QUESTION TEXT: Buying elaborate screensavers…
QUESTION TYPE: Principle
PRINCIPLE: Screensavers waste money, even though they save electricity and prevent damage. Employees waste time playing with screensavers.
ANALYSIS: What a funny little argument. Who plays with screensavers these days? This was something people did in the 1990’s though.
The principle can abstractly be summarized as: A plan can have a good result in one area, but have a bad overall result due to side-effects.
___________
- There are no side-effects here. And not getting the cheapest package might be ok, if students are satisfied.
- The stimulus wasn’t talking about up-front costs vs. long run savings. All of the costs and benefits of screensavers are long-term.
- This isn’t necessarily a reason not to order pizza. You don’t have to cook pizza that you order in, even if you have to wait a bit longer. You can just order in advance.
So this is wrong because the stimulus described a mistake, while it’s not clear that ordering pizza is a mistake. - CORRECT. This matches the stimulus. The security system has a small, known benefit (less theft), but the overall effect is negative due to side effects (loss of goodwill).
- This is similar to B in that it compares up front costs to ongoing costs. The stimulus didn’t talk about the upfront costs of screensavers. All of the costs + benefits were ongoing.
Recap: The question begins with “Buying elaborate screensavers”. It is a Principle question. To practice more Principle questions, have a look at the LSAT Questions by Type page.
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anonymous says
Hey, this question does not match up with the one provided on LSAC LawHub. Did LSAC alter the test online?
FounderGraeme Blake says
LSAC swapped order between their print/pdf versions and their lawhub version. No good solution unfortunately.
But LR section order still matches. Like LR1 print = LR1 lawhub.