June 2007 LSAT, Logic Game 3, Question 13

This question gives you a new rule. Whenever a question gives you a new rule, you should draw it, and see how it affects the existing rules. Here, the question places T 5th:

You can draw two new not rules. J can’t go sixth; there’s no space for G (rule 4). And T can’t go fourth (rule 5). Right away, this eliminates answer E.

Since we added restrictions, consider who can go fourth and sixth. There are only four destinations. So, if two are out, then only two are left: G or M.

When something can only be two ways, you should split the game into two scenarios and draw both. Here, you could split the game on 4th, or 6th. Either way works. Let’s try sixth. We can make dual scenarios: one with G 6th, and one with M 6th.

Once we have that, the rest of the setup becomes quite restricted, as you’ll see. Let’s put G 6th first.

We still need to place the two M’s, and GJ. Since G has to be between the two M’s, these four variables just fill the first four slots:

Next, let’s place M 6th instead:

This diagram takes a bit more consideration. Remember that only G and M could go 4th and 6th? But now M can’t go 4th either: G must be between the two M’s. And if M were 4th and 6th, there’d be no G in between. So, G is 4th:

Now only M and GJ are left to place. They can go in any order: we have a G between the two M’s no matter which way we do it.

We’ve filled out both scenario (G 6th, M 6th), so now we can find the answer. This question is asking what can be true, so you can just scan through the answers to see which one matches one of the diagrams.

D is CORRECT. It’s the only answer possible in one of the diagrams. (The diagram with G 6th)

Note that these diagrams take many steps to explain, but they needn’t take long to draw. Once you have done many games + repeated sections in order to master games, you can quickly make the deductions I described and draw at the two scenarios.

Practice this until it’s rapid. It should take 20-25 seconds or less, and then the question is basically answered.