Q23

[trevor.lovell]

Question 23 asks which pair of doctors cannot both work at Randsborough. The correct answer is E, Nance and Palermo. However, Rule 3 states that if Longtree is at Souderton, Nance and Palermo are both at Randsborough.

The aggregation of the Rules 4 and 5, however, combine to mean that Nance and Palermo's joint presence at Randsborough would force Onawa to be at both clinics, which violates the stimulus (each doctor is at exactly 1 of 2 clinics).

The excellent test-taker could have spotted this and concluded that Longtree is Randsborough no matter what, but all of this does seem particularly malicious on the part of the test-maker.

Does anyone know of other instances of rules contradicting or essentially nullifying one another in a similar manner?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

I know what you mean in that it feels like they're trying to be sneaky. I don't think that was the intention. I think the fact that the first two constraints have "if" in the middle of the constraints while the other constraints put "if" first is more "malicious" - as you put it.

I do think that they've been very generous in this game in that there is a "framing" opportunity that really pays off nicely. Try running two scenarios; one with J in Souderton and then one with J in Ransborough. The game opens up nicely!

Good luck! And no... I can't think of another game that a constraint presents a necessary condition and then have other cosntraints that exclude that necessary condition from ever occurring.

[trevor.lovell]

Very much appreciated. Thanks for the reminder on running scenarios -- sometimes it's hard to see that when you're crunched for time, but this game has so many rules for only 6 slots that in hindsight it's obvious a scenario or two would yield results.

I think I'll stick w/ calling this trickery malicious since I thought #23 was a godsend in that A appeared to be directly confirmed by a rule, negating the need to test other choices. I thought the "if" movement was more petty. But, their purpose is to strain the brain and calling the test-makers names isn't helping much.

[hilarykustoff]

Can someone explain this one slowly? I'm so confused. Thanks!

[timmydoeslsat]

This is a type of question to save for last in a game where you can use previous work to get rid of answer choices.

However, the rules make this question a gimme.

What is a pair of doctors that cannot be together at R?

Look at the rules:

N(R) ---> O(R)

P(R) ---> K(S) and O(S)

Could it ever be true that N and P go to R at the same time? No, look at how S is treated in the necessary conditions.

This issue comes up a lot in binary grouping games.

It is the same idea as:

A ---> B and C

X ---> ~B

We can infer that A and X cannot be "in" at the same time. This is due to the way B is treated in the necessary conditions.

The correct answer to #23 of this game could have validly been J and N.

J(R) --->O(S)

N(R) --->O(R)