Progress Report: Fundamental Weakness

Stevie C

I can't call this "sage advice" since I'm not a sage, but here goes it:

After intensive prep this past fall, I scored a 169 on the December LSAT. Despite being very good at LR and RC, I had a fundamental LG weakness. I probably got 8 wrong on LG, plus 6 wrong on the other 3 sections combined.

My brain is naturally geared for all things verbal, but it's nothing special when it comes to visual tasks like LG.

For the rest of December and most of January, I took a break from LSAT. When I got back into it, I just drilled LG 4 days per week. I fool proofed everything from the earliest PT book (10 actual), including a lot of weird games. I also foolproofed the LG in the core curriculum.

All I can say is that it made a big difference. Last week I did my first PT (#42) in 3 months --- scored 170. The LR & RC skills had eroded a bit, but LG was much better. Today I did another PT (#43) -- scored 177, which is several points better than I've ever done on a PT. Not having a "bad section" is a game changer.

I didn't repeat games to the same extent that JY recommends -- I found that doing the game once, watching the video, and doing it a couple more times is usually enough for me to remember the inferences. But his broader point (remembering the inferences) still stands. I'm glad I put in the LG work (like many here on 7sage have already done in the past) and am looking forward to the June LSAT.

tanes256

@"Stevie C" 177!! Whoa! Congrats! I wish LG was my worst section. Keep striving. You're gonna blow this thing out the water! I'm doing an RC intensive right now but I still throw in an LG section and drill some LR just to stay fresh. Consider drilling to a few RC and LR while you're focusing on LG and you should be good to go! Congrats on that 177!

Alex

Congrats my man! LG is still the section least intuitive to me. Definitely a verbal guy like yourself. Can you elaborate a bit more about your intensive on LG a little more? Definitely interested in how you did it a bit different from the 7Sage FP orthodoxy.

Stevie C

@"Alex Divine" said:
Congrats my man! LG is still the section least intuitive to me. Definitely a verbal guy like yourself. Can you elaborate a bit more about your intensive on LG a little more? Definitely interested in how you did it a bit different from the 7Sage FP orthodoxy.

My main difference from 7sage FP orthodoxy is that I think 10 clean copies is too many. Granted, if someone is just starting out in their prep and lacks familiarity with Lawgic and the different game types, then it could easily take them 10 tries to nail a game.

But -- if they've been prepping for a while, and it still takes them 10 attempts to nail down a game, then I think they have issues with memory, lawgic, and/or reading comprehension.

I practice the games by doing a full LG section. Then, I watch the explanation videos (usually, I just watch setup and inferences -- so that I avoid memorizing correct answer choices). Finally, I attempt the game 1 or 2 more times, depending on how well I understood the game.

I think my method has a decent balance. The average LSAT prepper might try a game, check the answers, and then move on without gaining understanding. The super prepper might do a game 8 times. I was somewhere in between, which allowed me to learn a large number of games in a relatively short time.

Alex

@"Stevie C" said:

@"Alex Divine" said:
Congrats my man! LG is still the section least intuitive to me. Definitely a verbal guy like yourself. Can you elaborate a bit more about your intensive on LG a little more? Definitely interested in how you did it a bit different from the 7Sage FP orthodoxy.

My main difference from 7sage FP orthodoxy is that I think 10 clean copies is too many. Granted, if someone is just starting out in their prep and lacks familiarity with Lawgic and the different game types, then it could easily take them 10 tries to nail a game.

But -- if they've been prepping for a while, and it still takes them 10 attempts to nail down a game, then I think they have issues with memory, lawgic, and/or reading comprehension.

I practice the games by doing a full LG section. Then, I watch the explanation videos (usually, I just watch setup and inferences -- so that I avoid memorizing correct answer choices). Finally, I attempt the game 1 or 2 more times, depending on how well I understood the game.

I think my method has a decent balance. The average LSAT prepper might try a game, check the answers, and then move on without gaining understanding. The super prepper might do a game 8 times. I was somewhere in between, which allowed me to learn a large number of games in a relatively short time.

Thank for sharing man! Sounds like you got a good system down.