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Need advice on what to do about Logic Games

joshmcneillwebbjoshmcneillwebb Alum Member
in Logic Games 54 karma

By way of background, I've taken the LSAT once (January of 2020). I've finished the core curriculum and I have worked through probably 40 practice tests' worth of logic games. I've worked through these games at least twice and have watched the JY explanation videos to understand how to correctly solve any that gave me issues.

With all of that said, I'm still not scoring how I'd like to on the section (I usually hover around -4 but it can go up to -7 on a tough section). LG is also the only thing holding me back from scoring in the 170s which is what I'm aiming for in my June 2020 retake.

I definitely think a part of the issue is psychological. If I encounter a game that catches me off-guard, I freeze up. I start to feel sort of warm, like the blood is rushing to my head, and I start to make very basic mistakes, such as mislabeling a simple sequencing rule-that I otherwise would label correctly. Often, I'll blind review games in which this occurred, and I'll get every or most questions correct.

I'm sort of at a loss on what to do to improve. One thing I have not tried is working through a book such as the Powerscore Logic Games Bible.

Any advice on how to practically improve, or how to sort this this mental barrier, would be much appreciated!

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Comments

  • lexxx745lexxx745 Alum Member Sage ⭐
    3190 karma

    Keep hammering through the games. I think this is a great problem, if LG is your barrier to 170s. Take the games you have trouble on, do em 10 times over

  • EveryCookCanGovernEveryCookCanGovern Alum Member
    edited February 2020 401 karma

    We are told that LG is the easiest section to improve on. This was definitely not the case for me. LG was also the section that had held me back constantly and it took me the longest to improve on. That warm feeling that you described, described me perfectly during a LG section up until somewhat recently. Keep doing the fullproof method definitely, but what really helped me is changing up my approach to games. Perhaps it might help you too.

    Idk how you do games but if it's like what's described in the more recent explanations for logic games it will go: 1) translate rules and eliminate for the ASQ after each rule, 2) count the amount of questions left with an added condition, then either split if the number is less than half or don't split if it's at or more than half and do them first, and never make more game boards than there are questions left for a game. What I do instead is after step 1, I start to immediately look for splits and most of the time they will be there. I will split regardless of the number of questions, if it's a 5 question game I may have 6 -8 boards. But because I interacted with the rules and tried to push out inferences upfront, I've already internalized all the rules and I have all the possibilities in front of me, the questions take at most 30 seconds each, and I finish within the recommended time range regardless.

    That's not to say that I split for every single game, at times the splits really are weak and that's when I will count the number questions with added conditionals as a sort of verification to my decision not to split. If it turns out that I found a split to be weak but the number of questions with added conditions are low, I will reevaluate my decision to not split one more time - because it could be I missed something or it's just happens to be one of those pure brute force games. I feel a great sense of confidence moving through games now because I interacted with the game upfront before decisively picking a strategy.

  • SamiSami Live Member Sage ⭐ 7Sage Tutor
    10774 karma

    @joshmcneillwebb said:

    I definitely think a part of the issue is psychological. If I encounter a game that catches me off-guard, I freeze up. I start to feel sort of warm, like the blood is rushing to my head, and I start to make very basic mistakes, such as mislabeling a simple sequencing rule-that I otherwise would label correctly. Often, I'll blind review games in which this occurred, and I'll get every or most questions correct.

    Good job on having done the games twice. For these sections, make sure that you are following the fool proof process - doing a game that you didn't go -0 or took too long a month after to ensure you did learn from your review.

    Another thing I would recommend is changing your logic game process to include solutions
    to these issues. For example, after I have written all the rules I check my rules for a second time. This allows me to catch any simple mistakes and gets me really familiar with all my rules.

    Also, try to break your steps and focus on one thing at a time. I always just read the stimulus first and try to say what my basic task is. Only then do I try to think about a game board that could help me achieve that task. I then slowly add details to that game board. Most people on a difficult game will feel overwhelmed and try to force a particular game board on it with all the layers from just a first read of the stimulus.

    If you freeze up after writing down the rules, do local questions. This will allow you to run through scenarios using your rules but without needing to have inferences. This technique is especially effective in miscellaneous games, and then you can use the game boards from the local questions to eliminate answers for the global questions.

    I hope this was helpful.

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