How to Solve Logic Grid Puzzles
Logic grids are deduction puzzles that depend heavily on reading comprehension. You will be given a scenario that contains several groupings od names, traits, objects, places, times, etc. There will be a list of clues to help you figure out which unique part of each group goes with the single part of each other group until everything is matched up. Some advanced puzzles may bend the norms a bit on how things are matched up, but for most puzzles, this is how they work. Usually, a grid similar to the one here will already be drawn out for you, so you can work out the solution.
Playground Pals
Most afternoons, the same four children could be seen playing together on the same playground. Each has a different piece of equipment they like to use, and each brings a different toy with them. From the clues below, can you match each child up with their favorite toy and playground equipment?
- The child with a ball asked Kiera to hold it for them while they used the slide.
- The child on the see-saw wished they had a teddy bear to ride with.
- Lenora gets motion-sick, so she avoided certain equipment.
- Clovis was amazing at coming up with rhymes while playing with his toy.
- Most of the times he went down the slide, Peyton ran to get right back in line.
- The child with the car liked to roll it along the wall climb.
For most puzzles, it’s best to solve the straightforward clues first, then look at the ones with more complex sentence structure. So we’ll start with clue #2: “The child with on the see-saw wished they had a teddy bear to ride with.”
This tells us that the child on the see-saw is NOT the child with the teddy bear. On the grid, that means we can mark out the cell where “teddy bear” and “see-saw” intersect.
Next, we’ll jump ahead to clue #5: “Most of the times he went down the slide, Peyton ran to get right back in line.“
Now we know that Peyton was the child using the slide. We mark that cell with a circle.
Once we do that, it is important that we mark the other cells in that row and column with an X, so we know they aren’t possible for the other options. Note that we keep these X’s within the same section as the pairing we just solved.
One more easy clue is #6: “The child with the car liked to roll it along the wall climb.”
So we can match up car and wall climb. Again, we add the circle and X’s into the grid.
A crucial part of solving logic grids is to check across sections as you find solutions. Here, I’ve highlighted the row for Peyton and the slide, and the column for the car and wall climb.
Because we know Peyton wasn’t on the wall climb, we can be sure Peyton didn’t have the toy car.
Clues can sometimes depend on the reader’s knowledge. Let’s examine clue #3: “Lenora gets motion-sick, so she avoided certain equipment.”
In this case, we’re expected to know that motion sickness is most often caused by rapid or swaying movement. That most likely eliminates the slide, see-saw, and swings, leaving Lenore on the wall climb.
And because of the last clue we solved, we know she must also have the toy car.
Now we can jump back to clue #1: The child with a ball asked Kiera to hold it for them while they used the slide.”
If we had solved this clue at the beginning of the puzzle, it would have told us that the child with the ball was the one using the slide, and that Kiera was neither using the ball nor the slide.
But thanks to earlier solved clues, we already know that Peyton is the child with the using the slide, so we can just fill out that he also has the ball, and that the ball is matched to the slide..
Before we move on to the last clue, notice that because of eliminations from earlier solved clues, there is only one possibility left for the favored equipment of the child who owns the teddy bear.
Not all solved cells come from the clues directly, so check your puzzle occasionally for these last space solutions. Let’s fill out that the teddy bear matches with the swings, and it also tells us that the child with the jump rope used the see-saw.
Our final clue is #4: “Clovis was amazing at coming up with rhymes while playing with his toy.“
This one again depends on reader knowledge. There aren’t common rhyming games for teddy bears or cars, but there are for jump rope and some ball games. Since ball is already eliminated, that tells us Clovis has the jump rope.
Then, by process of elimination and cross-referencing sections, we can fill in the rest of the puzzle.
To save space in the book, the grid will usually not be reprinted in the solution section. Typically, you will only see the correct matches, something like:
- Peyton had the ball and played on the slide.
- Lenora had the car and used the wall climb.
- Kiera and her teddy bear used the swing.
- Clovis played jump rope and went on the see-saw.
