LG Game 3 Question 15 Explanation, by LSATHacks
This question asks what cannot be true. You want to look for answers that are hard to do. By “hard” I mean answers that make it harder to obey a rule. “Easy” answers are those that obey a rule.
For instance, A is hard because it places two artifacts in Norway (meaning we’d need three in Iceland) but easy because it places X in Norway (obeying rule 2).
B and C are easy because they place at least two artifacts in Iceland. That helps obey rule 3 (Iceland has more than Norway).
D makes things easy because it meets the necessary condition of rule 4. Since Z originated in Sweden, it now doesn’t matter where V goes.
E is places two artifacts in Norway. This means we’d need three in Iceland (rule 3). That’s hard. E also doesn’t place X in Norway. So to obey rule 2 we’d have to put X in Sweden.
That means only Z and V are left to go in Iceland. So we don’t have enough to put more in Iceland than Norway, and E is CORRECT. (Actually, it’s not even possible to put both Z and V in Iceland, due to rule 4).
So there should be a method to your madness on CANNOT be true questions. Ask if an answer obeys a rule (easy) or makes a rule harder to obey.
I said A was hard too, so let’s disprove it. It’s true that A puts two artifacts in Norway. But it’s definitely possible to put the remaining three artifacts in Iceland. Matter of fact, we saw this diagram in question 14:
When I did this question on timed conditions I followed the exact same process. I kept A, I fast-eliminated B, C and D, and then I saw E was hard so I tried it. E worked, then I eliminated A to make sure. Didn’t take long because I didn’t pay much attention to the answers that seemed easy.
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I selected answer D, because assuming Y must originate wherever W originates (in this case, along with Z in Sweden), doesn’t that leave Iceland and Norway with just 1 artifact each, which would violate rule 3?
I did the same thing – is there an explanation for this?
This isn’t a game where there’s “at least one” in each group. A group can have zero. So you can have 2-0-3 or 1-0-4 and it still works.