High scorers: how many games do you drill per day to get to -0? Do you teach yourself?

Excellent.Fondue

I took the LSAT once already and scored (what I estimate to be) -3 in LG. I am currently getting anywhere between -1 and -5 on the LG section when I take PTs. I'm registered for the April test, and I'd like to be able to get my LG performance down to -0 consistently as soon as possible.

Prior to that I've already spent a lot of time studying games. In fact, I think I may have actually done too much such that the practice was not actually helpful. Basically, at one point, for a period of 1-2 months, I did about 16 games every day (on top of studying hours for the other parts of the test). Given how much work that is, in retrospect I think I ended up just rushing through the drilling. Drilling like that was initially helpful because I was simply exposed to a lot of games, over and over again. But I also realise now that, besides memorising some inferences, I don't think I learned very much from each game during that time. I wasn't optimising my approach each time I did a game––I was simply repeating the steps that I had already memorised.

In addition, because I did so many games, after a while I felt completely burned out when it came to the LG section. About two weeks before the test, I just could not stomach drilling any more games, and I ended up just not touching LG for two weeks.

So, for those of you who manage to get -0 consistently on LG, how many games, on average, would you drill on a single day? I'd like to reach -0 as soon as I can because that will get me firmly into the 170s, and so my focus now is on LG (while still working on LR and RC, of course). How many games should I aim to drill each day to be able to achieve my goal of -0 soon?

I believe I've got my fundamentals down. I've seen a really large number of games now, and I can comfortably get to -0 on BR. My diagramming is almost always efficient. Where I am weak is really in execution, namely, the decisions that I make within a game/section (e.g., when to split the game board; how to make smart inferences upfront; how much time to allocate to each game). I also need to get better at doing the weird games (e.g., pattern games, mapping games, circular games).

Should I focus on slowly down with each game when I am drilling? Should I go back to the LG core curriculum? I'd appreciate any advice!

kkole444

Hello @"Learned Astronomer" sounds like you have a solid foundation to games. I would recommend keeping a google doc sheet or excel of the games that give you trouble and why for example "I missed the inference once one group is filled up in an in/out game everything else must going into the other group" once I started to keep track that is when I really noticed my LG go from -2-->-1--->-0. I would do 4 games max in one day, however I would recommend 2-3 and really break them down and understand if you are making the same mistakes over and over again. If there is anything that you are not 100% sure on I would go back to the CC and watch the videos until it is solid. Plus knowing DeMorgan's law, when rules trigger versus when they don't and get fast at recognizing what game board you should be setting up based on the words in the stimulus. That was another piece that pushed me to -0 consistently. I have a google doc that I could share with the games I used to struggle with to show you how I set it up and if you want to copy it you're more than welcome, it is more geared for someone just starting but has a lot of tips that I learned over my studies. It has (I believe every CC game in it) and it has the games I struggled with color coded by difficulty for me. Sounds like you are on the right track but when it comes to LSAT I have painfully learned that less is more, it is much better to have less hours of study that are quality hours than it is to have a full day of mehh studying.
You got this!!