Held back from high 16X's

Lizardking-1

Hello Everyone,

I realize there are an abundance of posts regarding users seeking LG help. I have scanned the archives extensively, and am still perplexed by my own situation. I started studying for the LSAT a little over a year ago. In the first diagnostic I took, I only managed to get 2 LG questions correct (yes, you read that correctly). Meanwhile, my scores in RC and LR were very reasonable. Fast forward a year, and I am scoring around -5 in RC and -4 in LR. However, my LG is consistently around -10. I should be scoring in the mid to high 160's, but the games are pulling down my performance. I am not in any way ok with this, as I am shooting for a 170. I have spent HUNDRED(S) of hours combating the games, and have invested comparatively very little effort in RC and LR. I usually make a couple errors in the first two games, but the real score sink occurs around the third game, (generally harder than the first two). I spend far too much time in this third game, and can't reach the fourth one. I have taken and BR'ed lots of difficult games, so it is not an exposure issue. I am generally setting the games up very quickly at this point. I seem to have issues internalizing the rules in their entirety, and pushing out all of the inferences. When I get hung up on a question, I have lots of difficulty moving on without feeling flustered. My current method of attack is to really clearly diagram the rules, and answer questions as I go, instead of trying to split lots of game boards. I find that in the harder games, I am not very good at finding conducive ways to split. I am seeing lots of improvements over the past weeks in LG, but my PT score is not reflecting these advances.
Can anyone offer advice? Thanks so much.

sheridjw

I think everyone has little things that work for them and it is just a matter of finding what works for you. With that being said, I was in a similar situation where I was constantly scoring -7/8 for about 5 months. What helped me get down to -2 consistently aside from tons of foolproofing was working backwards. Before I always would run out of time on the fourth game. By starting out with the harder game I was more relaxed because I had so much time and was able to make inferences and find all the possible worlds when possible. I tried to leave myself with at the very least 12 minutes to finish the first two games, which is usually more than enough because there is not as much setup involved in most cases in the first two games. Again, this is just what helped me and if you have tried a bunch of other things maybe you can give it a try.