Trouble with Game Board Splitting

steven appelbaum

Hey guys,

I need help with tips of when to split the game board and how to easily spot the inferences. I'm never able to put all the inferences together that force out only a few possible boards which in turn helps you fly through the questions. Normally, I'll set up my board, see nothing, then go through the questions. The problem is it takes too long. I get almost all the questions correct most of the time, but I'm spending 8-12 minutes on each one, with the occasional difficult 14. Then I watch the explanations and it all clicks and i keep beating myself on how I missed all the inferences. Any idea how to get better at noticing what to force out?

Steven C

Might have heard about it, but it really works for this. The simple answer is the fool proof method. Print 10 copies, do them once a day until you get it. Do it enough and you'll slowly start to make the inferences yourself. Worked for me, of course I'm still not doing them fast enough so I'm keeping at it....

http://7sage.com/how-to-get-a-perfect-score-on-the-logic-games/

And don't worry about memorizing it. As long as you are doing the inferences from memory, really that's important part. Time and time again similar games rely on the same inferences.

K

Hi Steven A (there's two stevens in this lol)

99% of the time, I split the board when there's a given condition along these lines:

(1) A can go either first or last.

(2) A can go second or fourth (there's 5 possibilities).

^ with those, you can split board.

For (1), you might see in other given rule that C - D - A. Now you know that for this rule to hold, you can't use the board where A goes first!

For (2), you might have something like: D does not go last and C must go immediately before or after D; and another rule that B - C. Now you know that D has only two possibilities on the board where A goes fourth (it can only go second or third), and on board where A goes second, D can also only go into two spots (third or fourth).

Other times, in non sequencing sort of games, you usually have to split the board when you're faced with consequences. For example, for in/out games:

Either A or B will attend, but not both.

^ with something like that, there's a very high chance that another given will include one of those variables. For example, If C attends, then B attends as well. Now you know that if you have a game board split across A and B, you know that C can't attend the game board with A because B will have to be brought along.

With practice, splitting a game board becomes a habit. Not only does it lay down explicit possibilities, it reduces the time you'd have spent otherwise trying to figure it out!

Sorry if this was confusing.

tl;dr split when you see a variable has different consequences depending on where/when it goes.