by FlaneurR675 Sat Sep 30, 2017 12:37 am
1. Seven elements, GHJKLMO, will be assigned to eight slots (2-1-1-1-1-1-1)
2. The slots are divided into four weeks, with two slots per week, and the order of elements in the same week won't matter
3. If J is advertised, H is advertised in the preceding week; if H is not advertised in a week preceding J, J isn't advertised; the inference here is that H can go anywhere but J can only go to weeks 2, 3, and 4
4. Product advertised twice must be advertised in week 4 but not week 3; the twice-advertised product will be assigned to 1+4 OR 2+4 only
5. If G is advertised, then J or O is also advertised with G; in a week without J or O, G is not advertised; this means G cannot be advertised twice
6. K is advertised during one of the first two weeks; this doesn't rule out K being advertised once more in week 4
7. O is fixed at week 3; this means O is advertised only once as per rule 4
In all games, we need to combine each given rule to make inferences. Here, rule 4 is the rule that applies most generally and can be combined to rules 3, 5, 6 and 7. I have already done that for rules 5 to 7. As for rule 3, we can now infer that, because of rule 4, J cannot appear twice but H can. From the rules we know that G, J and O definitely cannot appear twice.
Speaking of combining rules, we need to focus on linkages between J, O and G as they appear multiple times across the rules. H and J is a block across two continuous weeks, and we can hypothesize situations when HJ appear. There are actually few possibility as to where the HJ block can appear: in week 1-2 they can appear as a block, but this is not the case in week 2-3 and 3-4, and we can fix HJ in weeks 1-2 only. This is because if J is in week 3, that means G cannot appear anywhere else due to rule 5 and our knowledge that none of them can appear twice. Also, if J is in week 4, that means G must appear with J in that week, but in that case rule 4 is breached. With HJO fixed in the first three weeks, we can also see that G can only appear in week 2 or 3, due to rule 5. With that in mind we can begin attacking the questions.
This is the most difficult game in the test, and there are multiple layers of inferences to be made before you can draw a meaningful diagram. The lesson here is that you should save time on easier games, so that you have at least ten minutes to deal with a game like this one. Before starting your last game, even if you have more time left than you usually do after finishing three games, you should never be mentally complacent about your situation.