Game Setup
Time on first attempt: 6:05
In this game a teacher is assigning presentations to students. The three students are George, Rita and Wendy. The presentations are on Machiavellianism, jitsuaku, and Shakespeare’s villains.
This is a grouping game with three groups. It also has some in-out grouping features. So, this game could be difficult if you are not so familiar with in-out grouping. However, if you are, the game can be quite easy. If you had any trouble with this game, I recommend repeating it until the rules are second nature.
I should also note that it is possible to create long chain in-out grouping diagrams for this game, akin to the birds in the forest game from LSAT 33. However, those diagrams don’t end up being useful. It’s possible LSAC left this possibility as a trap for experienced students.
(I put the long chain diagrams at the bottom of this setup section if you’re curious to see them)
Instead of making long chains, the game is more easily solved by drawing rule 3 on the diagram itself, and then referencing rules 1 and 2 as situations call for it.
You can arrange the three groups like this:
Two things to note:
- Each subject has a single presenter, at least. So I drew one slot. If the rules hadn’t specified a minimum, I wouldn’t have put the slots.
- Rule 3 says everything in M is also in S, so I drew this directly on the diagram. That way it’s much harder to forget.
Apart from that diagram, there are only two rules in this game. Rule one is quite simple, it’s rule two that is tested by most of the questions. But let’s get rule one out of the way. It says that if G presents on J, then so does R:
If you’re razor sharp on contrapositives, that’s all you need to draw. But, if you can’t see contrapositives in your head yet, you should also draw the contrapositive, like so:
Rules 2 and 3 together are restrictive
Summary: You can’t have R and W together in S. And, if you place either of R and W in M, they’ll be in S, too. So, it is very easy to accidentally place R and W together in S by placing one of them in M.
So, it is very important to be careful when placing R and W in either S or M.
————
Rule two is quite simple, however it is more restrictive than rule 1. The rule says that if R presents on S, then W does not. Effectively, this means that W and R can’t be together in S. So, if W is in S, then R can’t be. We can draw both:
This is different from rule 1. Rule 1 just says “if one thing happens, do another”. But rule 2 actually presents a rule violation. If you put one of W or R in S, you can’t put the other.
This gets even more restrictive when you consider rule 3: anything in M is in S. So, suppose we have W in S, and R in M:
(The “not R” in S is a reminder of rule 2: W is already in S, so R can’t be)
On its face, the above diagram doesn’t violate rule 2. However, once we apply rule 3, we have to put R in S as well. Everything in M goes in S, too:
So this diagram violates rule 2. If W is in S, we can’t put R in S or in M. And vice versa. If R is in S, we can’t put W in S or in M.
This is the central point of the game. If you understand the paragraph above, you basically solve every question easily. This game is unusual in the LSAC is just repeatedly testing a single idea.
Also, note that in the case of W in S, we have to put R somewhere, so R goes in J. And if R is in S, we have to put W somewhere, so W goes in J. This comes up on a few questions too. If you didn’t follow that, review the bolded paragraph above, or the explanation under the conditional diagrams below.
Useless long chain diagrams
I wrote above that it’s possible (but useless) to make long conditional chain diagrams on this game. I made them, until I realized I never actually used them on any of the questions. Here are the diagrams I made:
Basically, if R is in M, then it’s in S (rule 2). So, W can’t be in S (rule 2), nor in M (contrapositive of rule 3). W has to go somewhere (setup paragraph), so it goes in J.
The same logic applies with W in M.
Want a free Logic Games lesson?
Get a free sample of the Logic Games Mastery Seminar. Learn tips for going faster at logic games
Leave a Reply