#18 - Global, List

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (E).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice.

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[tomfrompittsburgh]

Responding because I got 100% on this game and I really was not sure how/why as I went through it.

1 key deduction I got partway through the game is that N must be the leader of Z: since we have 5 variables to fill 3 slots, but J and K are clearly excluded from Z, so we need all 3 remaining variables to fill Z. If N, M, and H must all feature, N must be the leader since N cannot be placed elsewhere in Z and leaving it out would not fill the committee. This leaves us with H/M as our only options for S-Z and T-Z

(becoming apparent as I'm typing) Now given that we know M must be included in Z, we can exclude M from all other groups, since it can only appear once (rule 2). This leaves us with 3 variables left to fill X, since J can only appear in Y. We know that H,K, and N, must populate X, leaving us with N as the Leader once again.

L N H,N/K N
S H/K J H/M
T H/K K/H H/M
X Y Z

My setup was decidedly not this developed as I proceeded but if I had taken more time with the distributions, I probably could have gotten to this and almost immediately had the correct answer (E) as it is the only choice with N as the Leader in Z

Other answers can still be dispatched quickly based only on rules (how I actually solved it):

(A) places J in Z, violates rule 4 explicitly

(B) places J in Z

(C) K included in Z, violates rule 3 explicitly

(D) Correct variables but N is in S, not L, direct violation of rule 1

Leaving us with (E)!

[Beatrice Brown]

Hi Tom!

Great job both solving this question and making important inferences in your setup

Either approach works for solving this particular list question, and in general, the quickest/easiest way to solve list questions is to just check for rule violations in each answer choice.

In terms of making those inferences up front, the experience you had with this game demonstrates the value of spending an extra minute while setting up the game, since sometimes it will lead to inferences that really restrict solutions to the game and will make answering the questions much quicker.

Let me know if you have any other questions, and awesome job!