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I really like the simplicity of Steve Schwartz's method for diagramming In/Out games. It's explained on his LSAT Blog:

http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/lo ... orest.html

I prefer this over PowerScore's method, which requires too much writing, and also Manhattan's method, which is confusing to read because of the many arrows.

Will Steve Schwartz's method work on all In/Out games? What happens when a rule or its contrapositive cannot be connected?

Bump. Anyone? Does it go LSATBlog>Powerscore>Manhattan. I reviewed Manhattan`s approach yesterday. I wasn`t impressed. It seems like the people that vouch for Manhattan`s approaches sometimes are their employees.

So I just tried diagramming the In/Out game on pp. 142 of the Manhattan Logic Games book. It's the game regarding six violinists performing at a year-end concert. I'm not sure what PrepTest this game is from. Does anyone know?

Click below for a picture of my diagram:
http://postimage.org/image/trj75c60b/

Does this look right?

I've never considered using this method, but if you prefer to write everything out, I think this would work well.

I like Manhattan a lot, but I loathe their logic chain method, and see it as very time consuming and redundant. Some people who learned it swear by it, but I feel like it's no good.

I would definitely consider this better than Powerscore's, which advocates writing out every single contrapositive and combination (unless it has changed since I read the book in 2007).

To me, the best way to do these games has and always will be to just write the rules and go to the questions unless there are very obvious rule combinations (A --> B, B --> C for example). When studying for the test, I've consistently found I fare far better in in/out conditional games when simply writing the rules and going for the questions.

However, I'm interested to know if this method of rules combination can effectively answer min/max questions. I will say that I think if you studied with Steve's method, I think you could become pretty efficient at it. There's always a problem of running into a brutally written set of rules though, and I think that rigidity may limit the worth of this method.

I definitely would have tried it when studying though, and I think you should give it a whirl and see if you think it's worth the additional time investment versus just writing the rules.

Writing out the contrapositives for each is so time consuming and can really screw you up. I did that for a while when I first started and would get confused as to what the real rule was. I then just learned to automatically have the contrapositive in mind and just move to the question.

After considering and experimenting with methods from all different test preps (BP, TM, Kaplan, PR, Manhattan, and PS -- yes, I tried them all), I seem to naturally utilize Steve's method.

Again, to each his own. What works for one person may not work for another.

But I can definitely say that his in/out method, and his LG strategies in general, are my strategies of choice.

I'd like to see Steve's method for doing this for the fruit stand game (pt36g1)

It does seem to work well for the birds in a forest game, but at least for me, when I tried t his on the fruit stand game, it took much longer to do than just writing the rules. I'm not sure if it's because I just don't know the method well enough or if the method just doesn't lend itself to non-straightforward rules.

I did feel like the questions went much more easily, but I don't think I made up nearly enough time to compensate for the addition of doing two diagrams. Further, a few of the questions didn't seem very intuitive from these diagrams alone (but again, I may just not be attuned to the method).

I ask because I'm tutoring a student in in/out games, and my method is always to just write the rules unless they obviously fit together. However, this method does look promising and I'd like to give it a fair stab before advocating it to others.

cahwc12 wrote:I'd like to see Steve's method for doing this for the fruit stand game (pt36g1)

It does seem to work well for the birds in a forest game, but at least for me, when I tried t his on the fruit stand game, it took much longer to do than just writing the rules. I'm not sure if it's because I just don't know the method well enough or if the method just doesn't lend itself to non-straightforward rules.

I did feel like the questions went much more easily, but I don't think I made up nearly enough time to compensate for the addition of doing two diagrams. Further, a few of the questions didn't seem very intuitive from these diagrams alone (but again, I may just not be attuned to the method).

I ask because I'm tutoring a student in in/out games, and my method is always to just write the rules unless they obviously fit together. However, this method does look promising and I'd like to give it a fair stab before advocating it to others.

Hey there - you can check out the relevant video to see how I solve this game:

http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/p/lsat-pre ... tions.html

Bump.

As much as I love the methods of MLSAT, I prefer using conditional chains for in/out games. Do what works best for you.

I actually love the logic chain that MLSAT uses for their course. It did seem really weird at first, and it took me a little bit to get a hang of, but after like 2 games of using that method my accuracy and time both improved. They are now my best game type.

Hey this is my first post.....and Steve Schwartz rocks

I'm so glad you guys like my method! Let me know if you have any questions about it.