[getlonelygoats]

Hey Mike,
My answer on the third and sixth questions of Basic Setups Drill Set 1 differed from the one provided in the solutions–mainly with how I diagrammed the third rule. I’m not sure why I did this (I was timing myself so felt pressure to go fast), but I think it ended up causing me to diagram the question further. I believe my solution is also correct, but as it is different than the one you provide, I wanted to make sure. If it’s not correct, could you explain why?

P.S. The link above will take you to an image of my answer.

Thanks!

[getlonelygoats]

I’m not sure why the link didn’t show up (at least it didn’t for me), but here it is again. If that still doesn’t work, here it is in a less pleasing form:

Car one: M, N
Car two: P, R/S
car three: Q, R/S
car four: O, T

I read the question and noticed that the specific cars/order didn’t matter–just who accompanied one another. I drew the four two-passenger cars and labeled them one through four. First, I put M and N in the same car. Then, I noted that O and R were to go to separate cars (without placing them yet), For the third rule, I separated out the P and Q into different cars and noted that S could go with either. Then, I put O in the fourth car. Since R couldn’t go with O, I put T with O. I also noted that R could go with either P or Q.
I’ve checked this myself and couldn’t find anything wrong with it. Like I said, I would just like to confirm if it’s correct, and if not, learn why it isn’t.

Thanks for your time!

[Mike Kim]

Hey! — Sorry about the link issue — currently working on a major revamp of the entire site and the forum should be working more smoothly in a couple of weeks —

That’s overall a very clever way to diagram the game, and I think it was very smart of you to infer that P and Q can’t ride together and to put them into separate cars — the only question I have is how you know O goes into the fourth car — I don’t think we can know that – I do think you can infer, per the way you diagrammed it, that either O or R has to go into the fourth car, and, as you said, since they can’t go together, T must go into that fourth car.

HTH and hope you are finding the Trainer useful — let me know if you need anything else —

Mike

[getlonelygoats]

Mike,

You’re right. So, this is the actual solution you wrote [I added all other possibilities in ( )].

pair 1: M, N
pair 2: O, (P/Q/T)
pair 3: R, (P/Q/T)
pair 4: S, P/Q

And it’s obviously correct.

BUT–taking into account what you said about O and T, does this also work now:

pair 1: M, N
pair 2: P, S/R/O
pair 3: Q, S/R/O
pair 4: O/R*, T
*but not both

?

[So really the mistake I made was listing O and T as a definite pair when really it’s only a possible pairing since R and T could ALSO go together (and the pairs would be MN, OP, SQ, RT which would still satisfy all the rules). Essentially, both diagrams separate P/Q/T and O/R/S. They also both have M and N together and state that T goes with either O or R.]

Thanks for your help! I’m enjoying the LSAT trainer. I’m planning on taking the June 2018 LSAT, so I have a little extra time to devote to logic games. I’m just wanting to get into the habit of listing all possibilities on my diagrams so that I can answer questions faster. I did these drills timed (7 minutes/6 questions), and I think this lead to my mistake (at least with the O and T in car 4 notation).

As far as the trainer, I’ve really enjoyed the logical reasoning lessons I’ve read so far. I actually went ahead with LR and did lessons 16 and 17 and the accompanying drills before starting lesson 10. (Which goes against your advice–sorry!) I just started having a lot of fun doing logical reasoning and wanted to keep going (and missed 1 or 2 questions in the text and then only one in the drills). Doing this really made me understand logical reasoning–and made me look forward to doing drills. The trainer is super accessible, and I like how you reiterate the steps you need to take to answer questions–it really reinforces the process in your head which leads to fewer mistakes. I’m really loving the book.

Thanks again!

[Mike Kim]

Great to hear that you are enjoying the book! —

Your diagram looks great —

Not sure if you meant for the pairings (for when R and T go together) to be an example of one possibility or representative of what must be — if it’s the latter, you want to be careful — we don’t know those assignments for sure —

Hope that helps clear things up and best of luck with your studies — MK