December 2010 LSAT Section 3 Question 13

Buying elaborate screensavers—programs that put moving images on a computer monitor to prevent damage—can cost a comp...

Titan on August 11, 2014

Question Stem?

Hey Guys, The question stem for this question is not showing? Not sure sure if it's just my iPad but thought I would say something just in case.

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Naz on August 13, 2014

Thanks for bringing this to our attention! It should be fixed now.

If you have any other technical issues, please email support@testmax.zendesk.com.

Titan on August 13, 2014

Will do. Thanks.

SamBaucom on November 26, 2018

Can you explain why D is correct and why C is incorrect?

Ravi on December 20, 2018

@SamBaucom,

Happy to help.

The conclusion of the argument is that buying elaborate screensavers can cost a company far in employee time than it saves in electricity and monitor protection.

The support for this conclusion is that employees can't resist spending time playing with the fancy screensavers.

The basic gist of this argument is that buying something to solve a problem (save money) can actually end up costing more money than it saves because it affects the amount of money saved in another facet of the business. In other words, the negative created by purchasing a solution can be more costly than the problem it's attempting to fix.

In the answers, we're looking for one that paraphrases our prediction.

Answer (C) is tricky, but it's not conforming to the principle illustrated in the stimulus. While pizza delivery might take longer than cooking a dinner, it may very well be worth the cost in time due to not having to clean up, not having to buy groceries, etc. This scenario does not match the one in the stimulus, as the stimulus is saying that solving a problem for something can create more negatives than the positives of solving the problem it's attempting to fix.

(D) is just what we're looking for. This conforms to the principle in the stimulus. The complicated hotel security system is analogous to the elaborate screensavers. The benefit of saving losses in theft is analogous to the benefit of saving electricity and protecting monitors. The negative of losing customer goodwill is analogous to the negative of costing companies employee time. (D) matches our stimulus really well, so it's our answer.

Does this help? Let us know if you have more questions!