Diagram

[yahoo]

For question 22, why is the answer B and not A?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Question 22 asks us to determine what is the minimum number of assistants that must be promoted during this year's review, in order for Johnson to have a chance of being promoted during next year's review.

Johnson is an assistant. In order for Johnson to be promoted to associate a majority of his superiors must vote to promote Johnson. Two of Johnson's three superiors will not vote for Johnson (Olivos and Harrison). So in order to counter those two, there must be three superiors willing to vote for Johnson. At the moment only one superior is willing to vote for Johnson (Rafael). Thus, there must be two assistants who are promoted during this year's review. There would then be those two plus Rafael for a total of three superiors willing to vote for Johnson to counter the sure "no" votes from Olivos and Harrison.

Does that help clear this one up? I know we didn't need a game board to walk through that one, but it's something as simple as majority rule. Let me know if you still need help with this one!

[yahoo]

Thank you! That was very helpful.

[ali.charania]

Could someone please post a set up on how to solve this game?

[tamwaiman]

Who is willing to explain Q23 & Q24 for me?Thanks.

[interestedintacos]

Ali, that's just the issue: this game doesn't have a set-up, nor would it be helpful to try to create one.

This game is best solved by applying the rules and a very,very simple diagram just showing who goes where and maybe marking the rules to better remember them.

The biggest clue is the way the game is laid out on the page: the game takes up the entire page. The first question is an acceptability question where LSAC decided to vastly spread out the space between each answer choice in order to fill the page. It was a mistake to spend time trying to diagram this one.

Tamwaiman:
Question #23:
Scanning the answer choices, the first ones to consider are obviously the ones having to do with general numbers and not specific people, especially because the two specific people referenced in the answer choices are not specially restricted by the rules:
That leaves choices C, D and E.
Immediately the best choice to consider is choice E because it casts the widest net. This is a "must be true" question so naturally an answer choice that doesn't restrict very much has a greater chance of fitting the "must be true" requirement. Of C, D, and E, E is the best choice to try first, especially knowing we start out with 6 assistants.

Because we know at the beginning there are 6 assistants, and we know that 1 must move up in each year (the key rule that we needed to focus on for this game), we know that after one year there are at most 5 assistants (if only the bare minimum 1 moves up). And obviously after another year, there would be at most 4 assistants--again after the bare minimum requirement is satisfied and only 1 moves up. So we're done; E is correct.

Question #24:
Again, the key rule gives you a quick answer. One must move from each level one level up in each annual review, so we couldn't have 0, because then there would be no one to move up from associate to partner. The lack of any other rules that apply to the situation should lead you to see that you then have the answer: 1 is the minimum.

[interestedintacos]

Additional question to Manhattan staff: How would you classify this game? I suppose it's technically an open assignment game but it doesn't seem like using your method would help at all.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

It's definitely an open assignment game. The Open Board seems best suited to representing the setup. But I agree with you that this game is different than a lot of other more standard open assignment games. The fact that there are so many periods of promotion. I'd say this game has a lot more in common with the following games

PT16, S1, G4
PT12, S2, G4
PT11, S1, G4

than say a standard/modern open assignment game. Each of the games listed above tells us the initial starting conditions, gives us some constraints about how the characters can be reassigned and then asks us to track several periods of reassignment.

We haven't seen something like this since the mid 90's. So technically, "yes" it's an open assignment game, but the actual practice of solving this game might feel a bit different then say a more standard open assignment game.

Does that answer your question?

[interestedintacos]

Yeah, it does. I suppose that's why other companies have put those games in a separate category. I've seen them called process or pattern games. After all, what good are logic game categories if the categorization doesn't help us solve the game? But I can see why it doesn't make sense to spend time on them given they haven't popped up on modern LSATs.

PT 23 G4 and PT 20 G3 are the most modern example I've found, but I haven't delved into barely anything past PT 38 yet.

I also found a book where the test tube mixing game was put into a category of its own called "mixing games."

Would you say that Manhattan's logic game categories can be used to categorize and then conquer all the modern games or might it not touch on a few special games? What about special methods for combo games?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

I totally agree about those games you pulled out. Notice though that the game in PT18, S1, G4 is about grouping. The games you referenced were similar in that a process or pattern resulted, and yet the ones you selected were about ordering. I think that highlights the fact that these "process or pattern" games are fundamentally still games of ordering or games of grouping.

We work hard to keep our game boards flexible so that we can adapt them to new situations. If you're interested, go back and take a look at the games you found most interesting. I think you'll find that that you could describe each of them as a slight variation on something ordinary. So we emphasize flexibility rather than attempting to sub-classify each game until we have only games exactly the same in each category.

[interestedintacos]

How would you classify PT 14, game 1? I think it's a basic open assignment, no repeats, numerical distribution game but with the twist on the way each group interacts with each other. That twist could maybe put it into a "process" category, but it's certainly best categorized as an open assignment, no repeats game.

On the other hand, some games are seemingly "pure" process games--like the letter, word one and a few others where you are given a few potential operations/processes and can usually run one of the processes in each cycle up to 3 total cycles. The test tube mixing game also falls into that category I think. In the word game you had 4 words in a sequence--moving from one word to the next you could either erase one letter, add one letter or replace one letter with another.

I don't see any benefit in trying to fit that game into another category--that would only detract from your ability to solve it quickly and easily.