Pg. 3-41 Question 3

[vjunkins]

Hello,


I was able to set up the diagram correctly but the wording of question 3 is tricky. We saw a similar question in Game #2 (pg. 3-39 Question #6) that also had tricky wording, and I got both questions wrong in both games. Anyway to explain this wording so if this wording pops up again I am able to tackle the question?

Thank you,
Victoria

[Ricky_Hutchens]

Hi Victoria,

I think maybe an illustration might help. Imagine the game without the original set of rules, meaning any variable could go into any slot. Now, what question 3 says is that H and S are as far apart as possible. That would mean one of two things: 1) H is first and S is last or 2) S is first and H is last. That would be as far apart as they could possibly be with no other rules. Then the question asks us to determine what variables could go in spots 1, 2, and 3. Well, we would know that slot 1 would have to be H or S (we wouldn't know spots 2 or 3 in this example because there are no other rules).

Now, let's return to actual question. What the testmakers are actually asking you to do is to put H and S as far apart as possible without violating any of the established rules. So they might be first and last or there might be no spaces at all in between them. That just depends on the rules. But once you've determined where they would be to have the maximum number of spaces between them, the question wants to know what variables could go in the first 3 spots.

The key to questions like this is figure out where H and S would fall to achieve the maximum distance between them, then to place any other variables into spots required by the rules, then to see which variables remain that might go into the spots that were asked about.

Hope that helps,

Ricky Hutchens