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Struggling with foolproofing

lysimmons00lysimmons00 Core Member
in Logic Games 23 karma

I've been doing logic games for about a month now, and overall I'm not struggling with them too much but they're definitely not my best out of the three sections. I trust that the foolproofing method must be a good way to get people's scores up, because obviously 7Sage wouldn't swear by it if it didn't work, but I'm really having a hard time wrapping my brain around it. I just don't find it useful because as soon as I've seen JY's explanation videos, I remember everything he says and all the right answers. This makes it very difficult to approach the game the next time as if I'm actually doing the game, and not just going through the motions to replicate what JY did. I just watched one of the videos where JY narrates a student going through a game in their foolproofing period, and in the game the student was not representing all the rules correctly or getting all the answers right, which makes me wonder if I should be approaching this differently because I always just do exactly what JY told us to do. I can do the games maybe twice after blind review and still feel like I'm getting a better understanding of them, but when JY says to get 10 copies of a game that just feels like it would be useless, because at that point I know the game so well that I don't even feel like I'm having to think about the right answers. It feels almost like confirmation bias? Like I already have in the back of my head what I'm looking for, so it doesn't feel like an accurate representation of what doing the games on test day will be like. Does that make sense? And if so, does anyone have any feedback or experiences to share that could help clarify this for me?
Thanks in advance!

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Comments

  • tahurrrrrtahurrrrr Member
    1106 karma

    I totally get what you mean that you feel like you're using meta knowledge the very first time you foolproof, but that's the point when you foolproof it the first time. You need to physically do it to jumpstart your memory for when you wait longer to redo the game again.

    And you're not doing the "10 clean copies" all in a row. You foolproof once right after you watch the explanation. Then wait maybe a few hours to a day to do it again. As someone who also tends to have a good memory about the game, I can assure you this: Remembering the game doesn't mean you'll remember how to make all the inferences.

    And even if you have a stellar memory and remember all the answers, the point is to reproduce the process. So be sure to focus on the process and not your meta knowledge of the game

  • learn2skipQslearn2skipQs Member
    730 karma

    spread out the games. I don't like to do the same one over and over in a row either...

  • LawyeringForLife-1LawyeringForLife-1 Member
    279 karma

    Great points from tahurrrrr!
    RE: the 10 copies - I liked Pacifico's method (it's somewhere in the forum) - he just does 4 copies (untimed, timed same day, timed next day, timed a week later). More efficient. Of course, I have games I have done 14 times (over 6mo period) and games I have done once or twice.

    I know how great memory can be a pain with this process, however, try to extricate yourself from the mechanical replication of JY's methods.

    There are 3 ways I used his videos:
    1. I totally did not understand the game, so JY's video is new territory for me and I try to replicate the thought process and the inferences. I was struggling with making inferences in the beginning so I forced myself to follow to the T. Especially the games I was totally lost on.

    1. I kind of get the game - JY's video is showing me shortcuts that I am not trained yet to trigger in my mind efficiently, so I am fine-tuning the steps of the process.

    2. I get the game completely - I still watch the video, but I am not focusing so much on replicating HIS style, as looking for my own "high-level" approach to inferences. Why? Because we are all humans and we don't do things perfectly.
      JY is great at what he does, but sometimes, he approaches things, not in-line with his best practices. For example, on some Qs he pulls back and considers existing relationships to quickly narrow down or even pick the correct answer. Other times, he tests answer choices on pretty much the same question. When I see him do that, I immediately ask myself, if there are ANY relationships I can use to shortcut my way to the correct answer! Does this invalidate his methods? Not in the slightest - when you are under the time pressure, you won't see everything the way you would see it under a different administration or during practice. So push yourself to find a different, better way that works faster for you.

    One other helpful tip - check the comments under the explanations. One game JY does a 4-board split, because there are 2 bi-conditionals in the logic chain. I followed his method and really enjoyed it. Then, I saw comments by other students saying to just follow the logic chain. So, I tried it that way and found that I needed to "fool-proof" a couple of times again with that method, to be confident in my skills. Whichever one of the 2 paths your end up taking on test day, at least you had 2 instead of 1, because if you can't trigger the only 1 you know - you are in trouble.
    Same thing with the splits - I am a big fan of JY's approach the splitting and getting the inferences done up-front, but for some games, I just go apply the rules.

    The last thing: the time factor. You said you have been doing them for a 1 month. Try 2 things:
    1. Assuming you have repeated some of the sets you drilled during the month, find the one from which the greatest amount of time has passed since last touch. See what you remember and how it goes.
    2. If you have been drilling a range of tests (e.g. 1-35) go to a test in the 60s (anything that is at least 5 years separated from what you have been drilling) and try a clean section to see how you do. There is an evolution of sorts in the content and game-types, but fundamentals are the same.

    Fool-proofing got me from an usual -8 on LG to a usual -0/-1. Occasionally, I would do a PT (even if I have done the LG before) and get lost. I immediately look at what gap needs to be closed. A big difference though is that instead of going directly to JY's videos, I usually just re-take the section (timed again) and force myself to clean-up the process. Most of the time, that's all that is needed.

    Don't give up on the fool-proofing - build on it your best way of tackling LG!

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