LSAT 84, Game 2 Setup, Architects, LSATHacks

Game Setup

Time on second attempt: 7:46

See “repeating games” at bottom of section

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This is a linear game, where you also have to match people with a project. For this, it’s easiest to draw one horizontal row. I placed the architect on top, and then draw their project below:

I’ve added the final rule as well, that H is last.

To explain what I meant about architects/projects, here’s are a couple of sample scenarios with architects on top and projects below, so you get a feel for it:

Note that there are other ways to do this. For instance, you could:

• Draw numbers beneath each slot
• Draw two rows

Both of those add more information, but increase clutter. Whether you need them depends on personal preference. In my case, I don’t need that info, so including it slows me down.

Next, there is one ordering rule. F is directly in front of G. I would normally draw this in a box, but for some reason here I preferred to draw it as two slots – maybe to distinguish from projects:

So we’ve covered rules 4 and 5. I left rules 1, 2 and 3 for last, because they’re all in/out type rules. It’s best handle similar rules at the same time.

Along with the fact that every rule is in/out, you should also notice that every rule has F. This means you can probably connect them together. It’s vital to look for these connections.

We can draw the first rule first, but we’ll place F in the necessary condition, in order to connect it. Either F or L has to have Z. So, if L doesn’t have Z, F does:

Now, think about the other rules. If F has Z, what does that mean? Well, F certainly doesn’t have W. How does this apply:

• Rule 2: G must have W (since F doesn’t)
• Rule 3: H must have Y (since F doesn’t have W)

We can add both of these deductions to the main diagram!

If this is confusing, remember:

• The L/F section is rule 1
• The F/G section is rule 2
• The F/H section is rule 3

So all the in/out rules can be connected! This really makes the game straightforward.

A note on rule two. If you have a rule in the format of “Gw —> Fw” then the contrapositive is “Fw —> Gw”. What this actually means is “one of either G or F has W”

The final thing you should do is take the contrapositive of the diagram above. Just reverse everything, and negate. Remember also to turn the “and” to “or”:

The final thing you can consider doing it mapping out the ordering rules. I actually didn’t do this, but there are only two possibilities, so it can be worth noticing upfront. The FG block makes this very restrictive:

You could probably even make some scenarios about which architects have which projects, but in my view that would be excessive.

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Repeating Games

I’ve written elsewhere about the benefits of repeating games, to solidify your intuition for deductions. Note that the purpose of repeating games is to prove the answers right, so it doesn’t matter if you remember the right answer.

I repeated this game about three days after I first saw it, by which time I had forgotten the answers. I’ve written how long it took me on the second attempt. That time, or a couple minutes above it, is roughly the standard you should be aspiring to — a lot of people take 8-9 minutes on a repeat attempt, get everything right, and pat themselves on the back. But that’s too slow. The faster you go when repeating, the faster you’ll learn to go the first time you see a game.

(I say “a couple minutes above” my time because, after years of teaching the LSAT, I’m really, really fast. You should be almost as fast as me, but you don’t exactly need to match my pace to score -0.)

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