Suggestions for Equivalency Questions in LG

vanessa fisher

Does anyone else find these questions insanely hard?
Granted I only started working with them in the newer Prep Tests since they didn't show up prior to the 60s, so I don't have as much practice with them. But I have tried watching J.Y's explanation on these and it still isn't helping me get them. I feel like when I do get them it is more luck than anything

I'm wondering if I should devote a day to just trying to figure out how to do these questions, or whether it is worth the time and effort. Anyone have any strategies they use?

Mellow_Z

I think these types of questions are definitely easier if you have a natural intuition with logic games. If you have a very sound understanding of how the logic game works, it is easier to imagine pieces moving around in your head, and how each piece influences the other pieces in the puzzle.

For me, I usually find it is easiest to leave these questions for very last (even if it’s one of the first 3 games) simply because it can be a huge time sink. If you struggle for finishing LG’s, saving this until last will allow you to get to the lower hanging fruit in the section. Anyway, I typically will eliminate 2 or 3 just based on reading them. You should be able to tell right off the bat that the impact of some of the answer choices are not related to the given rule. Eliminate these immediately, and it should make it simpler to solve the question with only 2 appealing answers remaining. From there on out, I think breaking the game board into 2 splits (one for each “new” rule), will help you visualize what is going on, and should lead you to the correct answer.

Practice is the only way you can really get better with them unfortunately, and with limited PT’s available, you need to really master each and every one of them so that you get the most out of each instance. You could also check some other resources such as Manhattan or POwerscore to see if they have more explanations that help you absorb the topic.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/mprep_documents/hosted/public/LSAT/download/er_whitepaper_updated20111106.pdf

This whitepaper has some good explanations and examples, without using any specific LSAT questions. The logic game bible has a solid chapter on these question types aswell.

vanessa fisher

cool thanks! Will check these out.
I like the idea of eliminating the obvious ones and then coming back and just brute forcing through the ones left. That is probably the best advice. I think I freeze up a bit on these questions just cause I see them as time sinks.

Will check out the other resources too!

I'm ok at LG just from tons of practice, but these kinds of games are not intuitive to me naturally. So it's probably just an issue of repetition

BinghamtonDave

I have spent a considerable amount of time on these questions. My first piece of advice would be to develop mastery-level understanding of games prior to undertaking a serious study of rule substitution questions, if you haven't already. The reason I recommend that one develops the ability to go -0/-1/-2 on games first is that rule substitution questions are often based on our understanding of the inferences we can make and use while getting the rest of the questions correct. In short, I look at rule substitution questions as one of the last stops to a consistent -0/-1. Ideally, I want to see all the other pieces in place before one moves to an understanding of these questions.

With that being said, I am developing a hierarchy to attack these questions in a systematic way that I hope to share with 7Sage as a way of giving back. The first step in the hierarchy is to look for a mere rewording of the rule in question. I chose this as the first step because it is always efficient to work simple to difficult in an Occam's Razor like fashion. For 2 examples of a mere rewording, please see the easy example on PT 57, game 1 question 5 and the slightly more difficult, yet exactly the same logical structure on PT 74 game 4 question 23. Have you noticed any other rule substitution questions with this framework?

What I hope to share when I am done are 4-5 steps one can memorize and dispense onto the question in succession to find which type of rule substitution question we are faced with and the common trap answer choices that may appear on those types of questions.

BinghamtonDave

I should also note here with full disclosure, I don't know if any other site dedicated to the LSAT has categorized the rule substitution questions in the way I have, any similarity is purely happenstance. Prior to actually presenting this information, I would certainly look into what is out there.

Alex

@BinghamtonDave said:
I have spent a considerable amount of time on these questions. My first piece of advice would be to develop mastery-level understanding of games prior to undertaking a serious study of rule substitution questions, if you haven't already. The reason I recommend that one develops the ability to go -0/-1/-2 on games first is that rule substitution questions are often based on our understanding of the inferences we can make and use while getting the rest of the questions correct. In short, I look at rule substitution questions as one of the last stops to a consistent -0/-1. Ideally, I want to see all the other pieces in place before one moves to an understanding of these questions.

With that being said, I am developing a hierarchy to attack these questions in a systematic way that I hope to share with 7Sage as a way of giving back. The first step in the hierarchy is to look for a mere rewording of the rule in question. I chose this as the first step because it is always efficient to work simple to difficult in an Occam's Razor like fashion. For 2 examples of a mere rewording, please see the easy example on PT 57, game 1 question 5 and the slightly more difficult, yet exactly the same logical structure on PT 74 game 4 question 23. Have you noticed any other rule substitution questions with this framework?

What I hope to share when I am done are 4-5 steps one can memorize and dispense onto the question in succession to find which type of rule substitution question we are faced with and the common trap answer choices that may appear on those types of questions.

Agree with the LG master himself here. MLSAT also has a good chapter on rule substitution questions that make that book worth it alone.

vanessa fisher

@BinghamtonDave
Thanks so much for the tips!
That makes sense about gaining mastery first before moving to mastering these particular question types. I've been working on LG for a long time, and till tend to score around -3 to -5. Under timed conditions it is sometime worse. It's definitely my hardest section. I'll keep working on mastering the games and then maybe in the last week or two before I write I'll come back to these specific questions.

Appreciate the thoughts!