My love/hate relationship with LG

Comments

• 4 Likes

  Bamboosprout Alum Member

  January 2019 1694 karma

  What you're experiencing is the gap between knowing something, and mastering something. You're very right when you talk about the difference between doing the questions timed and doing them without pressure. The difference is huge, and bigger for some people, and smaller for others. The difference will eventually get bridged over when you become a master, though, but that requires hundreds if not thousands of attempts.
  It seems like you are even aware of your mistakes, which is a big step forward. The next step is to systemize your approach to games so that you can account for those weaknesses. One of the sages had the same problem you are describing, so she created a rule where she forced herself to read the stimulus of each game twice to make sure. I also had a similar problem, so I built in little adjustments, like circling key words in the stimulus, such as "not", "or", or "each", and using my pencil to guide my eyes, and checking off each rule when I have visualized it, etc. Since you know that when you rush, you tend to screw up, and when you screw up, you take longer to realize and fix the mistakes, build a system that devotes more time upfront and read more carefully. It's always worth the investment to understand the stimulus clearly before you move on to the question. This suggestion, I believe, applies to the other two sections too. For myself, if I can't understand the stimulus, I immediately circle the question, and don't even bother to read the answer choices, and just move on to the next question.
  Another thing you develop when doing LG is a sixth sense. When doing questions, you can just feel like you did something wrong. For example, when you do your acceptable situation question, you can learn from that how to properly diagram the board; when you see a lot of CBT/MBT/CBF questions, you can probably assume that this game could have been split into very explicit boards; when you run into a local question stem, but no clear big inference comes up, you probably missed a rule or misunderstood something. These just come after some time if you do a lot of games, and review them with a critical and objective mind.
  Hope this helps.
• 2ndTimestheCharm Alum Member

  January 2019 edited January 2019 1810 karma

  @Bamboosprout, it helps tremendously. Thank you so much. I will try to use my frustration as motivation to do better. Your suggestions are helpful, and I have noticed that sometimes looking at a few of the questions can totally help confirm or deny that I have completed the setup correctly. I even think skimming the questions can clue me in as to what type of game we're dealing with. Mind you, it's untimed me that notices these things, not timed me...oh wait, I'm the same me. Cheers to the masters, and may I be lucky enough to count myself among them eventually.
• 2ndTimestheCharm Alum Member

  March 2019 1810 karma

  Two months later, and I'm still experiencing the same problem. I'm far enough along with my LR and RC improvement that I feel in striking distance of a high score, but these Games keep...making me cry. I have my giant foolproofing binder, which I use every day. I don't take a game out until I've mastered it, and I keep plugging along. But no matter how awesome I am at reproducing right answers after JY's already given me the setup, I still fail at each new timed LG section. I'm realizing that I have to stop being frustrated and scared at the start of each game thinking, "Where's the big inference? Why can't I see it?" and instead have the confidence to start playing the game, i.e., playing around with the pieces on the game board to see how the rules work together. That way the inferences will reveal themselves. It's just that knowing this and doing it are two different things. Let's hope I can start doing it soon.
• 1 Like

  Lawster9 Alum Member

  March 2019 edited March 2019 393 karma

  Hey, you might want to revisit games that you foolproof about a week later. This is sort of a halfway between working on a new game and foolproofing a game for the 5th time. A week is usually long enough that you forget some things, but not long enough that you don't have a chance of nailing it. So, that might be a good bridge to get comfortable doing new games. However, I think the reality is that newer games will always be a bit harder than games you've already foolproofed. So it's good to have the mindset that this might take you a bit longer than a game you've already mastered (even if the current game is a bit easier).

  That was sort of a rant of mumbo jumbo, but it I hoped it helped a bit lol.
• 1 Like

  Studying Member

  April 2019 54 karma

  JY talks so fast on the videos I internalized that pace in spite of myself and I couldn't shake it. This worried me because as a matter of habit I'm not sure learning is happening unless a deep, sub-atomic connection with the material is being made. But I have since come to realize that this stuff will come together without plumbing the depths of consciousness to really ping out on those "aha" moments. Force yourself to do them at JY's pace and they will come together. It doesn't seem like they will, but they will.
• 2ndTimestheCharm Alum Member

  April 2019 1810 karma

  I'm still stuck in this hell, by the way, 3 months later. In case anyone has any other ideas. I'm hoping one day soon the panic spell will be magically lifted and I'll be able to chill the fuck out and do the games with the same ease and joy during a timed test as I do when it's untimed. Right now this one tragic problem is standing in between me and my goal on June 3.
• 2ndTimestheCharm Alum Member

  May 2019 edited May 2019 1810 karma

  OK. So the June test is almost here, and while I have gained a ton of insight through my experience of so so many games, I am still often struggling with what few fresh, timed LG sections I do from the recent tests. HOWEVER, the other day I completed the LG section of PT45, which I had never seen before -- finished with a minute to spare -- and went -0. So that's something.
• 2ndTimestheCharm Alum Member

  May 2019 1810 karma

  And I also figured out today what I've been doing wrong in my foolproofing process. By redoing games in the FB binder quickly, we're ROBBING ourselves of the helpful moment of going over the rules/setup a second time because THE VERY ACT OF DOING THAT is what shows us the key inference. Read the game, set it up, go over the rules again and play the game. Every game, every time.
• 2ndTimestheCharm Alum Member

  May 2019 1810 karma

  HOORAY! Finished PT 68's LG section on time today with -0! I had seen it before, but it was a long time ago. I feel really, really good about this
• 1 Like

  tomdesabla Core Member

  May 2019 54 karma

  I'm looking up to you and at you, so congratulations. Now don't stop. Try to get them under time.