Advisable to practice LG with earlier tests? Forum

[zephyr36]

I started prepping about a week ago following pithypike's method more or less, and aside from the sample questions in the LGB I have been using tests 9-18 to do practice problems. Will this hurt me in the long run? I've just heard that earlier logic games are different then later ones.

[Nikrall]

I started prepping about a week ago following pithypike's method more or less, and aside from the sample questions in the LGB I have been using tests 9-18 to do practice problems. Will this hurt me in the long run? I've just heard that earlier logic games are different then later ones.

Earlier tests are usually ok for LG. Its LR that you want to be worried about if you are doing really early preptests.

[donnie]

How do LR sections from earlier tests differ from those from more recent tests?

[3|ink]

How do LR sections from earlier tests differ from those from more recent tests?

Older LSATs have a lot of double questions from a single passage LRs. Newer ones don't. Also, I think the newer LR is a bit easier.

[rklafehn]

Old LG are awesome. I think they are harder than newer LG and really prepare you for the real thing.

Everyone seemed to complain about the dinosaurs game (thought it was simple) and may people complained about the June LSAT games but I also thought those were simply.

However, the majority of my prep work started with tests as low as #20 and working my way up. Good luck!

[ArchRoark]

Yes... getting exposed to as much material is imho one of the recipes to success.

[Nikrall]

How do LR sections from earlier tests differ from those from more recent tests?

They are not written as well and are looser overall questions.

[zephyr36]

Thanks for the tips. I'll definitely take note of what was said about LR. I'm at the very beginning of my prep and will probably use 7-28 to do individual sections/problems, and save the rest for actual timed preptests.

[czelede]

Doing earlier LR won't hurt you, but it won't help you too much. One strategy I found for helping reducing error in LR was this approach:

1. During your PT, mark the ones you aren't sure about.
2. After you score your PT, write down the numbers of which ones you did wrong.
3. The next day, re-do problems from 1 and 2 and see if you still get the wrong answer. Sometimes you will realize that you make some errors because you just weren't thinking clearly, and it's glaringly obvious after the fact.
3. Read the test explanations carefully, ESPECIALLY for the ones you got wrong the second time around. Read the explanations for why the other answers weren't correct.

Doing earlier LG I think is fine, I noticed that they tend to get easier around the 50s (there are some particularly hard ones earlier that are excellent for honing your timing skills).

[Nikrall]

Actually doing earlier LR could hurt you. Part of why doing tons of questions is helpful is to learn the sensibilities of the test-makers. They've changed a lot from the early 90's until now.

[skip james]

Actually doing earlier LR could hurt you. Part of why doing tons of questions is helpful is to learn the sensibilities of the test-makers. They've changed a lot from the early 90's until now.

must be because logic changed so drastically in the last two decades.

[Nikrall]

Actually doing earlier LR could hurt you. Part of why doing tons of questions is helpful is to learn the sensibilities of the test-makers. They've changed a lot from the early 90's until now.

must be because logic changed so drastically in the last two decades.

Obvious troll is obvious.

Logic hasn't changed at all. The way they use english has.

[youknowryan]

I read only some of the above posts, so my thoughts may be redundant.

I've take numerous tests from LSATs: 1 through 60. I think...

-The more modern tests (say about 2003 and onward) are a little more clearly written, but not to a huge degree.

-Older LG is logically more challenging than new LG for the most part. Linear games are the only exception, they have been a little tougher in recent years. I used older, easier linear games to train with and now any linear game out there is quite manageable.

-LR is basically the same. Parallel reasoning questions have gotten longer, and thus a little trickier, while the average inference questions seem a bit easier (that is not to say that they are all easy, many are still really tough). The 2 questions prompts are a double edge sword: on one hand, your are familiar with the stimulus by the time you hit the second question. This can make answering the easier, but often the mind is locked into the previous question to some degree so they can be tricky. Either way they are still good practice.

-RC is a little harder mostly because the topics are more obscure than they used to be. The questions do dig a little deeper, but nothing like most LR questions.

In sum:

LG: a little easier
RC: a little harder
LR: about the same

The LSAT is pretty consistent because lawyering has not changed all that much in many years. The LSATS from the 1960 that tested culture specific knowledge or math might have been out of sync with reality The modern LSAT does a good job looking for the kind of thinking requires of 1Ls. Therefore, the old tests are still quite useful. One would be wise to study the new tests a lot; however, doing older sections from the green 10 Actual book is a good idea especially since it is so inexpensive.

Hope this helps.