Diagram

[nanagyanewa]

Hello,

Could someone please help me out with this game. The second and last constraint really confused me and made it hard for m to get a good diagram. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

Here you go --

For constraints 2 and 5...

I always use the " _ _ ..." symbol for situations such as "2 or more spaces in between"

and the "two different options in a box" symbol for situations where we don't know which element goes first.

There are other symbols that can be equally effective -- the important thing is that the symbol makes intuitive sense to you, and that you practice using it until it's nearly automatic.

Though the constraints all relate to one another, there are very few inferences to be made upfront. So, even though a few frames are possible, I personally wouldn't create or use them here. Notice that q's 14-18 are all conditional questions, so you can see that this game is designed primarily to test your ability to "juggle" the various constraints and make inferences in the unique situations that the questions present. See if these notations help you, and feel free to follow up if you get stuck on any of the problems.

[nanagyanewa]

Thanks for the response. The diagram and the inferences all made sense to me but when i tried the game, I had 4 out of 7 right. I struggled with q12, 14 and 17.
For q12, I don't really understand why D is wrong and A is the right answer. I checked it with all the constraints but could not find anything wrong with it.
For q14, i eliminated down to choices A and C but I chose C because i placed S in the 3rd and 4th positions and they all fit fine.
Also for q17, I chose B because I knew from the constraints that O can be performed fifth, and I tried with F in 5th as well, to get O R P T F S L/H L/H.

Hope you can help me understand this better. Thanks.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

#12 is an orientation question -- generally you can answer this type of question most efficiently by using the constraints one at a time to eliminate answer choices.

The first constraint eliminates B.
The second constraint eliminates E.
The third constraint eliminates C.
And the final constraint gets rid of D.

#14 is a conditional question, so you should expect to make a lot of inferences before you move on to the answer choices.

If T is fifth and F is sixth...

O must be first (because it can't be fifth).
R must be second or third (because it must be at least 3 slots away from F)

Now let's think about S -- we know, based on the q stem, that it can only go in two slots -- which ones are the most likely?

Let's try slot 7 -- can we put S there? Don't see why not. Doesn't violate any conditions that S is involved with, and it seems like there will be no issues fitting the other elements into the other slots.

Let's try slot 4 -- can we put S there? Well, we know P has to be before S, and R has to be in slot 2 or 3, so we know P and R have to occupy 2 and 3. With S in 4, that would put L or H in 7, and L or H in 8. That seems fine too.

Let's try slot 3 -- if S is in slot 3, P would have to go in slot 2, and there would be no place for the R. Therefore, S can't go in slot 3.

#15 is another conditional question -- let's see what we can figure out from the condition that O is immediately after T before we go to the answer choices...

We know that this must mean O is fifth (if O is first, T can't be in front of it) and therefore, T must be fourth.

Moving on, since we know that O follows T, it must be true that R precedes T. Therefore, we know R must be third.

F must be at least 3 slots away from R. It can't be in front of R (not enough space) and to be at least 3 slots behind R, it would have to be in either slot 6 or 7.

Therefore, (E) is the correct answer.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

Hi - I just realized that I answered #15 for you instead of #17 -- here is the explanation for #17, along with #18 as well (per another thread) --

#17

A conditional question, so let's put P into the third slot and S into the sixth and see what we can uncover:

_ _ P _ _ S _ L/H

Since O needs to be at least 2 spaces away from S, and since O has to be either first or fifth, we can infer that O has to be first:

O _ P _ _ S _ L /H

At this point, let's think about the either/or chunk TF or RT -- now we can see it has to go in slots 4 and 5, so our options are --

O _ P T F S _ L/H

O _ P R T S _ L /H

We can infer a bit more from here, but we have what we need in order to answer the question by this point -- either F or T can go in the fifth slot, and the correct answer is C.

18.

This condition tells us that somewhere along the line we need to have F _ _ O. Let's see what we can infer...

Where can F _ _ O go? Well, since O can only go first or fifth, it can only go in one place:

_ F _ _ O _ _ L/H

We know that R must be performed at least three spaces away from F, so we know that R can only be performed in either the sixth or seventh slot. Let's put it in both to see what happens:

_ F _ _ O R _ L/H

_ F _ _ O _ R L/H

Could the first one work? Sure -- here's one version that could work:

P F S L O R T H

Could the second work? Let's try to fill some of it in, using the rules we know...

T F _ _ O _ R L/H

There are two rules that can't work together in this second scenario -- S needs to be at least two spaces away from O, which means it can only be third, and P needs to come before S, but if S is third there is no place for the P to go.

Therefore, R can only go in the sixth slot and (D) is correct.

[acisne7]

I was looking at the diagram that was posted and with the inferences it shows that S cannot be 2? why is that? I thought it was supposed to be S cannot be 1 because P-S? can you please help me understand why it cannot be 2?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

I just took a look and it seems like I just drew it wrong -- the S cross out is supposed to be under space 1 -- thanks for catching that! i've adjusted the diagram to reflect the change.

[amywasylyk]

I have more of a general question about the first constraint. On the LSAT, when you have a constraint that says "T is performed EITHER immediately before F OR immediately after R" does that mean there is a potential for an RTF block? Or is that eliminated because of the EITHER/OR language?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

On the LSAT, the statement either/or does not inherently rule out the possibility of both (though sometimes other factors, such as the design of the game itself, do "naturally" limit the possibility of both).

So, if you were at a restaurant in LSAT-land, and a waiter asked if you wanted soup OR salad, "BOTH" would be a completely viable response.

Hope that helps! Please follow up if you have further questions.

[VendelaG465]

why cant S go in slot 1? can't we do S_ _ _ O?? since it is at least it can have multiple spaces between as well ?

[ohthatpatrick]

The 2nd to last rule says that P is performed before S,
so S could never be 1st and P could never be last.

Hope this helps.