The key to this game, in my opinion, was understanding the combination of the 3>7 and 7>5 rule. These two rules link to 3>7>5. This only allows for 4 possible outcomes for those numbers.
Then based on that we could make even more inferences because of our other three rules.
My game board was laid out like this;
--|-- --|-- --|-- --|--
W / Th / F / S
Then from there the other rules make it really easy to plug and play. 4 has to go Thursday or Friday. 2 has to go before 8, and numbers that are consecutive (3 and 4) can't be done on the same day.
I ran out of time on the actual test but just reviewed it now. Good golly, using the numbers as game pieces hurts my head but I think that's how it has to be done. I set it up as grouping with W, T, F, S across the top and 2 slots below each. I used the 4 on T or F to split and then ended up with 3 splits for each of those, so 6 game boards total. I have no idea if this is the most efficient way to do it, I could try again later.
But yes, chaining together the order of 3-7-5 is crucial. Next, remembering that consecutive numbers can't be grouped together. So if 4 is on F, then 5 has to be somewhere else. Now we know we have 3-7 before 5, so that means 5 has to go into S. So on and so forth.
But wait! We also have 2-8. Gotta remember that one and be careful that you don't pair 2 with 3, or 7 with 8. Ugh.
My boards that I wrote down are messy, I could make a cleaner copy later, also when I figure out if that's actually the best way to do it. It works, but it took me a long time to write out 6 game boards. I still feel like it's more efficient that brute forcing through questions, and there are a lot of restrictions. But it still took for-ev-er. But hopefully that helped a bit?
Hey @LSATcantwin, how many game boards did you end up with? Does 6 sound right?
@"Leah M B" said:
I ran out of time on the actual test but just reviewed it now. Good golly, using the numbers as game pieces hurts my head but I think that's how it has to be done. I set it up as grouping with W, T, F, S across the top and 2 slots below each. I used the 4 on T or F to split and then ended up with 3 splits for each of those, so 6 game boards total. I have no idea if this is the most efficient way to do it, I could try again later.
But yes, chaining together the order of 3-7-5 is crucial. Next, remembering that consecutive numbers can't be grouped together. So if 4 is on F, then 5 has to be somewhere else. Now we know we have 3-7 before 5, so that means 5 has to go into S. So on and so forth.
But wait! We also have 2-8. Gotta remember that one and be careful that you don't pair 2 with 3, or 7 with 8. Ugh.
My boards that I wrote down are messy, I could make a cleaner copy later, also when I figure out if that's actually the best way to do it. It works, but it took me a long time to write out 6 game boards. I still feel like it's more efficient that brute forcing through questions, and there are a lot of restrictions. But it still took for-ev-er. But hopefully that helped a bit?
Hey @LSATcantwin, how many game boards did you end up with? Does 6 sound right?
After I realized that 3>7>5 could only move in 4 different ways I stopped making different boards and just went right to the questions. I’ve never really split game boards all the way down. It was just a matter of plug and play for me after that.
2>8 meant 2 could never go Saturday and 8 couldn’t go Monday.
So I can see this being a situation where you can split. It’s a super restriced game, these are actually my favorite types lol
I never even thought of using the days of the week as the pieces...the numbers just seemed appropriate to me
@"Leah M B" said:
I ran out of time on the actual test but just reviewed it now. Good golly, using the numbers as game pieces hurts my head but I think that's how it has to be done. I set it up as grouping with W, T, F, S across the top and 2 slots below each. I used the 4 on T or F to split and then ended up with 3 splits for each of those, so 6 game boards total. I have no idea if this is the most efficient way to do it, I could try again later.
But yes, chaining together the order of 3-7-5 is crucial. Next, remembering that consecutive numbers can't be grouped together. So if 4 is on F, then 5 has to be somewhere else. Now we know we have 3-7 before 5, so that means 5 has to go into S. So on and so forth.
But wait! We also have 2-8. Gotta remember that one and be careful that you don't pair 2 with 3, or 7 with 8. Ugh.
My boards that I wrote down are messy, I could make a cleaner copy later, also when I figure out if that's actually the best way to do it. It works, but it took me a long time to write out 6 game boards. I still feel like it's more efficient that brute forcing through questions, and there are a lot of restrictions. But it still took for-ev-er. But hopefully that helped a bit?
Hey @LSATcantwin, how many game boards did you end up with? Does 6 sound right?
After I realized that 3>7>5 could only move in 4 different ways I stopped making different boards and just went right to the questions. I’ve never really split game boards all the way down. It was just a matter of plug and play for me after that.
2>8 meant 2 could never go Saturday and 8 couldn’t go Monday.
So I can see this being a situation where you can split. It’s a super restriced game, these are actually my favorite types lol
I never even thought of using the days of the week as the pieces...the numbers just seemed appropriate to me
Yeah I didn’t split boards on the test because it looked like there could be a lot. But I kept accidentally pairing together consecutive numbers and it tripped me up. I also spent too much time on an earlier game and was crazy pressed for time so knew I wouldn’t finish. But I feel like I’ll need to look at it a few times to figure out what’s the most efficient way. Or wait for JY to tell me haha.
I think why this game was so difficult for people, and why I struggled a bit with it too, is just that the game pieces are numbers. I can’t recall off the top of my head another game where that was the case. And then it has the added wrinkle of consecutive numbers not being paired together. That’s a different type of rule than any I can remember. It seems straight forward, and it really is, but it’s also sort of like having tons of tiny inferences to remember. During the actual test, I kept realizing that I had accidentally paired two consecutive numbers with each other and would have to walk it backwards and fix my mistake, ugh. That’s what makes me feel like it’s best to write out all the game boards. But doing that just now was super time intensive so I still don’t know if that’s the best way haha.
Ugh. I remember i spent too much time on the first rule. Seems like it just meant to say that you couldn't examine the same floor twice in a given day.
@"Leah M B" said:
I think why this game was so difficult for people, and why I struggled a bit with it too, is just that the game pieces are numbers. I can’t recall off the top of my head another game where that was the case. And then it has the added wrinkle of consecutive numbers not being paired together. That’s a different type of rule than any I can remember. It seems straight forward, and it really is, but it’s also sort of like having tons of tiny inferences to remember. During the actual test, I kept realizing that I had accidentally paired two consecutive numbers with each other and would have to walk it backwards and fix my mistake, ugh. That’s what makes me feel like it’s best to write out all the game boards. But doing that just now was super time intensive so I still don’t know if that’s the best way haha.
Yeah lol, the entire game really took place on Thursday and Friday tbh. If 3 was on Thursday 4 automatically went to Friday. If 5 was on Friday, then 4 automatically went Thursday. If neither 3 or 5 went on Wednesday or Thursday you could put 4 anywhere. I believe seeing that mechanic alone helped me a ton.
@westcoastbestcoast said:
Its so weird. I felt more paralyzed with this game than Viruses in September.
Really! The virus game shut my ass down. And then I figured out S and it changed everything...
I think its because I went in with the expectation of seeing a weird game and it reminded of some weird games in past. I This time around when I saw the fourth LG i wasnt expecting a weirdly worded rule when I saw the description of the game
Thanks for the reply. During the test I noted the '3-7-5'. I can't recall if I noted there were 4 ways to split them. I think I decided against splitting anything because I felt knowing that distribution would still leave me with 5 unplaced pieces.
I wanted to know if there was a simple trick behind this game, but it doesn't appear that is the case.
But hopefully that helped a bit?
Thanks for taking the time to respond. Curious, how long did it take you to come up with 6 boards?
think why this game was so difficult for people, and why I struggled a bit with it too, is just that the game pieces are numbers.
The numbers didn't bother me too much. I think I've done one other game that was number based. I got confused with the starting date though. I kept forgetting it was Wednesday.
Thanks for the reply. During the test I noted the '3-7-5'. I can't recall if I noted there were 4 ways to split them. I think I decided against splitting anything because I felt knowing that distribution would still leave me with 5 unplaced pieces.
I wanted to know if there was a simple trick behind this game, but it doesn't appear that is the case.
But hopefully that helped a bit?
Thanks for taking the time to respond. Curious, how long did it take you to come up with 6 boards?
think why this game was so difficult for people, and why I struggled a bit with it too, is just that the game pieces are numbers.
The numbers didn't bother me too much. I think I've done one other game that was number based. I got confused with the starting date though. I kept forgetting it was Wednesday.
I didn't time myself doing it this time but I would guess at least 8-10 minutes just laying out game boards. Which obviously is wayyy too long for any game, really. Although I did think the first 3 games were all really easy, so maybe this one was supposed to just take a ton of time. That is true too, that when you are separately reading a question and see "Wednesday" you think mid-week, not first day. It's like it was all designed to just very subtly screw with your brain.
I'm gonna try it again maybe sometime this weekend and time it and see what happens.
Just did this again. I think a more beneficial way to start splitting this game is based on the pieces that can go into Wednesday (1,2,3,6).
* 2 can only go with 6 so that's done, and then we also know where 3-7-5 goes.
* Placing 1 with 6 results in a board that doesn't work.
* Placing 6 with 3 leaves you with a few possibilities
* Placing 1 with 3 leaves with a few possibilities
These three possible scenarios makes Q18 easy. You can eliminate A-D without spending much time.
For Q19, combining the new info with out three previous scenarios leaves us with only one scenario (2,6 on Wednesday). This was the most restrictive scenario (only 1 and 8 are variable pieces). So this also becomes a very quick question.
Q20, the scenarios don't help us much. If you skim through the answer choices, you'll agree with AC C based on the rules given.
For Q21,
The scenario from Q19 lets us eliminate AC B. If you skim through the answers, the initial setup can help you understand why AC E is correct. You're creating the 6,2 on Wednesday, and ending up with the same scenario that you had in Q19. The difference is now you've taken care of 1 of 2 variable pieces, and the board is final.
For Q22,
Based on the new info, we know that floor 3 is on Wednesday. There are only two possible scenarios. This can be a quick question now.
For Q23,
Not that helpful. With AC A, we don't have to worry about 4 spilling into Wednesday since we know that isn't possible. You can test what happens if 4 spills into Saturday. Then it becomes clear that 4 is stuck on Wednesday and Thursday.
OK these are my extremely messy game boards. There's one on the top right that I scratched out so ignore that. Basically I came up with 3 game boards each based off of 4 being on either Thursday or Friday.
Comments
Give me a bit an I’ll do it. I went -0 on the game.
The key to this game, in my opinion, was understanding the combination of the 3>7 and 7>5 rule. These two rules link to 3>7>5. This only allows for 4 possible outcomes for those numbers.
1.) 3__ 7 5
2.) 3 7 __ 5
3.) __ 3 7 5
4.) 3 7 5 __
Then based on that we could make even more inferences because of our other three rules.
My game board was laid out like this;
--|-- --|-- --|-- --|--
W / Th / F / S
Then from there the other rules make it really easy to plug and play. 4 has to go Thursday or Friday. 2 has to go before 8, and numbers that are consecutive (3 and 4) can't be done on the same day.
Does this help or do you need more details?
I ran out of time on the actual test but just reviewed it now. Good golly, using the numbers as game pieces hurts my head but I think that's how it has to be done. I set it up as grouping with W, T, F, S across the top and 2 slots below each. I used the 4 on T or F to split and then ended up with 3 splits for each of those, so 6 game boards total. I have no idea if this is the most efficient way to do it, I could try again later.
But yes, chaining together the order of 3-7-5 is crucial. Next, remembering that consecutive numbers can't be grouped together. So if 4 is on F, then 5 has to be somewhere else. Now we know we have 3-7 before 5, so that means 5 has to go into S. So on and so forth.
But wait! We also have 2-8. Gotta remember that one and be careful that you don't pair 2 with 3, or 7 with 8. Ugh.
My boards that I wrote down are messy, I could make a cleaner copy later, also when I figure out if that's actually the best way to do it. It works, but it took me a long time to write out 6 game boards. I still feel like it's more efficient that brute forcing through questions, and there are a lot of restrictions. But it still took for-ev-er. But hopefully that helped a bit?
Hey @LSATcantwin, how many game boards did you end up with? Does 6 sound right?
After I realized that 3>7>5 could only move in 4 different ways I stopped making different boards and just went right to the questions. I’ve never really split game boards all the way down. It was just a matter of plug and play for me after that.
2>8 meant 2 could never go Saturday and 8 couldn’t go Monday.
So I can see this being a situation where you can split. It’s a super restriced game, these are actually my favorite types lol
I never even thought of using the days of the week as the pieces...the numbers just seemed appropriate to me
Yeah I didn’t split boards on the test because it looked like there could be a lot. But I kept accidentally pairing together consecutive numbers and it tripped me up. I also spent too much time on an earlier game and was crazy pressed for time so knew I wouldn’t finish. But I feel like I’ll need to look at it a few times to figure out what’s the most efficient way. Or wait for JY to tell me haha.
I think why this game was so difficult for people, and why I struggled a bit with it too, is just that the game pieces are numbers. I can’t recall off the top of my head another game where that was the case. And then it has the added wrinkle of consecutive numbers not being paired together. That’s a different type of rule than any I can remember. It seems straight forward, and it really is, but it’s also sort of like having tons of tiny inferences to remember. During the actual test, I kept realizing that I had accidentally paired two consecutive numbers with each other and would have to walk it backwards and fix my mistake, ugh. That’s what makes me feel like it’s best to write out all the game boards. But doing that just now was super time intensive so I still don’t know if that’s the best way haha.
Ugh. I remember i spent too much time on the first rule. Seems like it just meant to say that you couldn't examine the same floor twice in a given day.
Yeah lol, the entire game really took place on Thursday and Friday tbh. If 3 was on Thursday 4 automatically went to Friday. If 5 was on Friday, then 4 automatically went Thursday. If neither 3 or 5 went on Wednesday or Thursday you could put 4 anywhere. I believe seeing that mechanic alone helped me a ton.
Its so weird. I felt more paralyzed with this game than Viruses in September.
Really! The virus game shut my ass down. And then I figured out S and it changed everything...
I think its because I went in with the expectation of seeing a weird game and it reminded of some weird games in past. I This time around when I saw the fourth LG i wasnt expecting a weirdly worded rule when I saw the description of the game
Thanks for the reply. During the test I noted the '3-7-5'. I can't recall if I noted there were 4 ways to split them. I think I decided against splitting anything because I felt knowing that distribution would still leave me with 5 unplaced pieces.
I wanted to know if there was a simple trick behind this game, but it doesn't appear that is the case.
Thanks for taking the time to respond. Curious, how long did it take you to come up with 6 boards?
The numbers didn't bother me too much. I think I've done one other game that was number based. I got confused with the starting date though. I kept forgetting it was Wednesday.
I didn't time myself doing it this time but I would guess at least 8-10 minutes just laying out game boards. Which obviously is wayyy too long for any game, really. Although I did think the first 3 games were all really easy, so maybe this one was supposed to just take a ton of time. That is true too, that when you are separately reading a question and see "Wednesday" you think mid-week, not first day. It's like it was all designed to just very subtly screw with your brain.
I'm gonna try it again maybe sometime this weekend and time it and see what happens.
Just did this again. I think a more beneficial way to start splitting this game is based on the pieces that can go into Wednesday (1,2,3,6).
* 2 can only go with 6 so that's done, and then we also know where 3-7-5 goes.
* Placing 1 with 6 results in a board that doesn't work.
* Placing 6 with 3 leaves you with a few possibilities
* Placing 1 with 3 leaves with a few possibilities
These three possible scenarios makes Q18 easy. You can eliminate A-D without spending much time.
For Q19, combining the new info with out three previous scenarios leaves us with only one scenario (2,6 on Wednesday). This was the most restrictive scenario (only 1 and 8 are variable pieces). So this also becomes a very quick question.
Q20, the scenarios don't help us much. If you skim through the answer choices, you'll agree with AC C based on the rules given.
For Q21,
The scenario from Q19 lets us eliminate AC B. If you skim through the answers, the initial setup can help you understand why AC E is correct. You're creating the 6,2 on Wednesday, and ending up with the same scenario that you had in Q19. The difference is now you've taken care of 1 of 2 variable pieces, and the board is final.
For Q22,
Based on the new info, we know that floor 3 is on Wednesday. There are only two possible scenarios. This can be a quick question now.
For Q23,
Not that helpful. With AC A, we don't have to worry about 4 spilling into Wednesday since we know that isn't possible. You can test what happens if 4 spills into Saturday. Then it becomes clear that 4 is stuck on Wednesday and Thursday.
OK these are my extremely messy game boards. There's one on the top right that I scratched out so ignore that. Basically I came up with 3 game boards each based off of 4 being on either Thursday or Friday.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/JbZ7Eo8uSI9IXQs42
For me the key to this game was knowing what could go first and last with the 3/7/5 block.
I only did 2 game boards with the 4
In the different spots with the 4 numbers that could go 1st & 4th blocked.