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LG tips for accuracy under time pressure from a 170+ scorer
ninamatryoshka
Member
I made myself a reminder sheet for each section with recommendations/strategies to avoid errors I've previously made. Every section I do, I assess why I made each error and what I should do to avoid it, and then I add this recommendation to my reminder sheet.
I thought you guys might benefit from seeing what a sample reminder sheet looks like, the tips here are specific to me and many methods might work for your own LG practice.
- 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
Comments
Thank you for this advice!
This is awesome! Would you happen to have any tips and pointers like this for the LR sections?
What do you mean by "split"?
@JasmineV It refers to the practice of creating multiple gameboards that represent all possible variations of a particular rule. If you don't get yet, don't worry, it will be explained well in the Core Curriculum.
Hi, I do!
Stimulus
- Read the stimulus and the answer choices slowly, every word matters and the sentences are difficult. Pause after each short bit to process what it means and to visualise it in my head.
- Identify the conclusion and the premises
- When re-reading a complex argument, use the indicator words to rearrange it in your head. Start with the any context statements, then read the premises and end with the conclusion. This will make it easier to see what’s missing or what’s wrong.
- Any gaps between the premises and the conclusion? Why do the premises support or not support the conclusion?
- If need to diagram conditional, skip and come back on round 2 as it might take a while. When diagramming do it super carefully as will waste time if done incorrectly
Question
- Return to the question, what are we being asked to do? For each answer choice, does it do what the question is asking us to do?
- If argument part/ role question, make sure am identifying the right sentence being asked about, sometimes they make the words look the same. Ask “why” for a statement, if it’s supported by another one, then it’s a subconclusion or main conclusion. If it’s not supported by another statement, then it’s a premise.
- In sufficient assumption questions, conclusion is super important, and if conditional reasoning is involved make sure that answer choices are not mixing up sufficiency and necessity. Need to go in same direction as stimulus (from whatever premises -> to conclusion)
- Most strongly supported questions: don’t get fooled by a could be true answer choice, we’re looking for what is most strongly supported. If an answer choice could be false within the world given by the fact set, then it’s not a most strongly supported
Answers
- Read all answer choices and eliminate, sometimes stimulus might be tough but answer choices are easy to eliminate.
- If left between two answer choices DO NOT SKIP, worth it to spend time to compare them to each other and plug each into the stimulus and check which one does what question needs it to do. Don’t just re-read the two answer choices, answer choices by themselves are useless, we care about how it’s interacting with the stimulus and if it’s doing the right thing
- If eliminated all answer choices, skip this question and come back on round 2. Either missed something in the stimulus or missed something in the answer choices, and if not sure where the error was might take a while to figure it out and re-read and not make the same error again.
Hi Jasmine, it's what @eziff said. My notes are more geared towards improving accuracy while under time pressure, they'll be less relevant when you're still learning the basics or working on your accuracy during untimed takes.
make multiple games boards
Does anyone feel that splitting usually works for double layer sequencing games at best? Half of the time I've tried to do it on a harder ordering/sequencing game, it throws three minutes down the drain.
Great stuff, thanks for sharing!
yes! totally agree, I rarely ever split the game, because I think its a waste of time, unless the game is very restrictive, I usually will not split it.
Really great post @ninamatryoshka ! With analysis leading to these types of insights, it doesn't surprise me you were able to break into 170's. Congrats, and thanks for sharing!
I would just like to highlight a couple things I think are particularly insightful. You pretty much covered it: I only hope the points may stick even better with additional emphasis.
In LG, splitting on rules that are annoying to have in your rule list is a critically undervalued strategy, and it is a foundational component of my own success and consistency in LG. It can transform a complex, dynamic component of the game into a simple, static one. It's so powerful, I'd push back on saving it as a last resort. If a split is the more efficient way to represent the rule, concerns over how long the split is going to take is not a great reason to hold back. To me, the more time consuming the split, the more complexity the split is removing from the game. See, e.g., the Dinosaur Game, New/Used CDs.
Your LR tips are similarly excellent. Just reading the material carefully and taking the time to study the language when it gets confusing is so important. This is one thing all top performers in LR do. Some of us get confused more often than others, but when we do, we all slow down and figure out what we're reading. I've known people to perform consistently well in LR without being able to easily turn complex conditionals around in their head. I've known top scorers with sub-optimal time management strategies. But I've never seen anyone perform well with consistency without slowing down and parsing out the language when confused. It seems simple, but it takes a lot of courage and discipline to actually execute on when the clock is ticking.
Awesome tips!
That split at last resort is too harsh IMO. It's sometimes the only way to tackle certain games. Not many, but some.
I agree, it is, but I was using it as a crutch initially and it led to me taking way too much time on games and not having enough time to do all 4. Someone inboxed me asking why I said this about splitting, here's my response to them:
You'll usually be able to do a full split on most games and get anywhere between 4 and 12 or more game boards. It's not that splitting is bad, it's that doing a full split will take way more time than you have.
I usually will do a semi-split, I'll represent an annoying rule directly on the game board, and get around 2 game boards that aren't usually populated with all the game pieces.
If I get any new rules that interact with the rule I represented, I'll directly include that in the game boards.
After that, I'll consider these (usually) 2 game boards as my worlds and use the questions which provide additional inferences (ones that say stuff like "if Y is in 2 what must be true" to guide which world I'm in, and then I'll save the new game board I get from this new question by writing it under the world where it's valid. Then I'll use this new game board on other questions if the opportunity to do so comes up. This is another reason for doing questions that give us additional conditions before doing the vague questions that ask us what must be true/ what could be true / where Y could go in general. You get several new game boards from the questions that give you new conditions, and then you use these game boards to help you eliminate answers on the vague/ general questions.
This way you're kind of creating the possible game boards as you go instead of cranking them all out at the start and potentially creating more than you need.
It's a little hard to explain this using words haha I wish I could share a video.
Doing a full split did really help me practice when I was scoring between the mid-150s to the low 160s, but getting beyond that to where I could finish all 4 games on LG comfortably required abandoning doing a full split as a first resort (for example seeing a block rule on a 6 slot sequencing game and deciding to do a split and place the block each place it could go in. instead I just write down the block in my rule list, and see where it can go by getting new game boards when answering the questions).
Thank you for these notes! All great comments
)
Thank you for sharing!
Any tips like these for RC? These have been so helpful to me these past couple of days, as I look to get out of my plateau in the low 160s!
Hi! I made my journey out of the low-mid 160s up to the high 160s-low 170s over the past month. It's definitely an uphill battle! If you can get a tutor, I think this stage is when it's most helpful to have one. particularly one that focuses on overall strategy rather than question explanations (since explanations are available on 7sage and on other sites. You want someone that can help you analyse if what you're doing is effective or if you're wasting time or energy somehow.
I'm actually still struggling with RC myself (stuck on -4) but have resolved that a little today (I have a habit of reading each passage twice. first time for understanding and second time for details+structure, which worked fine for me in the passages in the 60s, but leaves me with too little time for the more complex questions and answer choices on the passages in the 80s. I resolved this issue by..trusting myself to be fine with just 1 read and summarising each paragraph as I go along, and trusting that I can refer back to the passage for details because I'll know where to look for them.) I realised that this was the issue by describing what I normally do to my tutor @Christopherr who recommended I stop and we practiced not doing that.
Here are the reminders that I've written for myself for RC:
Passage
- Ask “why is the author saying this”, and “what’s the author’s point” after I’m done reading a paragraph, and connect the new things I read to previous things i’ve read in the passage
- Pause at commas/full stops to understand what I just read, and rephrase using easier/normal words. Don’t just plough along without understanding.
- Pause at the end of each paragraph to summarize the purpose of the paragraph (is it giving us an alternate view, a benefit of something, describing a hypothesis, an experiment..what purpose does this paragraph serve?)
- Highlight the main conclusion if it happens to be summarised in a sentence
- On science passages that are difficult to understand (physics), track the views (highlight them) so that they’re distinct from supporting info
Questions
- Read the questions slowly and don’t take my understanding of them for granted, after reading a question stem, ask myself if i understand what they’re asking for, highlight key terms in the question stem so I don’t go looking for the wrong thing or forget what I’m meant to be answering
- Bookmark questions i want to check if i have time for a round 2, this way if i have some time left at the end i have something to go back to
Answers
- Highlight key words in the answer choices, every word matters! If something isn’t mentioned or is wrong, then that’s important, don’t sit there thinking about the pros and cons of this answer choice
- Have two rounds for the answer choices: On first pass through answer choices, see which I can eliminate easily, don’t do the hard work here (checking in the passage), hard work happens on second pass when I’ve eliminated answers and am left between two answer choices. Don’t have time to go back to passage for each answer choice.
- If brooding on an answer choice, not sure what to do with it, then leave it open and keep reading other answers. Only do the hard work on answer choices when there’s more than 1 contender, if I haven’t gone through all the answer choices yet don’t get stuck on one answer choice because the obvious correct answer might be after
- Need to be careful about when it’s worth it to go back to the passage to check and when it’s not, don’t just go to the passage when I’m unsure of an answer. Read all the answer choices before spending extra time on an answer, a better answer might be hiding in D or E
- Compare two answer choices and ask if each is doing what the author is asking us to do before picking one, don’t just pick one over the other because one uses familiar words
- Sometimes can be stuck between two answer choices if I misunderstood or forgot the question stem, read the question stem first before going back to the passage for help
Some great tips here, though I'd concur with others on the splitting.
If you lock all this down and are still struggling with time, then you should video tape yourself taking an LG section (preferable from overhead).
There's no better way to see how you waste little bits of time that add up to a lot over the course of the section.
It's as powerful as watching recordings of yourself doing public speaking in order to improve.
Thank you! Your post on the importance of repeating games was super helpful during my games learning process.
Also you guys are all right about my note on splitting, I was over-correcting a habit I had which was to automatically split without pausing to think about whether it's worth it and which rule to split on.
Here are my amended notes on splitting:
Splitting
- Don’t split before having gone through all rules, even if a rule looks like it’s better just directly represented in a split, put it in the rule list, wait to have gone through all rules, make sure to have checked all rules and then split at the end. Otherwise might split on not best rule or on a rule that's been represented incorrectly. Best things to split on are most restrictive rules (blocks) or rules that are annoying to have in rule list (conditional statements)
- Don’t automatically dive into a split without first checking if i need to, check how restrictive rules are (2 item block in a 7 slot sequencing game is not very restrictive), and how many questions there are vs. how many game-boards I’ll end up with from a split. If questions give new premises, might not need to split.
- No need to resolve all game boards if splitting, it's okay to leave floating items and rules just make sure they're near the new game boards so that I don't forget about them.
Thank you!!!!!
Gotta second what others are saying about splitting. You only want to have 2-3 boards when you split, and you should NOT split based on a conditional. Rules that are good to split are usually “or” based (e.g. “x is first or last”) because you only need two boards.