LSAT Practice Test 31, Section 1, #7-13

Hey Eddie - I'll make a few comments about that game that I think (hope) will make you not only feel a little better, but will also help you understand it a bit more clearly.

First, man, that CD game is arguably the hardest LSAT game ever, and I think certainly deserves its place high up on most people's Top Ten lists when they try to quantify the most difficult games of the modern era. So don't beat yourself up too much if you were somewhat overwhelmed. EVERYONE finds him/herself tested by this particular game.

Secondly, if you struggle even a little with conditional reasoning this game will crush you. It's absolutely filled with opportunities to reverse the relationships, or confuse something being absent with it being present (and vice versa). Will you see conditional reasoning tested to this extent on test day? Probably not. But you will see it! So get comfortable with it, make it completely effortless, and this game is a good litmus test for just how good you really are at it.

Finally, ten variables is obviously a lot to deal with (or 9 since new opera is out), so I tried whenever possible to look at CDs as a collective group instead of always specifying new/used. For instance, the last rule where any type of rap means no soul can really be thought of as R --> Not S, and S --> Not R. To me that reduces some of the complexity, and allows for some useful inferences: (for instance) if new pop is on sale then ALL pop is on sale, meaning ALL soul, meaning No rap. This answers question 8 in a sense, as no new soul means NOT ALL pop, meaning NOT NEW POP since we're told used pop is always on sale (answer E). That inference also takes care of the really time-consuming question 10: answer (D) if no jazz is on sale, then new pop (and used pop, so ALL pop) is on sale, so ALL soul is on sale, and there ya go!

In fact, try it for question 11: no jazz --> all pop --> all soul --> no rap. That means B-E are all true, and A is correct.

For 12 you know that new pop cannot be on sale, so at least one type of jazz must be (rule 4). Since it can’t be new jazz, it must be used jazz, and (A) is correct.

And for 13 if 4 of the 5 used CDs are on sale, then the one not on sale must be either Rap or Soul (last rule; can’t be both). Meaning used Jazz, Pop, and Opera are on sale, and 1 of used Rap or Soul also is on sale. That gives answer (C) as the only possibility.

So tough game? YES! But still doable if you understand conditional reasoning well and are able to look at the CD sets less as individual used vs new and more all vs none (both types vs no types). I hope that helps!