LG Game 4 Question 22 Explanation, by LSATHacks
This question asks what must be true if L works on the same piece on Tuesday and Thursday.
That means that L passes the workpiece to someone else on Wednesday, and that person passes it back to L for Thursday.
First of all, you can eliminate A, B and C. It doesn’t matter what happens on Monday. It only matters who has L’s workpiece on Wednesday, between Tuesday and Thursday. The first day order does not matter on this game.
Now, we have to choose between D and E. Fortunately, D is impossible. L can’t pass it to J; that’s rule 3.
E is CORRECT. Note that this is basically the same question as 21. Only K and L can pass a piece between the two of them. And that’s what is happening on this question. L passes to K, who passes back to L. No other two people can do that.
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Why can’t L pass to M, as per your reply to Britney above? If the order was JLML, object Q could be passed from L to M then back to L, right? Or did I completely miss the boat on this one? I see that M can only pass to J given that K and L can’t, but in this case J occupies the first position so I’m missing the point in terms of why object Q wouldn’t make it through this work sequence. Thanks for your insight in advance.
Hey Graeme, thank you for the great explanation.
I don’t think it is very helpful to say “The first order does not matter” because, in this question, the first order does matter.
Since for this given item, we know L works on it both Tuesday and Thursday, we know that only J or K could work on that item on Monday. This is because if M were in Monday, J would be on Tuesday, which is not possible in this scenario because L is on Tuesday.
I know this is simple and it does not detract from the validity of your explanation, I just think it’s a helpful way to think about this question for someone, like me, who was really puzzled by this game.
Do you mean, if M had it on Monday?
Either way, M *always* passes to J. Maybe I could make that clearer. It means M is effectively out when considering this question. If an answer had said “J or K has it on Monday”, that would have been correct, but none were in that form.
I guess what you wrote is true. Just a different way of framing things. Personally I think people are going to get hung up on the first day’s order on this game, when it’s largely irrelevant.
Hi,
Was wondering if you can help explain this to me better. I’m having trouble understanding this question. Does it mean that the combination for Tuesday and Thursday has to be same? Can you please provide the hypothetical that proves that E is right. I appreciate it!
No, tuesday/thursday don’t have to be the same. The questions says the workpiece for *L* has to be the same. The other people can have different piece.
This isn’t really a game for which you can draw hypotheticals. It’s more about who can transfer to who.
So, L has a workpiece on Tuesday. They have to hand it off to someone for Wednesday. Then that person has to hand it back to L on Thursday.
L starts on tuesday.
Can they pass it to M? No, because M has to pass it to J. So the workpiece will be with J on Thursday, not L.
Can L pass it to J? No, the rule says L can’t pass to J.
So L must pass to K on Wednesday. Then K can pass back to L on Thursday.
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Does that make sense? Monday is irrelevant. Starting position doesn’t matter for this game. Only future days matter.
And D is impossible, since L can’t pass to J.
Thanks for your reply! Not quite. I mean if that’s the case how would K be on Wednesday… Wouldn’t K be on Thursday. And why can’t M pass to J on Wednesday. Why can’t we have:
Tues: K to M
Wed: M to J
Thurs: L to K
I know Monday doesn’t matter but it would work by Monday we could just have J to L. Everyone is taken care of.
I made a mistake on that last post. Why can’t we have:
Mon: K to M
Tues: L to K
Wed: M to J
Thurs: J to L
Hmm….You may have completely missed what’s going on in this game. You said “wouldn’t K be on thursday”, which doesn’t make sense….the letters aren’t on days.
There are workpieces being passed between the four people, on the days of the week. The game doesn’t name the workpieces.
This question says that L has the same workpiece on tuesday and thursday. So for our example:
Tue: L has Q
Wed: K has Q
Thurs: L has Q again
Q gets passed from L to K and L again.
L can’t pass Q to J, because of the rules.
And L can’t pass Q to M, because M always passes to J. So Q would end up with J on thursday.