Contradiction in Souderton/Randsborough game? Forum

[WaltGrace83]

I have done this game many times but today, when checking over an answer, I stumbled upon something. Here are a few of the rules:

"If Longtree is at Soud, both N and P are at Rands."
"If N is at Rands, so is O"
"If P is at Rands, both K and O are at Soud"

Ls --> Nr & Pr
Nr --> Or
Pr --> Ks & Os

Wouldn't this mean that if Ls then we would get a contradiction in that Ls would push Nr, which would push Or, while Ls would also push Pr, which would push Os.

I have looked over this many times and even checked the Manhattan forums. What is the deal with this? If there is a contradiction, I supposed L couldn't be in S but this still seems crazy to me.

[Rigo]

I have looked over this many times and even checked the Manhattan forums. What is the deal with this? If there is a contradiction, I supposed L couldn't be in S but this still seems crazy to me.

Not crazy. It's a valid inference that's meant to be made. Good job.

[WaltGrace83]

I have looked over this many times and even checked the Manhattan forums. What is the deal with this? If there is a contradiction, I supposed L couldn't be in S but this still seems crazy to me.

Not crazy. It's a valid inference that's meant to be made. Good job.

I just don't think I've ever seen this in an in/out game. Super weird to me.

[NL2424]

PT # ?

[WaltGrace83]

PT # ?

34

[Jeffort]

It's the 4th game in PT 34.

I have looked over this many times and even checked the Manhattan forums. What is the deal with this? If there is a contradiction, I supposed L couldn't be in S but this still seems crazy to me.

Not crazy. It's a valid inference that's meant to be made. Good job.

I just don't think I've ever seen this in an in/out game. Super weird to me.

It's a unique/one of a kind (as of now!) deduction created by giving you a conditional rule (Rule #3) that creates the contradiction/logical impossibility given that the fourth and fifth rules establish that N and P are mutually exclusive/cannot be together in the Randsborough group, thus making indented rule #3 an irrelevant/useless rule since it's sufficient condition is impossible because it being true would lead to a contradiction with rules 4 & 5.

This is the only disclosed LSAT LG in existence where the test writers gave an explicit rule that is useless/irrelevant/cannot ever apply/be applied without violating other rules.

Luckily and interestingly, realizing the rule is useless/figuring out the deduction that L must always be in group R (at Randsborough) turns out not to be useful or important for solving any of the questions. It doesn't help get to or establish any of the correct answers for any of the questions and is only useful for eliminating one wrong answer on Q #19 and one wrong AC on Q #20, but good catch!

My theory is that the test writers were in a weird mood when they wrote the game and decided to include rule #3 just to f*ck with/play mind games with skilled test takers that are good with LGs and thorough figuring out all the up front deductions by giving a combination of rules that makes you second guess/doubt yourself into thinking you made a mistake if you're thorough up-front with the set-up/linking the rules together since the rules lead to that contradiction/impossibility when linked up together properly.

Under test day timed conditions, finding the contradiction, doubting yourself and re-doing/double checking all the rules/your set-up/linked rules could easily eat up enough time to prevent one from being able to attempt all the questions and finish the game before time is called if you let it affect you that way doing the section under timed conditions. My opinion is that it was a dirty mind-f*ck trick the test writers played that is arguably an unfair way to mess people up on test day, which could be why they've only done it this one time.