Rule-Driven / Brute Force Games

ajlee993

Hey everyone,

Good luck to those taking the September exam.

I recently realized that I am severely weak in games that have minimal upfront inferences, require using additional info in the questions, and have more questions that make me try brute forcing through the answer choices. I have 3 questions regarding this type of game:

1) Any general advice on how to approach these types of games? One problem is that I try to force out an inference (either in the set-up or a particular question), fail to do so, and waste so much time. Yet, this kind of mentality seems to help me when there is actually an inference to be made. Do you have something like a general limit? Like, "if I don't figure out an inference 10 seconds for this question, I am going to brute force it"?

2) What are some difficult rule-driven/brute-force games that would be good practice?

3) Is it just me, or do the preptests from 70+ have more of these rule-driven games?

OlamHafuch

I think that this is a common problem. In my opinion, it comes in large part from becoming very proficient at splitting game boards without really understanding how the rules are working together to push out inferences. Splitting game boards is a great tool, but it does severely limit a person's understanding of the inner workings of a game. I think that working through some really tough games without splitting game boards is great practice. Take, for example, the famous bus game. I think most people solve it with splitting into several game boards upfront. But there are some beautiful inferences to be made (and savored) in the questions if the game is done without splitting game boards. This is often the case: Additional info pushes out inferences in a very elegant manner.
Truth is, what LSAC is really looking for is a person's ability to make inferences, so it should come as no surprise if they are onto the fact that many people solve games by mechanically splitting game boards, and therefore want to limit games that are amenable to that.
Another point: There is really no such thing as a game or a question that requires brute force. LSAC doesn't care about the mechanical process of brute forcing, only the intellectual process of making inferences. Brute force is a blunt tool that we all use b/c we are missing inferences. I think that we can all improve our inference making abilities by practicing to solve splitable games without splitting.

JDtobeeee

I've had similar experiences with being frustrated when I need to "brute force" some games/questions.

What I always do is pay attention to fixed variables/boxes (depending on the type of game). I find that most answers will centre around these. Since floaters are (often) interchangeable - when I am doing a question that I must brute force, I try to look to my "fixed" game pieces or big box, etc.