The School Newspaper Deadline
Maya is the editor of her high school newspaper. The next issue must go to the printer by Friday at 3:00 p.m. On Tuesday morning she has four articles: a sports recap (done, 400 words), a cafeteria-menu change story (done, 250 words), an interview with the new principal (half-written, 300 of a planned 600 words), and an opinion piece about later start times (done, 500 words). The paper has room for 1,200 words total. The principal interview is the only story with a direct quote from an administrator, and the principal's office said the quote must be approved before printing. Approval takes one full school day after Maya submits it. Maya is away at a field trip all day Wednesday. On Thursday she has two free periods. The opinion piece's author has not yet signed the required consent form.
1. Which article should Maya cut or hold, and why? Show your word-count reasoning.
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Start with the space math. The three finished pieces total 400 + 250 + 500 = 1,150 words. That leaves only 50 words of the 1,200-word budget. The principal interview is planned at 600 words, so it cannot fit unless something else is cut.
Now weigh the constraints. The interview quote needs one full school day for approval. Maya is gone Wednesday, so if she submits Tuesday, approval could return Thursday - tight but possible. However, even with approval, the 600-word interview cannot fit alongside the other three.
The opinion piece has no signed consent form. Printing it without consent is a policy risk, so it is the weakest piece to keep. Cutting the 500-word opinion piece frees 500 words, plus the 50 already free, giving 550 - still short of 600. Cutting the sports recap (400) instead frees 450, also short.
Best call: hold the opinion piece until consent arrives and trim the interview to about 550 words, or hold the interview to the next issue. The judgment being tested is that deadlines plus approval time plus consent rules can force a cut even when the writing is good.
2. What is the biggest scheduling risk, and what should Maya do first on Tuesday?
Read the worked answer
The biggest risk is the approval clock on the principal quote. Approval takes one full school day, and Maya loses Wednesday entirely. If she waits until Thursday to submit, the earliest approval is Friday - the print day - leaving no room for a problem.
So her first action Tuesday should be to submit the quote for approval, before editing anything else. That starts the clock while she still has a buffer day. Editing the other pieces can happen Thursday during her free periods; the approval cannot be compressed.
This tests whether the student can identify the task with the least flexibility (fixed external turnaround) and sequence work around it, rather than doing the easy editing first.