Straw_Mandible wrote:gagewhitneypace wrote:
Well, first of all, I should correct those numbers. A -8 is probably the best I could have done on the June games section. It could have been worse. I'm a bit ashamed to admit this, but I ran out of time to even guess on the questions for the last game. A -12 on that section alone was not out of the question.
As for canceling my scores--let's imagine I would have gone -10 on the games and -16 overall. When grading my PTs, a -16 usually worked out to around a 166/167 (notwithstanding the crowdsourced projected curve for the June exam posted on the June waiters thread, which I wasn't willing to gamble on). With my GPA, a 167 probably won't get me into my target schools. But a 174+ probably will. Given that I (hypothetically) missed well over half of my points on a section that most TLSers learn to dominate, I'm pretty confident that I can hit this higher score with some targeted practice. And I'd rather not have this new score averaged with a lower one that does not represent my best performance.
Thanks for all of your feedback on canceling scores though. I'll keep it in mind for September.
So...thoughts on Sudoku?
This makes sense. I entirely support your decision to cancel.
I do not, however, support your decision to use Sudoku as a supplement to drilling logic games. It's seriously not going to help you at all. Sudoku is spatially uniform and predictable (same rules/setup every time). That doesn't mean it's universally easy, but the deductions are not similar to most of those which are required on the LSAT. Success on difficult logic games usually comes down to visualizing a complex/unfamiliar setup and bringing rules together in a way that limits the complexity of the game. Sudoku puzzles do not require you to envision to logical relationships between setup and rules in this way. The deductions, layout, and rules in Sudoku are always the same. The only difference between hard and easy Sudoku puzzles is really just the amount of these identical deductions you have to make.
You said you drilled LG before the June test. Can you share your process with us? TLS has crowd-sourced some potently effective LG drilling practices which might serve you well, if you haven't tried them already.
Thanks for your response Mandible. Sure, I'll summarize the process I used to study LG for the June test. It's a bit of a variation on the Pithypike study guide that I read about here:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... =6&t=41657
First, I purchased the four most recent books of LSAT PTs (I might buy the first one now for extra practice), and made 5 copies of each game from these tests, which I then categorized using the Powerscore LG bible (I also read the entire bible before I started drilling on the games). It might be worth noting that I didn't get too detailed with this sorting; for example, I put all grouping games together in the same folder without breaking them out into smaller subgroups of balanced vs. unbalanced, etc (as Pithypike does). Over the course of a bit more than a month, I drilled these games by game type, writing down my score and time on each game. I didn't do all five copies of a game at once; I'd wait until I had completed every game within that type once and then start in on them a second time, etc. I feel like this drilling really worked, at least in the sense that it got me very comfortable with my notation, setups, and game recognition.
I did not, however, make copies of the games from the five or so most recent practice tests (67-71). As I got closer to the test date I began taking full, timed PTs. I probably did 15 total, and for the last five I did the five most recent PTs, for which I had never seen the games. My results were pretty consistent; for PTs with game sections containing games I had drilled, I did consistently well on LG (-3 or under). For the five latests PTs, which contained games I hadn't drilled, I struggled on LG (averaging around -8).
You write above that "Success on difficult logic games usually comes down to visualizing a complex/unfamiliar setup and bringing rules together in a way that limits the complexity of the game." I think this is exactly right, and this is why I struggled on games sections I had never seen before. I DO feel like I was getting better at this process of making inferences from
truly unfamiliar setups over the course of the last five PTs, but there would be at least one game per test that would just stump me. Knowing this, I tended to rush a bit on the "easier" games and make a few mistakes there too (hence the -8).
Two more points.
1. For the last five PTs, I would review LG using the free 7sage videos, which generally present clear explanations of the games. However, I wonder if mixing the 7sage advice with my Powerscore training might have resulted in some crossed wires? In certain cases, Powerscore and 7sage clash on how to best set up and solve a game.
2. From the last five PTs, I got the sense that the best way to prepare for what will be truly unfamiliar games is to do all the PTs for which I've never seen the games. So, I could purchase the first PT book and just take all of those as full, timed PTs. But I worry these games will be significantly different from more modern LG. What do you think?
Again, thanks for your help.