For periods of five days or less, how are weekends treated?

• A. Weekends always count
• B. Weekends never count
• C. Weekends do not count for periods of 5 days or less
• D. Weekends double the time

Answer: (C)

The concept being tested is how to count very short time limits in a practical, everyday legal context. When a deadline is five days or fewer, weekends aren’t part of the count. You measure the period using working days only, so Saturday and Sunday don’t add to the five days.

To see how this works, imagine you have a five-day deadline starting on a Monday. You would count Monday through Friday, which makes Friday the deadline. If the period starts on Friday, you would count Friday, then skip the weekend, and continue counting on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, making the deadline Wednesday of the next week. In every scenario, the weekend days aren’t included in the five-day tally, which is why weekends don’t count for short periods.

The other ideas—weekends always counting, weekends never counting for all periods, or weekends doubling the time—don’t fit how short deadlines are typically calculated, as they would yield inconsistent or unfair results for time-sensitive tasks.