Logic Games - The Road to -0.....

First, I just want to apologize for any grammar, spelling errors in advance. Just typing this post before I continue working on my thesis.

The purpose of this is to help students who have full-proofed LG and are continuously swinging between 0-2 in LG sections to finally get to the -0 level continously. Personally, I full-proofed 30-50 series. As I started moving between PT 50-62, my first try on each new logic game section was not -0. It took me a long time to reflect on this and I noted a few things that I wanted to share with the community. Hope this helps!

1) Full-Proofing: The Pros and Cons
Obviously the pros of full-proofing is that it makes your knowledge of each game type sound and gives you the experience of dealing with a variety of games. However, the cons is that it leads you to this level of comfortability that can be problematic because sometimes being comfortable means that you are not being critical or conscious of your approach. To break out of this, I tried to be more critical in my BR by following these four criteria.

i. Rules: Did I represent the rule as visually as possible? If not, why? What language in my rules can trigger me to make me represent my rule more visually?

ii. Connecting Rules: Did I connect all my rules together? If so, why not? How are you going to avoid this mistake in a real time? Develop a system for this and put it into practice.

iii. Inferences: Did you make as many inferences upfront as possible? What inferences did I not make? How did the game rules/board hide them? What sort of inference was it - sequencing, not both rule, etc..

iiii. Try to do above three steps by yourself. Your last resort is JYs explanation.

Hold yourself to this! If your scoring between -0 to -2, then guess what: your LG knowledge is solid. You just got to push and trust yourself more. Eventually this will payoff in your first LG section takes in the future.

2) Substitution Rule: It is Not as Bad it Seems
Yup - its really not that bad. Something I try to do is that in a game in which sub question is mentioned, ask yourself how many different ways could you re-word any of the rules in that game. Then, try to re-word them and see if they still hold the game together. This is a grueling process, but after 3 games or so, I think this question type is something you can have down in your pocket.

3) Killer Abstract Games: Using the Pivot
The gruesome 4/5 star games that have only two rules (or a max of 3) which are so abstract. Now, many of these games have a pivot. For example, PT 38 game 3 or PT 60 game 3. The pivot is that a game element will be locked in one spot. Guess what, that's your leading rule. Let this rule dictate each question approach.

4) The Gazillion Rule Game (Really any game with 5+ rules): Connecting the Rules is the Key
Any time you get a game and you see that there are 5+ rules, it should always trigger to you that things are going to connect up nicely. However, the difficult part is to connect them up and when you do that the difficulty of the game is defeated. Notice, many a times these games have two broader game elements - for example, sequencing game with a grouping game, or an in/out sequencing game. Don't approach the questions until you really really really push hard to connect the rules in order to make all the inferences. Two prime examples of this are game 2 & 3 in PT 62, or I believe the in/out dinosaur game from the late 50s.

5) The MBT Question Inference - which one of the following MBT? .... How to use this?
I think of this question as if its a rule to the game that was unstated. For example, you are working on a sequencing game and the second question of the game is which one of the following MBT? Now, you try to answer this by trying to go through the inferences and game rules that you have but of no luck. Then you brute force yourself through the ACs and you find the right answer. Guess what - the right AC should be immediately either visually adopted to the game boards or written down beside the game rules. This question is like a small cookie crumb that the LSAT writers leave for us. After you complete a game like such, ask yourself how come I did not make this inference upfront. Figure out why and this to your repertoire.

Hope this advice helps.

Remember - the LSAT is marathon and not a race. Be happy when you get questions wrong and conscious of the factors of why you made those mistakes or were overconfidence in your process. Memorizing the habits and thoughts that lead you to your mistakes will eventually make you catching them in a live session, which will eventually get you to -0.

Hope this helps and DM if you have any questions.

Cheers!