LSAT 72, Game 1 Setup, Radio Station, LSATHacks

This is an explanation of the first logic game from Section IV of LSAT Preptest 72, the June 2014 LSAT.

Every morning, a radio station airs hourly news updates. There are two segments (1, 2) and a total of five reports during each update. There are two general interest reports: international and national (I, N); and three local interest reports: sports, traffic and weather (S, T, W). You must use the rules to determine the possible placements of the reports.

Game Setup

This game tests your ability to apply the rules and make deductions on the spot. There are a few very restricted points in this game. If you know the rules + these restricted points, you can do this game very, very fast. I did it in less than five minutes.

If you don’t know the rules, it will be a slow, hard game. You should always try to memorize the rules before you start, and look to see what points have more restrictions than others. 

For example, the first and last points are restricted. First is restricted because N always goes first. Last is restricted because S always goes last. We’ll see this in the rules below.

First, we need to figure out how to draw the two news updates. I looked at the first question to see how the testmakers represented this game and I decided this was the best way:

Next, I read all the rules. I decided to draw the fourth rule first. We know national is always first within its group. So there are two options. National in group 1, and national in group 2:

Scenario 1

Scenario 2

On the second diagram, International must be in group 1. That’s because each group needs at least one segment of local interest (rule 3), and International/National are both general. I’ve drawn International up and to the right in scenario 2 as a reminder of this deduction. 

Drawing these two scenarios may seem like a small, obvious deduction, but it greatly simplifies the game.

Next, I drew the two remaining rules on their own. Sports is always last in its group, and if international and weather are in the same group, then international is before weather:

Finally, Traffic has no rules:

Restricted spaces determine this game

It’s important to pay attention to the restricted spaces. Many questions place a variable in last place; for example, question two places traffic last in the first segment.

If traffic is last in one group, then sports must be last in the other group – because sports always has to be last. This is a huge deduction, and it applies to any scenario where a question places someone last (that isn’t sports). 

This game is very open ended in the setup, but it’s made in such a way that it becomes very restricted once one of the first or last spots is filled. Since national is always first in its group, then if someone fills the first spot in one group, you know national is first in the other group.

It’s important that you memorize a few things:

• Who is general (I, N) and who is local (T, W, S)
• Who must go last: S
• Who must go first: N
• The rule about I before W

If you know these four things, the game is incredibly easy. If you struggled with it, I suspect you didn’t know all four as well as you should.

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