LG / Psychological factors

fmihalic2fmihalic2 Free Trial Member
in Logic Games 266 karma

Hi all,

I'm new to 7sage and must say that I love it. I have used the LG Bible from PowerScore to learn the foundation of Games in particular however when I discovered JY's videos I realized that 7sage was for me.

Have done PT's 65-66-67 with scores of 166, 167, 169. I'm aiming for lower t14 with big money. On each PT, I have been -3/-4 in Games. I find that these games are significantly less complicated than the ones I find in my book that mainly come from the early 90's to the early 2000's. When I do the PT's, I read the stimulus of the game, the rules once to understand, once to diagram, once more for inferences and then I am ready for the questions.

That said, when I look at some of these grouping games (example) from the early/mid 90's, I freeze. There's sometimes 7-8 rules that are all conditional. I have no problem understanding it but getting all of that done in 8 minutes literally makes me fearful. There are so many moving parts. As a result, I see these games and often shut down or get rattled which obviously takes away from my ability to infer which in turn, adds time and limits accuracy.

Is this a common problem or is this all in my head? How worried should I be?

Frank

Comments

  • AlexAlex Alum Member ⭐
    23929 karma

    @fmihalic2 said:
    Hi all,

    I'm new to 7sage and must say that I love it. I have used the LG Bible from PowerScore to learn the foundation of Games in particular however when I discovered JY's videos I realized that 7sage was for me.

    Have done PT's 65-66-67 with scores of 166, 167, 169. I'm aiming for lower t14 with big money. On each PT, I have been -3/-4 in Games. I find that these games are significantly less complicated than the ones I find in my book that mainly come from the early 90's to the early 2000's. When I do the PT's, I read the stimulus of the game, the rules once to understand, once to diagram, once more for inferences and then I am ready for the questions.

    That said, when I look at some of these grouping games (example) from the early/mid 90's, I freeze. There's sometimes 7-8 rules that are all conditional. I have no problem understanding it but getting all of that done in 8 minutes literally makes me fearful. There are so many moving parts. As a result, I see these games and often shut down or get rattled which obviously takes away from my ability to infer which in turn, adds time and limits accuracy.

    Is this a common problem or is this all in my head? How worried should I be?

    Frank

    Worry not. I can't say how common it is, but If you go back at my post history on here you will see older grouping games gave me the same kind of test anxiety....I's simply freeze for the same reasons.

    First, some of those games are meant to take more than 8 minutes. Some can take up to 11 or 12 minutes. When watching the videos JY will let you know how long each game should take. So aim for that time.

    Second, you probably just need more practice with the older games. Have you tried fool proofing the LG bundle (PTs 1-35)? https://7sage.com/how-to-get-a-perfect-score-on-the-logic-games/

    After tons of exposure and practice I promise those games won't affect you the same.

    Last, and certainly not least, have you checked out any 7Sage lessons on logic games? If not, I highly recommend it. Powerscore LG Bible is what I started out with and I got fairly decent at the basic sequencing games, but I remained painfully slow with everything else. Their grouping games chapters leave much to be desired. There's just no real strategy beyond showing you how to set them games up and execute them. That's why JY's video explanation are so awesome. But in order to improve, I recommend diagramming similar to how JY diagrams. They're often much more efficient than anything Powerscore has to offer. And definitely more intuitive.

  • BinghamtonDaveBinghamtonDave Alum Member ⭐ 🍌🍌
    8689 karma

    Getting a specific game done in a specific amount of time is something that a test taker can manipulate to their own strengths and weaknesses. The times listed on 7Sage are target times. PT 70 for example, the times add up to 31 minutes. For PT C2 Form 96 the times add up to 24 minutes. I view the 7Sage target times as more or less goals in which I would be happy with myself during practice, not hard and fast deadlines on specific games. The fact on games is that some games will take 13-15 minutes ( I’m thinking here of PT 36 Game 3 or PT 68 Game 4. ) and other games: (namely PT 74 Game 1) are going to take 4 minutes. So on a tough grouping game, I would not worry about an 8 minute deadline, instead, I would focus on efficient ways in which my approach to the surrounding games can assist in banking time to put towards that tough game.

    Sometimes, the more rules a game has, the more we can know upfront and the more we know upfront the higher the level of command we have over that game: I’m thinking here of PT 43 Game 4. The block of text that contains the rules is quite extensive.

    The last point I want to ask is about before offering any formal advice is the reading of the rules, from what I can gather 3 times. Are you writing the rules down in a visual language you are comfortable looking at with a quicker glance? For instance if a rule says something like “Kevin runs the race at some time before David.” Are you writing that down as K———D or are you reading the block of text 3 times?

  • fmihalic2fmihalic2 Free Trial Member
    266 karma

    @BinghamtonDave said:
    Getting a specific game done in a specific amount of time is something that a test taker can manipulate to their own strengths and weaknesses. The times listed on 7Sage are target times. PT 70 for example, the times add up to 31 minutes. For PT C2 Form 96 the times add up to 24 minutes. I view the 7Sage target times as more or less goals in which I would be happy with myself during practice, not hard and fast deadlines on specific games. The fact on games is that some games will take 13-15 minutes ( I’m thinking here of PT 36 Game 3 or PT 68 Game 4. ) and other games: (namely PT 74 Game 1) are going to take 4 minutes. So on a tough grouping game, I would not worry about an 8 minute deadline, instead, I would focus on efficient ways in which my approach to the surrounding games can assist in banking time to put towards that tough game.

    Sometimes, the more rules a game has, the more we can know upfront and the more we know upfront the higher the level of command we have over that game: I’m thinking here of PT 43 Game 4. The block of text that contains the rules is quite extensive.

    The last point I want to ask is about before offering any formal advice is the reading of the rules, from what I can gather 3 times. Are you writing the rules down in a visual language you are comfortable looking at with a quicker glance? For instance if a rule says something like “Kevin runs the race at some time before David.” Are you writing that down as K———D or are you reading the block of text 3 times?

    Thank you so much for your advice and feedback. I really appreciate it. First, I'll address that last question. I am using a visual language very similar to one used by JY. Sometimes I will get a rule that's tough to diagram and I'll improvise a bit so our diagrams may differ in that sense but all in all, they are usually very similar. So yes, I would write K- - - D. In the beginning of my preparations, I would have called myself a "lazy" reader. I would read a few sentences with full attention and would slowly slack off as the hunk of text went on. Obviously, that is LSAT suicide. I've since stopped that but I still fall victim on the occasional LR question so I need to be conscious of it. That's why I started to read the rules three times so that I know I haven't misinterpreted a rule.

  • fmihalic2fmihalic2 Free Trial Member
    266 karma

    @"Alex Divine" said:

    @fmihalic2 said:
    Hi all,

    I'm new to 7sage and must say that I love it. I have used the LG Bible from PowerScore to learn the foundation of Games in particular however when I discovered JY's videos I realized that 7sage was for me.

    Have done PT's 65-66-67 with scores of 166, 167, 169. I'm aiming for lower t14 with big money. On each PT, I have been -3/-4 in Games. I find that these games are significantly less complicated than the ones I find in my book that mainly come from the early 90's to the early 2000's. When I do the PT's, I read the stimulus of the game, the rules once to understand, once to diagram, once more for inferences and then I am ready for the questions.

    That said, when I look at some of these grouping games (example) from the early/mid 90's, I freeze. There's sometimes 7-8 rules that are all conditional. I have no problem understanding it but getting all of that done in 8 minutes literally makes me fearful. There are so many moving parts. As a result, I see these games and often shut down or get rattled which obviously takes away from my ability to infer which in turn, adds time and limits accuracy.

    Is this a common problem or is this all in my head? How worried should I be?

    Frank

    Worry not. I can't say how common it is, but If you go back at my post history on here you will see older grouping games gave me the same kind of test anxiety....I's simply freeze for the same reasons.

    First, some of those games are meant to take more than 8 minutes. Some can take up to 11 or 12 minutes. When watching the videos JY will let you know how long each game should take. So aim for that time.

    Second, you probably just need more practice with the older games. Have you tried fool proofing the LG bundle (PTs 1-35)? https://7sage.com/how-to-get-a-perfect-score-on-the-logic-games/

    After tons of exposure and practice I promise those games won't affect you the same.

    Last, and certainly not least, have you checked out any 7Sage lessons on logic games? If not, I highly recommend it. Powerscore LG Bible is what I started out with and I got fairly decent at the basic sequencing games, but I remained painfully slow with everything else. Their grouping games chapters leave much to be desired. There's just no real strategy beyond showing you how to set them games up and execute them. That's why JY's video explanation are so awesome. But in order to improve, I recommend diagramming similar to how JY diagrams. They're often much more efficient than anything Powerscore has to offer. And definitely more intuitive.

    Thanks so much for your advice and help Alex. I always watch JY's explanations on all games even if I do it in 4 minutes. I want to make sure I am getting all of the inferences and using the proper approach. Just watching the videos has helped me to increase speed by simplifying my visual language and being much less rigid with diagramming (symbols, etc.).

    I guess that I just need to keep doing those games and not sweat the time so much the first time I do a game like that because as I continue, I will memorize how to do such games.

    With regards to the free mastery of games program or "system" if you will, I use a version of that. Unfortunately, I don't have access to a printer and very little money. However I do have every single LSAT PT ever released and all of the games. I also have the amazing Pentel "Hi-Polymer" erasers. They're the white ones that we all used to use as kids that can literally get rid of anything and it's not even noticeable. I do the game in pencil obviously and then I erase everything and it's never felt like anything less than an original copy. This works so well because I never bubble the correct answer, I just draw a light slash through the incorrect answers. This also helps with my speed.

    I'm completely in accordance with what you've said about the LG Bible. For learning the basic one layer sequence games, it's fine. Anything of higher level and A LOT is left to be "figured out" by the student. That's how I found JY's videos and since then the more advanced games are really not of more difficulty. In my opinion they include a lot of monotonous steps that are more or less irrelevant.

  • AlexAlex Alum Member ⭐
    23929 karma

    @fmihalic2 said:

    @"Alex Divine" said:

    @fmihalic2 said:
    Hi all,

    I'm new to 7sage and must say that I love it. I have used the LG Bible from PowerScore to learn the foundation of Games in particular however when I discovered JY's videos I realized that 7sage was for me.

    Have done PT's 65-66-67 with scores of 166, 167, 169. I'm aiming for lower t14 with big money. On each PT, I have been -3/-4 in Games. I find that these games are significantly less complicated than the ones I find in my book that mainly come from the early 90's to the early 2000's. When I do the PT's, I read the stimulus of the game, the rules once to understand, once to diagram, once more for inferences and then I am ready for the questions.

    That said, when I look at some of these grouping games (example) from the early/mid 90's, I freeze. There's sometimes 7-8 rules that are all conditional. I have no problem understanding it but getting all of that done in 8 minutes literally makes me fearful. There are so many moving parts. As a result, I see these games and often shut down or get rattled which obviously takes away from my ability to infer which in turn, adds time and limits accuracy.

    Is this a common problem or is this all in my head? How worried should I be?

    Frank

    Worry not. I can't say how common it is, but If you go back at my post history on here you will see older grouping games gave me the same kind of test anxiety....I's simply freeze for the same reasons.

    First, some of those games are meant to take more than 8 minutes. Some can take up to 11 or 12 minutes. When watching the videos JY will let you know how long each game should take. So aim for that time.

    Second, you probably just need more practice with the older games. Have you tried fool proofing the LG bundle (PTs 1-35)? https://7sage.com/how-to-get-a-perfect-score-on-the-logic-games/

    After tons of exposure and practice I promise those games won't affect you the same.

    Last, and certainly not least, have you checked out any 7Sage lessons on logic games? If not, I highly recommend it. Powerscore LG Bible is what I started out with and I got fairly decent at the basic sequencing games, but I remained painfully slow with everything else. Their grouping games chapters leave much to be desired. There's just no real strategy beyond showing you how to set them games up and execute them. That's why JY's video explanation are so awesome. But in order to improve, I recommend diagramming similar to how JY diagrams. They're often much more efficient than anything Powerscore has to offer. And definitely more intuitive.

    Thanks so much for your advice and help Alex. I always watch JY's explanations on all games even if I do it in 4 minutes. I want to make sure I am getting all of the inferences and using the proper approach. Just watching the videos has helped me to increase speed by simplifying my visual language and being much less rigid with diagramming (symbols, etc.).

    I guess that I just need to keep doing those games and not sweat the time so much the first time I do a game like that because as I continue, I will memorize how to do such games.

    With regards to the free mastery of games program or "system" if you will, I use a version of that. Unfortunately, I don't have access to a printer and very little money. However I do have every single LSAT PT ever released and all of the games. I also have the amazing Pentel "Hi-Polymer" erasers. They're the white ones that we all used to use as kids that can literally get rid of anything and it's not even noticeable. I do the game in pencil obviously and then I erase everything and it's never felt like anything less than an original copy. This works so well because I never bubble the correct answer, I just draw a light slash through the incorrect answers. This also helps with my speed.

    I'm completely in accordance with what you've said about the LG Bible. For learning the basic one layer sequence games, it's fine. Anything of higher level and A LOT is left to be "figured out" by the student. That's how I found JY's videos and since then the more advanced games are really not of more difficulty. In my opinion they include a lot of monotonous steps that are more or less irrelevant.

    No Problem!

    Watching the videos when you already finish games -0 is an absolutely great idea. Before I began 7Sage, while using Powerscore, I aimed to do every game in 8:45 as per the bibles. Once I began 7Sage and watched the explanations for the stuff I was getting right and under 8:45 is when I made the most improvement in regards to LG. I think it helped because for those games I understood the diagram/questions, but gained a bunch from strategy.

    And man don't even get me started on erasers... I love office supplies, lmao. Pentel Hi-Polymers" are amazing. I picked up a pack at Walmart (3-Pack) for $1! They work better than the $6 Staedtler erasers I was using.

    Anyways, as far as games, it seems like you are on the right path. Just keep plugging away. If you have the time before the test, consider doing a "LG intensive" where you just focus on games for a week or something.

    Good luck :)

  • fmihalic2fmihalic2 Free Trial Member
    266 karma

    @"Alex Divine" said:

    @fmihalic2 said:

    @"Alex Divine" said:

    @fmihalic2 said:
    Hi all,

    I'm new to 7sage and must say that I love it. I have used the LG Bible from PowerScore to learn the foundation of Games in particular however when I discovered JY's videos I realized that 7sage was for me.

    Have done PT's 65-66-67 with scores of 166, 167, 169. I'm aiming for lower t14 with big money. On each PT, I have been -3/-4 in Games. I find that these games are significantly less complicated than the ones I find in my book that mainly come from the early 90's to the early 2000's. When I do the PT's, I read the stimulus of the game, the rules once to understand, once to diagram, once more for inferences and then I am ready for the questions.

    That said, when I look at some of these grouping games (example) from the early/mid 90's, I freeze. There's sometimes 7-8 rules that are all conditional. I have no problem understanding it but getting all of that done in 8 minutes literally makes me fearful. There are so many moving parts. As a result, I see these games and often shut down or get rattled which obviously takes away from my ability to infer which in turn, adds time and limits accuracy.

    Is this a common problem or is this all in my head? How worried should I be?

    Frank

    Worry not. I can't say how common it is, but If you go back at my post history on here you will see older grouping games gave me the same kind of test anxiety....I's simply freeze for the same reasons.

    First, some of those games are meant to take more than 8 minutes. Some can take up to 11 or 12 minutes. When watching the videos JY will let you know how long each game should take. So aim for that time.

    Second, you probably just need more practice with the older games. Have you tried fool proofing the LG bundle (PTs 1-35)? https://7sage.com/how-to-get-a-perfect-score-on-the-logic-games/

    After tons of exposure and practice I promise those games won't affect you the same.

    Last, and certainly not least, have you checked out any 7Sage lessons on logic games? If not, I highly recommend it. Powerscore LG Bible is what I started out with and I got fairly decent at the basic sequencing games, but I remained painfully slow with everything else. Their grouping games chapters leave much to be desired. There's just no real strategy beyond showing you how to set them games up and execute them. That's why JY's video explanation are so awesome. But in order to improve, I recommend diagramming similar to how JY diagrams. They're often much more efficient than anything Powerscore has to offer. And definitely more intuitive.

    Thanks so much for your advice and help Alex. I always watch JY's explanations on all games even if I do it in 4 minutes. I want to make sure I am getting all of the inferences and using the proper approach. Just watching the videos has helped me to increase speed by simplifying my visual language and being much less rigid with diagramming (symbols, etc.).

    I guess that I just need to keep doing those games and not sweat the time so much the first time I do a game like that because as I continue, I will memorize how to do such games.

    With regards to the free mastery of games program or "system" if you will, I use a version of that. Unfortunately, I don't have access to a printer and very little money. However I do have every single LSAT PT ever released and all of the games. I also have the amazing Pentel "Hi-Polymer" erasers. They're the white ones that we all used to use as kids that can literally get rid of anything and it's not even noticeable. I do the game in pencil obviously and then I erase everything and it's never felt like anything less than an original copy. This works so well because I never bubble the correct answer, I just draw a light slash through the incorrect answers. This also helps with my speed.

    I'm completely in accordance with what you've said about the LG Bible. For learning the basic one layer sequence games, it's fine. Anything of higher level and A LOT is left to be "figured out" by the student. That's how I found JY's videos and since then the more advanced games are really not of more difficulty. In my opinion they include a lot of monotonous steps that are more or less irrelevant.

    No Problem!

    Watching the videos when you already finish games -0 is an absolutely great idea. Before I began 7Sage, while using Powerscore, I aimed to do every game in 8:45 as per the bibles. Once I began 7Sage and watched the explanations for the stuff I was getting right and under 8:45 is when I made the most improvement in regards to LG. I think it helped because for those games I understood the diagram/questions, but gained a bunch from strategy.

    And man don't even get me started on erasers... I love office supplies, lmao. Pentel Hi-Polymers" are amazing. I picked up a pack at Walmart (3-Pack) for $1! They work better than the $6 Staedtler erasers I was using.

    Anyways, as far as games, it seems like you are on the right path. Just keep plugging away. If you have the time before the test, consider doing a "LG intensive" where you just focus on games for a week or something.

    Good luck :)

    I am taking the September LSAT, so I have time. That said, I think I'm struggling with making inferences on the grouping games because of the abstract nature. There are so many possibilities. Sometimes I just don't understand the nature of a rule or I'm just being sloppy. This is only my second day really working with grouping games but I never want to get any question wrong, obviously. On that note, it is part of the process and I understand that. I guess the most frustrating aspect is the trouble making inferences. I have no problem with conditional inferences i.e. H - - G, G - - W and X...H - - W + X. Some other grouping games where things get a big more abstract or there are more moving parts, I get confused.

  • AlexAlex Alum Member ⭐
    23929 karma

    @fmihalic2 said:

    @"Alex Divine" said:

    @fmihalic2 said:

    @"Alex Divine" said:

    @fmihalic2 said:
    Hi all,

    I'm new to 7sage and must say that I love it. I have used the LG Bible from PowerScore to learn the foundation of Games in particular however when I discovered JY's videos I realized that 7sage was for me.

    Have done PT's 65-66-67 with scores of 166, 167, 169. I'm aiming for lower t14 with big money. On each PT, I have been -3/-4 in Games. I find that these games are significantly less complicated than the ones I find in my book that mainly come from the early 90's to the early 2000's. When I do the PT's, I read the stimulus of the game, the rules once to understand, once to diagram, once more for inferences and then I am ready for the questions.

    That said, when I look at some of these grouping games (example) from the early/mid 90's, I freeze. There's sometimes 7-8 rules that are all conditional. I have no problem understanding it but getting all of that done in 8 minutes literally makes me fearful. There are so many moving parts. As a result, I see these games and often shut down or get rattled which obviously takes away from my ability to infer which in turn, adds time and limits accuracy.

    Is this a common problem or is this all in my head? How worried should I be?

    Frank

    Worry not. I can't say how common it is, but If you go back at my post history on here you will see older grouping games gave me the same kind of test anxiety....I's simply freeze for the same reasons.

    First, some of those games are meant to take more than 8 minutes. Some can take up to 11 or 12 minutes. When watching the videos JY will let you know how long each game should take. So aim for that time.

    Second, you probably just need more practice with the older games. Have you tried fool proofing the LG bundle (PTs 1-35)? https://7sage.com/how-to-get-a-perfect-score-on-the-logic-games/

    After tons of exposure and practice I promise those games won't affect you the same.

    Last, and certainly not least, have you checked out any 7Sage lessons on logic games? If not, I highly recommend it. Powerscore LG Bible is what I started out with and I got fairly decent at the basic sequencing games, but I remained painfully slow with everything else. Their grouping games chapters leave much to be desired. There's just no real strategy beyond showing you how to set them games up and execute them. That's why JY's video explanation are so awesome. But in order to improve, I recommend diagramming similar to how JY diagrams. They're often much more efficient than anything Powerscore has to offer. And definitely more intuitive.

    Thanks so much for your advice and help Alex. I always watch JY's explanations on all games even if I do it in 4 minutes. I want to make sure I am getting all of the inferences and using the proper approach. Just watching the videos has helped me to increase speed by simplifying my visual language and being much less rigid with diagramming (symbols, etc.).

    I guess that I just need to keep doing those games and not sweat the time so much the first time I do a game like that because as I continue, I will memorize how to do such games.

    With regards to the free mastery of games program or "system" if you will, I use a version of that. Unfortunately, I don't have access to a printer and very little money. However I do have every single LSAT PT ever released and all of the games. I also have the amazing Pentel "Hi-Polymer" erasers. They're the white ones that we all used to use as kids that can literally get rid of anything and it's not even noticeable. I do the game in pencil obviously and then I erase everything and it's never felt like anything less than an original copy. This works so well because I never bubble the correct answer, I just draw a light slash through the incorrect answers. This also helps with my speed.

    I'm completely in accordance with what you've said about the LG Bible. For learning the basic one layer sequence games, it's fine. Anything of higher level and A LOT is left to be "figured out" by the student. That's how I found JY's videos and since then the more advanced games are really not of more difficulty. In my opinion they include a lot of monotonous steps that are more or less irrelevant.

    No Problem!

    Watching the videos when you already finish games -0 is an absolutely great idea. Before I began 7Sage, while using Powerscore, I aimed to do every game in 8:45 as per the bibles. Once I began 7Sage and watched the explanations for the stuff I was getting right and under 8:45 is when I made the most improvement in regards to LG. I think it helped because for those games I understood the diagram/questions, but gained a bunch from strategy.

    And man don't even get me started on erasers... I love office supplies, lmao. Pentel Hi-Polymers" are amazing. I picked up a pack at Walmart (3-Pack) for $1! They work better than the $6 Staedtler erasers I was using.

    Anyways, as far as games, it seems like you are on the right path. Just keep plugging away. If you have the time before the test, consider doing a "LG intensive" where you just focus on games for a week or something.

    Good luck :)

    I am taking the September LSAT, so I have time. That said, I think I'm struggling with making inferences on the grouping games because of the abstract nature. There are so many possibilities. Sometimes I just don't understand the nature of a rule or I'm just being sloppy. This is only my second day really working with grouping games but I never want to get any question wrong, obviously. On that note, it is part of the process and I understand that. I guess the most frustrating aspect is the trouble making inferences. I have no problem with conditional inferences i.e. H - - G, G - - W and X...H - - W + X. Some other grouping games where things get a big more abstract or there are more moving parts, I get confused.

    Funny story... Last year when I began prepping in late summer, I decided that I would skip any grouping games on the LG section because they seemed so impossible to me. I figured I would just get -0 on LR and RC to compensate and still get a high 160s or low 170s, haha. That's how much I hated grouping games.

    2nd day on grouping games! It took me much longer than that to get comfortable, let alone good at Grouping games. For me, and I suspect you too, sequencing games come much more intuitively because they are in some sort of inherent order. Grouping games always felt like a mind f*** to me when I first began. The good news is that JY'd explanations was what ultimately rescued me. Keep on going. Within a week or two you'll see real progress. After a month or so, you'll be a pro! ;)

  • fmihalic2fmihalic2 Free Trial Member
    266 karma

    Thanks a lot man I appreciate it! Haha yes I love the single layer sequencing, double layer, whatever it is just some of these grouping games, not even all of them make me want to rip my hair out theee times. It's weird because I look at recent lsats and the grouping games are cake but then I look at the earlier ones and I'm like "huh? Yeah, this is a wrap".

    Actually about 27 hours now I've been working on them since I started yesterday late afternoon. Today I've been at it since 8:30 AM here in the east. I know that I will get it. Whatever that may take. These grouping games seem to require a little more "finess" if you will and a different outlook. DM me if you can! I'd like to hear more about your journey and how it all has worked out.

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