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Hey,

Sorry to hear about your LG struggles... but here are my thoughts:

I think if you have full-proofed LG games from 30-50s, then from the 70-80 series -0 to -2 range is very attainable. i dont think the games have changed much, but rather how you deduce inferences are a bit more challenging...they require a bit more skill

secondly, an issue i see with a lot of my students who full proof is that they think "merely memorizing inferences in games" are good enough. i think one issue of full proofing that is not addressed is how to be critical of your process and see "what you are doing and when"... what do i mean by this is that every single step you do in LG has to be meaningful. to know whether or not what you are doing is meaningful means you have to be conscious and critical of what moves you are making upfront in order to maximize your control of games...

i am not sure if this helps but i hope you continue to kick ass and DM if you need any LG help!

Thanks so much for the reply. I heavily agree with and appreciate your second emphasis, specifically re. being critical of my process and seeing what I am doing and when. I've just been doing full LG sections the past couple of days, and immediately making notes on each game before I check the answers such as: "could have split another board here and I wouldn't have saved about 3 minutes" and "you got paralyzed here because of the fact that it was a rule driven game, but you didn't need to because there were only 3 rules to pay attention to" etc. And I've found a lot of reward in that sort of approach.

And thank you! I hope so too! We're all in this thing together.

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I would seriously break down the specifics. I was really inconsistent with LR until I made an excel sheet and broke down which questions I was missing A LOT. Turns out I wasn't actually inconsistent, some sections/PT's just had more of the questions I sucked at and less of the ones i was really good at. The solution? Get REALLY good at the ones you suck at. Sometimes it isn't about just doing what your supposed to be doing, it is about getting really into it and breaking everything down so you understand what more you need to do.

Haha - right. Get really good at the parts of the test I suck at. It's just difficult, you know? But the test is so repetitive that we all know deep down we can learn how to get very good and very consistent in our performance. Ah I cannot wait to just take the thing and be done with this part of my life (as much as I have enjoyed the journey).

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@ you welcome.Just learn to trust the instincts that you're building and dont put so much pressure on yourself. I know that is easier said than done, but it sounds like you have a great handle on games, just continue to make that section a masterpiece by putting in the work and trusting that work. Put up another post in a couple weeks with your progress and observations. I'd be happy to comment and give you some feedback on what you find out. Hope all is well.

Thank you so very much. I love this community - best to you in your 'journey' :)

#help this is driving me crazy! How can we make a jump from what is said in the stimulus to "interpretation" in D???? We've changed how we write in history, not how we interpret history.

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I think a person can run a driving safety background check and/or you could check police records by running a CBI report.

Thank you for the info! Will check on this.

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Thank you so much. I listened to a podcast you did for the 7sage soundcloud and I really enjoyed it. This is great advice. Yeah - I literally just got finished a few minutes ago BRing PT 52 - scored 158 on the actual, while pulling another 171 on the BR. The highest I've BR'd was a 175. It's so frustrating. I'm going to print this out and put it by my desk. "The courage to make mistakes is critical to time management" + "...you've got to incorporate some level of aggression into your section strategy to close that gap". Never thought of it that way but you're totally right.

Glad to give back. I would never have made it as far as I did without the help of those that went before me.

Another thing I’d add to the “courage to make mistakes” bit is a reflection on the difference between courage and fearlessness. We often conflate the two, but actually they are strictly non-overlapping. Courage is the taking of an action we are afraid to take but which we believe is right. Fear, then, is a necessary condition for exhibiting courage. Don’t wait for fearlessness: It will never come. If you’re not scaring yourself, then you’re exercising too much caution. Don’t let yourself absent-mindedly default to your comfort zone. Aggression takes focus and constant effort.

Yeah, thank you for giving so much back. I listened to it for the first time over the summer and listened to it again a month or so ago. The overarching message I got from you was that this test is completely learnable, but you have to be devoted to learning it. I started studying just over a year ago and I remembered thinking "I totally have the work ethic that this guy has so I know I'll get there eventually". It's not something you can skate by and pick up in just a few months. You have to change the way your brain processes information and there is no shortcut to that. It's affirming when I retake sections from the first couple of PT's I took and I get questions right that I missed the first time I took it (and, on the contrary, it shows me a lot when I reselect the same wrong AC I did 6 months ago).

"Fear...is a necessary condition for exhibiting courage" right, right. And yeah - when I approach the test I'm in the default mode of exercising too much caution. Thanks for all of this. Time to get working towards embodying courage rather than working towards complete comfort or complete certainty. That just won't happen under the time constraint nor is that the goal.

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I’ve got a different take. You actually need to get comfortable proceeding through the section with less certainty. Read slowly and carefully to make sure you understand, but once you’ve done that, get aggressive. Don’t articulate your reasoning if you’re confident you understand. Go with your intuition in those spots. Working out your reasoning takes an incredible amount of time, and so it should be reserved for harder questions where doing the work is necessary for developing understanding which is not otherwise there. You will occasionally miss questions you answer aggressively on intuitive understanding, but these will be more than made up for by the savings on time. Insisting on 100% certainty on every question is the most destructive instinct there is at your stage of studies. 90% certainty is exponentially faster and almost always just as good. The courage to make mistakes is critical to time management. When I hit about the 80% confidence mark, I move on. You may or may not want to be quite that aggressive, but you’ve got to incorporate some level of aggression into your section strategy to close that gap. Believe in yourself; trust in your abilities. Rely on all the work you’ve put in to hone your skills, and utilize those skills to save time you can apply later in the section to pick up extra points. That’s how the gap closes.

This advice applies specifically to students BRing comfortably above their goal scores. The rest of you keep exercising greater caution as you work your way up!

Thank you so much. I listened to a podcast you did for the 7sage soundcloud and I really enjoyed it. This is great advice. Yeah - I literally just got finished a few minutes ago BRing PT 52 - scored 158 on the actual, while pulling another 171 on the BR. The highest I've BR'd was a 175. It's so frustrating. I'm going to print this out and put it by my desk. "The courage to make mistakes is critical to time management" + "...you've got to incorporate some level of aggression into your section strategy to close that gap". Never thought of it that way but you're totally right.

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Hi @ sorry to hear your frustrations with the logic games section. I know that when I first started studying for this exam, it was the bane of my existence, but that has all changed and I can usually go through a section missing zero, to sometimes upwards of 3, which is usually because I forget a silly rule or something. There may be others who will be able to offer you better advice than me, but honestly it just took me doing games over and over and then looking for deductions on those specific games that took me a little longer. Games for me was just a ton of exposure and repetition on games I was slow on. It just seemed one day I gained an intuitive nature about which rule each question was testing me on and then trusting that nature while drilling. I like what @ said about finding those specific game types that seem to slow you down. Ask yourself what was so difficult about it. Go back and reverse engineer these games and break them down. Set the games aside for a few days and pick them back up. Hope this helps a little and I wish you the best of luck in mastering games.

Thank you for the reply and for the honesty. I'll definitely get much more disciplined with repetition. Ugh this test drives me nuts; I don't know why I keep coming back for more and why I like it so much! It's like a bad relationship- fighting day to day, changing things and working on what isn't working.. but I'm hopeful that I'll be able to "work things out" with the LSAT in the end instead of just getting my heart broken. :-)

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@

For the harder games the test makers are testing your language and inference abilities. However, unlike simple games where a question usually test the first or second inference to be made, the harder games test inference within an inference (if that makes sense). Thus, harder game question are testing you on deep inferences (i.e 4 or 3 inferences in). Best way to practice for it is to grab the harder games and just do the inferences over and over and over and over and over. Trust me that is the only way. Good luck!

Hm... inference within an inference... yeah. That you for the bluntness. I'm definitely going to focus my time there and drawing out most if not all sub game boards for the games.

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The weird ones test our knowledge of inferences and reading through tricky wording. Remember that super hard dinosaur game, I think it was somewhere in the 50s? You can brute force your way through it but it took like 15 minutes, but if you made a specific inference it was a 9 minute problem set.

We just have to do the work up front and that all depends how you want to use your time. I prefer to write out %90-%100 of all my game boards. That extra minute of writing it all out, cuts my time significantly when I'm doing questions. For example, there is a basic sequence game but it's a curve ball because of the setup. It's the stones and mulch with the dump truck having to be cleaned. Brute force your way through it first. Then on your second go around spend the time to draw out ALL the scenarios. See if that helps you make a difference.

If you have trouble making inferences, treat it like the puzzle game Rush Hour, where you are stuck in a traffic jam and you have to move other cars out of the way in a certain pattern to be free. All of the game pieces have certain levels of restrictions. I could get in to more detail, but it's gonna be a wall of text, so if you want holla at me.

YES I actually just re visited that game a couple of weeks ago! You had to have two of the toys whatever the maroon color was and in, a red one had to be in, leaving two extra spaces in the in group, and two having to be out. Two of the toys could be in but had to be a certain color if they were blah blah... so hard. Funny that you'd mention that game. It was a ridiculous one for sure.

Yeah, I just finished pt 74 where I completely bombed the last two games, and after watching JY and how he spent so much time up front illustrating all the game boards... a light lit up for me. It's like, you can't brute force your way through difficult games without inaccuracy and spending like 15 minutes. I never really understood that until now, and I've been studying for a while. Honestly, I think I got too prideful, and thought that spending multiple minutes up front was a waste of time and that if I was smart enough/proficient enough in logic, I could just automatically make inferences as I worked through the questions. Not the case at all.. again, ironic you'd mention that you prefer to write out 90-100% of your games board, as just today I had that epiphany.

I guess the fear is: splitting when splitting isn't necessary and actually harms my games section by eating away too much time. Some games really are better approached by just going through questions, and I don't think I've had enough ACTUAL confidence in my LG skills to know when to or when not to split.

Love the rush hour analogy. I'll pm you; seems like you have a great approach to this test in general.

I did a section of LG and read through an LR section the day before my test, I recommend that!

Ah I can't even explain the emotion I have right now from completing the real thing! First of all I just want all of us to be communally celebrating regardless of any difficulties that came up. We completed the real test!

RC was freaking rough, man. I am having so many doubts regarding it that are making me almost want to cancel (I'm too hard-headed to actually do that though, LOL). LR and LG went great which is even more infuriating (why can't I perform well on ALL 3 sections?!?!). its just the RC that left me with genuine puzzlement until the last passage. Would love some encouragement even if it's feigned, good luck everyone and remember you're not alone in the painful 2 week wait for score releases!!

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Are you missing a specific game type or is it just the difficult level that you struggle with? If the latter, I would try to focus your fool proofing on some of the hardest games out there like game #3 from PT 88 and game #2 from PT 31.

Yeah its the latter. I breeze through the simple routine sequencing, grouping, and in/out games. It's always those weird ones, which is frustrating, because they're testing the exact same concepts, just not in the super cookie-cutter form.

If I were in your shoes I would be doing the basic translation drills as well re-doing old LR sections and LG sections. You have such little time that nothing you do is going to substantially change your abilities, but you can maintain the proficiency you have right now by doing Cassidy's BTDs and building confidence by re-doing sections you've already seen.

@ thank you for all of this! That's a helpful way of putting it - "if you're still doubting yourself you haven't really mastered it yet..."

Also, re. taking a break for two weeks - isn't that interesting how taking a break results in an increase in score? I feel like doing that will increase my score and consistency (as it has in the past). I almost want to space out my PT's by 2 weeks instead of completing one every week based on that phenomenon. I'm just afraid of losing proficiency with the test if I take breaks from PT's like that.

What specific question/PT is this?

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Omg ok so I was having the EXACT same problem as you

I was also BRing in the 170s and stuck in mid/high 150s

I did the exact same thing as you in the LR

I think you should go back to old sections before doing new sections (they are like “new” tests. Since I’m sure you forgot most if not all of some of your oldest tests) and practice timing

What is timing? For me it is:

Choosing and moving before question 15

POE unless I feel 1000000% confident with my AC

Going REALLY SLOW when I read cuz I’m careless AF (like the paragraph part)

Not changing my ansr - I am not allowed to change my ansr unless I am 100000% sure that the one i chose is bad and the new one is better (and i have to tell myself WHY I’m switching)

Aim for 20 questions. Trust me. Just focus on getting 20 questions out of 25/26. But do them perfectly. Do them 100%. I mean, is getting 20/20 on the ones you can do better than getting 17/25? Yes. And like this, you will feel more calm because you are ‘hitting your goal’ and I GUARANTEE you will eventually build your confidence and find yourself with the time to get them all. But start small. And never change your goal to above 22 questions - I find that once I change my goal to get them all, I rush, I skim, I get the first question or two wrong. Why? Careless. Worst part is, I invested a minute in these questions and I could have used that minute to get another question right.

Explaining EVERYTHING as I go along - if I am lost after the first sentence, i restart. If I am lost after the second sentence, I restart. If its not clicking, i leave it blank and come back to it later.

Explaining the ACs - like what is it really saying

For the harder Qs or those I am getting lost in I write a couple of words on the conclusion/my prediction. This saves me time but you think it would do the opposite.

The same thing with RC - there is no checking to see what else lies in the ansrs if i am 100% confident. Sometimes I am wrong. But at least I dont stay lingering on the same question for like 5 minutes, which at that point it doesn’t even matter if i get it right cause I probably could have used that five minutes on another 2 questions or for the last passage.

I just got a 162 on 72 and I am BRing 79 now :)

Timing is the most important thing and it cost me 10+ points

I am sorry you’re in the same boat as me — i hope what I am saying helps

The advice above is also great :))

thank you so much for this! Yep, looks like we're all in this together haha. Best of luck to you

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@ honestly for me, it's a timing issue. I freak out under time re. LR. And, yeah, sort of same boat with LG, but I miss 5 or 6. I'm also to the point where I know I should be focusing on foolproofing, but then there's this other element of an urge to do whatever I can to resolve my timing issue on LR.

Why can't you do both? It seems the two areas of focus are to foolproof LG and resolve timing on LR. That seems like a perfectly reasonable plan to get into the score range you want to be. Assuming you can get LG down to 1 or 2 as opposed to 5 or 6, and you make modest gains on LR, you are basically there. Obviously easier said than done, but that 170+ BR says you understand what is generally happening.

How many PTs have you taken and what is your weekly study schedule?

Good points. Well, I've taken PT's 36-52. That's been over the past 6 months. and I have one in the 40's that I didn't take and took one in the 70's. My weekly study schedule has been pretty horrible the past few months - taking a PT every two weeks, slowly blind reviewing (due to my school schedule). At one point this semester I was taking them weekly, but I was so distracted with school that I wasn't really getting anything productive out of them. I've just recently (over break) been able to devote my full attention to it like I was able to this summer, and I'm already seeing improvements in my test taking (taking a full PT and then BRing it directly after over the next few days instead of intermittently over two weeks like I did last semester). Like, I actually employed skips during the sections and it saved me time and reduced my misses greatly. My focus was there because I wasn't distracted by outside obligations. What would you recommend I do for weekly studying? Consistently take a test every week with BR conducted shortly after? Or just focus on the LR timing and LG foolproofing for a month or so and then just into PT's? You're right in that improvement in those areas are both completely attainable and will get my score to what I want. I just want my focus to be in the right place and don't want to waste study material, if that makes sense.

https://soundcloud.com/user-737824810/8-the-week-before-the-lsat-how-to-manage-nerves

Listen to this, specifically to “Allison”, who is the very first person to speak. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to her part. It got me so fired up and confident the weeks leading up to my test (and even way before that).

I would read Ellen Cassidy’s loophole. Did wonders for me with flaw questions.

And as someone who took the flex, definitely use the simulator. You need to be doing whatever you can to prepare yourself for your actual test day, so only do the 3 sections instead of the non-flex 5. Get as proficient as you can in the FLEX “flow” as possible.

No real tips on RC except for JY’s low res method. Concentrate on asking: “what is the point of this sentence? Why did the author write this - what position does it have in relation to the passage as a whole?”

Great pointers! Congratulations and best of luck in your career.

#help the reason I didn't choose (D) was because of the epistemological focus of the question. Who cares if it is known to be? I would have chose it if it said "Vanilla is a significantly less complex flavor than chocolate." Can someone hash this out for me? Thanks.

@ honestly for me, it's a timing issue. I freak out under time re. LR. And, yeah, sort of same boat with LG, but I miss 5 or 6. I'm also to the point where I know I should be focusing on foolproofing, but then there's this other element of an urge to do whatever I can to resolve my timing issue on LR.

#help I totally eliminated D during blind review because I had always thought (from applying formal logic to logic games) that in order to trigger a conditional statement, both conjuncts in the sufficient condition must be satisfied (if the sufficient condition is a conjunction).

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@ Yes, beautiful! Congrats!

Ah the master! Thank you thank you!!