LG Game 3 Setup, by LSATHacks
This is an explanation of the third logic game from Section III of LSAT Preptest 62, the December 2010 LSAT.
Four Softcorp employees (Q, R, S, T) attend a management skills conference. Five talks are held in the following order: Feedback, Goal Sharing, Handling People, Information Overload and Leadership (F, G, H, I, L). Each of the employees attends exactly two talks and no talk has more than two employees in attendance.
Game Setup
This is a hard game. There are lots of elements to keep track of. It’s easy to get paralyzed.
On logic games, you have to trust that the game is easier than it looks. There’s always an easy way. On this game, if you just draw new diagrams for each question and go one step at a time, the game will lead you to the right answer.
The key to logic games is trying things, rather than thinking. But trying things in a methodical way, where you look for deductions and what must be true. Don’t just draw things that could be true.
On to the setup. I looked at the first question and drew this. The first question often shows you the best way to diagram a game, though I don’t always follow it:
Each talk has up to two people. But there are only eight people to place in this game, so two spaces will be empty.
I drew the first two rules directly on the diagram. Quigley doesn’t attend Feedback or Handling People. And Rivera doesn’t attend Goal Sharing or Handling People:
The last three rules can’t be put on the diagram, and they can’t be combined. So I numbered them 1, 2, 3 and made a list. A numbered list makes it easy to see all the rules at a glance:
The final two rules are most important. There is always a TQ to place, and always an RS to place. And they have to be the first T, and the first R. And there are many places where Q and R can’t go. So TQ and RS are restricted. You should always look for the most restricted elements.
Oddly, the rule that S and T can’t go together never came up when I solved this game. That happens sometimes.
There’s one small deduction you can add to the main diagram. The first T can’t go in F. This is because Q goes with the first T and Q can’t go in F.
Note: I thought it might be the case that RS has to go in F. But I tried this, and it’s not true. That’s because there are ten spaces but only eight variables. So it’s pretty easy to avoid the restrictions. Most of the questions add artificial restrictions which tie things down.
So thankful for this site you’re a life saver lol, I COULD CRY. knowing WHY i made mistakes and seeing your quick deductions and reasoning has increased my score and thought processing, God bless You!
Hmm, a reasonable deduction that makes this problem a lot easier but it seems you are leaving out is that S or T attends Handling People.
You could break it down into two charts, one with T on H, which would make G include TQ and F either S or RS.
The second having S on H would make F be RS and G either TQ, or Q.
I and L are generally pretty flexible throughout, so should be the focus when it comes to questions.
Hi Graeme:
Did you consider a split scenario for this game? I used one, based on noticing that the R1S block has to go in either F or I. Here’s what I got:
F | R S S
G | (xR) Q T
H | (xQxT1) T
I | /R R S
L | /R R Q
(really, on scen 1 I drew R(2) between the lines with arrows to I and L).
Although it looks like only the solved game scen. 2 is useful, actually, scen. 1 worked very well as a quick springboard for drawing most of the new ifs. Plus I followed your general rule of always splitting the scenario when something can go one of two ways, and seeing what I found. What do you think?
Looks like the site collapsed the extra spaces that separated my scenarios. For clarity,
scen. 1:
F| R S; G| (xR); H| (xQxT); (R2 in I or L)
scen. 2:
F| S; G| Q T; H| T; I|R S; L|R Q
Am I just throughly confused, or should line H (Handling People) be Not R and Not Q, rather than Not H and Not R? (immediately following this bit: “I drew the first two rules directly on the diagram. Quigley doesn’t attend Feedback or Handling People. And Rivera doesn’t attend Goal Sharing or Handling People:”). The second time the chart appears it’s correct.
(Love the site, so helpful. Thanks for making it freely available. Good karma to you, cause I ain’t got a buck).
Thanks so much! I’ve fixed this + the other two diagram typos you pointed out. I really appreciate it, these kinds of small errors are hard to catch.