Normal to not get every single deduction in LG? Forum

[notaznguy]

I was doing Game 4 for June 2001 and although I got every question right in 8:45, I didn't get every single deduction, according to my Testmasters answer sheet. For one, I didn't think about numerical distributions and I wasn't able to deduce certain things like how L must and should always be at R.

But yeah point is, this happens to me more often than not. I don't get some of these deductions and I often just sit there and think about it or something before I figure it out. Getting these deductions would definitely make my life easier, but I don't know if I can. The best I've ever performed on games is -4 in the PT40s and -2 in the older PTs.

[gaud]

I was doing Game 4 for June 2001 and although I got every question right in 8:45, I didn't get every single deduction, according to my Testmasters answer sheet. For one, I didn't think about numerical distributions and I wasn't able to deduce certain things like how L must and should always be at R.

But yeah point is, this happens to me more often than not. I don't get some of these deductions and I often just sit there and think about it or something before I figure it out. Getting these deductions would definitely make my life easier, but I don't know if I can. The best I've ever performed on games is -4 in the PT40s and -2 in the older PTs.

assuming you didn't guess or get lucky on any of the questions i would say don't worry about it. the only deductions that matter are the ones required to solve the problems

[breadbucket]

Yeah, doesn't mean shit, if you get it all correct anyway. No need to fill the gas tank up with 8 gallons of gas, if it only take 4 to get to the final destination

[zworykin]

Yeah, doesn't mean shit, if you get it all correct anyway. No need to fill the gas tank up with 8 gallons of gas, if it only take 4 to get to the final destination

This is true only if you aren't driving somewhere else afterwards. And you're certain there won't be a traffic jam or a significant detour along the route. Or, or, or...


What I mean is, getting those deductions might have gotten you the game in 7:15 instead of 8:45, giving you that extra minute and a half back to spend on one of the other games. 8:45 is just an average--you can't count on having that much time for every game.

That being said, of course, some people just struggle with deductions. If that's you, don't stress about it too much and don't worry that it's the end of the world. Certainly you should keep working on it, because getting even one more question right can have such a profound impact on your score (...school, ...career, ...life, etc.), but if you find that you do better by getting whatever you can get and then plug-and-chugging the rest, go for it. It's all about whatever gets you the greatest number of right answers in the time allowed.

[glucose101]

I love Dave's system! No need for deductions!

[3v3ryth1ng]

Yeah, doesn't mean shit, if you get it all correct anyway. No need to fill the gas tank up with 8 gallons of gas, if it only take 4 to get to the final destination

Getting all the deductions is great for practice. Sometimes getting a setup with all the deductions is what you need to answer all the questions quickly and easily. I've definitely fucked up some 4 minute games by wasting time constructing every scenario though.

I find that it's almost always productive to just knock out the first question of each game (if it's a scenario elimination question), then work out a few possibilities just to get a "feel" for the game. If the rules involve conditional statements, I will do the contrapositives and transitives immediately, but I consider it part of the initial diagramming.

[thederangedwang]

In addition, getting all the deductions is crucial for success at harder games. For easy games, you can miss several deductions but still be able to solve the game relatively easily. Commit the same mistake for a harder game, and you wont be able to solve it.

[bp shinners]

If you just know that you're missing a key deduction, I always say scan the questions for one that says, "Which of the following must be true?" If you're stuck, brute force that questions - since it's a universally-applied statement that must be true, you've got yourself a deduction.

[bgdddymtty]

I love Dave's system! No need for deductions!

This is nonsense. Dave says he doesn't make inferences/deduction or like to master the scenarios. I watched his explanations of the games from June 2007 today, and both techniques were crucial to his methods.

For the first game, his initial step was to correctly deduce that, given the first rule, there were only two possible combinations for the first two numbers in the sequence. He then made deductions from another rule to create dual options for two of the three remaining spaces in each scenario. Sure, this was one of the easiest games of all time (OF ALL TIME!), but his technique used the two things that he claims you don't need in order to be effective in games.

For the fourth game, his technique required two very important deductions. One of them was relatively obvious (that one of the materials can't be recycled at one of the centers; I'm trying to be at least slightly vague in case any reader here hasn't yet done these games), but the other was much more obscure. For the second one, he even mentions that the particular deduction would "require some higher-level thinking" and that students should think about it, coming back and reviewing if necessary, because understanding it would be "very important for the future" (quoting from memory; please forgive any errors). Again, he was absolutely right--the concept he mentioned is very important, because it comes up fairly regularly in games (see, e.g., the trees in the parks game). The point, though, is that without those inferences, you'd be dead in the water.

[glucose101]

When I use Dave's method, I feel like I'm on autopilot--whereas using my other/Bible method, I felt like I painstakingly had to come up with inferences. Dave gives you a system in which you don't have to actively say "LET ME LOOK FOR AN INFERENCE." It just shows up in the work (granted, you have to still think).

[bgdddymtty]

That's totally cool. I'm glad it works for you. Frankly, I liked a good bit of what I saw from his explanations as well (particularly his diagramming style, which is very efficient).