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June 2007, Game 3, Question 13

Transcript

After completing your solution questions, you should move on to your local questions, the ones that begin with if. So we have one here. If Freedom makes its voyage to Trinidad in week five, which of the following could be true? So it's a could be true local question as well.

Most local questions require us to make a new sketch. So that's what we're gonna do, put your spaces down and then put the T into 5 as the F instructs. Now, this is going to have two immediate effects. First is it's going to block T from spaces 4 and 6, because if there's a T in 5 and 7, you can't have Ts consecutively.

It's also gonna block J from slot 6, because J has to have a G in front of it. So it can't go into slot 6 by itself, there would be a T in front of it. Okay, so now we need to consider where our GJ block is gonna go and that MGM chain, where it's gonna go. Now it's certainly possible to put the GJ block inside that chain, the M inside the GJM.

We have five spaces left to play with in our sketch. We could try to keep that M-G-M chain separate from the GJ block. In other words, put G and J up front, and then follow them up with M-G-M. And that scenario, that would be all five spaces, you'd have GJMGM. So since there's two ways that I can make the block in the chain interact, I'm probably just gonna need to do a sketch for each of them.

So as we just said, one of the ways that this could work out, if we put the GJ block up front, followed up by MGM in the remaining spaces. Now the other way it could work, if we have M followed by a GJ and then at some point later in M, the latest that J could ever go would be third. Because it's not allowed fourth because of a rule. So if we were to put that scenario in play, J would have to go third, G would be right in front of M and M would be forced up with the first space.

And then we would know that we needed another M either in 4 or 6. It can't be both of them. Because you only get two Ms and so if you only get one more M for the back of the sketch there, you would know that either it's an M or G in space 4. And then whichever one you don't use will go into space 6. So there's two major scenarios that we can draw here.

After all that work, the question should get relatively easily. Answer choice A says, Freedom makes a voyage to Trinidad in week one, we'd say, no, it's either M or G. B, Freedom goes to Martinique in week two, no, that GJ block is gonna block space 2. C, Freedom makes a voyage to G in week three. No, it's either has to be a J or an M.

D, Freedom makes a voyage to Martinique in week four, sure. And the scenario that we drew on the left there that could happen since it can happen, it's our answer, because we are looking for what could be true. When you found your answer, you really should stop looking at answer choices. But just for educational purposes, answer choice E says, Freedom goes to Jamaica in week six.

And we knew a long time ago that couldn't happen because if you have a T in 5 and 7, there's no way you can fit a J in between it cuz J always carries a G. So the answer is D.

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