Q5

[bergstressers]

I totally don't get why the answer to question 5 is E (S was begun in 603).

Since "L was begun a year later than G" therefore GL is a block, and the question asks what must be true if L was begun in 602 - so how is G was begun in 601 NOT the correct answer???

[tianfeng102]

If L was begun THE year after G or L was begun ONE year after G, then GL is a block.

If L was begun a year later than G, L could be in years 602 or 603.

Therefore, if G is in 601, L could be in either 602 or 603.

However, if S is in 603, then L could ONLY be in 602.

I totally don't get why the answer to question 5 is E (S was begun in 603).

Since "L was begun a year later than G" therefore GL is a block, and the question asks what must be true if L was begun in 602 - so how is G was begun in 601 NOT the correct answer??

[raqueljpaul]

Can an LSAT instructor please explain why the answer is not B) G was begun in 601.

I'm very confused as to why the GL block would not automatically put G in 601 and how S matters as the floater.

Thank you!

[ohthatpatrick]

The first rule is RELATIVE ordering, not exact ordering.

"L was begun in a later year than G".

The year is currently 2017.
A later year than 2017 is 2018, 2019, 2020, etc.

I think people have been accidentally reading
"begun in a later year" as "begun a year later"

It would look like
G - L - F
not like
GL - F

If G is in 1, I can write a possibility such as
(GS) M L F H

Hope this helps.

[JulianG99]

Patrick, I understand the ordering. I just dont get how G is not in 601 using G-L-F

[ohthatpatrick]

Make sure you're not accidentally mishearing this question as
"If L is in 602, what must be true?"

In THAT case, G must be in 601.

But this question doesn't say "If L is in 602, what must be true"?

Instead, it asks, "Which of these answers would force L into 602?"

L in 602 forces G to be in 601.

But, in regards to (B), G in 601 doesn't force L to be in 602.

We could have a scenario that looks like
(GS) M L F H

G is in 601 but L doesn't HAVE to be in 602. Here it was in 603. That eliminates (B).

(A) If F is in 605, what happens? H has to be 604.
(_ _) _ _ H F

Who's left?
G - L, M, and S

Does this force L to be in 602? No, we could have (GS) M L H F

(C) If H is 604, what happens? Who could be last? It could be S or L

Already, it doesn't feel like L is forced into 602.

(E) If S is 603, what happens? The last two spots will be H and F.
(_ _) _ S (H, F)

Who's left? G - L, and M

That forces us to do
(G, M) L S (H, F)

Hope this helps.

[HeatherF897]

Does anyone have a tip on how to strategically tackle this question to go faster? I ended up testing all the answer choices and finally got to the correct answer, which was unfortunately last.

I had an idea to figure out the placement of H and hopefully force L into 602 (I had identified the H split during my Big Pause), but that was the wrong strategy. Should I have been looking for S because it is a "free radical"? Is that the only way/recommended way of going about questions like this?

Interested in hearing your strategies for how you got to the answer without blindly testing. Thanks in advance!

[ohthatpatrick]

Before I answer your question, I feel obliged to say "what's wrong with blindly testing answer choices?" That's how many of us experts get through many questions.

Early on when I was learning Games, it would frustrate me so much to be staring at a problem and not having "the right thoughts" come to me. I became an unstoppable Games test taker when I learned to just get workin'!

If you know those questions that say, "the positions of everyone would be fully determined if which of the following were true", those are normally plug-n-chug questions (despite the fact that you CAN try to strategize / game it a little bit by thinking about pinning down floaters).

For this one, the revisionist history smart way to think about it is that L can only ever be in spot 2 or 3.

He can't be in 1, because G - L.
He can't be in 5, because L - F.
He can't be in 4, because L - F would force spots 4 and 5 to be L F, and H needs one of those.

So if you knew that L can only be spot 2 or 3, then any answer that removes the option of 3 will force L into spot 2.

Hence, putting someone else into 3, as (E) does, forces L to be in its only other option, spot 2.

[AnnaT620]

Initially my question is, if L is in 602, wouldn't it force G to be in 601? It's the most restrictive choice that I'm seeing.

Re-reading the question, "L must be in 602 if . . . " - I can see that the question is NOT what must occur if L is in 602. But how would that be approached? Still not sure how I would have avoided picking B as the answer here.

Thanks!
Anna