October 2011 Study Log: 180 or Bust! Forum

[fatduck]

-4 LG and -0 LG is the difference between 173 and 177.
Matter of concentration or of actually doing the problems?

for me it's concentration, but i more or less do logic games by brute force. kind of like my typing. what do you think is the best way to go about learning it the right way - learn each game type one at a time?

[crumpetsandtea]

-4 LG and -0 LG is the difference between 173 and 177.
Matter of concentration or of actually doing the problems?

Holy shit so true. O_O Wow that puts it into perspective. FUUUU RC

[99.9luft]

definitely true re concentration. being in 'the zone' is an underrated advice of lsat prep, unlike, say, studying for academic subjects. Here, it matters so much more! Btw, crumps, just wanted to say you're doing a great job and I'm thoroughly impressed with your time conservation efforts. I'm starting PTing on April 1 (let's do this!).

[Jack Smirks]

-4 LG and -0 LG is the difference between 173 and 177.
Matter of concentration or of actually doing the problems?

Sometimes I'll hit a brick wall just trying to wrap my head around the set up on the rarer game types. More often than that though my problem is just timing. I find myself setting the game up and getting all the major deductions but it just takes me a long time to get through the questions. I think I'm forcing myself to do way too many hypos when really the question doesn't require it. So I end up spending too much time on the first three games and and rushing through the fourth.

[incompetentia]

I'm probably less qualified to hep with LG (kind of funny how that works out), but I wouldn't make knowing the game types that significant a part of your study. Recognizing them is probably a good thing, but if you partition everything excessively, then you'll be boned once it changes up even slightly.


EDIT: Naterj, I recommended this to Crumps at one point too. Have you tried just doing the basic diagramming before getting to questions, and not trying to make inferences until they're clearly required? I've found that there are a lot that I drew originally that weren't even used in the game.


Past that, though, drilling LG is probably the easiest way to improve speed. Are you getting generally -0 on the first three games?

[Jack Smirks]

Past that, though, drilling LG is probably the easiest way to improve speed. Are you getting generally -0 on the first three games?

Yeah I'm almost always -0 on the games I'm getting to.

And I'm drilling the shit out of games, I've been making three copies of every game and and timing myself each time just trying to get faster. I check all of my deductions later on manhattanlsat.com and I'm seeing everything, so that just tells me that I'm spending way too much time finding them, or I'm just simply too slow doing the actual questions. I don't know it's pissing me off.

[incompetentia]

How much time on each game before you get to the first question?


If it's over 2 minutes, you can get that down probably.

[Jack Smirks]

How much time on each game before you get to the first question?


If it's over 2 minutes, you can get that down probably.

I'm not certain but it probably is more than 2 minutes. I should time a few just to see because I might be spending way more time on the set ups than I think I am.

Also, if anyone wants to join our study group you're more than welcome. You just have to deal with me awkwardly flirting with crumps and plan on spending the majority of review explaining stuff to me.

[incompetentia]

I'll outline the writing section.

[crumpetsandtea]

Nate, check yo gmail!!!

[Jack Smirks]

Nate, check yo gmail!!!

Well done. I plan on sticking to pretty much this same schedule except I'm going to do Superprep this week and I'll probably do the 59-62 PTs a week or so before you plan on doing them. Other than those minor changes this is exactly what I was thinking. You should also compile all the LR questions you've missed in the PTs we have done so far and find some time to redo them.

[Kurst]

Have fun with SuperPrep B's logic games, naterj.

[Curry]

Have fun with SuperPrep B's logic games, naterj.

If he doesn't get -0, he's not allowed back on tls for a year.

[Jack Smirks]

Have fun with SuperPrep B's logic games, naterj.

haha well the playing field isn't exactly even because I took the Superprep last year when I was studying for June. I don't recall whether or not B's logic games were particularly terrifying but I'm anxious to see how I do- I would hope I've made some progress since then considering the only exposure I had to games at that point was working through the PR logic games workbook. I guess we will see.

[99.9luft]

I remember Superprep B's RC giving me much more trouble than the LG, on which i missed 3. I also felt that Superprep A was significantly easier than B and C.

[incompetentia]

Are those Superprep tests LSAC-created, or are they just fun additional ones?

[Jack Smirks]

Superprep A: Feb 1996 B:Feb 1999 and C: Feb 2000. They also come with handy dandy LSAC explanations.

[Neidermeyer519]

-4 LG and -0 LG is the difference between 173 and 177.
Matter of concentration or of actually doing the problems?

This. I usually miss between 1-4 on the LG section, and this is what made the difference for me. Why not go ahead and master the most learnable section of the LSAT and make up those points you might otherwise miss on LR/RC. If you go -0 on LG, then you can miss between 8-14 on the other sections and still score 170+, if not the upper 160's.

[crumpetsandtea]

40 -- 03/2/11 ----- LR: -0/3 ; RC: -5 ; LG: -0 ------------ 93/172 ----- 5 sections (w/PT 26 RC) Booo. Very tired; started @ 7:30pm

LDSKJFWLEKJFWEKFJWEKLFJWELFKJWEF. Haven't gone through test yet so I will have more to add tomorrow night. But here's the breakdown:
Sec 1 - LR -0
Sec 2 - EXP RC
Sec 3 - LG -0
Sec 4 - LR -3
Sec 5 - RC -5

Part of me wants to blame being tired, part of me is freaking out. After scoring the first two -0 sections I was soooooo hopeful, but the -3 and -5 just killed it. ): I logged my times again: 33 min for each section. LR1: 8:30 left ; LG: 8:02 left ; LR2 5:01 ; RC ~8 min


A few notes:
- I have NO IDEA why but I zoomed through this LG section o_O good thing too, because I'd flipped an inference in game one and ended up changing 3 of my answers to correct ones.
- For the RC section, I was so mind-fucked at the end that I stopped checking my answers with 5 min left...I was just re-reading the same stimulus over and over again and couldn't seem to comprehend it. I don't think I would have gotten much better even if I had used all 8 minutes, I was just way too out of it.

[incompetentia]

Try going back to 4-section tests for the time being, bro.


Were all/most of the RC misses in the same passage?

[crumpetsandtea]

Try going back to 4-section tests for the time being, bro.


Were all/most of the RC misses in the same passage?

Why 4 section for now?

And yeah, 3 or 4 in a row, 16-18 ish IIRC (don't have it in front of me right now). Then I missed the 2nd to last question.

[Curry]

Try going back to 4-section tests for the time being, bro.


Were all/most of the RC misses in the same passage?

Why 4 section for now?

And yeah, 3 or 4 in a row, 16-18 ish IIRC (don't have it in front of me right now). Then I missed the 2nd to last question.

It was exhaustion. You even said yourself that you couldn't focus.

[incompetentia]

Exactly.


Starting a test that late at night probably didn't help, either.

[crumpetsandtea]

Exactly.


Starting a test that late at night probably didn't help, either.

But the actual test is going to be 5 sections, isn't it better to low-ball my score but get used to the 'exhaustion' rather than get slammed on test day?

And yeah I can't help that. Don't get home till 6:30 and if I don't eat dinner before starting, I won't eat till 11 pm and that's 1) not healthy and 2) distracting in the test in its own way.

[Curry]

Exactly.


Starting a test that late at night probably didn't help, either.

But the actual test is going to be 5 sections, isn't it better to low-ball my score but get used to the 'exhaustion' rather than get slammed on test day?

And yeah I can't help that. Don't get home till 6:30 and if I don't eat dinner before starting, I won't eat till 11 pm and that's 1) not healthy and 2) distracting in the test in its own way.

Take dinner to work on test days and eat it in the office. I know its inconvenient but you need to start these tests as early as possible.