plausible at all.

2.) How is answer choice (B) correct?


Thanks for your time!
Jacob