Setup and Rule Diagrams

[mmhubbar]

Thank you so much for this! I have a few questions:

1. Why do you base your diagrams off of O? Is it because it is present in the highest amount of (active) rules in the diagram? Then, how did you decide to formulate the templates based off of the placement of O, K, and J, instead of L, P and N?

2. Would it be wise to link all of the conditionals together to see the inference that Rule 3 is effectively "dead?" I am not sure how else you would reach this inference but I also see that this takes up a lot of time.

3. Does the LSAT often give rules that are essentially already "dead" right out of the gate without having even answered a question yet?

4. How would you rate the difficulty of this game and how much time would you dedicate to it?

[Adam Tyson]

In order, mmhubbar:

1) See this from the original explanation in this thread: "Notably, O appears in three of the four "live" rules, making O very powerful. "

2) Yes! That's exactly how I chose to do it!

3) Nope, not often, but it can and does happen, so be on the lookout for it and don't assume that's an error.

4) It depends - students very comfortable with conditional reasoning and chains should have no trouble, making this game a relatively easy one. But many students struggle with conditionality, and that dead rule would throw them into a tizzy, convinced that they must have done something wrong, and for them, this game is a time suck and a killer. It's all relative to your skillset!

[npant120]

I have a question about the amount of conditional rules and potential chained inferences in this game. Is a good approach trying to chain as many condition rules together (as is the case in this game)? There are so many rules and so many potential linkages that I spent a lot of time in the setup just linking individual rules together and I found that it made my diagram messy and difficult to track information. The linkages I liked that I saw reading through this thread were those of NR and PR. Both of these allow you to make a long chain of inferences. Is this a good place to start? Trying to see how many conditionals can be linked into a chain together? Just trying to figure out how to keep all the information organized in games like this as I find that it can be tricky.

[Robert Carroll]

Nimisha,

I think there's no better way to go than the chains. Diagram everything you have, and make chains in one of two ways - directly, when the necessary condition of a conditional entails the sufficient condition of another; or indirectly, when the contrapositive of a conditional allows you to do the direct chaining. Huge conditional chains aren't super common on the LSAT in recent years, but I think that, when they do arise, you're better off making all the connections possible. The testmakers are usually generous in that, if chaining conditionals leads to an inference, that inference is going to make some actual question a lot easier. So they don't make you do all that work for nothing!

Robert Carroll