Question For those who score over 170 Forum

[lawbull335]

My question is directed to those elite students who have scored over a 170. I am having trouble breaking 170. I usually score between 165 and 169 but score poorly in the games. I was wondering:
1) What kinds of scores do you all score on the individual sections? I usually score between 21 and 23 on the LR and 22 and 25 on the RC. Am I wrong in assuming that the best scorers are getting near perfect scores on the LG?

2) Do any of you have a similar story or any advice that may help?

3) Once I see the form of the graph or picture recommended for a problem I am fine but I never am sure what graph or table to use. Is there a finite number of possible options?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[booboo]

My question is directed to those elite students who have scored over a 170. I am having trouble breaking 170. I usually score between 165 and 169 but score poorly in the games. I was wondering:
1) What kinds of scores do you all score on the individual sections? I usually score between 21 and 23 on the LR and 22 and 25 on the RC. Am I wrong in assuming that the best scorers are getting near perfect scores on the LG?

2) Do any of you have a similar story or any advice that may help?

3) Once I see the form of the graph or picture recommended for a problem I am fine but I never am sure what graph or table to use. Is there a finite number of possible options?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

1 - I think it is the general trend to score near perfect in LG, but only because it is the one section that lends itself most to being learned through a systematic process, whereas the others seem to be more dependent on the individual.

2- Since it seems LG is what you lack skill in, I would recommend developing your own system of coding/diagramming the games so that you can easily transfer your skills to each type of game. Once I had my own system, I felt much more confident in approaching games. Also, I memorized (through practice) what I was being asked to do in certain types of games, which helped immensely. For those oddballs, I just made a mental note, in the small chance the upcoming exam will have a game like it. Also, I hope you have and read (and re-read) the Logic Games Bible from PowerScore.

3- This issue seems to stem from your lack of a formulaic diagramming process that I really believe you need to make for yourself if you plan to succeed on this section. There may be some games where you will not be able to solve the entire game with the information given in a particular question, but you must disregard that and answer what the question asks, even if it only relies on a partially solved game. I would liken logic games to permutation and combination (the simple math concepts), where there are a finite number of possibilities, but it is important to remember that finding each possibility may be too time consuming to actually be used as a solving strategy.

[Woozy]

booboo is correct.

If you are generally decent at the test and are struggling with LG, you are simply leaving points on the table. From the problems you are having it seems to me that you need to practice more. Do an hour or so of LGs per day with a bit of review after each game to determine how you should have set them up. I predict within a week or two you will be much more confident in setting them up, and your scores will increase.

Also, don't spend time worrying about getting a perfect diagram. Just make a decent diagram and you will probably do OK, and as you do more and more you will find what diagrams work for you.

[Sogui]

I 2nd the notion that you should try and aim for -0 on logic games.

Every time I scored a 176 my missed questions always looked something like:

-0 LG
-0 LR
-2 LR
-3 RC


As for my advice, get the Powerscore Bibles for whatever sections you are struggling in. Then you should study them like, well, a bible.

[ze2151]

You are right to assume that near perfect in games is normal for elite scorers.

My 176 official went like this:
LG: -1
RC: -1
LR: -2
LR: -1

If you want to be an elite scorer, you really need to get to the point that you feel you could answer every darn question correctly. You'll inevitably miss a few, but if you're crushing the test, those few won't really matter.

My advice: See as much test as possible. Dedicate the time the thing deserves, Eventually you're going to see the patterns.

[Rawlsian]

The LG section is definitely the easiest to improve, at least that is the general consensus. However, it is certainly possible to get 170+ without doing great on LG. E.g., I had a 170, but went -6 on LG in December. Of course, I've spent a lot of time wondering: what if?

[jmaan]

my usual
LG-0
LR-2
LR-2
RC-4


but on the actual test i missed 2 on LG which still anger me

[cubswin]

I was near-perfect on games on most of my PTs, but I went -6 on test day. Ended up rocking LR and RC to pull out a 171.

[vanwinkle]

The above posters are correct and that being able to quickly and accurately diagram LGs is critical to 170+ scoring. However, I will add one additional piece of advice, which will only become useful after you have become good at diagramming:

You need to start doing LGs out of order. You always want to finish a section once you start it, unless it proves so impossible you have to abandon it, but the goal is to do the easiest LG first and save the hardest LG for last.

The reason behind this is that you should be doing all four LGs to break 170+, but if the hardest one proves particularly difficult you might not be able to finish every question on all four LGs. If you run out of time, you want to run out of time doing the hardest LG (which you were most likely to get wrong anyway) than doing the easiest LG (which you've practiced so much you should've gotten it right if you had time to do it). The easiest LG is not always the first one in the book and sometimes it's the very last one.

What you have to do is learn quick/effective diagramming to the point that you can do it in your head. Not the entire diagram, just be able to figure out what the diagram for that LG looks like. Spend the first 60 seconds of an LG section looking at the different LGs and figuring out what their diagrams will look like; one with a very simple 1:1 diagram you want to do first, any harder 2:1 or 2:2 diagrams you want to do next, and a really difficult one that looks like it's got a complicated diagram or that you can't figure out how to diagram quickly at all, save for last.

You lose 60 seconds doing that, but gain a lot in time management and making sure that you're always doing all of the questions in the LGs you can answer most accurately. This improves your consistency in getting the most correct answers possible.

But it's not something you can practice until you get better at diagramming LGs in general, because it requires you to know how to diagram LGs well. Go learn as much as you can about doing individual LGs and how to diagram them, and then come back and study this.

[UFMatt]

A lot of those above 170 will do very well on games, but not always. For me, I could get away with missing 5 or 6 by demolishing LR and RC. In fact, I found that the key to getting a good score was to consistently miss no more than 2 on LR. Surprisingly, I never quite clicked with LG despite studying the LG Bible, etc. I have an extensive technical background, aced SAT and GRE math, etc., yet never quite mastered the section. I got to the point of maximizing my time in it by doing the hard questions last, but I didn't bump my speed up quite enough.

[s0ph1e2007]

sometimes the answer options in the first question basically tell you how to diagram.
for instance if you're not sure if you your collums should be labelled 1991-1995 or if they should be labelled RC (renni gets a car), GC, BC, AC, TC... (made up ex. basically)
then glance at question 1s answer choices. If the question is 'which one of these is a possible arrangement blah blah blah..' and the first answer choice is 1991: GC, BC, 1992: AC, 1994: TC, RC
then you know that the collumns should be the years and not the people getting cars...

does that make sense? this helps me and i never get LG wrong, and go fast enough that if i mess something up i have time to finish it.

hope this helps
-g

[quetzalcoatl]

I guess Im really in the minority. I practiced LG so much but just cant get the speed to finish. I missed nothing on both LR sections.

[Hopefullawstudent]

I'm strange. I've answered probably 3 or 4 LR questions incorrectly ever. RC, I usually get a few wrong on every test. On LG, sometimes I warm up to the games and will miss maybe 3. If I get a game my mind cannot wrap itself around, then I am screwed. I'll usually get five or six wrong on LG in that case.

My tests usually came out like:

LR: -0
LR: -0
RC: -3
LG: -5

Fuck the games by the way. Haha.

[scribelaw]

I'd usually miss 0-1 on LG, 1-4 on RC and 3-6 on the two LR sections combined.

Raw scores in the 90-95 range.

(On actual December test, I missed 0 on LG, 4 on LG and 6 on RC, which was more difficult than usual).

[booboo]

Seeing some of these unique (yet undoubtedly intelligent ) minds not having mastered LG is interesting. I do think that the key to LG is figuring out your own diagramming mechanism. For me, this meant using consistent short hand whenever I rewrote the rules of the game, following a similar game set up for different types of games (games where a car can be three sizes, and six colors, or another game where the variables are layers, such as floors of a building or layers of a cake). When I first (and I mean literally at the beginning) began looking at LG I had massive problems. I followed the LGB but I had not devised a personal way to make the game my own. Once I was able to, I began to love logic games. I once got to the point where I would spend more time doing other logic games (sudoku, nonograms, and the like) then actual LG. Hehe. .

[TheTopBloke]

That is interesting. I love LG, and it's my best section (-0 to -3). I'm struggling to stay above 160 and hit 165. I found LR to be frustrating at time, but recently found some info that helped me out. I realized having limited knowledge of logic is/was killing me. I'm down to an average -4 per LR section untimed. And for RC, it depends, I can easily get -3, or devastatingly bombed the last one, section five on a PT, timed, got -17. OUCH Seems for me, everytime I do well on one section I get hit on another section and my score seems to continuously even out among the high 150's and low 160's. If I get a 160+ on the real deal I'd be very happy.

[TheTopBloke]

sometimes the answer options in the first question basically tell you how to diagram.
for instance if you're not sure if you your collums should be labelled 1991-1995 or if they should be labelled RC (renni gets a car), GC, BC, AC, TC... (made up ex. basically)
then glance at question 1s answer choices. If the question is 'which one of these is a possible arrangement blah blah blah..' and the first answer choice is 1991: GC, BC, 1992: AC, 1994: TC, RC
then you know that the collumns should be the years and not the people getting cars...

does that make sense? this helps me and i never get LG wrong, and go fast enough that if i mess something up i have time to finish it.

hope this helps
-g

That, and, if you have some difficulty answering the first question of that game section, you're setups are wrong somewhere. It's better to take your sweet ass time and get the setup right, and the questions will be alot easier to answer.

[JIP3]

Probably unrepresentative, but

Took LSATs (yes, real ones) until I found a games section that was acceptable to me. Did some damage control, only missed 5 (haha, only).


172

[pa.wink]

176

Missed way more on logic games than anything else.

[autarkh]

I have the same relative weakness as the OP. While I am accurate on LG, I never seem to finish. Generally, I get anywhere from -4 to -8 on games, -1 to -3 combined on LR, and -0 to -1 on RC. I tend rely on the LR and RC as shock absorbers, with my actual score almost entirely dependent on how badly I mess up the games section.

I wish I had managed to get it to click.

[rockchalk86]

Something interesting I did for LR was to start at question 10 because the easiest are almost always 1-9. I would always be fatigued by the end, so I figured thats when I should do the no brainers. May not work for everyone but I went from missing 4 every section to 2.

[Stupor]

Edit: nvm

[Lonagan]

171 and got dinged on logic games. I don't feel like I am an anomaly to what has been posted above. Rather, I think I am probably capable of hitting the 175+ range (largely because my PTs hovered around there) and just left some points on the table due to poor studying on LG. This is consistent with my PTs. I would regularly miss 8ish in LG and get over 170. If you're capable of getting mid-160s, I think you're capable of acing LG every time.

If I were to change how I studied, I would have stopped doing full0length PTs after hitting 170 for the first time and just cranked on LG until I had it cold. Then I would have tried to squeeze the last point or so out of LR / RC. By the time I got to test day, I was sporadically nailing LG. As it happened, game day was one of the bad 50% instead of the good 50%. There was no reason to leave it up to chance.

[placencia]

174 here.

The crazy thing is that the LG were my easiest section from the beginning, because I always enjoyed those kinds of games. I was basically scoring perfect on them through all my practice tests, but I had a brain fart on my test and missed 2 or 3, I can't remember exactly.

That is the one section of the test that through proper practice, you can get down totally cold. I spent about 6 months studying off and on, and I would say that bumped my score by about ten points. Trying to process and improve in a short period of time is not nearly as effective as getting routine at it. If you look at the LG as fun, then they get a lot easier.

[MURPH]

I really benefitted from doing LG very slowly and repeating ones I've already done (after a two week or so wait). The thing that helped me go from 170 -> 175 was teaching others. You don't have to be a paid tutor. Just get another pre-law student and agree to teach each other one or two games two or three times per week. Go over every detail very systematically and eliminate every wrong answer choice before explaining why the right answer is the only possible choice. It will help to grill each other with questions to make sure the 'teacher' really understands it. You would be surprised at how much more clearly you understand something after you explain it out loud to someone else.