Self-study
This summer, Jennifer, who has worked at KVZ Manufacturing for just over three years, plans to spend with her family the entire four weeks of paid vacation to which she is entitled this year. ██████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ ███ █████████████ ███ ███████ ███ ███ ████ █████ ██ █████████████ ████████ ██ ███████ █████ █████ ████ ████████ ████ ████ ███ ███ █████ ██ ██ ████ ██ ███ ████████ ████ ████ ███████ ██████ ██ ███ ███ ██ ███ ████ ██ ███ ████ ████████ █████████
Stimulus Structure
The stimulus starts by telling us that Jennifer has worked at KVZ Manufacturing for just over three years, and is entitled to four weeks of paid vacation this year, which she plans to spend with her family. The stimulus then explains KVZ Manufacturing's paid vacation policy for employees who have worked there between one and four years: they get exactly three weeks of paid vacation per year. If they have unused vacation time from one year, they can apply up to half that time to the next year's vacation.
Notable Inferences
Notice that by KVZ Manufacturing's policy, Jennifer should have received exactly three weeks' vacation this year. Since the entire vacation time she is entitled to this year is four weeks, we know she didn't use all her vacation time last year. Since she has added one whole week to this year's vacation time, and she is entitled to up to half of the vacation time she didn't use last year, we know she must have had two weeks of vacation time left unused at the end of last year.
13.
If the statements above are ███ █████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████ ████ ██ ████ ██ ███ █████ ██ █████
a
Jennifer did not ███ ███ █████ ██ ███ ████ ████████ ████ ██ █████ ███ ███ ████████ ████ █████
This must be true. We know Jennifer would normally be entitled to three weeks of paid vacation this year. Since she has four weeks, we know she didn't use all of last year's vacation time. Since she is entitled to apply "up to half" of the vacation time left unused last year to this year, and the one extra week brings her to the "entire" vacation time she is entitled to, we know she must have left two weeks of vacation time unused last year.
b
If Jennifer continues ██ ████ ███ ███ ██████████████ ███ ████ ████ ██ ████████ ██ █████ █████ ████ ████████ ████ █████
This doesn't have to be true. The policy granting three weeks of paid vacation per year applies to employees who have worked at KVZ Manufacturing between one and four years. Next year, Jennifer will have worked there for just over four years, so it's possible she will have a different vacation policy.
c
The majority of ███████ █████████ ███ ████ ████ ███ ██ ███ ████ ████████ ████ ██ █████ ████ ███ █████████
There's no support for this. The stimulus tells us only about Jennifer. It doesn't tell us anything about any other employees at KVZ Manufacturing.
d
Last year Jennifer ████ ████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ████ ████████ ████ ██ █████ ███ ███ █████████
This is a tricky answer choice, because we can infer from the stimulus that Jennifer did not use two weeks of last year's vacation time. If she was entitled to three weeks of vacation time last year, then this answer choice would mean the same thing. The problem is that we don't know that she was entitled to only three weeks of vacation time last year. It's possible she had additional time rolling over from the year before. So this doesn't have to be true.
e
KVZ Manufacturing sometimes ██████ █████ ████████ ████ ██ █████████ ███ ████ ██ █████ ████ ████ ████ █████ █████████
This could be true, but there's no support for it from the stimulus. Remember that we're looking for something that must be true on the basis of the statements in the stimulus. Those statements already provide us with an explanation for why Jennifer has extra vacation time this year: she didn't use two weeks of vacation time last year.