I normally crush the LG section and I found it really hard. I couldn't get past a few inconsistencies (obviously on my end). But I would like to know just quick responses. Harder, typical, or easier than usual?
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I normally crush the LG section and I found it really hard. I couldn't get past a few inconsistencies (obviously on my end). But I would like to know just quick responses. Harder, typical, or easier than usual?
54 comments
I made two stupid stupid stupid STUPID rookie mistakes and caught them both at the last minute, I didn't have time to brute force to ensure I corrected them, but Im still so mad at myself for making them. I even diagramed them correctly but my mind threw them out the window during the questions. There goes over 3 months of fool proofing.
So weird. I felt exactly the opposite. I feel like RC was very easy. Damn. This is a weird test.
I’d say unless you made a major mistake, sounds like you’ll be fine. I felt like LG on the Feb test was so generous. I had two LG sections and there was only 1 substitution q—unlike Dec. The games were simple in structure. They added twists and tried to switch how elements were referenced. Some of the twists were sneakier than others. Looks to me like you’ll be fine.
I think ppl tried to worry about prerequisites when only 1 was definitely assigned and 2 was a possibility. It didn’t need to be considered(placed) at all in the setup- just noted. I waited for the qs to bring it up. Didn’t worry about creating worlds either, just noted the distribution possibilities. This section definitely punished those who had to nail solved worlds before going into the qs.
I agree. I was using the same approach with the 4th game, although I ended up running out of time. I don't think there were necessarily a ton of inferences that needed to be made upfront.
I had LG - LR - LG - RC - LR so I took an experimental LG and the real.
I thought the experimental LG with the items going to the fairs was incredibly hard... So much freedom of movement that it was hard to make inferences. The first 3 were pretty simple and I got to that last game with over 10 minutes left but the amount of brute forcing necessary left me rushing answers. Of course, I could have just missed a few key pieces of information but I was very happy to find out it was the experimental. It felt like they purposely gave 3 easy ones so they could gauge the difficult level of that last game... Maybe the first 3 were to qualify the basic skill level of the testers so they could get a lot of information on the scale of difficulty of the last game. It's probably not hard for them to make easy games... and it's probably the most important that they have a correctly tuned "hard game" for the game 4 of future LSATs.
As for the real LG section... the first game was surprisingly easy and straightforward. The upper/lower hall didn't have any tricks either and inferences to limit the game board could be made. The crime scene game with the sounds made me pause for a little bit... The setup didn't make it readily apparent how to setup which variables you were gonna use. The wording was much different than usual and I had to re-do the coding of my variables once before I started but a simple second-letter designator on the noises helped clear up confusion and the game was easier to visualize and map from there. I could definitely see how it would throw people off from beginning (as it did to me) and cause problems with recovery if they already felt like they weren't ahead of time.
The last game on the real section about economics with prereqs definitely had a lot more to keep track of! At first it appears as manageable to visualize the moving pieces in your head as the first 3 games but then you add in the prereq (which could move too!) and all the interplay between that and then the possible solutions are not more open-ended but they also go 3+ layers deep! It makes it MUCH harder to eliminate answer choices by making a quick inference or playing out half of a scenario in your head because you can't!!! It takes a lot of time to make 3 inferences per answer choice even if you could work through it in your head. Definitely needed to get to the last game with some time to spare if you wanted to be confident in your answer choices. It makes me think that you really needed to be solid on your basic mechanics for the upper hall/lower hall to power through and then work through the little adversity and get a little creative to not spend too much time on the crime scene game so that you would have the time necessary for the last game which was clearly a big time sink.
I couldn't work through every answer choice on the last game because of the time required so I had to take the strategy of working my way through the answer choices until I got one that worked out, circled it, and moved on without checking the rest of the answer choices. It wasn't 100% confidence like I would want, but I figured in the situation that it was my best bet for getting a somewhat good answer choice for the remaining problems.
The LG section is usually my "ace-in-the-hole". I struggle with the other sections and rely on the LG section to always get me (20-23) points. I had been taking practice LG sections all week and each time completed the entire section with a couple minutes to spare. Went to bed last night praying that I get a LG as my experimental. So, today comes around and prayers were answered - double games (LG in 1 and then LG in 3). Well...the LSAT gods decided to mess with me. Not sure what happened here today...but but the LG games hit me hard.
Funny because the actual games themselves weren't too hard but I felt like there were little things in there that made them a little difficult for me to diagram...i.e. abbreviated words not being alphabetically sequential, etc... I did manage to complete the 1st section but felt like I rushed through 2 of the games which typically leads to me making careless mistakes.
When I turned to section 3 and saw that it was a LG, I let out a sigh of relief because I then assumed that the first section was probably the experimental. So, now it was time for me to rock this one. Well...that didn't happen! Again, not sure what was in the air, but AGAIN, I had trouble with this LG! It's like my brain was still rattled from the LG section I took in section 1 that I couldn't fully get my composure back and get back into game mode. So, I only managed to get through 3 games in this section before hearing the 5 minute call - forcing me to literally just guess on most of the answers of the 4th game (something I never do). Turns out (thanks to you guys) that the section 3 (for me) was the experimental.
But still...sitting here now trying to figure out how the LG got me today....not once...but twice!
@jhaldy10325 said:
Hey guys, please don't discuss specifics like game types. This is a violation of 7Sage and LSAC TOS.
Are we allowed to ask if there are any similar logic games in past LSAT’s? I want to practice those as I found today’s quite difficult and want to be prepared for June.
@harmmanb719 said:
@shanebek855 said:
2. But in did poorly in the real one and got killed on the experimental
How do you know which is the experimental?
The one with prerequisites n robbery (man woman siren ) is real.
Bc those of us with only 1 lg had that one
I dunno. I’ve always been terrible at LG, but recently it’s become my best section. I found the games to be simple, but superficially difficult. Definitely weird rules I haven’t seen before. That said, I either did really well or messed up big time. I kept checking back at the rules to make sure bc it just all felt too simple on some games. Anyway, I normally finish games with a few minutes to spare, but I had to guess on one question today.
I agree with you completely! Normally, LG is my best section but today it was by far my worst. I have been seeing some posts where people said they found the RC to be exceptionally hard, I had two RC and I found them to be easier than usual actually. In fact, I was even able to finish all the questions though I definitely rushed towards the end on them. My LG was also first so I slightly had nerves but I did genuinely find the games to be harder as well. Here's hoping I didn't do as bad as I thought.
I felt super uncertain about the games for this test too. These games were super untraditional. I felt like all of them had a twist one way or another. Is this maybe what the LSAT is heading towards? Either way, I felt uneasy so I totally know what you mean!
Wow- I butchered this test! I went into it not taking a full test and also did not time myself at all! I spent a bunch of time doing questions and watched a ton of videos that explained the types of questions to expect and how to approach them- specifically LR. Games I spent the least amount of time and RC I kind of just thought I would be ok regardless. Wow was I wrong! Came home signed up immediately with 7 sage. Looking forward to improving in each section during the lead up to December! $180.00 lesson lol. Glad I went through that-learned a bunch!
There was 23 q's on the LG, a 27 RC, and both LRs were 25... for a total of 100 questions. 1 less than the usual 101 but not unheard of.> @williamjchun98 said:
Can we ask how many were on each game in the real LG section? If yes, I hereby ask?
@mcglazo260 said:
Ugh you guys are making me panic. I thought I did well in games (had only the real section) but now I'm not so sure. The woman/man one was hard upon first glance but then it became a basic game type with a twist (will not say which type to avoid violating lsac rules) after I organized it in my head. The upper and lower one I just kind of split the board game into different possibilities and kept it organized in my head. I barely remember the first since that was long-ish by pretty basic. The last one I only inferred that one class had a prerequisite and just remembered that as I went through the questions and diag- was in a time crunch for that too. How screwed am I?
I’d say unless you made a major mistake, sounds like you’ll be fine. I felt like LG on the Feb test was so generous. I had two LG sections and there was only 1 substitution q—unlike Dec. The games were simple in structure. They added twists and tried to switch how elements were referenced. Some of the twists were sneakier than others. Looks to me like you’ll be fine.
I think ppl tried to worry about prerequisites when only 1 was definitely assigned and 2 was a possibility. It didn’t need to be considered(placed) at all in the setup- just noted. I waited for the qs to bring it up. Didn’t worry about creating worlds either, just noted the distribution possibilities. This section definitely punished those who had to nail solved worlds before going into the qs.
@jchamberlainf946 thanks for tagging! It's been updated now.
Its just SOOOOOOO frustrating. One simple rule may have cost me the entire game.
Yep, thats the one!
@harmmanb719 said:
@paulwpederson403 said:
I made two stupid stupid stupid STUPID rookie mistakes and caught them both at the last minute, I didn't have time to brute force to ensure I corrected them, but Im still so mad at myself for making them. I even diagramed them correctly but my mind threw them out the window during the questions. There goes over 3 months of fool proofing.
Did you mess up on the man woman game? I also mis-diagrammed on that one and I had no time to fix anything after I caught it.
@jenniferepeltier312 said:
@harmmanb719 said:
@shanebek855 said:
2. But in did poorly in the real one and got killed on the experimental
How do you know which is the experimental?
The one with prerequisites n robbery (man woman siren ) is real.
Bc those of us with only 1 lg had that one
Thank you so much. I would have gone crazy if I had to wait three weeks to figure that out.
@paulwpederson403 said:
I made two stupid stupid stupid STUPID rookie mistakes and caught them both at the last minute, I didn't have time to brute force to ensure I corrected them, but Im still so mad at myself for making them. I even diagramed them correctly but my mind threw them out the window during the questions. There goes over 3 months of fool proofing.
Just about the same here. I noticed something last minute and was erasing like crazy. All that practice. Bracing for June's test. But I am taking a much needed break from studying until the score comes out.
But in did poorly in the real one and got killed on the experimental
RC beetles was HARD. I was stuck so many times between two answers and I thought 1 LG game was hard. ugh this test
Hey guys, please don't discuss specifics like game types. This is a violation of 7Sage and LSAC TOS.
Yea same Feb2018Taker! I found the reading comp on this one easy and the games kind of difficult at first. I didn't diagram entirely though I should have for some of them... It was a 1L seq w/ twist, 2L seq, 1L basic seq (unknown man/woman), and then true grouping at the end.
Didn't find the LR's too difficult either. Also I had an lr experiemental.
I’d say unless you made a major mistake, sounds like you’ll be fine. I felt like LG on the Feb test was so generous. I had two LG sections and there was only 1 substitution q—unlike Dec. The games were simple in structure. They added twists and tried to switch how elements were referenced. Some of the twists were sneakier than others. Looks to me like you’ll be fine.
I think ppl tried to worry about prerequisites when only 1 was definitely assigned and 2 was a possibility. It didn’t need to be considered(placed) at all in the setup- just noted. I waited for the qs to bring it up. Didn’t worry about creating worlds either, just noted the distribution possibilities. This section definitely punished those who had to nail solved worlds before going into the qs.
I think @nessak130467 said it the best. I did the same exact thing as mentioned and have to say it sounds like a lot of people were caught off-guard with sneaky references and setting up on that last game. I, in particular, ran out of time but I was thankful to have finished all the games; ultimately guessed on the very last question.
But, I must say, I can tell the LSAT writers were relying a bit more on their creativity on this test. Or, maybe it's just me.
@adamarianhuber872 said:
What is "fool-proofing"?
And yes, the "real" LG section wasn't necessarily harder, but there was something about the first two games that took a little longer than I would have liked, the third game was different enough to trip me up, and the fourth game was standard, but again, just a little bit harder than normal to make the entire section a little too rough for my liking.
I depended on that 0 to -1 LG score to make my target score, but I'm pretty sure I hit between 4-7 points under my target raw because LSAC decided to kick me in the teeth. Who's going to Puerto Rico with me!
There are many who will say that the strength of the logic games has only increased since the use of the substitution rule change started showing up, but I think that the general difficulty level of the combined 4 games is higher in the more recent PT's. I would imagine there are many people drilling -0 or -1 on PT's #1-40's or 50 that would show a score decrease on #70-83.
What is "fool-proofing"?
And yes, the "real" LG section wasn't necessarily harder, but there was something about the first two games that took a little longer than I would have liked, the third game was different enough to trip me up, and the fourth game was standard, but again, just a little bit harder than normal to make the entire section a little too rough for my liking.
I depended on that 0 to -1 LG score to make my target score, but I'm pretty sure I hit between 4-7 points under my target raw because LSAC decided to kick me in the teeth. Who's going to Puerto Rico with me!