Free LSAT Logic Game | Advanced Linear

I promised that my future Logic Games wouldn't be as easy as the Basic Linear game I wrote last week. (Yes, I know that game had a twist aside from the variables' names. Gotcha!)

Well, I've kept that promise. The Logic Game I created for this week is significantly harder than last week's, and that's not only because it's an Advanced Linear game. In fact, some Advanced Linear games are easier than Basic Linear games.

Of course, it's best to practice with actual LSAT Logic Games. However, some of you are concerned about running out of Logic Games in your prep (despite the fact that there are over 60 released LSAT PrepTests). Maybe you haven't ordered your LSAT books yet, don't have them with you at work, or maybe you just can't take out your LSAT books with coworkers and bosses watching.

Also, I enjoyed writing last week's Logic Game and reading your responses, so I've decided to write a Logic Game based on each of the major types of Logic Games. I'll post them on the blog over the next few weeks, along with more LSAT tips, of course.

Check out my categorization of LSAT Logic Games for info on the various types of Logic Games.

You can now see a complete explanation for the below Logic Game's setup.

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Here's this week's Logic Game:

Eight monkeys-A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H-ride a spaceship to Mars together. Each monkey sits in a different one of the spaceship's eight seats. The seats are in consecutive rows that are numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4 from front to back. Each row contains exactly two seats: a seat with a window facing the sun and a seat with a window facing the moon. The following conditions must apply:
E's window never faces the sun, but D's window always faces the sun.
F sits in row 1 or row 2, but neither row 2 nor row 3 can contain D.
B sits in the row immediately behind D's row.
If B's window faces the sun, then A's window faces the moon.
If D sits in row 1, then G sits in row 4.
If B sits in the same row as F, then G's window faces the sun.
1. Which one of the following could be an acceptable assignment of monkeys to seats, beginning with the seats in each row whose windows face the sun?

(A) Row 1: D, C; Row 2: B, F; Row 3: A, E; Row 4: G, H
(B) Row 1: D, E; Row 2: F, B; Row 3: H, A; Row 4: C, G
(C) Row 1: D, F; Row 2: B, A; Row 3: G, E; Row 4: H, C
(D) Row 1: D, H; Row 2: C, B; Row 3: F, A; Row 4: G, E
(E) Row 1: D, F; Row 2: B, E; Row 3: C, A; Row 4: H, G


2. If E sits in row 2, which one of the following is a complete and accurate list of monkeys, any one of whom could be among the monkeys who sit in row 4?

(A) A, G, H
(B) C, G, H
(C) A, C, F, H
(D) A, C, G, H
(E) A, C, F, G, H


3. If F's window faces the moon, but F does not sit in row 1, which one of the following CANNOT be true?

(A) A's window also faces the moon.
(B) C's window also faces the moon.
(C) E's window also faces the moon.
(D) G's window also faces the moon.
(E) H's window also faces the moon.


4. If G and H sit in the same row, each of the following could be an accurate list of monkeys whose windows face the moon from row 1 through row 4 EXCEPT:

(A) F, A, E, G
(B) F, E, A, G
(C) E, F, A, H
(D) F, B, E, H
(E) F, C, E, G


5. If A's window faces the sun, but F does not sit in row 1, which one of the following could be true?

(A) C and G sit in the same row.
(B) A and B sit in the same row.
(C) A and F sit in the same row.
(D) E's window faces in the same direction as G's.
(E) G's window faces in the same direction as B's.


6. If B's window and F's window face in opposite directions, which one of the following could be true?

(A) G's window faces the moon, and F sits in row 2.
(B) F sits in row 2's seat with a window facing the moon, and A's window faces the sun.
(C) D and F sit in the same row.
(D) G sits directly in front of H.
(E) F sits in row 2, and E's window faces the same direction as G's window.


The text below contains the answers to the above Logic Game.

1. E
2. D
3. D
4 .E
5. A
6. C

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You can now see a complete explanation for this Logic Game's setup.

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If you want to try an LSAC-written Logic Game that's similar to the one above, check out:

PrepTest 36, Section 4, Game 3 (page 280 in The Next 10 Actual, Official LSAT PrepTests).

I included that game in the "10 Hardest Logic Games" blog post.




46 comments:

  1. Matthew from Tampa,FlAugust 7, 2009 at 9:37 AM

    Well, it only took me 18 minutes, but at least I got them all right (and even then I did pretty much just flip a coin between (C) and (D) for #6 (anybody care to explain why G can't sit directly in front of H?)).

    I do hate when LG uses words like 'behind' on complex-ish setups. It took me a little bit to realize that 'row behind' meant that B couldn't just sit facing the moon in row #1, and that was the big clue for determining where D, G, and B would go.

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  2. Matthew--

    G can't ever sit in front of H because G is always in row 4. D must be in row 1 because of the combination of rule 2 and 3.

    Rule 2 says D can only be in 1 or 4, but then rule 3 says B must be immediately behind D...so D can't ever go in row 4.

    Rule 5 says if D is in 1 (which we now know it is), then G is in row 4. Your setup should look like this:

    (sun on left and moon on right)

    Row 1: D ?
    Row 2: /B or B/
    Row 3: ? ?
    Row 4: /G or G/

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  3. Matthew from Tampa,FlAugust 7, 2009 at 11:44 AM

    Ah, I think my inability to distinguish exactly what "directly in front of" means reared its head. I kept thinking that a setup where row four was G in the sun seat and H in the moon seat correlated to G being 'in front of' H, although reading it over there doesn't appear to be any sequentiality inside of specific rows, rendering that interpretation void. Pretty sneaky, sis.

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  4. ah man, this game reminds me too much of the windows and asile seats on a bus game (which for me has been the hardest game I've encountered so far). I'll attempt this when I get up the nerve

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  5. ok so i got these all right...except question 1. I think I am missing something retardly simple, how do you differentiate between ABE ?

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  6. Matthew from Tampa,FlAugust 8, 2009 at 9:53 AM

    Anon- (A) has monkey B in the sun seat and monkey A in another sun seat, when, according to rule 4, A should be in a moon seat.
    (B) has monkeys B&F sitting in the same row, which means that G should be facing the sun, but it's in the moon seat.
    (E) has nothing wrong.

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  7. 10 min and i only scored 4/6. number 4 took way too much time.

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  8. how do you know which side is the moon and sun though? they never say....it could be both right or left.

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  9. Matthew from Tampa,FlAugust 8, 2009 at 5:31 PM

    Anon, the question says that the answers are presented "beginning with the seats in each row whose windows face the sun", meaning each of the rows is presented sun first. I do agree that the diagram for this game was entrenched on the confusing side of the continuum (hence my initial reading that the seats were ordered sequentially within the rows, when in fact the rows placement was most important for sequencing). Does anyone know if LSAC has a certain criteria for determining when to give default diagrams or whether to let people fend for themselves?

    farhad, totally agreed on #4. By the time I got finished with it my scrap sheet for working out the problem was just covered in gibberish.

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  10. Wow! Tough one, Steve. I got 'em all right. Took 18min though. Not good. thanks for the post.

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  11. I would have nailed this in short time, for some reason I COMPLETELY glanced over the "if B's window faces sun, then A's window faces moon" condition - had I not forgotten to diagram that, I would have noticed the simple solution to #4 is to just look for the one where B and A are not in the list - it means the logic has been violated. That's E.

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  12. Yeap, for #4 the best approach is to try to find the one that does not have A or B (or the one that has both A&B, not the case in this question), as they both always have to be on opposing windows.

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  13. The conditional statement in Rule 5, at first makes the critical combination of Rules 2,3 and the resulting inferences seem optional. Did anyone encounter this?

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  14. Well since I did not combine rules 2 and 3 and got 4/6 right it appears that it can be considered optional if you are looking to get them mostly right. Anyways, I misread rule 2, I better pay attention to the clues more and how they are combined!

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  15. Gah, tough game. My set-up was backwards, I had the sun on the right. Psychologically, it was a tough thing to get past.
    That has happened to me before, especially on advanced linear games - I guess I should start peeking at the layout in the acceptability question so as to determine how best to set up the diagram. Something little like that can throw you.
    I also can't believe how much tougher a logic game is when it is on a screen as opposed to a piece of paper. It just feels so much different...it would be a shame to switch to a computer-based test.

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  16. This game wasn't horribly bad, but it took me a while to make the right inferences. I had to sketch out a couple of examples for #4 before I made the A/B inference. Which makes sense since you can actually take the converse of that statement since there's only one other place for each monkey to be!

    That being said, I think I'm finally starting to enjoy the logic games, even if they are still taking 10+ minutes.

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  17. I was confused by the answer to #2. If E sits in row 2 I took that to mean the following: E always sits moon side so B must sit in row 2 sun side, forcing F to row 1 moon side because D always sits in row 1 sun side. Therefore, with B and F not sitting in the same row, G sits in row 4 moon side. The only remaining seat on the moon side is in row 3 and A must sit there because he can not sit on the same side as B. So the correct answer should be (b) as monkeys A, B, D, E, and F all have seats in rows 1-3, leaving G in row 4 moon side with only C and H to possibly sit next to him.

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  18. Is their a link to the explanations for this game?

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  19. I completely blew this one up and could not complete. Is there a solution diagram?

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  20. Really would love to see a walk-though as well got 50% ok but not great. Try to get every thing in the time

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  21. Missed one. Can anyone explain why the answer to 3 is D and not E? Also, why is the answer to 6 C and not E?

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  22. Q 3 leaves only row 2 moon for F, leaving B on the sun side row 2 (the row behind D which can only be in row 1). And since B and F are in the same row in this scenario, G has to be on the sun side.

    Hence

    (D) G's window also faces the moon.

    CANNOT be true.

    Q 6, F and B are always different sides.
    could be true:

    (C) D and F sit in the same row > F can be in row 1 or 2, and D is always in 1 facing the sun, hence it could be true that F is in 1 moon, B in 2 sun, then F and D are in the same row.

    (E) F sits in row 2, and E's window faces the same direction as G's window. > If F is in row 2, the BF are in the same row and hence G has to be facing the sun. The rules state that E can never face the sun. So they cannot face the same side.

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  23. i agree with andy k re: Q#2, and can't see how A can qualify for the 4th position as would be required to legitimize "correct" answer D.

    Steve! We need you man! Are you there?

    Once again, great blog, but definitely seems lacking in the explanation department.

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  24. RE: Andy K

    When B and F are in the same row, G must face the sun. That does not mean that if B and F are in different rows, G must face the moon. The counterpositive of that rule is that if G is facing the moon, then B and F are not in the same row.

    G can either be facing the moon or the sun if B and F aren't in the same row. So, A, C, H, or G could in row 4.

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  25. Ivan (3/31/10): actually both A and B could be in moon seats in #4. We know that at least one must be in a moon seat, but nothing says they can't both be.

    Steve - great blog, love all the practice tests. Thanks so much for assembling this!

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  26. Wow this took me 24 minutes and I still got the last one wrong. The last ones always take me a long time (I guess as they're supposed to). A good mental workout though!

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  27. I don't understand how the right answer to #5 is A. Why isn't it C? The contrapositive of rule 4 means that if A faces the sun, B has to face the moon. B has to be in row 2, and F is also forced into row 2 based on the local rule. Since F and B are in the same row, G is facing the sun. From all of that, we have the sun chairs from 1-4: DFAG. There's no way C and G can be in the same row.

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  28. I agree with Thea. I don't understand Q5. Steve, I know this is an old post, but could you clarify if you have a chance? Based on your explanation, I was able to understand all of the other questions and their answer choices, but Q5 makes no sense to me.

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    1. Amy,

      (when I refer to rows, the first letter is facing the sun and the other is facing the moon, just to have clarity in that regard)

      #5 asks us to find an answer that COULD, not MUST be true--we need to find ONE INSTANCE where an answer choice COULD work to make it correct--meaning you could have other arrangements.
      If F is NOT in row 2, rule 2 tells us F is in 1. (We also know that D is in 1--that's another deduction).
      What rule do we have concerning A? We know that if B faces sun ---> A faces moon. Which also means that when A faces sun ---> B faces moon. So B is in the moon-ward facing seat of row 2 because the question puts A facing the sun. So, we have--row 1 DF; row 2 __ B. Other than G being restricted to row 4, there are no other restrictions on our entities.
      Try putting G and C together on row 4, fill in the other entities and you should see that you have legitimate seating. Hope this helps.

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    2. 5. If A's window faces the sun, but F does not sit in row 1, which one of the following could be true?

      The question says F does NOT sit in row 1.
      I narrowed the answers down to A and E, but I can't seem to understand why E is incorrect

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    3. oh shoot.. NEVERMIND!

      Delete
  29. This was my 2nd practice logic game I have ever done. Took me an hour, while working in between (so maybe about 30 mins). At least I was able to get them all right? Looks like its time for me to crack open the books and actually learn the tricks to this before I attempt to take the LSATS; all the time on one logic question will not cut it! Thanks for posting these, nice to be able to do this at work without looking like I'm studying!

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  31. You describe the "Bus Seats" game in 'next 10 actual' as being "very difficult" in the study schedule, so I was pretty intimidated to do that question. With the exception of a couple of fluffs in my initial diagramming (that your vid explanation helped clarify), I actually breezed through the answers and thoroughly enjoyed the game.

    This brought me to this game and, after learning to correct my early diagramming mistake, I completed this game even faster (still far longer than the 8 min 45 sec), but even so. I really enjoyed these games and my confidence has been boosted because I was able to attack 2 of the more difficult types.

    Thanks for this Steve!!

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  32. Thanks for the question. was tough but I enjoyed doing it. I liked the sun and moon element because it really was irrelevant which was on which side. I'm amazed at your ability to create these questions. I imagine there is some kind of mathematical formula.

    I got the answers all right but took me at least 23 minutes...

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  33. This game is similar to the aisle/window game but much harder simply because of the set up. Steve, you are brilliant tutor but the set up especially of the answers were confusing at best. I found myself having to keep track of sun and moon aisles and basically highlighting everything just my eyes don't get confused. While this is good practice I don't think it's indicative of a real logic game simply because I think you took an already very hard game and made it even more confusing by making variables even more vague. While this can be done in 24 minutes as previous posters have said...no logic game should require us to use 24 minutes...would have been a better game if written out better

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  34. I had the same issue as Amy and Thea--I keep getting C, no matter how many times I go over it! If A's window faces the sun, B's window must face the moon, taking the contrapositive of Bs-->Am. B is always in 2, so it goes in 2m. If F does not sit in row 1, it must sit in row 2, and since B is in 2m, F must be in 2s. Since F and B are in the same row, G's window must face the sun, and since G is always in 4 it occupies 4s. We already know D occupies 1s, so all the sun windows are filled, 1-4, by D, F, A, and G, respectively. (A takes the only remaining available sun-facing seat.) This is all given by the rules. So how could C and G sit in the same row??

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    1. Your set up is completely correct. You can conclude that the sun seats are DFAG, and that B is in 2m. The question asks us what *could* be true. There's nothing stopping C from being in 4m, so G and C *can* be in the same row. For instance, letting the moon seats be, in order 1-4, EBHC, yields a legal ordering.

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  35. this one took me 14 minutes and only got #5 wrong (now i see why) but the easier/similar bus seats (Test 36 Game 3) took me 24 minutes with all correct...Steve your explanations and guidance have provided me the tools to do very well!

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  36. can anyone explain why E can't be true for number 6? I understand why C could be true, however I am just having a hard time understanding how option E couldn't work too. Am I missing something really obvious here? Please help!

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  37. can anyone please explain how you would diagram #6. I think I am over thinking it and now I am lost

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  38. I honestly had a hard time with this game and only got 3/6 correct. I find myself having a hard time when it comes to the graphing part.

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  39. Did Steve make this game? He has some video about people who feel good about their LG or LR section, I don't remember which one it was. He says if you want to take your prep to the next level try to make your own game. And I felt pretty good about how I do on most LG sections and I heard that and I was like, "Ok, I'll give it a try" and it was the best decision I ever made for improving at LG. Having said that, I got 4/6 in 16mins BUT, what I may have done different than everyone else is I input 3 other LG games prior to starting this with a 35 minute timer, -3, total of -5, 18/23.
    *Disclaimer the 3 games were grouping/linear easy-medium difficulty

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