Those Unique, Weird, Curve-breaker Logic Games :(

Gracelover

What are y'all's strategies for attacking them? I finally got the basics down, and if I've seen an exact (or near exact version of the game) before, I can usually kill it with time to spare.

But it's those weird games. Those games which mix it up in a way that I've never seen before. You know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about games which match sequencing with an in and out game. I'm talking about games in which you have to draw a freakin' star to finally figure out how to do the freakin' puzzle (I'm lookin' at you, Preptest 38, Game 4!) I'm talking about unconventional charting games which don't look all that similar to any of the games I've done before (Preptest 39).

So what are you strategies? Appreciate any feedback.....

ENTJ

Practice all the unique game setups (rare LG section types; they are all posted on 7sage). It's not that they are necessarily harder but more so because they look unfamiliar. The hardest part is understanding what you're looking once you've translated it into our visual language.

Good luck Grace!

Gracelover

Thank you Al! Your encouragement means a lot!

ENTJ

And your sincerity keeps me encouraged! Oh wuh? Did he just pull out a bi-conditional? Oh yes he did!

Gracelover

I think the hardest thing about hybrid games is knowing how to set up the diagram. Everytime I watch JY do it it seems so natural and it is something I would not have been able to do while doing the test. Aside from mastering the other game types so I can make sure to leave enough time for these weird hybrid games, how do you guys come up with funky, new, helpful main diagrams for hybrid games?

CFC152436

Combination of intuition and experience with past games. I think it's important to avoid slipping into a "robotic" mode when doing LG sections. I realize games are repetitive, but I get the feeling people sometimes forget to actually think about the game when they read the stimulus. They have 3-4 preset game setups in their minds, and when the stimulus doesn't precisely match one of the presets, they panic. Stay calm. Ask yourself, what am I trying to do here? What's the point of the game? Just because the answer isn't "group stuff" or "sequence stuff" does not mean the game is overly difficult. In fact, the game itself is probably pretty easy - the difficulty is getting by the "surprise" factor.

Anyways, assuming a student has have the basics down, I'm willing to bet the major block-in-the-road for miscellaneous games is avoiding panic attacks. He/she reads the stimulus, but doesn't actually bother to figure out what it says. Stay calm and have confidence in your intuitions. Don't forget that if the game doesn't say you can't, feel free to just throw down some game pieces into your board. Sometimes (but only sometimes) you just have to pick a solution and go from there (some examples would be some of the circle games and game 4 of PT 72)

saharshiralian

Does anyone have a list of games similar to game 4 of PT 72? The pattern game?

mcshah

I wholeheartedly second what CFC152436 said about avoiding slipping into a robotic mode. If you are used to a certain set of games, have practiced primarily on a certain set of games, and then encounter something else when you first take the LSAT, then test day jitters are bound to cause you to have more difficulty solving the game than even what you already might have.

My recommendation for dealing with those games is to make sure to use a lot of the older tests (1-20) in your prep. Many of these have nontraditional game types and practicing taking these games in a PT environment (not an isolated LG practice) will help prepare you on how to encounter completely new game types in the middle of a 4 hour test.

goegoe10

Hey Al, where are the rare LG games posted? I don't see it on the syllabus. Or is it a thread in the discussion you're talking about. Can you provide a link?

J.Y. Ping

What a great answer, CFC152436! And I completely agree with you. They're not necessarily harder. Focus on reading the English and understanding what tasks you're supposed to perform. That's the same general principle for all games.

I tossed it into this lesson so more of your fellow 7Sagers will see it:
http://7sage.com/lesson/logic-games-habits-for-speed-and-accuracy/

I have own up to some of the fault here. The LSAC for over a decade hadn't thrown weird games at us that I assumed - the irony - that it was a thing of the past.

Anyway, for the weirder games, please ignore in the videos when I say smugly that "oh this is not likely to come up on your test". Assume everything is fair game for the LSAC.

@goegoe10, there's no list of the "weird" games, but most of them are in the LGs from PTs 1 - 35, which is in the LG Bundle here:
http://7sage.com/addons

The LG Bundle is included in the Ultimate course.

Gracelover

@CFC152436 Thank you for your response. What do you mean by intuition? It is something I seem to completely lack for hybrid games...like I just did preptest 16 and logic game 4 is a pretty tough hybrid game....I was trying to use my intuition but apparently I have none, because I could only do the first question...Are you naturally good (or better than me) at logic games? When I took my very first PT I only got 5 right in the LG section....and about 3 of those I got right were pure guesses(of course now I average missing only around 6 questions thanks to 7sage!)...Logic games is definitely the only section that is currently beating me up and it is the one obstacle which is keeping me from breaking above 170....I have improved in LR and RC drastically thanks to 7sage and the LSAT trainer...

CFC152436

@Gracelover
Intuition comes with practice. LG is by far the most learnable section on the LSAT - with enough practice, I'm willing to say that pretty much anyone (and certainly a high scorer like yourself) can consistently get -1 or -2 wrong on each section. How long have you been working on logic games? Do you drill untimed games / redo games you struggle with?

I gave game 4 on prep test 16 a look - this was an unusual game, for sure, but honestly I thought it was pretty easy compared to some of the other games out there. What gave you trouble specifically? There are only 3 rules, all of which are pretty straightforward. The setup itself is easy - just a simple 5-slot ordering game, where the order changes depending on how many and which kind (either odd or even) of rounds have occurred. I think the big mistake people make on this game is to hesitate before looking at the questions - they spend too much time looking for a huge inference when they really should just be using the rules to rule out wrong answers / find the right answer.

For the questions you struggled with, I recommend using the question stem to create a hypothetical and then using the hypothetical to cross off wrong answer choices. When doing an open-ended game with only a couple rules (i.e. a game with a lot of possibilities), it's important not to spend too much just "thinking" about the answer. Your time is much better spent writing out possible solutions (literally, just write out a solution. Any solution, so long that it works. You'll be surprised how much this helps for the question you're on as well as questions down the line).

Hope this helps! Let me know if I something I said didn't make any sense.

joegotbored-1

@CFC152436
Using the stem to create a hypothetical and then cross out wrong answers never actually occurred to me as a strategy. I'm sure I've done it, but until I read your comment just now, I don't think I've ever done it consciously. I know I've used stimulus to build a hypo to look for the RIGHT answer, but I don't know that in open-ended games I've ever used it to look for WRONG ones to eliminate.

Glad you wrote this out! Will hopefully help me in future games if I remember to try it.
-Joe

Gracelover

@CFC152436

Thank you so much your advice. You must be a logic games genius because your advice all makes sense. I will definitely do the create a hypothetical strategy. Your right, I spent too much time looking for an inference and tried to write out all the possibilities -a disastrous waste of time...and I still could not handle the questions. I think when it comes to open ended games I tend to think a lot more slowly because I don't have a good strategy in approaching the questions and because I doubt myself constantly ("is there any rule that I missed?" is a constant worry in my mind).

This is kind of embarrassing to admit but I've been doing the fool proof method since around April, so it's been about 4 months now...after seeing an initial 11 point jump increase in my LG score I have since stagnated and for about 2 months now and still average around -6 for logic games....This is frustrating because I average around -2 for RC(well, at least for the older tests, I heard the more recent RC's are more harder), and around -5 for LR combined...so if I mastered LG I could finally reach my goal....the thing is I've spent more time preparing LG than for LR and RC, and yet that is the section which is still bringing me down...

Oh well, I'm gonna believe what you're saying that just about anyone can get down to around -2 per LG section, and I hope I can reach that score by September, which is when I take the test. I still have about 2 months left, which I'm hoping is enough. Thank you for reading my rants and responding. You are like the LSAT Oprah. I wish you the best score on your test!

mark.simonds77

Where do I find the rare LG types on 7sage? Are they grouped somewhere on the website?

joegotbored-1

Using CFC's strategy for creating hypo's and eliminating wrong answers is especially helpful on MBT questions. My LG scores have gone up dramatically since trying this out.

Try it!

CFC152436

@Gracelover
Haha, well I'm glad what I said makes sense. No need to stress yourself out over logic games - you're scoring in the 95th percentile, so you're clearly extremely smart and extremely well-equipped to take on (and beat!) the LSAT. Not sure if this is relevant for your situation, but I remember struggling to trust myself when working on a logic game. My mistakes early on haunted me way longer than they should have - essentially, because I struggled with logic games so much on my diagnostic, I always worried I was making a mistake even though I had taken plenty of lessons and had a solid grip on what was going on. This became kind of a big problem because my lack of confidence slowed me down and made me more susceptible to stupid mistakes. I struggled with this for a while, but I was eventually able to improve and now I'm reasonably upset if I get -1 on a LG section. Two things helped: first, I started to do untimed logic games. This took the pressure off and helped reduce my test-day anxiety. Second, and probably more importantly, I would read a stimulus, diagram the rules / make any inferences, and then stop to watch the 7sage video. Getting that immediate positive reinforcement of "hey, look, I was worried I did this wrong, but I actually did it right" over and over again is a great way to boost your confidence.

@joegotbored-1
Awesome! Glad it worked! It's a useful tool, especially when you're working with a game without a lot of up-front inferences. I used to panic if I couldn't split the board, but now I'm just like "oh, okay, this game is about using the rules to make hypo's. No biggie, I can do that."

@mark.simonds77
There is a worksheet on the "Logic Game Explanations" page that groups all of the games from prep tests 35-70. The Cambridge "Miscellaneous" packet from PT's 1-39 contains the games listed below. Honestly, though, the best practice for rare games (and for games in general) is to practice, practice, practice. Do every game that's ever been released, and then go back and do them all again. The more experience you have reading different stimuli (and deducing the relevant inferences / working their respective questions) the better prepared you'll be for test day.
PT 1 - Game 1
PT 2 - Game 3
PT 4 - Game 4
PT 6 - Game 3
PT 6 - Game 4
PT 8 - Game 2
PT 9 - Game 4
PT 10 - Game 3
PT 11 - Game 4
PT 12 - Game 4
PT 13 - Game 4
PT 15 - Game 2
PT 16 - Game 4
PT 18 - Game 3
PT 18 - Game 4
PT 20 - Game 3
PT 21 - Game 2
PT 30 - Game 1