Any tips on how to get -1 or -0 on recent LGs (~70s)

Rev_Lefe

How do you consistently get -1 (or -0) on recent LG (~70s)? I now linger somewhere around -4 ~ -0 on recent tests because at times there is an odd question stimulus, a completely time-sink for me (which often takes me 12-15 min to tackle it).

I am hesitating what should be my primary focus: drill those bizarre, hard time sinks, or other easier ones to bank more time (so I could have more time to tackle a hard one of a given section) ?

Thanks!
Leon

Ravinder

I would highly recommend Ellen Cassidy at elemental prep for tutoring. She has the best LG system I have seen. 7 Sage LG system is very good but for some reason even after doing 50+ PTs and fool proofing most of the games I got -5 on LG on test day when I got a 162. With Ellen's systematic approach, with just 3-4 hrs of tutoring on LG and practicing only about 20-30 games I consistently got -0 on LG. She also has an amazing LR system. I got -0 on LG on the next test I took when I finally got 177. I have worked with several tutors and can say she is by far the best that I found. Her tutoring is expensive but worth it. She has some former students that work her and charge less and I would suggest working with one of them first as that is more cost effective and see if that meets your need. Any one of them can likely get you to -0 efficiently.

tayjaycee17

Are you guys able to send me contact information for Ms. Cassidy. I am also wanting to get at least 15-20 right on the LG section any tips.

canihazJD

@ravinder said:
I would highly recommend Ellen Cassidy at elemental prep for tutoring. She has the best LG system I have seen. 7 Sage LG system is very good but for some reason even after doing 50+ PTs and fool proofing most of the games I got -5 on LG on test day when I got a 162. With Ellen's systematic approach, with just 3-4 hrs of tutoring on LG and practicing only about 20-30 games I consistently got -0 on LG. She also has an amazing LR system. I got -0 on LG on the next test I took when I finally got 177. I have worked with several tutors and can say she is by far the best that I found. Her tutoring is expensive but worth it. She has some former students that work her and charge less and I would suggest working with one of them first as that is more cost effective and see if that meets your need. Any one of them can likely get you to -0 efficiently.

Just curious, what was different about Ellen's approach to games?

melanie.stewart84

I looked at Ellen's website to gain an idea of the cost for her tutoring and it is a little pricey. To save others digging, she states on her website it is $440 per hour, and each lesson is two hours so $880 per lesson.

It is hard to tell how her approach differs and whether it would be worth it. Although she has also put out a couple of textbooks.

Ravinder

I can hopefully shed some light on Ellen's approach, which helped me tremendously on LG. Before finding Ellen, I had tried the Power Bibles, The LSAT trainer, and 7 Sage. All of these suggested approaches to LG that relied heavily on making inferences. Of these three, I found the 7 sage videos to be the most helpful and was able to get from -8 or so on LG to about -3 to -5 on PTs at home. But on test day I still got -5 on LG. One of the problems with depending on inferences is that on test day with anxiety and adrenaline released one gets tunnel vision and it becomes harder to see inferences reliably. Ellen's system is ingeniously simple and does not rely on inferences at all. She has a systematic approach that breaks down the process of almost any game into a set of organized simple steps that make almost any game easy to approach. This takes out all the thinking and hence one can perform well despite test day anxiety or tunnel vision. On the next test I took, I got -0 on LG. Also improved LG with her from -5 per LR section to -1 on both sections of LR. Her LR system is pretty well explained in her book titled 'Logical Reasoning: the Loophole' but she has not published her logic games approach. I can understand why, as I can tell she has spent years perfecting that system and that is what earns her most of her business. I agree that Ellen's tutoring is quite expensive now. When I worked with her she had just published her book and her fee was lower but now I gather she is in high demand. She has students that she previously tutored that now work for her and their rates are half as much, which admittedly is still expensive. However, I think her previous students would be able to teach the LG system quite well in 4-6 hrs. You get what you pay for. Before working with Ellen, I worked with three different tutors who cost less but in the long run really didn't help as much. I have also worked with another tutor who is even more expensive than Ellen and is quite well known but I didn't find him to be that helpful. So price alone cannot always be a proxy for quality. Good luck to you all.