So I was doing this simple sequencing game and reviewing my answers with 7sage and I noticed that JY split into 6 boards to give him all the possibilities before attacking the Q's.
I didn't split any boards and just made boards as I went along each question while using the inferences.
Sometimes I see JY not splitting and going straight to the questions and other times I do see him splitting.
I felt that this game was relatively vague (6 boards in total, 1 block to split everything) and would hamper time. Then I noted that JY thinks we should split boards as much as possible.
I guess both would work, but I'm wondering how you guys do it
Thanks!
PT 13 LG Game 2 Split board or not Split board Forum
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Jeffort
- Posts: 1888
- Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2008 4:43 pm
Re: PT 13 LG Game 2 Split board or not Split board
Splitting things apart and creating six scenarios/game boards on a fairly basic and somewhat open ended set of possibilities sequencing game like this with only five questions, four of which are local/IF questions that give you an additional condition to apply is a moronically inefficient time wasting approach.
This game is rather simple and all the questions can be solved quickly without doing much work as long as you make the two super basic 'this variable not here' deductions from the block (K cannot be on Monday, V cannot be on Friday), and then prioritize your focus on where the [VK] block can be placed under the local/IF conditions given in the question stems of Q#'s 8-11 along with the global conditional rules. (The third indented rule N Tuesday --> I Monday turns out to be useless/not necessary to solve any of the questions asked)
Q#7 is super easy since it just tests whether you made the basic deduction from the [VK] block.
Q#8 is pretty basic since the stem establishes another block [HI] and then you only need to test out whether H can go in Wednesday and Thursday, which it can, giving you (E)
Q#9 is also pretty easy and doesn't require much work since the stem places the [VK] block, leaving only H or I as possibilities for Monday, allowing you to quickly map out those two scenarios which establish that (C) could be true as well as allowing you to use POE to knock out the other AC's
Q#10 again is basic and requires very little work since it places the [VK] block, thus triggering the contrapositive of the second indented (first conditional) rule from the stimulus ruling out H for Monday, which along with the first indented rule establishes that variable I is the only remaining variable that could, and therefore must be placed on Monday.
Q#11 again is basic and like all the other questions revolves around the [VK] block. Once I is placed on Wednesday, there are only two sets of adjacent slots available to place the block (Mon-Tue or Thur-Fri) to evaluate. The contrapositive of the second indented rule (H Monday --> N Friday) in conjunction with the first indented rule prohibits the block from being placed in Thurs-Friday slots, therefore [VK] must be placed Mon-Tue, giving you the scenario to quickly determine the CR.
This basic sequencing game is one you can/should be able to complete with 100% accuracy in around 5-6 minutes or less without having to do very much work diagramming, creating/writing out more than a few brute force -trying things out- hypotheticals, or work creating a bunch of scenarios.
IMO, JY tries to use and emphasizes creating/splitting games out into multiple game boards/scenarios far too much, giving people the incorrect impression that it's the most/more efficient way to approach almost all games, which it is not. Splitting things up and creating a few scenarios/game boards up front before diving into the questions is a very powerful and efficient strategy for SOME LG's, but not for all or even most of them. Trying to force that strategy onto most games and spending/wasting time trying to create multiple game boards/scenarios on most games can end up backfiring by causing you to waste a lot of time doing a lot of unnecessary work.
Deciding when it's appropriate and efficient vs when it's not appropriate to split a game into multiple scenarios/game boards upfront before diving into the questions needs to be based on a big picture analysis of the game stimulus/conditions/rules while and after you've written out the basic rules and made and filled in the various fairly basic deductions that flow from the given rules along with taking a quick look at what types of questions the game contains.
Once you've written out/diagrammed the basics and gotten a good understanding of how the game works with whatever types of rules and relationships are involved, you should evaluate several big picture things including how closed or open ended the game appears to be/whether things are tightly constrained or not in terms of whether the rules/conditions allow for many different possibilities or not. Along with that, you should also take a glance at the questions asked to see if there are many local/IF questions like on this game or if most of the questions are global/do not introduce additional rules/conditions.
In general, a good rule of thumb is that if creating multiple scenarios/game boards for a particular game would end up generating more than three or four scenarios (even four is usually too many for it to be the most/more efficient way to handle the game under timed conditions) and/or if the scenarios/game boards you create/could create would end up being open ended ones that allow for a good amount of possibilities/variability within each one, then splitting the game into multiple scenarios/game boards upfront before diving into the questions IS PROBABLY NOT the best/an efficient way to approach the game.
It's a very powerful tool when applied to constrained games that give you a set of rules/conditions that only allow for a pretty limited set of possibilities, but is also a strategy that can and will backfire big time on test day if you try to force it onto games that are fairly open ended with the number of total possibilities the rules allow for.
Only about somewhere in the range of a quarter to a third of all LSAT LG's that have ever been administered are ones that creating/mapping out multiple scenarios/game boards upfront before going to the questions is the more/most efficient approach for solving the questions quickly with 100% accuracy and certainty in your answers.
Building up your 'big picture' LG evaluation skills while you're setting up each game and deciding which approach to use before diving into the questions is key to mastering the art of knowing when it is versus when it isn't in your best interest to spend time creating and writing out several scenarios/game boards before diving into the questions. It's been backfiring on many people on test day over the last few years due to people trying to force the strategy onto most/almost all LG's they encounter.
You've gotta evaluate and figure out when it's going to allow you to be able to work the game and solve the questions with LESS work overall and distinguish those games from ones where implementing the strategy will end up causing you to do MORE work (time consuming!) than you actually needed to in order to solve the questions quickly and accurately.
The whole point of the creating multiple scenarios/game boards before diving into the questions strategy is to be able to work the game and solve all the questions with LESS overall work in LESS time/do the whole game and solve the question more efficiently. When the strategy is inappropriately or incorrectly applied, it can/will end up causing you to do MORE time consuming work than you needed to in order to complete the game efficiently with accuracy and certainty in your answers.
This game is rather simple and all the questions can be solved quickly without doing much work as long as you make the two super basic 'this variable not here' deductions from the block (K cannot be on Monday, V cannot be on Friday), and then prioritize your focus on where the [VK] block can be placed under the local/IF conditions given in the question stems of Q#'s 8-11 along with the global conditional rules. (The third indented rule N Tuesday --> I Monday turns out to be useless/not necessary to solve any of the questions asked)
Q#7 is super easy since it just tests whether you made the basic deduction from the [VK] block.
Q#8 is pretty basic since the stem establishes another block [HI] and then you only need to test out whether H can go in Wednesday and Thursday, which it can, giving you (E)
Q#9 is also pretty easy and doesn't require much work since the stem places the [VK] block, leaving only H or I as possibilities for Monday, allowing you to quickly map out those two scenarios which establish that (C) could be true as well as allowing you to use POE to knock out the other AC's
Q#10 again is basic and requires very little work since it places the [VK] block, thus triggering the contrapositive of the second indented (first conditional) rule from the stimulus ruling out H for Monday, which along with the first indented rule establishes that variable I is the only remaining variable that could, and therefore must be placed on Monday.
Q#11 again is basic and like all the other questions revolves around the [VK] block. Once I is placed on Wednesday, there are only two sets of adjacent slots available to place the block (Mon-Tue or Thur-Fri) to evaluate. The contrapositive of the second indented rule (H Monday --> N Friday) in conjunction with the first indented rule prohibits the block from being placed in Thurs-Friday slots, therefore [VK] must be placed Mon-Tue, giving you the scenario to quickly determine the CR.
This basic sequencing game is one you can/should be able to complete with 100% accuracy in around 5-6 minutes or less without having to do very much work diagramming, creating/writing out more than a few brute force -trying things out- hypotheticals, or work creating a bunch of scenarios.
IMO, JY tries to use and emphasizes creating/splitting games out into multiple game boards/scenarios far too much, giving people the incorrect impression that it's the most/more efficient way to approach almost all games, which it is not. Splitting things up and creating a few scenarios/game boards up front before diving into the questions is a very powerful and efficient strategy for SOME LG's, but not for all or even most of them. Trying to force that strategy onto most games and spending/wasting time trying to create multiple game boards/scenarios on most games can end up backfiring by causing you to waste a lot of time doing a lot of unnecessary work.
Deciding when it's appropriate and efficient vs when it's not appropriate to split a game into multiple scenarios/game boards upfront before diving into the questions needs to be based on a big picture analysis of the game stimulus/conditions/rules while and after you've written out the basic rules and made and filled in the various fairly basic deductions that flow from the given rules along with taking a quick look at what types of questions the game contains.
Once you've written out/diagrammed the basics and gotten a good understanding of how the game works with whatever types of rules and relationships are involved, you should evaluate several big picture things including how closed or open ended the game appears to be/whether things are tightly constrained or not in terms of whether the rules/conditions allow for many different possibilities or not. Along with that, you should also take a glance at the questions asked to see if there are many local/IF questions like on this game or if most of the questions are global/do not introduce additional rules/conditions.
In general, a good rule of thumb is that if creating multiple scenarios/game boards for a particular game would end up generating more than three or four scenarios (even four is usually too many for it to be the most/more efficient way to handle the game under timed conditions) and/or if the scenarios/game boards you create/could create would end up being open ended ones that allow for a good amount of possibilities/variability within each one, then splitting the game into multiple scenarios/game boards upfront before diving into the questions IS PROBABLY NOT the best/an efficient way to approach the game.
It's a very powerful tool when applied to constrained games that give you a set of rules/conditions that only allow for a pretty limited set of possibilities, but is also a strategy that can and will backfire big time on test day if you try to force it onto games that are fairly open ended with the number of total possibilities the rules allow for.
Only about somewhere in the range of a quarter to a third of all LSAT LG's that have ever been administered are ones that creating/mapping out multiple scenarios/game boards upfront before going to the questions is the more/most efficient approach for solving the questions quickly with 100% accuracy and certainty in your answers.
Building up your 'big picture' LG evaluation skills while you're setting up each game and deciding which approach to use before diving into the questions is key to mastering the art of knowing when it is versus when it isn't in your best interest to spend time creating and writing out several scenarios/game boards before diving into the questions. It's been backfiring on many people on test day over the last few years due to people trying to force the strategy onto most/almost all LG's they encounter.
You've gotta evaluate and figure out when it's going to allow you to be able to work the game and solve the questions with LESS work overall and distinguish those games from ones where implementing the strategy will end up causing you to do MORE work (time consuming!) than you actually needed to in order to solve the questions quickly and accurately.
The whole point of the creating multiple scenarios/game boards before diving into the questions strategy is to be able to work the game and solve all the questions with LESS overall work in LESS time/do the whole game and solve the question more efficiently. When the strategy is inappropriately or incorrectly applied, it can/will end up causing you to do MORE time consuming work than you needed to in order to complete the game efficiently with accuracy and certainty in your answers.
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joon
- Posts: 53
- Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2015 2:03 pm
Re: PT 13 LG Game 2 Split board or not Split board
Wow! Read it through and helped immensely.
I do think I need to grasp the thinking need to understand what is big picture is. For the games that have enough scenarios or inferences to create boards, then create them. Otherwise, move on.
When you do these types of games, do you erase at all (Otherwise than writing a typo)?
For the local games, I typically draw a new board and write the not-laws underneath. In essence, I'll be making an imitation of my main board. Is this what you do, or do you skip the not-laws, or even just do it in your mind?
JY draws digitally and undos to erase so I don't exactly have a sense what his work is like on paper.
I do think I need to grasp the thinking need to understand what is big picture is. For the games that have enough scenarios or inferences to create boards, then create them. Otherwise, move on.
When you do these types of games, do you erase at all (Otherwise than writing a typo)?
For the local games, I typically draw a new board and write the not-laws underneath. In essence, I'll be making an imitation of my main board. Is this what you do, or do you skip the not-laws, or even just do it in your mind?
JY draws digitally and undos to erase so I don't exactly have a sense what his work is like on paper.
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