How long did it take you to improve LG speed? Forum

[unattended bag]

I'm having difficulty completing single games in 8:45 (going game by game, not doing complete sections yet). I know some games take longer than others, but some of these games I'm running out of time on are basic linear and sequencing games, which are supposedly the easiest. These games are coming from the LGB workbook. I've just completed the LGB.

So, I'm just curious how long it took for those of you who "got it".

[Ragged]

10-20 sections timed and you should see dramatic improvement.

[sumus romani]

I don't recommend trying to do each game in 8:45. Worry more about timing over four games. Having said that, it took me lots of PT's to get fast enough to finish without time pressure (like over twenty). Even then, I still stuggled to get perfect scores till I did the games over again (photocopies) and then over again (for the third time). By the time I hit the actual, I was flying. Lesson: keep at it!

[skaklight]

I'm having difficulty completing single games in 8:45 (going game by game, not doing complete sections yet). I know some games take longer than others, but some of these games I'm running out of time on are basic linear and sequencing games, which are supposedly the easiest. These games are coming from the LGB workbook. I've just completed the LGB.

So, I'm just curious how long it took for those of you who "got it".

After the bible(great), Kaplan(weak), and about 5 sections (20 games) I was averaging about 8 min/section.

[polyester]

Don't try to do every game in 8 min 45 secs, you'll just stress yourself out in games that require more time to do

I can do some easy games in 7 mins, but some hard games can take 10 mins even (if i'm struggling on a question)

Overall though, i tend to finish all four games a few minutes before 35 mins.

I would say reading/doing the exercises in the Logic Games Bible itself should increase your speed by a bit and further increase will come with doing more PTs, so keep plugging away

[Hey-O]

It took me about two months.

[monkey85]

No definite time-frame.

I just did every single published LG section...multiple times (3-5x each)

Test day everything was completely automatic. No thinking. Worked out great - finished 5 mins early, perfect score on Sep. 09.

[GoBroncos22!]

I worked on them for about a month with ZERO improvement in speed and frankly, skill/understanding of them. Then, within about a week period everything just clicked and fell into place and I went from -14/section to avg. -3 in mere days. No joke, if I can do this ANYONE can master LG.

[Anaconda]

I was exactly where you are. Started off terribly, but now after doing 5 or 6 problems a day in the past 2 weeks (2-3 new problems, 2-3 repeats), I've gone from 12-16 minutes a game (12 minutes for the the most basic of basic linear games), I'm now doing games in about 8-13.5 minutes (13.5+ minutes for rather difficult games), but I'm getting 80-100% accuracy on most of my games too, so there has been a decent improvement already, especially since I solve for accuracy and not time. The key is to redo the games you had trouble with! Do it two or three times if you need to. I also plan to go back to those questions randomly in the coming months and keep on redoing them so I know I fully understand how to solve them.

Also for me this only applies to basic linear/advanced linear/sequencing games. Haven't started doing grouping games yet. I wonder if the timing will be as bad at the start as it was for the linear games.

I honestly wouldn't worry too much about speed at this point. I did, but I've realized that the more you practice, the more inferences you start making and the easier the problems become. I would have never thought in my wildest dreams 2 weeks ago that some of the LGs I do are a "piece of cake." Also, if I focus on timing, I tend not to test out every single answer choice in a question, so that saves me time. Selecting the "correct" answer and moving on from the problem (without looking at the other options) is very difficult at first, but once you get comfortable with the games, you'll start doing it and it will hopefully save you a decent amount of time, especially when the answer is A or B.

[zworykin]

I'll agree that it's very important not to focus in too much on that 8:45 number.

The morning before the June '10 test, in order to warm my brain up a bit, I did the Zephyr Airlines game, which I had saved without looking at for just that purpose. Damn thing took me something like 12 minutes. Bad idea to save a tough one for the day of the test, by the way; gave me quite a scare.

On the actual test, I finished the LG section with 3 minutes to spare. Moral: some questions just take longer. It's nothing to worry too much about. Once you can get actual PT LG sections done in 35 minutes--make that 33 to be safe--you'll be fine. You're not gonna get a section with 3-4 of the monster games, because they just don't put the test together that way. You'll have simpler ones to make up for the nasty ones.

[katiem]

I don't think you should be worrying about time when you're just starting out. You need to be more familiar with games and how they work before you can start doing them quickly. I did the LGB and all the games from the Next 10 book untimed. Then I started doing timed PTs and only ran out of time for the last one or two questions on the first few tests. After that it was fine.

On the real test I spent around 9 minutes on the first game, 6 on the second, 6 on the third and almost all of the remaining 14 on the fourth. So like some other people have said, don't work too hard on getting them all under 8:45.

[unattended bag]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

For those of you who did the same games 3+ times, do you think that gives you an inflated sense of timing and understanding of the concepts?

Also, for those of you who broke up some of the practice tests specifically to practice logic games, which tests did you use for that purpose? Did you then go back and take it as a full PT?

[romothesavior]

LG can take a long time to see improvements on. Don't get down if you haven't seen any increases, just keep plugging away. It takes a lot of repetition.

[sumus romani]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

For those of you who did the same games 3+ times, do you think that gives you an inflated sense of timing and understanding of the concepts?

Also, for those of you who broke up some of the practice tests specifically to practice logic games, which tests did you use for that purpose? Did you then go back and take it as a full PT?

Look, there are lots of ways to prep, and several of those are equally as good.

For the first few PT's, I just did the four sections in a row with no break. Then, after I had established a small bank of completed tests, I used photocopies of the games of those completed tests inserted as a fifth section. I would insert the section at random, and take a break after three sections (just like the actual). I happen to think that four sections in a row is great prep for the actual. But I inserted the extra section to continually keep doing more work on games, without using up new tests (since I had only budgeted so much for PT's, and wanted to do full ones as much as possible).

On the whole, I think that the extra section one puts in, in indeed one goes that route, should be the section-type at which one is weakest. I'm not sure if the repeated use of LR or RC work as does the repeated use of games, but it might be worth a shot. In any case, I was weakest at games, but by the end of prep, games was my best section.

[Anaconda]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

For those of you who did the same games 3+ times, do you think that gives you an inflated sense of timing and understanding of the concepts?

Also, for those of you who broke up some of the practice tests specifically to practice logic games, which tests did you use for that purpose? Did you then go back and take it as a full PT?

Not really, because a) you're more worried about finding out why you missed questions on the LG, why you messed up the setup, why you missed inferences, etc. b) if you make copies of the game, you can take them again in July/August/September and you're unlikely to remember a lot of them. Even if you remember the names and interesting storyline of the game, I doubt you'll remember the setup or key inferences.

You shouldn't be worrying about time this early, it'll come naturally as you get better. I've read many times on the board that prepping is a 3 step process: 1) accuracy 2) speed 3) endurance.

[katiem]

I only repeated the LGs from one test and remembered a lot of the key inferences, so finding more new games for practice was more effective for me. But if you do really badly on a section (either due to accuracy or time), redoing them would be a good idea.

I used whole tests split up for the 5th section (bought 15 PTs so I ended up taking 12 full tests and splitting up 3 of them). It's good to use a different type of section at least a few times, because doing two RC or three LR can be pretty tiring. But the copying old games and doing more of the section you struggle with is a great idea.

[alex_cryp]

I studied for two months leading up to the June test. I got a -12 on my first diagnostic. Then about three weeks out I plateaued at about -5 to -7, then a week before the test I was getting -3s and -2s. So I think it is just about practice. If you feel like it is not clicking, then take a break from the practice and review the concepts in LGB. I broke my plateau that way. When I reviewed, I picked up on a couple of ways I could make deductions faster on grouping games and then it all clicked into place. However, I still blew on the June games and will most likely be retaking.