Making inferences

[splitterfromhell]

Hello,
I'm having a really difficult time with grouping games. I fail to make the necessary inferences when diagraming. How can I improve at this particular skill, as well as improve at grouping games in general? Why are these so much more difficult than linear?

[Andrew Ash]

Hi Splitter,

I'm glad you asked, because this is an incredibly common question. Test takers almost always have more trouble with Grouping games, and I don't think that's ever likely to change. Our brains are wired to put things in order, not to classify them in groups. So to some extent, one good answer is to practice.

But fortunately, that's not all there is to it. There is one key to Grouping games that will help you make inferences in a wide range of situations, and that's Hurdle the Uncertainty. Take look at pages 5-9 and 5-10 in the Full Length course books for an explanation of this essential concept. The examples you'll find there are much simpler than actual Grouping games, but the same principles will unlock many inferences for you across a broad range of games. The first game on the December 1997 LSAT (on page 9-18 of the Full Length books) is a wonderful example of how powerful Hurdle the Uncertainty can be.

So my advice is to go back to Lesson 5 and review the basics there. I think you'll find that much of what we say makes more sense now that you have a number of actual Grouping games under your belt. I hope this helps!

Best,
Andrew

[splitterfromhell]

Hi Splitter,

I'm glad you asked, because this is an incredibly common question. Test takers almost always have more trouble with Grouping games, and I don't think that's ever likely to change. Our brains are wired to put things in order, not to classify them in groups. So to some extent, one good answer is to practice.

But fortunately, that's not all there is to it. There is one key to Grouping games that will help you make inferences in a wide range of situations, and that's Hurdle the Uncertainty. Take look at pages 5-9 and 5-10 in the Full Length course books for an explanation of this essential concept. The examples you'll find there are much simpler than actual Grouping games, but the same principles will unlock many inferences for you across a broad range of games. The first game on the December 1997 LSAT (on page 9-18 of the Full Length books) is a wonderful example of how powerful Hurdle the Uncertainty can be.

So my advice is to go back to Lesson 5 and review the basics there. I think you'll find that much of what we say makes more sense now that you have a number of actual Grouping games under your belt. I hope this helps!

Best,
Andrew

I think my problem is mostly linking rules and inferences and displaying all of the information in a non-messy way. How can I get better at those things specifically?

[Lucas Moreau]

Hi, splitter,

The short answer is: practice.

What you could try specifically is "cheating" some games from the books or homework by looking at the completed diagrams before you write a diagram of your own, and trying to sort of work backwards from the finished product to see how rules come together to form a diagram.

I also recommend familiarizing yourself with the different basic game structures within each game type (Linear, Grouping, etc), as most game diagrams tend to fit one of a few basic templates within each type. If an Advanced Linear game has three variables (five people, the place each person goes, and the five days of the week), then it's probably going to look like this:

___ ___ ___ ___ ___
___ ___ ___ ___ ___
M.....T...W...U...F
(periods for spacing)

But really, the more games you complete, regardless of how well you did in them, the more you'll pick up on how game diagrams come together. Practice will almost always improve your abilities.

Hope that helps,
Lucas Moreau