June 2014 LSAT PT72 4th LG setup explanation- Summit Company
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2014 4:52 pm
Now that PT72 / June 2014 test has been released I can post this for you guys.
You got it from me first!
The Summit Company workers working on different raw objects Mon-Thurs and passing the objects to a different worker each day pattern game.
I originally posted here:
http://www.lsatdiscussion.com/index.php ... 305.0.html
Ok, so the 4th game on the June 2014 LSAT threw many test takers off on test day and has been widely complained about.
Many test takers were caught off guard and thrown off because it isn't a traditional game type that conforms to a conventional set-up base with typical types of rules/relationships involved (grouping, sequencing, etc.) that they've had a lot of practice with.
This one is a rare/oddball pattern game type. The small amount of pattern games that have appeared on past tests have all been pretty unique individually, leaving you with no known way to set one up you can memorize and practice since each one has had a different optimal set-up and different types of relationships/patterns/processes/logical systems than the others.
The real challenge with pattern games is upfront with figuring out what is going on with the interaction of the rules and variables to create a set-up and understand the structure well enough to make deductions from the rules when ambushed with a novel game structure you've never seen before and have to figure out from the ground up quickly on the spot.
The stimulus just lays out four works that each work everyday mon-thur on a different object, so every person variable is used every day. No object types are specified, so the variables are just the four workers and the base those four days of the week, and each worker works every day. The controlling relationships/action in the game is the process that happens at the start of each day with each worker passing the object he was working on to another worker. Basically, each day they switch which object each person works on from the previous day and the rules constrain the possibilities of who each person is allowed to pass to. The important and fairly novel relationships to keep track of are who can/does pass to who each day, which means the relationships are pairing up variables such as J-K, and the game is just calling it passing. Nevertheless, the relationships of passing to each other each day is graphically the variable horizontally to the right of the other adjacent variable since passing goes from left to right. The Monday assignments are already made, so the parts to keep track of is who passes to who from each day forward to the next. Who passes to who can easily be graphically represented by horizontal variable pairs with a line between them or no line, whatever you prefer.
prohibited passes:
J to M
K to J
L to J
Actually a good set of rules to make the inferences from given the obvious starting point, J is involved in all three rules!
The main key to figuring out the deductions is realizing that with only four workers, and having to pass your object to another worker, there are only three options for each person to pass to before applying the restrictions since you cannot pass to yourself. This makes it so each restriction is actually creating a dual option of which two people a person can pass to, and dual options are always very useful with how they can be used for deductions once you know a fact you can apply that creates a chain reaction of additional deductions.
The second and third rules combined leave only M available to pass an object to J, therefore M must always pass his object to J the beginning of each new day.
M --> J
Those two rules also generate important deductions/more useful way to represent the rules:
Due to 2nd rule, K can only pass to L or M
Due to 3rd rule, L can only pass to K or M
Due to the first rule, J can only pass to K or L
Leaves you with the rules like this using dual options:
J --> K/L
K --> L/M
L --> M/K
M --> J
Analyzing that set of dual options and noticing that each of the remaining three workers (other than J) is in two of the rules and then analyzing to see how that set works TOGETHER as a set that fully interacts is where the magic key to this game is, understanding the full interaction of all the rules in operation together. Once you determine/are told any one of the three passes for a day other than M-J, it allows you to determine the other two and know the entire set of passes for all 4 workers for the day.
An important part of starting out the game to put things together into a set-up is realizing that Monday assignments are already made, so for the base you just write out the four variables vertically into a Monday column since the focus of the game is to track the passes going forward each morning for days Tue, Wed and Thurs.
J
K
L
M
__ __ __ __
M T W H
Then with that you just use horizontal pairs to write in the person on the right next to the variable that passed it. With this format, each horizontal pair means the left variable passed to the right variable the day/morning of the column the right variable is in.
Say you're told that K passes to L on Tuesday morning K-L. That triggers the dual option from rule about who J can pass to, determining J-K since J cannot pass to L because K is. That then triggers the dual option from the L rule, L must pass to M L-M since L cannot pass to K since J already is. Wammo, you have all four passes for tuesday determined:
J - K
K - L
L - M
M - J
_ __
M T
The other half of the key is noticing that there are only two different sets of transfers than can be made. Since nailing down any one of the three dual options nails down the other two giving you the full set, there are only two possible sets of transfers with all four workers each day.
We can build the other one just by starting with the same rule and going with the other option and K passes to M K - M. That triggers L - K, which triggers J -L, and we already have M -J, so:
J - L
K - M
L - K
M - J
__ __
M T
You can start with any one of the three dual option rules to break out two game boards and you end up with the same two sets of transfers from Monday to Tuesday.
With that, those are your two game boards that every possibility must fit into/the only two possible combinations of transfers that can happen from Monday to Tuesday, leaving only Tue-Wed and Wed-Thur passes still up in the air.
If you want you can map out all the possibilities, there are a total of 8, but it would be overkill, especially under a time crunch. The two scenarios for Monday to Tuesday plus figuring out/knowing that there are only two different sets of passes the set of four workers can make each day and knowing that determining any one pass determines the rest for that day is the key to the game and you can work from the scenarios without writing out all 8 possibilities.
If you want to go farther, writing in the dual options for Wednesday in each scenario is not hard if you got the key deductions. You can lay them out to clearly see the two possible sets of passes. You can write them out so that with how the chain reaction works, whichever side of the dual option you determine/are told one Wed pairing is determines the left variable in the other two dual options is the one triggered. Such that below for Wednesday, if you know that K from Tuesday passes to L on Wednesday morning, down the column the other two on the left (M/K & K/L) are determined for L-M and J-K Tues-Weds along with already knowing its always M-J.
J - K - L/M
K - L - M/K
L - M - J
M - J - K/L
_ __ __ __
M T W H
J - L - M/K
K - M - J
L - K - L/M
M - J - K/L
__ __ __ __
M T W H
The only two possible sets of passing combinations/pairs that can happen per day are:
J - K
K - L
L - M
M - J
and
J - L
K - M
L - K
M - J
All in all, a fairly weird game with how it works and the deductions that then required higher level/big picture synthesis to figure out the chain reaction thing and that there are only two possible sets of transfer combinations for each day from the previous day.
The only game similar to it I can think of is PT9 game #3, the one about boys and girls pairing up in three dance recitals. It's actually very similar in the pattern type pair aspect and chain reaction type of key deductions that flow from one piece of info put into the pattern/process created by the full interaction of the set of rules put together to see how they all interact as a an interactive system. Big novelty points to LSAC with this one! No way anybody could have anticipated something like this popping up and been able to do anything specialized to prep for 'how to do it' even if knew a pattern game was coming. It really tests raw, can you figure out the basics of how this puzzle works really fast? skills to see who is flexible and can adapt quickly to and figure out a novel/unfamiliar logical structure and set of relationships.
You got it from me first!
The Summit Company workers working on different raw objects Mon-Thurs and passing the objects to a different worker each day pattern game.
I originally posted here:
http://www.lsatdiscussion.com/index.php ... 305.0.html
Ok, so the 4th game on the June 2014 LSAT threw many test takers off on test day and has been widely complained about.
Many test takers were caught off guard and thrown off because it isn't a traditional game type that conforms to a conventional set-up base with typical types of rules/relationships involved (grouping, sequencing, etc.) that they've had a lot of practice with.
This one is a rare/oddball pattern game type. The small amount of pattern games that have appeared on past tests have all been pretty unique individually, leaving you with no known way to set one up you can memorize and practice since each one has had a different optimal set-up and different types of relationships/patterns/processes/logical systems than the others.
The real challenge with pattern games is upfront with figuring out what is going on with the interaction of the rules and variables to create a set-up and understand the structure well enough to make deductions from the rules when ambushed with a novel game structure you've never seen before and have to figure out from the ground up quickly on the spot.
The stimulus just lays out four works that each work everyday mon-thur on a different object, so every person variable is used every day. No object types are specified, so the variables are just the four workers and the base those four days of the week, and each worker works every day. The controlling relationships/action in the game is the process that happens at the start of each day with each worker passing the object he was working on to another worker. Basically, each day they switch which object each person works on from the previous day and the rules constrain the possibilities of who each person is allowed to pass to. The important and fairly novel relationships to keep track of are who can/does pass to who each day, which means the relationships are pairing up variables such as J-K, and the game is just calling it passing. Nevertheless, the relationships of passing to each other each day is graphically the variable horizontally to the right of the other adjacent variable since passing goes from left to right. The Monday assignments are already made, so the parts to keep track of is who passes to who from each day forward to the next. Who passes to who can easily be graphically represented by horizontal variable pairs with a line between them or no line, whatever you prefer.
prohibited passes:
J to M
K to J
L to J
Actually a good set of rules to make the inferences from given the obvious starting point, J is involved in all three rules!
The main key to figuring out the deductions is realizing that with only four workers, and having to pass your object to another worker, there are only three options for each person to pass to before applying the restrictions since you cannot pass to yourself. This makes it so each restriction is actually creating a dual option of which two people a person can pass to, and dual options are always very useful with how they can be used for deductions once you know a fact you can apply that creates a chain reaction of additional deductions.
The second and third rules combined leave only M available to pass an object to J, therefore M must always pass his object to J the beginning of each new day.
M --> J
Those two rules also generate important deductions/more useful way to represent the rules:
Due to 2nd rule, K can only pass to L or M
Due to 3rd rule, L can only pass to K or M
Due to the first rule, J can only pass to K or L
Leaves you with the rules like this using dual options:
J --> K/L
K --> L/M
L --> M/K
M --> J
Analyzing that set of dual options and noticing that each of the remaining three workers (other than J) is in two of the rules and then analyzing to see how that set works TOGETHER as a set that fully interacts is where the magic key to this game is, understanding the full interaction of all the rules in operation together. Once you determine/are told any one of the three passes for a day other than M-J, it allows you to determine the other two and know the entire set of passes for all 4 workers for the day.
An important part of starting out the game to put things together into a set-up is realizing that Monday assignments are already made, so for the base you just write out the four variables vertically into a Monday column since the focus of the game is to track the passes going forward each morning for days Tue, Wed and Thurs.
J
K
L
M
__ __ __ __
M T W H
Then with that you just use horizontal pairs to write in the person on the right next to the variable that passed it. With this format, each horizontal pair means the left variable passed to the right variable the day/morning of the column the right variable is in.
Say you're told that K passes to L on Tuesday morning K-L. That triggers the dual option from rule about who J can pass to, determining J-K since J cannot pass to L because K is. That then triggers the dual option from the L rule, L must pass to M L-M since L cannot pass to K since J already is. Wammo, you have all four passes for tuesday determined:
J - K
K - L
L - M
M - J
_ __
M T
The other half of the key is noticing that there are only two different sets of transfers than can be made. Since nailing down any one of the three dual options nails down the other two giving you the full set, there are only two possible sets of transfers with all four workers each day.
We can build the other one just by starting with the same rule and going with the other option and K passes to M K - M. That triggers L - K, which triggers J -L, and we already have M -J, so:
J - L
K - M
L - K
M - J
__ __
M T
You can start with any one of the three dual option rules to break out two game boards and you end up with the same two sets of transfers from Monday to Tuesday.
With that, those are your two game boards that every possibility must fit into/the only two possible combinations of transfers that can happen from Monday to Tuesday, leaving only Tue-Wed and Wed-Thur passes still up in the air.
If you want you can map out all the possibilities, there are a total of 8, but it would be overkill, especially under a time crunch. The two scenarios for Monday to Tuesday plus figuring out/knowing that there are only two different sets of passes the set of four workers can make each day and knowing that determining any one pass determines the rest for that day is the key to the game and you can work from the scenarios without writing out all 8 possibilities.
If you want to go farther, writing in the dual options for Wednesday in each scenario is not hard if you got the key deductions. You can lay them out to clearly see the two possible sets of passes. You can write them out so that with how the chain reaction works, whichever side of the dual option you determine/are told one Wed pairing is determines the left variable in the other two dual options is the one triggered. Such that below for Wednesday, if you know that K from Tuesday passes to L on Wednesday morning, down the column the other two on the left (M/K & K/L) are determined for L-M and J-K Tues-Weds along with already knowing its always M-J.
J - K - L/M
K - L - M/K
L - M - J
M - J - K/L
_ __ __ __
M T W H
J - L - M/K
K - M - J
L - K - L/M
M - J - K/L
__ __ __ __
M T W H
The only two possible sets of passing combinations/pairs that can happen per day are:
J - K
K - L
L - M
M - J
and
J - L
K - M
L - K
M - J
All in all, a fairly weird game with how it works and the deductions that then required higher level/big picture synthesis to figure out the chain reaction thing and that there are only two possible sets of transfer combinations for each day from the previous day.
The only game similar to it I can think of is PT9 game #3, the one about boys and girls pairing up in three dance recitals. It's actually very similar in the pattern type pair aspect and chain reaction type of key deductions that flow from one piece of info put into the pattern/process created by the full interaction of the set of rules put together to see how they all interact as a an interactive system. Big novelty points to LSAC with this one! No way anybody could have anticipated something like this popping up and been able to do anything specialized to prep for 'how to do it' even if knew a pattern game was coming. It really tests raw, can you figure out the basics of how this puzzle works really fast? skills to see who is flexible and can adapt quickly to and figure out a novel/unfamiliar logical structure and set of relationships.
