Q27

[skapur777]

I just had some questions regarding this passage. Do we know if we can predict the destination for water spilled on a basin of attraction? From what I gathered from the passage, it is impossible to predict the destination when you spill on a boundary...but I guess not if otherwise? Since it didn't actually say so, i was hesitant. But in question 26, choice C, it says "only some points are impossible to predict the destination of water".

I was willing to accept this based on the passage, since it is ambiguous if we can if we spill water anywhere but on a boundary...but the choice says "only some points are impossible", is this kind of assuming that when you spill water on non-boundaries, you CAN predict the general destination?

If that's true, then for number 27 choice (A) it says "all points on an area of land for which it is possible to predict the destination of water spilled at that point"...wouldn't this make sense, seeing how these points could be non-boundary points? I know according to the passage the answer is (D) but why isn't A correct?

Is it just me or was this passage kind of hard?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

It's definitely not just you.

This passage is HARD.

But what we know is that in these riddled basins of attraction, the boundaries between areas of certainty are where you don't know how the water will flow. I suppose the entire basin can be a boundary, but that's a bit of a stretch. That's clue#1.

What further validates (C) for #26 (and is really the main justification) is the beginning of the final paragraph, which tells us that the physicists' system expands the boundary to be the whole system -- from this we can infer that the boundary wasn't the whole system before.

For #27, the problem that jumps out, for for, with (A) is that we haven't been told we can't predict the path of the water spilled.

(Also want to make sure you've checked out the written explanation for this passage, which can be found here: q22-t1217.html )