I updated the document linked in my last post — the new version has the game completely diagrammed out.  If you’re new to conditional reasoning (or even to logic games in general) this might help you out.

Here’s the file.

As usual, I’m glad to answer any questions at john@nextsteptestprep.com

I’m giving a presentation to the Pre-Law Society at the Illinois Institute of technology today.  The topic is formal logic in the LSAT, a topic that a lot of students have trouble with.  I’m posting a short presentation — all the content won’t be immediately clear without the benefit of the interactive presentation, but there is a game and a logical reasoning question from the free October 1996 Preptest.  Those wanting to practice their conditional statements and contrapositives should take a look.  I’ll post explanations for these two problems this weekend – stay tuned!

Here’s the link.

I’ve seen books that ask you to make a master sketch (the sketch that lays out the basic rules as well as your deductions, and which you reproduce while working through questions) at the top of the page, and those that advice making it at the bottom.

I don’t think anyone should lose sleep over this distinction, but I have always put mine at the bottom.  I like using the largest space for my master diagram because I’ll have a lot of writing working through my deductions.  It doesn’t always fit at the top, especially if the right diagram is vertical.

The top space can then be used for “local” questions (meaning diagrams you need to draw to work through a specific question).  Just make sure to label the new diagram with the number of the question it refers to.