Setup and Rule Diagrams

[studybuddy]

Can you please explain to me what "consecutive" means here? I don't know why I'm getting so tripped up but I'm having trouble understanding if that means that they both receive the same grade or are back to back in different grades. And with the adjacent only if they are in the alphabet... I just have no idea what that's saying or what the information means for the game.

Thanks!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi studybuddy,

Because this is an unusual scenario, the game writers do give you that definition of "consecutive" in the scenario, which you mentioned, and that's the place we have to start: "Two letter grades are consecutive if and only if they are adjacent in the alphabet." What does it mean for two letters to be adjacent in the alphabet? It means "next to" each other, when we put the letters in order (or when we state them in order).

A and B are adjacent (next to each other) in the alphabet, because B comes right after A when stating the order of the letters in the alphabet. Thus they're consecutive. So, since John's grades in Geology and Physics are "consecutive," it means that if one of them were an A grade, the other one would have to receive the grade consecutive to ("next to") A in the alphabet, i.e.a B grade. So if John gets an A in Geology, then he has to get a B in Physics.

B and C are adjacent (next to each other) in the alphabet, because C comes right after A when stating the order of the letters in the alphabet. Thus they're consecutive. So, since John's grades in Geology and Physics are "consecutive," it means that if one of them were a B grade, the other one would have to receive one of the grades "next to" B in the alphabet, i.e. A or C. So if John gets a B in Geology, then he has to get an A or a C in Physics.

A and C are NOT adjacent (next to each other) in the alphabet, because B comes between them when stating the order of letters in the alphabet. Thus they're NOT consecutive. So, if John gets an A in Geology, then he CANNOT get a C in Physics (since A and C are not consecutive).

Let me know if this clears up the confusion!

Jeremy

[momgoingbacktoschool]

Hi Dave (or to any other PowerScore instructor who sees this post)!

When solving this game, I chose to diagram the six courses as the base because they're fixed variables and must all receive a grade, whereas the five different possible grades aren't fixed (so there's a possibility that John receives only the minimum of 2 grades).

I understand that Dave explained above that the reason why we should diagram the grades and not the classes as the base is because the grades are an ordered set ("from highest to lowest") which denotes linearity, but could you please explain why my thought process for setting the base as the courses is erroneous? Would my thought process be useful in determining which variable set should be the base in Grouping/other games?

Also another question -- even if I were to correctly diagram this game using the grades as the base, I don't really think the diagram would be useful due to the plethora of possibilities and the lack of global inferences that can be drawn. Does that mean there is a possibility that global diagrams may not be useful in linear games?

Hope my questions make sense here. Thank you!!

-Grace

I did the same type of set up and had no problem answering all of the questions correctly. There was too much uncertainty for me to put the letter grades as the base. I'm going to try the problem again, though, with the set up that they recommend and see how it goes.