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How long does it take to study LG to -1/-0?
snowcap007
Member
Hi everyone,
I’m taking the October LSAT and I’m trying to map out my study time. Will the 7Sage course on LG prepare me for the LG section, or will I need a lot more practice after I’ve been through all of the videos and drills?
Thanks in advance.
Comments
following
Took me a year lol
it took me a year to get to -1 or 0 untimed, lots of practice
For most, I think you’ll need more than the curriculum videos and drills to master LG (get to -1 or -0 consistently). The curriculum vids and drills were awesome for familiarizing me with each of the common game types and boards, but I was far from good at LG by the time I finished the curriculum stuff. Where I really saw improvement, and where I think most see improvement, was by “fool proofing” games or, for lack of better words, doing games repeatedly until their inferences become second nature.
To do this, I prefer using the “Pacifico Method.” In short, you do a game under timed conditions, watch the explanation video, immediately repeat the game, then attempt the same game the next day, then, finally, one more time a week later. So, if done correctly, you attempt a game four times in total. If after your fourth attempt you didn’t get all of the questions correct, didn’t complete the game under the target time, missed some inferences, or just don’t feel comfortable with the game, then flag it and come back to it (possibly multiple times) at a later date.
I prefer the Pacifico Method because I’ve found four attempts is usually enough for me. Sometimes I need five or six, but ten feels a bit overkill for most games. That’s not to say doing the game ten times is wrong; after all, JY, who created the method, advocates for ten attempts. I just think that if you’ve got the game down pat after four attempts, you should be good.
I use a simple Excel spreadsheet to track my scores, times, and dates that I attempted each game. I can share it with you if you’d like to see a more concrete example of the Pacifico Method. Also, if you have any other questions regarding the method I’m happy to answer them and/or link you to the forum discussion outlining the method. It was created by a former 7Sager named “Pacifico,” hence the name of the method.
It’s totally possible that you’ll be a whiz at games by the time you finish the curriculum resources, but I think it’s unlikely. Luckily, however, now until October is more than enough time to get much better at games!
I second @CSieck3507. It also took me a year. Everyone is different and I've heard some people mastering LG in a few months.
It also depends on how you study. Some people only study LG until they master it, and then they move on to the other sections. Others, like me, studied the entirety of the LSAT so improving on LG was a bit slower because we also worked on improving in LR and RC at the same time.
After almost a year's work, my results are as follows:
-0 to -2 on LG
-1 to -4 on LR
-3 to -9 on RC
Took me a little under 4 months. Not sure if it was related at all, but I have been solving logic puzzles like ones in the LG section for a long time now due to personal interest and I also had a background of basic conditional statements/relationships and how to diagram them before actually taking my first LG section through a undergraduate course I took. It is different for everyone, I really like @"Matt Sorr"'s response because I followed basically the same method with excel sheet tracking as the one he mentioned and it worked wonders.
@"Matt Sorr" can you please share your method spreadsheet? It would be super helpful! Thank you so much! and thank you for your detailed response as well - I will try the method
tldr: watching the videos and doing the drills once was certainly not enough to get me to -0. imo learning how to do logic games quickly and accurately is like learning how to do math. sure, watching someone do it and trying a problem once will get you somewhere, but — assuming you are not some genius — you just have to practice over and over until it becomes second nature.
i got to averaging around -1 in about a month, but it was really grueling. i decided in the middle of june that i was going to take the august test after a diagnostic of 163 where almost all of my points were taken off for games. from june 23 to the middle of july, the only thing i did was work on my games
it took me around 2.5 weeks to get through all the curriculum and then another 2 weeks of 6+ hours of drills daily. my strategy was to do every single drill in the curriculum until i could do it in -3% target time. i literally have done some of the drills more than 10 times (the in and out drill w the souderton and randsborough game made me go insane). once i had all of the drills in the curriculum down i used the old PTs to make my own drills. i started with 2 game drills and worked my way up to 4 game drills for stamina.
from my experience, progress was not at all linear, so definitely just keep plugging away. in my first week, i started to get comfortable looking for inferences and drawing game boards — i saw decent improvement in my score just from that, and it also just felt a lot better feeling like i knew what i was doing instead of frantically trying to draw out all the scenarios like i did in my diagnostic. after the initial improvement, i basically saw none for another three weeks. i felt like i was getting better, but my score was highly variable; for some drills i was getting minus 0 and for some drills i couldn't even finish the first of two games. at some point, i realized i was spending too much time trying to make inferences and draw game boards when it was faster to just attack the games with a basic understanding of how the rules interact with each other. after i realized that and got good at determining when to draw sub-game boards and when to just attack the questions, everything just clicked and i started averaging anywhere from -0 to -2. i still do two 4-game drills every day to keep sharp, on top of my daily PT. i find if i don't keep up, i get rusty really fast. anyways, if you want to talk more feel free to pm me!
@chocolatesprinkles yes of course! Just sent you a private message.
I usually get -1/-2 average, so not quite what you’re asking about, but it took me 3 months to get there.
@"Matt Sorr"Can you also share your spreadsheet with me? I would love to give it a try!
@"Matt Sorr" Regarding the use of your excel spreadsheet, did you start filling out a spreadsheet while going through the LG section of the syllabus too? Or did you start using an excel spreadsheet once you finished the syllabus and started practicing?
I think it greatly depends on how long it is taking you now to finish a full LG section, and the number of incorrects you are currently getting. In my study, I was pretty good at solving puzzles but struggled with time, and it took me about a month and a half of study to get a -0/-1 sort of score pretty consistently (I still struggle a little bit with time sometimes, depending on the section I am doing + my level of exhaustion). If you haven't taken a full times preptest, do that first because that will give you a good starting off score to base your schedule around. Also, if LG is what you are struggling with the most, that is a great thing, because you're likely to improve faster than if you struggled with LR or RC. Good luck- you got this!
@gjsaoud-1 I began using the spreadsheet when I started fool proofing (after the curriculum). I did this for a couple of reasons: first, because I knew I was going to fool proof all games from PTs 1-35. All games in the CC are pulled from tests 1-35, so I knew I'd be drilling every game in the CC anyways. The other reason is because I was terrible at games during the CC. I really just viewed the CC as a way to be introduced to each of the common game types, boards, and rules. I wasn't concerned with finishing the games under the target time or getting all of the questions right because I knew I'd drill the games hard while fool proofing. Therefore, I didn't see much benefit in recording how poorly I did on the CC games.
Whoever says a year is fucking with you. Ballpark: 100-150 hrs. Do all the logic games at least twice and the harder ones at least 4 times. It's the best shot at a 160+, so if you want it bad enough you'll get there in under 3 weeks.
Depends on the person. For me I was able to master LG (between -3 and -0) in about 1-2 months. Most of the time I get questions wrong based on silly mistakes from rushing. Keep replaying the games over and over again. All games are the same just with different game pieces and scenarios. For reference, when I first started studying LG games (before I started doing the 7sage method) I was scoring about a 10.
Not all of us are as quick on the uptake as you. If you mastered LG in a 3 week blitz, I’m genuinely impressed. I’ve been at this a long time, and few can match your accomplishment. Maybe you’re just smarter, study more effectively, or work really closely with a great tutor. But it takes a lot of people a lot longer than you, and I don’t see any indicia of insincerity here.
In hindsight, I think I could have done it in 3 months if I’d known how to study as effectively as I did by the end of my LSAT studying. But I didn’t. I made a lot of mistakes, missed a lot of points, developed and reinforced a lot of bad habits, and generally studied ineffectively. That wasted time and required even more time to correct. This is what it looks like for most of the rest of us. In the end, it took me about a year of studying before I was ready. And then, despite a -0.4 average LG on my final 10 PT’s, I went -6 for LG on test day because I had undiagnosed problems I wasn’t able to compensate for under the increased pressure. At this point, though, I had become a highly effective studying beast of a student, and I figured out what went wrong. In about another month of study, I had it mastered and probably haven’t missed a question since.
Where some people may have a quick and easy time of this, many of the rest of us get there through grit and determination. My LSAT score doesn’t say the same thing yours will. Yours will say how very smart you are. Mine says that I will find a way to do whatever it takes to achieve my goals and that no barrier in my way can ultimately withstand my efforts to go through it. Both scores reflect well on us.
Although I understand your perspective, I stand by my original statement. Please allow me to be clear: ITS GONNA BE HARD AND ITS GONNA FUCKING SUCK. Before I got -0, I was averaging -17 points per section. I never had access to a tutor, nor any indication that it was possible, nor any good study habits. I went in blind and ignorant, and told myself that if I put in the time, the progress will come. I cried if I had to, screamed into a pillow, got angry, got scared and kept going.
You're gonna come across a LOT of people here who will tell you to pack it in because you're shit out of luck. You gotta mentally tell these people to fuck off and convince yourself that you're gonna be the exception. If you let it get to your head then you're not gonna make it.
I understand everyone is different and everyone has different studying habits, but it's ultimately going to come down to how much mental exhaustion you are willing to endure and finding it deep within to keep going, block out the doubt and PUSH. Hard work will always beat talent.
The one thing I wish I did differently was stop focusing so much on other people's journey and other people's expectations of what's possible. This is a competition between you and yourself, and the mental barrier is what stops most people from pushing to drill for an extra hour.
It takes an obscene amount of repetition and borderline unhealthy obsession, but if this something you really want, then I will choose everyday to tell you that nothing is standing in your way. You gotta do the work no one else is willing to do. You can either heighten you capacity or lower your expectations. Ultimately, its matter of endurance in the face of utter exhaustion. > @"Cant Get Right" said:
I took a year to master the LG section and I'm not being cavalier about it: It really did take me a good year's work of LG drills to consistently score low enough with the official timing conditions.
For some of us, LG is something we're completely unfamiliar with—I didn't grow up doing logic puzzles or anything remotely close to the LG section, so it makes sense that I'd probably have to practice longer to get used to it?
I read your comment as demeaning, accusatory, and ignorant.
I'm glad it took you a shorter amount of time, but for me and many others, it did take a year (and I'm still not at -0 consistently, I'm on the cusp). I went through a few months of learning the core curriculum and the basics of diagramming game boards/rules. Then, there's the component of learning about conditional logic and how to draw out inferences. As I studied LR and RC, this skill strengthened naturally. After that, I began doing untimed sections and fool-proofed games I misunderstood. Any time I felt as though my process could be better with a game, I watched the explanation video and re-attempted it until it felt intuitive. A year in, I am still fool-proofing, but everything is timed and I am focused on the highest level of difficulty. I have strong muscle memory with LG and feel comfortable with unconventional game boards and rule substitution questions.
LG has been the hardest section for me because it causes a decent amount of anxiety. Because of this, preparation and repetition have been key. It has been more effective for me to study a few hours a day (1 hour a day while I was working/in school and now 4.5ish hours a day) and then do self-care activities so my brain can process and absorb LG strategies. The more games you do carefully, the better you can grasp the concept of world-making and splitting. Before you know it, you'll be able to split and solve at least a few games per set, leading you to speed through the questions in just a few minutes.
I'm hanging out at around -0 to -2 right now with a 176+ as the goal for August/September. Take your time and believe in yourself. Rooting for you!
Im sorry you feel put down by what I said, and maybe my choice of words heightens that reaction; but I stand by what I meant. First of all, I am in no way ignorant of the difficulty of this section nor its learning curve. Like I said in another response, I had no prior experience nor any circumstantial advantage like a tutor: I started from scratch just like most people. So if I was an exception to the apparent rule, it had nothing to do with my circumstances and everything to do with my approach. Second, I wasn't accusing anyone of lying or intentionally planting seeds of doubt. A sea of comments suggesting a year is inevitably going to fuck with peoples head, and I'm basically saying don't let it.
The above two statements seem to be inconsistent. The first one suggests it's the possibly negative effect(s) of a comment that says it took a year to perfect LG that's problematic. The second statement suggests it's the person making the comment that's problematic. Thank you for clarifying that it's the first statement that you meant.
Still, I'm afraid I have to disagree that a group of comments saying it took the individual users a year to perfect LG will "inevitably [mess] with peoples heads (sic)." Even if you didn't intend to accuse people, your statement attributes some negative effect to some people's honest disclosure that it took them a year to perfect LG.
I think telling people it honestly took a lot of other LSAT students a whole year to get good at LG can be a good thing. It's comforting and encouraging for students to read the persistence it took for some of these commenters to achieve their goals. At least that's what it meant for me when I read about other users persisting over long periods.
I see what you mean, and I am willing to take accountability when the intent behind words fails to match its impact. It was written with the intention to encourage people. Some people have a time-crunch that won't allow them to take a whole year to learn the section-so for those people I wanted to make it clear that they're not dead in the water. Some people might find it comforting, but I personally wouldn't. I'm not discouraging people from being honest, rather relaying to some people who read those comments that they shouldn't necessarily believe that it will apply to them. I am perfectly content with disagreeing with you on the potential impact of reading those comments. After all, this whole discourse is coming from a subjective place. > @"Glutton for the LSAT" said:
This is the type of thing the internet needs more of. I absolutely agree that different perspectives add value, and sometimes a consensus seems to be emerging that I disagree with, and so I push back a little harder because of it. I really appreciate the clarification as well as the underlying perspective, and I think it adds a lot to the conversation. It obviously came across as questioning the sincerity of some folks, and you owned up to that. That's a classy move.