Entry checkpoint: first-look questions

Try this optional sample before the lessons; use mistakes to choose a starting point.

Paper packet. Every task here also exists on screen, where it is checked automatically; answers written on paper are not assessed by Nydus. When you are back at a device, enter your answers there.

1. What you will learn

Use this optional checkpoint before reading worked examples. It samples only a few skills and does not decide placement. Record your initial answer and confidence before submitting; use feedback to choose lessons to study. Treat later attempts at these same questions as review, not new assessment evidence. No result converts to an LSAT scaled score.

2. Practice

Read the shared passage and answer every question before submitting. These are original instructional questions; a repeated passage is review, not fresh diagnostic evidence.

Passage A
[1] An exception to a public rule should be justified by a difference relevant to the rule's purpose. Consistency does not require giving physically identical treatment to people whose circumstances differ in a way that the rule itself makes significant. If a deadline exists to permit orderly review, a delay that leaves review unaffected can differ from one that prevents it. However, convenience for the decision maker is not automatically a relevant difference between applicants.

[2] Reasons should identify the relevant circumstance and connect it to the purpose. Merely citing an earlier exception can hide the absence of that connection in a new case. Conversely, an unfamiliar circumstance may satisfy the same underlying reason as an earlier case. Public explanations allow later applicants to assess that reasoning, although they cannot anticipate every future situation. A fair exception policy therefore needs both a stable account of purpose and attention to facts that determine whether that purpose is impaired.

Passage B
[1] A fictional exhibition requires artists to submit image files by noon so jurors can review complete portfolios that afternoon. One artist's file arrives at 12:03 after the submission server briefly fails. It can be included before the jurors begin, and doing so changes neither their available review time nor the information given to other artists. The organizer accepts it and records those reasons. A second artist, who sends a new work after judging has begun, cites the first acceptance and requests identical treatment.

[2] The organizer declines because adding the new work would require reopening completed comparisons. The second artist calls the outcomes inconsistent: both files were late. That description identifies a shared feature but leaves out the difference on which the decisions rest. The explanation would be less persuasive if the organizer had already reopened comparisons for a favored entrant under the same conditions. Consistency is tested by the reasons actually applied, not by repeating the word late or by announcing that each case is unique. An exception remains accountable to comparison even when the relevant similarity is more specific than a common label.

B primarily serves as:

A counterexample proving that no deadline can permit exceptions.
An argument that technical failures always override public rules.
A historical explanation of how A's principle originated.
A defense of officials' unrestricted discretion.
An application of A's principle to two cases sharing a label but differing in their effect on a rule's purpose.

Which fact is most important to the first acceptance under the stated principle?

The delay is described with a small number.
The artist is the first person to request an exception.
Including the file does not impair the planned review.
The first artist submits a digital rather than printed image.
The organizer personally prefers the first artist's work.

Both passages imply that:

An earlier exception needs a relevant comparison before it can justify another exception.
Each case should be decided without considering earlier cases.
Identical outcomes are necessary whenever the same rule is involved.
A published reason guarantees fair treatment in every later case.
An unfamiliar circumstance cannot justify an exception.

The favored entrant hypothesis in B is included to:

Show that reopening comparisons is physically impossible.
Explain why the submission server failed.
Argue that aesthetic judgment cannot use deadlines.
Identify evidence that would undermine the organizer's claim to apply the stated distinction consistently.
Establish that the organizer actually favored someone.

Each proposed decision fits A's principle EXCEPT:

Explain why two late submissions differ in their effect on review.
Accept a favored artist's late addition solely to avoid an uncomfortable conversation.
Accept a delayed file when it can enter the unchanged review process on equal terms.
Decline an addition that requires reopening completed comparisons.
Consider an unfamiliar delivery failure by asking whether review would be disrupted.

3. What you can do now

Keep a record of the first attempt, the error explanation and the lesson to revisit. Repeated questions are review rather than fresh evidence.