Need Practice Making Linkage Inferences in Grouping Games

[nmaugust]

I'm having a lot of trouble making linkage inferences in Grouping Games. I feel as though the inferences make sense, but it is difficult to know when to stop - and I feel really out of touch with the information in the inferences once I get them. For questions that require this, I find myself with about a half page of linkages and a poor idea of where to start on questions. How can I improve in this area? How can I practice making useful inferences and properly understanding the relationships I've inferred? Also, is there a particular way of organizing the rules and the inferences on a page that has been useful for anyone?

[Brook Miscoski]

August,

My feeling is that this question is related to the conditional logic question I just answered. Not all grouping games contain conditional rules, but many of them contain at least a few conditional rules.

If you could point to an example, it would be easier to give you a helpful response. What I can say without specifics is, well, not specific.

What you are describing is a common feeling for anyone trying grouping games. For most people, they are harder to organize, and for most people, it is harder to see when the inferences should stop.

You should organize the rules, variable sets, and inferences at the very bottom of the page. I put my rules on the left and my variable sets on the right, and I put fairly abstract inferences under my rules and fairly specific inferences near my variable sets.

For example, let's say....

ABCDF are available to go on boats for a single tour, for the tour there are two boats only with two seats each, and each boat must be filled. A can't go in the same boat with B or C, and D and F can't both go on the tour.

The bottom of my page will look like this for starters (I put D/F right into the variable set since it is so confined):
...Boat 1 Boat 2 Misses Tour
A B ... ABCDE ___ ___ ___ ___ D/F
A C
D any boat F any boat

My inferences end up like so:

...Boat ? Boat ? Misses Tour
A B... ABCDE A D/F .. B C .. D/F
A C
D any boat F any boat

A D/F

But even if you did not see that because B and C have to be used, they go in the same boat with each other, while A goes in the other boat with D or F, you would not have had a very hard time. My feeling is that you make sure to nail diagramming the rules and variable sets and then even if you miss an inference your solid grasp of the rules should carry you through. So, as the test approaches, if you are sure you have the rules and variable sets diagrammed properly and have spent a minute or two without seeing additional inferences, just move on to the questions. Unless you're sure that you are in a Templates type situation, don't do a bunch of experimental scratch work in the hunt for inferences.