LSAT Logic Game HELP

Question

A New York insurance company has six account managers each of whom has a different number of children from none to five.

Deduce from the following:

A. who has what number of children

B. the account each manages

C. where each lives

 

Clues:

1. Angela has two more children than the manager from Manhattan, who has one more child than the fire manager.



2. The marine manager has two more children than the manager from Queens, who has one more child than Enid.



3. The manager from Staten Island has two more children than Dick, who has one more child than the automotive manager.



4. Chloe has three more children than the property manager.



5. The liability manager has more children than the manager from the Bronx, who is not Enid.



6. The manager from Manhattan who is not the automotive manager is not Chloe.



7. Enid is not the property manager and Fred is not the marine manager.



8. The manager from New Jersey may or may not be Brian.



9. The manager from Brooklyn is not the liability manager but might be the aviation manager.

Answer 1

The most pertinent advice I give my students in regard to LSAT preparation is to stay far away from any material that is not designed by the test makers. Take the logic game presented in this thread, the strategy needed to deduce the outcome is entirely different from the strategy one should use for the LSAT. Thus, take as many pre-tests as possible—LSAC Hub provides access to all previous tests, in digital format, costing $99/one-year access.

When approaching the logic games section, bear this in mind:

1. Write the rules out to the side with a check box
2. The variables should be listed by first letter only (example: red = r; purple = p; sally = s)
3. When variables have two sets they should be approached in a two-sector horizontal formation. For example, a restaurant is open M-F and must have exactly 2 employees working the entire shift open - close. The employees are Sally, Tina, Una, Vicky, Zeek. Before I even approach the rules that said stimulus would give me, I would first set up my outline. This is a weekday game which = horizontal formation and there are 2 variables (employees) required for each week day. The space below the formation is for the variables that cannot or can only apply due a given rule such as Sally cannot work on Mondays:

M ___|___ ; T ___|___ ; W ___|___ …

S/

If you feel stuck, need guidance or help working through a tough game send me text 270.485.8605 and we will find a strategy that suits your learning style. Good luck!

Answer 2

This isn't an LSAT-style Logic Game. Those don't have a single solution, for starters, but are open-ended by design so that they can ask about the implications of different scenarios.

 

It's not completely unrelated, but it's really one of the Logic Puzzles you might find in a grocery store or transit hub.

 

That said, step one is to get lists of all the variables:

 

• Managers: Angela, Enid, Dick, Chloe, Fred, Brian
• Accounts: fire, marine, auto, property, liability, aviation
• Borough: Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, The Bronx, New Jersey
• Number of kids: 0-5 (from prompt)

 

Then you'll want to assemble them into a logic puzzle table, where each variable (usually in alphabetical order) is the side of a square in the table. See the Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_puzzle) for a simple example.

 

Once that's done, you start applying the rules to the table, as in the example from Wikipedia.

 

For example, take Rule 1: Angela has two more children than the manager from Manhattan, who has one more child than the fire manager. We know that Angela is not from Manhattan and does not manage the fire account, so we put an X in all the corresponding boxes. Likewise, Manhattan and fire do not go together, and we put the appropriate Xs there too.

 

But we also know that for children, fire + 1 = Manhattan and Manhattan + 2 = Angela. So we know the fire account has at least 3 fewer children than the max, and therefore cannot have 3, 4, or 5. Likewise, Angela cannot have 0, 1, or 2. Manhattan is in between, and cannot have 0 (fire has 1 less), 4, or 5 (Angela has 2 more).

 

If any of the rules told us two variables *did* go together, we would fill in the appropriate circles and X-out the remaining spots in the row and column within a block of the table. This set of rules does not have any like that, so we simply continue filling in Xs until there is only one space left in a row or column within a block. We have then established a link, so we fill in the circle, X out the remaining spaces in the corresponding row or column that was not filled, and look for other implications.

 

By 'other implications,' I mean that once a link is established, we can carry over information from the row and column it links to one another. For example, if I determine Chloe lives in Manhattan, then if I already knew Chloe has 3 children, I now know that Manhattan and 3 children are also linked, and fill in the appropriate circles and Xs to reflect that.

 

We continue that process for each rule. We may need to go through the rules more than once since we will have more of the table completed on the subsequent reads, allowing us to make further deductions. Eventually, we will reach a complete solution, with each manager matched to their correct account, residence, and number of children.