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Logic Games Attack Strategy
Pacifico
Alum Inactive ⭐
So I've got three weeks left in the Army before I start terminal leave and I've finally reached the end of the learning curriculum and the only thing that stands in between me and 4-5 months of PTs is the LG Bundle. As I finished up the last few LG sections in the curriculum I saw a lot of people were having the same questions, concerns and other issues with how to approach their LG studies and utilizing the Fool Proof Method and since I don't really have a job or much to do at work anymore I thought I'd offer up my solution and strategy to address some of these problems. I think the Fool Proof Method is awesome, but I tweaked it very slightly for my purposes and I think it could help some people out to employ a similar strategy. If this helps you in any way, please pass it along to anyone else who may be struggling.
Top concerns I have seen from other people:
1) I think 10 copies of every LG is wasting paper.
2) I don't have enough time to do all the LGs.
3) I want to know the categories for every LG I'm doing.
4) When do I do which games and how often do I do them again?
Before I answer these questions directly, here is what I've actually done to set myself up for success. If you were fortunate enough to get the LG Bundle before LSAC made it vanish, then you have all the games from PTs 1-35 which is 140 games. If you have anything less than that, just scale down what I'm prescribing, but everything should still go along as I outline here. I got a few 2" 3-ring binders and filled them with document protectors. I then began with PT 1 and printed out 4 copies of the first game (more on this later), which if you have the LG Bundle is 8 pieces of paper since 7Sage was kind enough to format the old LGs like the new ones with 2 pages and plenty of room to work. If you don't have this I'd say add a piece of scratch paper in with each game to give yourself extra space to simulate what you'll have on the LSAT. I then placed all 4 copies of the first game in a document protector and put a sticky note on the front denoting the following: PT#, LG#, and then a chart with 1st-4th attempts on the vertical axis and Date/Time/Score on the horizontal axis (more on this later as well). I then repeated this process for each subsequent game so that now I have a binder full of 4 copies of each LG, although due to the volume of paper you'll need at least 2 or 3 binders like I mentioned above.
All the information I collect on the sticky notes I will put into a very simple Excel spreadsheet I have designed to track my progress. If you've read this far and are still interested, feel free to message me your email and I will send you a blank copy of the spreadsheet I designed so you can use it and tweak it how you see fit. In a nutshell it has space to log the date/time/score for every attempt for every LG in the bundle.
The first attempt is simply that, just my first shot at a new LG. I time everything with a stopwatch so I know how I'm doing, but I don't set a timer because that doesn't really make sense to me since I'm working to standard and not to time. If you time yourself and stop then you won't know how long the game is actually taking you, so always use a stopwatch (I hope this is common sense at this point). So once I finish I record the date and the time it took me and I blind review and then check my score. I then record only the score I got while timing myself since this is LG and there is no way you should get LG questions wrong during BR since you can just brute force the answers if need be if you really don't understand something. If you're missing LG questions on BR then in my opinion there is something seriously wrong in your methodologies and you need to perhaps relearn the basics unless you just misread a question or something like that.
After recording the data on the sticky note and transferring it to my spreadsheet I watch JY's video explanation and go over the game and then I put that LG in the back of the document protector it came from behind the clean LGs and take out the second copy. I then make my second attempt, timing myself, doing my BR, recording all data, and then rewatching the video if necessary. I then make my third attempt the next day, and my fourth attempt I make a week later, always following the same methodologies as I did on the first attempt.
My thinking is that if I'm really serious about this, I should be able to conquer any given LG in four tries. Two in a row should see a huge time and accuracy improvement since it's so fresh in my mind, then the third and fourth attempts simply reinforce this improvement and the retention of the strategy. This also makes you more efficient since you know that each LG is simply a 7-8 day practice exercise. Trying to schedule out an additional 6 attempts to do all 10 copies just seemed ridiculous to me given that there are 140 LGs to do in the bundle. In my mind it's better to be able to develop mastery more quickly and then encounter a wider variety of games in order to make sure you're ready for everything. Of course, if there is an incredibly hard LG then obviously that may require additional attempts, but this should be a rare exception to the rule.
So to revisit the concerns I noted above, here are my solutions:
1) Obviously you're going to have to get over using some paper, so cutting that down by 60% should be a good tradeoff to help get you into law school in my opinion. And once you get your 170+ you can go recycle all that paper!
2) If you don't have time to do all the LGs, just scale down the above and do what you have time for. If you know it will take a week turnaround per LG and you can do 5 per day, then you know you can get at least 30-35 done in a two week period depending on if you take a day off or not. At this rate you could do more than 100 LGs before the June LSAT if need be (but you should probably be focusing on PTs). If you have to scale way down I'd recommend randomly picking PTs from 1-35 and doing all the games in that PT so you shouldn't end up doing all of the same kind of question and will get a better feel for the variability within a given test.
3) In my opinion you absolutely should never record the category of any game you attempt. If you do, it will negatively influence your work since you will know going in to use a chart or to sequence and group rather than just deducing what needs to be done. When you take the LSAT it doesn't say GROUPING GAME in bold type at the top of the page, so you should practice like its the real thing, which means no knowledge of categories.
4) I think I addressed this well in my strategy above, but it bears repeating: Make 4 attempts: 1st - Today, 2nd - Immediately afterwards, 3rd - Tomorrow, 4th - In a week (either a week from attempts 1&2 or a week from your 3rd attempt, that's your call schedule wise).
Anyways, I know this is a bit long but I hope it helps at least one person because as a longtime lurker I have gotten a lot of help from the community here and I wanted to try to do my part to give at least a little bit back. If anyone is still reading this and wants more details or wants photos of my binders or that Excel spreadsheet, feel free to hit me up anytime. Best of luck to all the June LSAT takers and to everyone else in your studies!
~Pacifico
P.S.- Though I am more than happy to help anyone here with any issues they may have, I will not send you the LG Bundle as that would violate both 7Sage and LSAC regulations. Please don't put me or anyone else in that position because I am trying to help people here and won't break the law to do so. Thanks for your cooperation!
P.P.S. - I don't check my inbox on here anymore, but if you have any questions you can DM me on Twitter @pacificosoldati and I'll do my best to help you however I can.
Top concerns I have seen from other people:
1) I think 10 copies of every LG is wasting paper.
2) I don't have enough time to do all the LGs.
3) I want to know the categories for every LG I'm doing.
4) When do I do which games and how often do I do them again?
Before I answer these questions directly, here is what I've actually done to set myself up for success. If you were fortunate enough to get the LG Bundle before LSAC made it vanish, then you have all the games from PTs 1-35 which is 140 games. If you have anything less than that, just scale down what I'm prescribing, but everything should still go along as I outline here. I got a few 2" 3-ring binders and filled them with document protectors. I then began with PT 1 and printed out 4 copies of the first game (more on this later), which if you have the LG Bundle is 8 pieces of paper since 7Sage was kind enough to format the old LGs like the new ones with 2 pages and plenty of room to work. If you don't have this I'd say add a piece of scratch paper in with each game to give yourself extra space to simulate what you'll have on the LSAT. I then placed all 4 copies of the first game in a document protector and put a sticky note on the front denoting the following: PT#, LG#, and then a chart with 1st-4th attempts on the vertical axis and Date/Time/Score on the horizontal axis (more on this later as well). I then repeated this process for each subsequent game so that now I have a binder full of 4 copies of each LG, although due to the volume of paper you'll need at least 2 or 3 binders like I mentioned above.
All the information I collect on the sticky notes I will put into a very simple Excel spreadsheet I have designed to track my progress. If you've read this far and are still interested, feel free to message me your email and I will send you a blank copy of the spreadsheet I designed so you can use it and tweak it how you see fit. In a nutshell it has space to log the date/time/score for every attempt for every LG in the bundle.
The first attempt is simply that, just my first shot at a new LG. I time everything with a stopwatch so I know how I'm doing, but I don't set a timer because that doesn't really make sense to me since I'm working to standard and not to time. If you time yourself and stop then you won't know how long the game is actually taking you, so always use a stopwatch (I hope this is common sense at this point). So once I finish I record the date and the time it took me and I blind review and then check my score. I then record only the score I got while timing myself since this is LG and there is no way you should get LG questions wrong during BR since you can just brute force the answers if need be if you really don't understand something. If you're missing LG questions on BR then in my opinion there is something seriously wrong in your methodologies and you need to perhaps relearn the basics unless you just misread a question or something like that.
After recording the data on the sticky note and transferring it to my spreadsheet I watch JY's video explanation and go over the game and then I put that LG in the back of the document protector it came from behind the clean LGs and take out the second copy. I then make my second attempt, timing myself, doing my BR, recording all data, and then rewatching the video if necessary. I then make my third attempt the next day, and my fourth attempt I make a week later, always following the same methodologies as I did on the first attempt.
My thinking is that if I'm really serious about this, I should be able to conquer any given LG in four tries. Two in a row should see a huge time and accuracy improvement since it's so fresh in my mind, then the third and fourth attempts simply reinforce this improvement and the retention of the strategy. This also makes you more efficient since you know that each LG is simply a 7-8 day practice exercise. Trying to schedule out an additional 6 attempts to do all 10 copies just seemed ridiculous to me given that there are 140 LGs to do in the bundle. In my mind it's better to be able to develop mastery more quickly and then encounter a wider variety of games in order to make sure you're ready for everything. Of course, if there is an incredibly hard LG then obviously that may require additional attempts, but this should be a rare exception to the rule.
So to revisit the concerns I noted above, here are my solutions:
1) Obviously you're going to have to get over using some paper, so cutting that down by 60% should be a good tradeoff to help get you into law school in my opinion. And once you get your 170+ you can go recycle all that paper!
2) If you don't have time to do all the LGs, just scale down the above and do what you have time for. If you know it will take a week turnaround per LG and you can do 5 per day, then you know you can get at least 30-35 done in a two week period depending on if you take a day off or not. At this rate you could do more than 100 LGs before the June LSAT if need be (but you should probably be focusing on PTs). If you have to scale way down I'd recommend randomly picking PTs from 1-35 and doing all the games in that PT so you shouldn't end up doing all of the same kind of question and will get a better feel for the variability within a given test.
3) In my opinion you absolutely should never record the category of any game you attempt. If you do, it will negatively influence your work since you will know going in to use a chart or to sequence and group rather than just deducing what needs to be done. When you take the LSAT it doesn't say GROUPING GAME in bold type at the top of the page, so you should practice like its the real thing, which means no knowledge of categories.
4) I think I addressed this well in my strategy above, but it bears repeating: Make 4 attempts: 1st - Today, 2nd - Immediately afterwards, 3rd - Tomorrow, 4th - In a week (either a week from attempts 1&2 or a week from your 3rd attempt, that's your call schedule wise).
Anyways, I know this is a bit long but I hope it helps at least one person because as a longtime lurker I have gotten a lot of help from the community here and I wanted to try to do my part to give at least a little bit back. If anyone is still reading this and wants more details or wants photos of my binders or that Excel spreadsheet, feel free to hit me up anytime. Best of luck to all the June LSAT takers and to everyone else in your studies!
~Pacifico
P.S.- Though I am more than happy to help anyone here with any issues they may have, I will not send you the LG Bundle as that would violate both 7Sage and LSAC regulations. Please don't put me or anyone else in that position because I am trying to help people here and won't break the law to do so. Thanks for your cooperation!
P.P.S. - I don't check my inbox on here anymore, but if you have any questions you can DM me on Twitter @pacificosoldati and I'll do my best to help you however I can.
Comments
Thanks for making this guide, I unfortunately don't have access to all the LG from 1-35, I only have the games from 7-35, so I'm missing some of the earlier ones.
Regardless I've got my binder, just need to start printing 4 clean copies of each game.
Have about 3 months before Oct, and I'm going to give myself 2 days for all the LG from a given PT. And then obviously I'll do it 1 week again but by then it should be really easy. I have 28 prep tests to go through to do the LG, meaning it should take me roughly 56 days, so I should be done by September. I'll just have to set a time everyday like an hour to do the 4 games, then watch JY's explanation, and then do it again.
PT 7
LG 1
Date Time Score
1st Attempt 13JUN 11:52 4/7
2nd Attempt 13JUN 6:48 7/7
3rd Attempt 14JUN 6:34 7/7
4th Attempt 20JUN 6:50 7/7
Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions!
Thanks again!
http://www.cambridgelsat.com/resources/spreadsheets/lsat-logic-games-tracker/
@habad1 I got through the first 13 PTs (52 individual games) and was feeling pretty good so I started to PT. My general approach was to save as much drilling material as possible during the curriculum so that I could use it between PTs. I just go back now and then before a PT to do a new game to just get my mind right because I suck at the beginning of a PT if I'm not in test mode, so now I drill an RC passage, a game, and a problem set (usually NA since those are often my worst). I've averaged less than two wrong on LG and most of the ones I get wrong are reading errors and not so much logic errors, so for now I'm just saving the bundle for when I hit a rough patch of LG. When I was heavy into it though I was doing 5-10 games a day, which is two attempts a piece for first time games. Honestly if I had a laser printer at home I'd probably end up doing all of them in less than a week simply because I enjoy doing them.
I only use 7Sage and the LSAT Trainer so I'm not sure if there are other resources out there that group the games how you want them, but again I'd recommend against it. Also, if you follow my advice in the original post you could just put the game type for each on the sticky note on each document protector. It would be tedious, but if that's really what you want and need then I'd say it's better to invest your time in that than your money in something else since you already have the bundle.
Then I watched JY's explanations, and did all the games again, recorded all the times, and I did Game 1 in like 3min, and the rest in roughly 6-8min, so overall I did amazing.
Now tomorrow I will do them once more, then in a week and I'll have mastered the games.
Although this is a painful technique, I can see how it will definitely be beneficial.
Where I usually mess up in doing a game the first time is either misinterpreting a rule making the game super difficult, or didn't read carefully. I do agree with you @Pacifico that timing is really crucial, b/c I mean if you give yourself infinite time you can just brute force through every single game, so I will continue timing myself.
The other thing you need to remember is if you encounter an error in misinterpretation, don't panic, just immediately go back to the point at which the error was made in your setup, or all the way back to the beginning if necessary. It sounds terrible but it's better than wasting time freaking out, and diagramming with the correct details the second time around should go much faster. The worst thing you can do on LGs (or any part of the LSAT for that matter) is panic. Just stick to the basics and use your skills step by step and you'll get through it.
I completed the entire bundle in 4 days, FWIW. It is certainly possible to complete the bundle in a timely manner. Now, with that being said, everyone has different experiences with LG. Some people are naturally adept at solving games, while others take much longer to grasp the concepts and develop strong inference-building capabilities.
I am wondering though, in the newer prep tests are the games the same format of super easy, and then increasing difficulty til the last game?
Also reading the Trainer to incorporate some of his techniques into the games.
I started the trainer about a month ago. I was wary of LG in there at first but I love the use of shapes, vertical listing of elements and use of lowercase letters for subsets/qualities. Definitely worth integrating some of Mike Kim's techniques into your 7Sage LG approach.
Some games I can flat do them in less than 5 minutes now and move on to another set of games. However others I can not. Yet, those are the 5 star ones. Should I be aiming to do even the 5 star ones in less than 5 minutes?
(I can do the 5 star ones in 7 minutes~ if I have seen them before. When I hit the 7~ for the hard ones is when I stop practicing them)
Good luck!
Thank you,
Amy
One quick question for LG vets - I noticed in the video explanation that JY removes all the verbiage on answer choices and leaves only the lawgic translation. Do people do that on real exams as well? I've been doing that if the answers are long, but otherwise just read it. Was wondering what other people have found useful. Thanks!
Lastly with games, are we supposed to be able to do any type of game thrown at us perfectly before we start PTing? I notice that I often spend the whole day going over 4 games (redoing them, reviewing them so the inferences click). I guess I will try your method of doing a game twice in a day, them moving forward and doing it the third time the next day, and a fourth time the week after to make sure I really remember the inferences. I wish there was time to do all the games from pt 1-35 during the cirriculum but it was not possible for me to do that even on a 6 month study plan, there was just no time, and I feel like all the games in the cirriculum were not enough for me to master games. I feel like that would take quite a while? If I start doing 2 practice exams a week and blind review shortly after starting (feb 9th-june 1st around 4 months roughly 2pts a week and maybe 3 a week the last few weeks before test day, around 35-36 total) than would give me time to start working on the LG budle from pt 1-35 on my in between days when I am not testing, as well as extra sharpening of RC and LR since I am only doing two exams a week, so its not like I am burning through them. Therefore starting pts wont be a waste even if I have not mastered games because only doing two a week will give me time to work on weaknesses in between and become assimilated to timing. What do you think? Sorry I know its a lot to respond to, take your time. @Pacifico
Before reading this post, which is actually incredibly insightful, I was already practicing LGs in a similar fashion. I would complete 3-4 sets and then retake them after hearing JY's explanation to make sure I picked up on the inferences. After about two weeks (this intense studying started at the beginning of this month after tanking on the December administration) I was consistently hitting +19/23 in every LG section. Then I attempted to take a timed PT in the 30s and got thrown off by an incredibly difficult setup. I thought I had seen every game board setup possible, and even if that wasn't true I believed I'd done enough games to create one on the spot... but that wasn't the case. While I ended up scoring 16 correct in the section, I realized that to hit a 160 I could not afford to freeze on a game (this is actually exactly what happened to me during 77 and I only got 12 correct in the section).
I apologize for the long-winded explanation, but I wanted to provide some context to my situation. My question is: What is the best method to secure that one has seen all (general) LG game boards? Does 7Sage provide a complete breakdown of every possible game board and LSAC solely tweaks a game to make it a bit more challenging? If not, I have PTs 29-76 and can supplement the curriculum on here to make sure nothing hits me by surprise. I know I won't score above a 160 if the same thing happens to me the second time around.
Any advice would be truly appreciated! @pacifico
And the only way to get there is practice. A lot of games (preferably all), and a lot of time (several months at least). You are on a good path, you seem to be spending enough time with the Fool Proof method, now you just need to keep it up for a while.
The Fool Proof is not about having seen all the game boards possible, it's about practicing enough that the mechanics of setting up a board and looking for key inferences become internalized. You don't have to think about "how do I represent "if A or B are in C is out?" anymore, and you are able to intuitively know that if A is before B then A can't be last without having to write it down anymore. And because the mechanics are automatic, it frees up time and mental energy to think about the more complex aspects of the games. It's like playing an instrument - no amount of reading about how to play the violin or watching a master playing it can substitute for practice. You don't have to have played every single musical piece available, but you have to have practiced lots of them for a long time to be able to attack a new one with skill and confidence.
FM scores the game and watches the explanation immediately, with the purpose of memorizing inferences. PMO does a blind review before scoring and watching.
FM repeats indefinitely as necessary until mastery; then repeats once the next day. PMO repeats only once on the same day, then once the next day, then once a week later. PMO assumes mastery within those four attempts over a week -- not unreasonable, but maybe not applicable to everyone.
PMO's use of blind review seems to me a critical difference; and JY's emphasizes memorizing inferences while that is at most only implicit in the description of PMO.
I'm posting this to solicit suggestions as to what criteria to use in choosing between these two methods.