What's up with the ease of logic games in the pre-60s exams?

BenjaminSakaBenjaminSaka Member
edited January 2022 in Logic Games 214 karma

Did the LSAT ramp up the difficulty of the games as LSAT studying became more systematized? I went from getting -0 90%+ of the time while doing pre-60 sets and taking PTs in the 40s to getting extremely uncomfortable in the 70+ LGs.

Taking on January and I'm extremely nervous of getting caught off guard with a LG section that is much more difficult than what I am practicing.

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  • kmullins2525kmullins2525 Member
    82 karma

    Yes, I think the consensus is that LSAC made the logic games harder in the past few years. I think this is due to the popularity of new, better study tools. Basically, people were getting too good at the games, so LSAC upped the difficulty.

    I'm taking the Jan test too. I've been building problem sets of "Harder" and "Hardest" games and trying to complete those in the 35 minute time, just to help prepare me for anything LSAC throws at us on test day.

  • Scott MilamScott Milam Member Administrator Moderator Sage 7Sage Tutor
    1342 karma

    @BenjaminSaka

    All three sections have become more challenging over time. I actually notice the difference in difficulty more in RC than LG - the passages are longer and more complex, and the answer choices are trickier.

    Modern LG sections are a lot more ‘reliable’ than on older tests. They almost always have 1-2 easy, formulaic games at the start, followed by a more challenging 3rd game and a hard 4th. Often the 4th game doesn’t follow the typical formulas, making the test taker innovate on the fly.

    The keys to success on these LG sections are:
    1) Tackle the easy games quickly! You must finish within target time to give yourself the opportunity to do games and especially 4.
    2) Expect the unexpected. Assume that you will a weird game you’ve never seen before. Practice how you’d handle that! Once you’ve mastered the standard Sequencing/Grouping/In-and-Out games, throw in a Misc, Mapping, Circular or other unusual game type and practice your improv skills.

    One thing that can help keep you calm on that 4th game - the ‘weirder’ the game, the simpler the inferences! If you hit a brand new game type on test day, you can be confident that the actual logic is not that complicated - otherwise no one would have a chance! If your last game is one of the standard types, watch out and read carefully! There must be some tricky inferences for it to be hard enough to be a 4th game!

    Hope that helps!

  • BenjaminSakaBenjaminSaka Member
    edited January 2022 214 karma

    @"Scott Milam" said:
    @BenjaminSaka

    All three sections have become more challenging over time. I actually notice the difference in difficulty more in RC than LG - the passages are longer and more complex, and the answer choices are trickier.

    Modern LG sections are a lot more ‘reliable’ than on older tests. They almost always have 1-2 easy, formulaic games at the start, followed by a more challenging 3rd game and a hard 4th. Often the 4th game doesn’t follow the typical formulas, making the test taker innovate on the fly.

    The keys to success on these LG sections are:
    1) Tackle the easy games quickly! You must finish within target time to give yourself the opportunity to do games and especially 4.
    2) Expect the unexpected. Assume that you will a weird game you’ve never seen before. Practice how you’d handle that! Once you’ve mastered the standard Sequencing/Grouping/In-and-Out games, throw in a Misc, Mapping, Circular or other unusual game type and practice your improv skills.

    One thing that can help keep you calm on that 4th game - the ‘weirder’ the game, the simpler the inferences! If you hit a brand new game type on test day, you can be confident that the actual logic is not that complicated - otherwise no one would have a chance! If your last game is one of the standard types, watch out and read carefully! There must be some tricky inferences for it to be hard enough to be a 4th game!

    Hope that helps!

    The fact that every game is reducible to a simpler game is great advice. I still get knots in my stomachs of thinking of potentially misreading a rule or making another minor error and having my entire section cave. That attention to detail in obviously crucial to all section of the LSAT, but has the largest potential to snowball in LG, imo. I’ve crammed the 16-35 LGs in the past week, and after recently taking PT 92, I feel that the games on that specific were quite easy in comparison. The LGs from 16-35 are so difficult that I have a hard time imagining how people taking those exams were able to get perfect scores without having access to as streamlined a studying process as we do today.

    So actually, I think that the LG section represents a weird anomaly in your theory, which I otherwise agree with. It went from insanely difficult, to pointlessly easy, to the medium difficulty that it is now.

    I’ve been cramming the 1-35 RCs and the lack of ambiguous questions/answers as compared to the modern LSAT is pretty pronounced—even the accuracy distribution points to this. The deviation of average scores on the modern RC questions must be like 75% higher.

    LR also has gotten a bit more difficult, but it’s variation is negligible compared to the other sections IMO.

  • bethlehem_3bethlehem_3 Member
    6 karma

    How is it fair that our test is more challenging?

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