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So in hopes of solidifying my games performance before the June test, I've decided to do complete every LG section ever, twice (6/day). For many TLSers, games are almost a guaranteed -0 as a result of their hard work and mastery of the section. In fact, they usually only miss questions as a result of a careless mistake, often a reading error. I've fallen victim to such errors many times, so in hope for -0s all around, here's a small list of subtle wordings that I've noticed can cause trouble and rob games masters of their perfect sections.

"spaces between"

Some questions will ask you how many "spaces separate" or how many "spaces sit between" two variables. This one isn't too troubling, but often times you might confuse this with "spaces away from." In "K L M T V Z," variable T is 3 spaces behind K, but if they asked how many were in between, the answer would be 2.

"how many of the other"

This one has caught me on multiple occasions. Many LG questions will ask you,, "If Ken is in the third seat, for how many of the students can their position be completely determined?" Once you make all your inferences, that's easy enough. But when they ask "If Ken is in the third seat, for how many of the other students can their position be completely determined?" you might accidently count the variables that you placed in slots in your hypothetical and include "K" in your count.

"at least"

Sometimes the rules will tell you "The fire truck and ambulance are separated by at least 3 parking spaces," and you'll diagram the rule as "F _ _ _ K." For one, make sure you don't assume that F has to be before K, as it could easily be "K _ _ _ F." But on top of that, make sure to note that the rule says at least 3 spaces, and it could easily be "K _ _ _ _ _ _ F." You get in trouble with this sometimes when a local condition will place K in slot 1 and you automatically assume F is in slot 5. I usually will diagram a rule that says "at least" like this: " FK _ _ _ . . .KF". The dots show me that there can be more than 3 slots.

"higher/lower"

In linear games, what is "higher" and what is "lower" varies with each game. In most games where the slots are numbered 1 through 7 or something like that, the higher numbers naturally are higher, and you diagram "M is in a room numbered higher than P" as "P > M." But some games will have setups where the first slot is the highest, for example if they are being ranked, or if they are from the front to back, or form best to worst. In these cases, "M is ranked higher than P," would be diagrammed "M > P."

"complete and accurate list: any time vs. instance"

Many games will ask "which one of the following is a complete and accurate list of animals that can be in the cage?" or "a complete and accurate list of the soloists that can go fourth?" These questions are often hard to begin with, but get worse if you don't pay attention to if they're local or global questions. Often in a question they'll give you a local condition and place a variable in a group/slot, and then give you a complete and accurate list of all the variables that can be there in any situation. Or, they'll ask the global question of what variables can be in a given group/slot, and then give you 3 variables that all could be there, but there are actually 5 that could be. Especially if exactly 3 people are in a group and they give you 3 variables.

There are tons of ways we can screw ourselves during games, so let's make sure subtle wordings and reading errors aren't one of them!

This thread is a really good idea. I'll add some later if I remember them.

before vs. immediately before
Always be vigilant in distinguishing between these.

ties vs. no ties in pure sequencing
Most pure sequencing games exclude the possibility of ties, but some don't. You're almost guaranteed to get a few Qs wrong if you miss this distinction.

distribution vs. attribution
A question might ask you how many students there are for whom you know precisely which courses each student is taking. Another question might ask you how many students there are for whom you know precisely how many courses each student is taking. These questions are asking for different things.

Continuous days of the week
The ever infamous "A doctor is scheduling appointments for MTWFS" means that there's a break between W and F, so if she's lecturing two days in a row, it can't be WF. Only comes up once in awhile, but I sit in front of my class waiting for half the people to look up at me with panic in their eyes when it does.

Tag and thank you. These seem very useful and I really like the "at least" Diagram that you mentioned. I have always diagrammed those like F_ _ _ K with an arrow going between them and sometimes F _ _ _ + K which made me think about it for an extra second when I looked at it.

This must be some kind of joke. Literally went just -1 on PT1 LG because I misread "one can determine the years in which exactly how many of the other partners joined the firm?" UGH.

bp shinners wrote:Continuous days of the week
The ever infamous "A doctor is scheduling appointments for MTWFS" means that there's a break between W and F, so if she's lecturing two days in a row, it can't be WF. Only comes up once in awhile, but I sit in front of my class waiting for half the people to look up at me with panic in their eyes when it does.

+1

Similarly, there is a game about floors 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 in an office building. I found it very helpful to diagram floor 4 even though nothing can go there, since one of the rules was something like "Q must be on the floor above R", meaning R couldn't be on floor 3, which might be easy to overlook if you didn't diagram the empty floor.

if the rules say there can only be 1 variable on level 3 ( and there can be 2 or more on the rest) i would go

3 1(only)

Mickey great thread! Tag tag tag