How to Study for Grouping Games
By Blueprint Prep
When you’re doing LSAT test prep, logic games can be one of the hardest sections, but we at Blueprint Prep believe that they also are one of the most learnable. At Blueprint Prep we’ve seen thousands of students go from Sarah Palin to Albert Einstein, in terms of games skills (technically, “skillz”). One type of game that can give students trouble is the grouping game.
Where They Are, not When They Got There
At Blueprint Prep we believe that, while they have lots of varied nuances, at their heart, grouping games are all about putting things into groups (revolutionary, we know). This could show itself in the form of assigning college students to math classes, small children to which dingoes they play with, or racehorses to glue factories. In these games, you care which groups the players go in but not the order in which they go. Pure grouping games involve no ordering whatsoever. We don’t care if War Admiral becomes glue before Fourstardave, but rather what kind of glue. At Blueprint Prep, we’ve found that a lot of students think grouping games are more difficult than ordering games, due in part to the fact that ordering games have a spatial element, making them more intuitive. But not here; groups, not order!
Who’s in the “Other” Group?
At Blueprint Prep, we heavily stress in grouping games to consider the question of who is in the other group. For example:
Six first-graders, Anne-Marie, Billy, Catherine, Dougal, Erasmus, and Fitzcarraldo, will go see one of two movies: Anitchrist or Irreversible. Each child will see exactly one movie, and each movie will be seen by exactly three kids.
We have two groups (Antichrist and Irreversible), each with three “slots,” as we say at Blueprint Prep.
Then comes the rule:
Dougal and Fitzcarraldo cannot see the same movie as one another.
Let’s say you then got the following question:
Which of the following could be the children who see Antichrist?
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(A) Dougal, Fitzcarraldo, and Anne-Marie
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(B) Billy, Erasumus, and Anne-Marie
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(C) Catherine, Anne-Marie, and Dougal
(A) cannot work, because it has Dougal and Fitzcarraldo. But if you’re remembering to think of who is in the other group, then (B) cannot work, because it has neither Dougal nor Fitzcarraldo. If neither of them is seeing Antichrist, then they both are seeing Irreversible, which isn’t allowed. So, we see that (C) is the only possibility. At Blueprint Prep, we always remind you to ask yourself, “Who is in the other group?”
Success in Grouping Games Requires Practice!
At Blueprint Prep, we believe the only way to get better is to practice these again and again. Don’t worry about the order, remember to consider the “other” group, and you’ll be taking the first steps to completely owning grouping games.
