Q9

[MichaelH802]

Struggling through how to get to the correct answer on question 9 on PT 88 in Section 1.

[Laura Damone]

This is a brutal one!

Question: did you frame this game? I think that's really the key to this question. If you frame around slot 7, the frame with H7 fills out nicely, but the one with J7 is pretty blank. For that reason, a lot of folks don't frame at the outset, which is fine. But if you don't frame at the outset, you'll find yourself using question specific frames a good bit, including on q9, bc putting s3 yields basically nothing. Whenever my new condition yields nothing, I try question specific frames.

So here, I put s3, come up emptyhanded, so split into 2 frames: s3/H7 and s3/J7. H7 looks easier to fill out because M has to go 6, so I start there. S3 means P and J can't go in 2 and 4. Since 6 and 7 are full, P and J must split over 1 and 5. That leaves G and N to split over 2 and 4.

Before trying to fill in the second frame, I take a look at the answers, hoping I don't have to fill it in. And voila: only C is a must be true in my frame, so that's the correct answer. All the others are maybes, so I can eliminate them.

And if you're curious about framing at the outset, here's how the H7 frame shakes out. M has to be 6. That leaves us with the P S and J trifecta that all need to be separated from each other. The only way to do that is to split them across 1, 3, and 5. That leaves G and N to split across 2 and 4.

Hope this helps!