LSAT 60, Game 3 Setup, Mulch and Stone Loads, LSATHacks

LG Game 3 Setup, by LSATHacks

Game Setup

This is a unique game. I enjoyed it quite a bit, personally. On this game, I made no upfront deduction. But, while doing the first question, I figured out the constraints.

I’m going to discuss the constraints here, in the setup section, but remember: I figured these out while doing the game, not beforehand. For some games, that’s the best approach. You can always revisit the setup if you try the questions and can’t figure things out while doing. Sitting and thinking about the setup without producing anything is a waste of time.

Here’s what I drew before starting, by the way:

The key to this game is that there are limited transfers. And, sticking Mulch right in the middle leads to two transfers by default:

We can only have three transfers, so we are quite restricted. We’re going to have to do one of two things:

• Cluster the M’s together, or
• Put an M on the side

(I hadn’t figured these out before starting the game, I had only drawn the M in 5)

Clustering M’s together

In this case, there are only two transfers. Note that the bloc of M’s could shift one to the right or to the left. i.e. The M’s could be in 345, 456, or 567. 

Placing an M on the side

The other possibility is keeping two M’s together near 5, and placing the other M on one of the ends. Here’s an example:

This only results in three transfers. Again, the M could be in 6 or 4.

Note that we could also can have two M’s on the side, like this:

The point here is not to map out all the scenarios (there are a bunch). It’s to recognize the general structure of the scenarios:

1. The “Three M’s together scenario”
2. The “Two M’s together, one M on an edge scenario”.