High Scorer Tips for LG Thread!

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• 7 Likes

  zoomzoom Member

  July 2021 462 karma

  I average 0/-1 on logic games and here are some tips that I help me a lot:

  1) Keep your gameboard, especially your main diagram clean. Don't be a victim of your own sloppiness by being sloppy with how you represent rules and setups. Some cleanliness goes a long way.

  2) When you see two rules with a the same variable (like 'A' in both rules), it's a likely indicator that the rules can be combined to push out an inference. So pause and see what they push out.

  2) Push yourself to go faster on the earlier LG the section. This isn't a technique as much as it is practical advice. Games 1 and 2 tend to be easier than Games 3 and 4. So try to work as fast as you can on them (without rushing) so you have more time to be deliberate on Games 3 and 4. That means that when you find the answer on an earlier question, PICK IT AND MOVE ON. Don't waddle around and ponder on the other answer choices. You ain't got time for that. The more you do that, the more time you waste on questions you do need to solve.

  3) For "new/miscellaneous" games, they will occasionally show up. You can counter this by exposing yourself to as many logic games as possible. However, on the off-chance you do see something completely new, I advise the following:

  -- Stop, close your eyes, and breathe. Regain your calm because panicking will only make things worse.
  -- Remind yourself you have done logic games so many times. You are not some scrub, especially if you average -3 to -5. You have the skills. All "new games" test similar logic game skills as every game, which is mainly deducting inferences. The set-up might be awkward but you have to remember the same skills are tested every time.
• 1 Like

  LSAT Lizard Alum Member

  July 2021 edited July 2021 331 karma

  oychoi79's post is excellent advice and the bit in bold is so important that I'm going to repeat it: PICK IT AND MOVE ON

  I am constantly tempted every game to reassure myself that I'm not missing anything by making sure that the ACs after the one I found that seems correct are clearly incorrect. I'll think 'it'll just take a few seconds' and sometimes that's probably true but it really adds up. When I first bit the bullet and started truly ignoring ACs as soon as I saw one I agreed with, I saw the single largest leap in my LG speed. It is very stressful acting this confident on your inferences but it matters.

  Another good tip is deliberately planning to use your partial and completed boards (eligible possibilities). Be diligent about clearly crossing out any gameboard you draw that runs into an invalid dead end. Skip questions without new premises "i.e. What must be true?" and do the other questions in the game first. You're not skipping them because they're more difficult; it's just a good tactical move. When you come back to them, you can very often cross 2-3 ACs off just by consulting the eligible boards you've already made for other questions. If you can get your boards from different questions so neat that they vertically align, this gets even faster.
• shinxxxxx Member

  July 2021 33 karma

  PRACTICE until you're sick of LG. I've read all sorts of tips but nothing has helped me improve as much as practice. I think your brain becomes better at recognizing patterns and juggling variables as you go, because I've gone from floundering on LG to being able to do some games almost completely in my head.
• ninamatryoshka Member

  July 2021 438 karma

  I'll put these in a separate post as well to maximise reach, these are just the notes I've made for myself that I go through before each section

  • Don’t go through the game in an automatic way, even if easy game, read and write down rules as carefully as if it were a tough game, sometimes they throw in unexpected things in easy games, and one word can make a big difference to the rules (for example “only if” vs. “if”)
  • If game 3 is really tough, check to see if game 4 is easier and do it first, don’t lose 5-7 points on game 4 by spending all your remaining time on a more difficult game 3
  • Before writing down a rule, play around with it in your head to get the best representation
  • Represent ALL rules even if it’s a weird one to represent (otherwise you risk forgetting about the rule)
  • If unsure how to represent a rule on the gameboard or which elements are important, look at questions to see what they ask about. For example in sequencing games sometimes they’ll make us think it will be double layered when the extra category is not that important and it doesn’t need to be double layered.
  • To check a rule, re-read it and imagine how you would represent it, and then check if the representation you already did matches sup
  • Check how each rule interacts with others, sometimes a rule might connect to several other rules, not just to the rule that came before it.
  • Check for floaters and circle or highlight them
  • Are there any interchangeable variables (floaters, variables affected by the same rule in the same way) or interchangeable groups?
  • if you're aiming to get all 4 games, splitting should be a LAST RESORT
  • Don’t split until you’ve read all rules and checked all your rule representations (otherwise might split on mis represented rule or on not the best rule to split on
  • Don’t automatically dive into a split without first checking if you need to by attempting some of the questions that give additional inferences. Might be a waste of time.
  • Split on rules that are annoying to have in rule list (for example conditional statements).
  • If the game has a lot of possibilities and nothing to do a split on, then it will be a rule driven game. If there aren’t any questions that prompt new gameboards (all the questions are “what must be true” and “what cannot be true”) then create my own few gamboards to see how rules play out and if I can make any inferences from that.
  • If you make any new inferences while doing questions, add the new inference to the main gameboard/ rule list