Diagraming Logic Games

Krithin S.

For games, I have just recently started to reach the harder games in the curriculum and have only practiced maybe less than 10 games. But I noticed that for some of the harder games, I have no clue how to setup the diagram. Is this ability to recognize how to diagram a game come after going through a good number of games and explanations or am I missing something? ​I feel like I am wasting games by watching the explanations.

Thank you in advance!

kkole444

Hello @"Krithin S." ,
this is about 70 percent or more of the battle in logic games. If everyone knew how to set up the game board and diagram properly then LG would not be the struggle that it is. Being able to recognize game boards/game types will come with practice and eventually you'll know 95% of all setups, there will always be a few that might stump you but the vast majority you'll be able to set up properly. It just takes time.

Slow is Fast

Yes, proficiency definitely comes with practice! Everyone is different, but I'd say I saw a huge improvement after foolproofing about 15 LG sections (so around 60 games).

magdiel_kobe

@obloome said:
Yes, proficiency definitely comes with practice! Everyone is different, but I'd say I saw a huge improvement after foolproofing about 15 LG sections (so around 60 games).

Hi, so I am trying to perfect my LG section but wanted to ask you what was your method in studying games. I started with pretest 1 and am working my way up, but don't know if I should continue this way or go by game type. Any recommendations.

Slow is Fast

Hi @magdiel_kobe , I followed the method of another 7Sager named Pacifico
https://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/2737/logic-games-attack-strategy/p1

It's effective because it provides a little more structure than deciding haphazardly to do a set of games every day. I think it's also important to record for each game your time and the # of questions you missed. If you search in the forums, some people have posted links to their google spreadsheet templates. If you can't find any, send me a message and I can share mine with you.

I prefer drilling by section and NOT by game type. If you selected four grouping games, there's no guarantee that all four games are balanced in difficulty in the same way a regular section is. I think it's more efficient be practicing timing and switching between game types while you are working at general LG proficiency too.

Another thing I did was start an LG Journal. It's probably overkill for some people but I found it immensely helpful, especially because LG was my worst section when I first started. I basically got a little notebook (5"x8"ish) and numbered each individual page according to the PTs, starting from PT1.

For example, page 1 was designated for PT1. The front of this page was split in half for games 1 and 2, the back of this page was for games 3 and 4.
(Related note, Pacifico's method prescribes at least 4 different attempts at the same section over a period of time).

--After the first attempt + BR at PT1, I would check my answers and watch JY's video, trying to remember what I did and how effective it was compared to JY's approach.

--After the second attempt the next day, I would then open up my journal and write down the following:
1) Initial reaction/thoughts about this game based on the first attempt (I did this because I used to view LG with panic, heh). It's probably better to do this right after the first attempt, but I usually did my second attempt the day after Attempt 1 so it wasn't hard to remember my reaction.
With later games, if I made a breakthrough/did something right on the first try without having to watch the explanation video, I would also note it. Progress is incremental and no achievement is too small on this test!
2) Key Inferences: this is mostly subjective. I did not write down ALL inferences--only the ones that helped me figure out game boards or led to other crucial inferences. Or ones that I didn't realize the first time that JY pointed out. I also wrote down stuff like "Rule 1 + Rule 4 = xyz inference" so that I could make it very apparent how I came about that inference.

--After the third attempt a week after Attempt 1, I would open up my journal again to add anything to parts 1 or 2 above and ALSO add the following:
3) Takeaway: one or two rules or principles that I should remember about this game (e.g., always consider the contrapositive if given a conditional logic rule; if one group is full, the rest go in the other; not both means at least one is out, etc.)
4) Testwriter Trap: this is optional. I just liked thinking about what the test writers were trying to do to make this game hard-- was it the wording of the rules? or variety/number of the game pieces? unusual set-up? AND, most importantly, how would I counteract this if I saw it again on a future game?
5) Specific questions that tripped me up: this is also optional. I only have a handful of games where I didn't fully understand what the question stem was asking, so this is where I would explain to myself what was going on or how I misread something.

--After the fourth attempt a month after Attempt 1 and beyond, I added more observations as needed.

(Pacifico's method only recommends 4 attempts to save time, but I have continued to cycle through the same PTs in order keep my LG skills sharp. I'm now at attempt 6 or 7 for the earliest games and can get through a fool-proofed four-game section in about 15 minutes.)

It's a little involved at first, but once I got in the habit of it I started to write in my journal only in the third attempt. It's nice to have a little book of LG cheatcodes to flip through when you have some downtime because you can run through the games in your head without having to sit and fully do the games.

With this little booklet of all the games I've done so far, I also note in the margin those that remind me of each other. Oftentimes, I'll be in the middle of a game and think, "Oh yeah... this is like the flowers game I did last week." Then I'd compare my notes and inferences for both of those games and any others I'd already listed. LG patterns then start to become ingrained, and the familiarity with the set-up makes panic/frustration less likely to set in on newer LG sections.

As I cycle through the sections on the 6th/7th/8th+ attempts, I see more and more overlap among many games. It's true--certain game types or types of rules require you to make similar inferences. At this point, I could probably stop updating the journal, but I still like to add new games to my notebook as I continue to do more PTs. Writing out the inferences helps to reinforce them in my mind and to show myself that there is not much difference between a game, say, in the PT80s versus one in the PT20s.

Whew--this was longer than I thought it would be, so I hope some of this was helpful! There's more I could say but I don't want to be a bore if it's too much. Let me know if you have any questions.