And One More Game For Testing Yourself Forum

[Atlas LSAT Teacher]

Here's another game that we just put together. Let's see what folks can figure out - between 3 of our teachers we had 3 different approaches:

Six young children – K, L, M, N, O, P – gather in a circle and play a game in which they toss a ball to one another. One child starts the game by tossing the ball to one of the other five children, who then tosses it to another child, who tosses it to another child, who is declared the “winner.” A child may handle the ball more than once during the course of any one game, but cannot toss the ball to himself/herself. The following conditions apply:

* K can only toss it to P.
* P can only toss it to O.
* N can only receive a toss from M.
* L can only toss to P or M, and M can only receive a toss from L.
* N can only toss to K, and K can only receive a toss from N.


1. Which of the following could be the order of tosses, from the child who starts to the child who wins?

(A) M to L to P to K

(B) M to P to O to N

(C) M to N to K to L

(D) L to N to K to P

(E) L to M to L to P

2. If K starts the game, it could be true that

(A) L receives the second toss

(B) M receives the second toss

(C) M is the winner

(D) N is the winner

(E) P is the winner

3. If O is the winner, each of the following could be true except:

(A) N started the game

(B) M started the game

(C) L started the game

(D) K started the game

(E) P started the game

4. How many different orders of tosses would result in N being declared the winner?

(A) 0

(B) 1

(C) 2

(D) 3

(E) 4

5. If O starts the game, how many different children can receive the second toss?

(A) 1

(B) 2

(C) 3

(D) 4

(E) 5

6. Which of the following can’t happen in the same game?

(A) N starts and N wins

(B) M starts and M wins

(C) L starts and L wins

(D) K starts and P wins

(E) K starts and L wins


BTW, you can put in your answers on our site to participate in a contest: http://www.atlaslsat.com/logic-games-practice.cfm

[Anaconda]

I think it's fair to say if that was an actual LG it would probably be the hardest ever. Can anyone back me up?

Edit: NVM it's not too bad but it seemed like a BITCH at first. The game setup is really confusing but putting everything into motion isn't too bad once you conceptualize it. It only took me a few minutes the second time I tried. I didn't bother to write down the rules, I think it's just easier to re-read them for each question - never have been able to say that about a LG before.

1. E
2. C
3. D
4. B
5. B
6. A

[Atlas LSAT Teacher]

I think it's fair to say if that was an actual LG it would probably be the hardest ever. Can anyone back me up?

Edit: NVM it's not too bad but it seemed like a BITCH at first. The game setup is really confusing but putting everything into motion isn't too bad once you conceptualize it. It only took me a few minutes the second time I tried. I didn't bother to write down the rules, I think it's just easier to re-read them for each question - never have been able to say that about a LG before.

1. E
2. C
3. D
4. B
5. B
6. A

I'll back you up on that - it was sort of like sky diving.

BTW, We generally write our games to be a bit harder than actual games.

How did you set it up?

[dakatz]

1. E
2. E
3. D
4. C
5. B
6. A

Was originally duped on #4 into thinking it is B, but forgot that M could also start the sequence, thus 2 orders (choice C). Didn't find the game too hard once I drew the rules out a 2nd time.

[Anaconda]

1. E
2. E
3. D
4. C
5. B
6. A

Was originally duped on #4 into thinking it is B, but forgot that M could also start the sequence, thus 2 orders (choice C). Didn't find the game too hard once I drew the rules out a 2nd time. I'll come back in a few to type out my explanation for each.

Darn, #4 is brutally hard. I bet if this were a real LSAT question at least 50% would get it wrong, easily.

I messed up on #2, forgot if M -> LM. Guess not writing down the rules has its disadvantages!

I didn't really diagram anything besides the hypotheticals, in which case I used a basic linear diagram and plugged things in.

Atlas, what would you rate this game in terms of difficulty in comparison to past logic games? Seems very difficult to me based on the semi-confusing game setup and very tricky answer choices.

[dakatz]

Here are the rules I used. I can definitely see why this would be hard without sketching these out

N ---> K ---> P ---> O (This is the synthesis of a number of rules)
N ---> (M -- N) - If N received the toss, then it must have come from M
L ---> P or M
M ---> (L -- M) - If M received the toss, then it must have come from L
K ---> (N -- K) - If K received the toss, then it must have come from N

[Atlas LSAT Teacher]

Atlas, what would you rate this game in terms of difficulty in comparison to past logic games? Seems very difficult to me based on the semi-confusing game setup and very tricky answer choices.

I'd probably put it on the high end of things because of the confusing set-up and rather rogue nature. Few games these days fall this far outside the standard types. But we figure that if folks can adapt to this, they can figure out the standard ones...

[Mike@Atlas]

Hi everyone --

I wrote this game, and just wanted to chime in on the conversation --

Our challenge games are designed to help you really stretch your LG abilities --

So, don't fret if you find this to be super challenging -- it's meant to be --

However, I will say that it's NOT meant to be a slog --

So, hopefully, you'll have some fun trying to find efficient ways to solve it.

[skip james]

It wasn't too bad, once you diagrammed the rules properly. Using straight conditionals is likely to get you in trouble for this one though, like:

K --> KP instead of something like:

[K_] --> [KP]

It seemed pretty important to remember not rules and stuff for hypothetical work (for the local questions) too.

I ended up with the same answers as dakatz.

[Cambridge LSAT]

Splitting the rules into tossing and receiving components proved useful.

Toss
K: K → P
P: P → O
L: L → P or L → M
N: N → K

Receive
N: M → N
M: L → M
K: N → K

[AverageTutoring]

Splitting the rules into tossing and receiving components proved useful.

Toss
K: K → P
P: P → O
L: L → P or L → M
N: N → K

Receive
N: M → N
M: L → M
K: N → K

Very nice!