LSAT Logic Games Strategy Forum

[sjlawand88]

All,

I am taking the October LSAT. Based on my diagnostic and practice, I feel as if I am nowhere near sufficient skill level for the logic game section. I have been deliberately focused on this section. I have read numerous books regarding game strategies. All books seem to use a different strategy, therefore I am going to focus on the best strategy for myself.

One thing I noticed with most books-- they set up every possible strategy for the game before moving onto the 6-8 questions. I do not feel this is feasible, especially considering rule changer questions. For example- they set up one game set up with all 3-6 possible set ups......

For all of you LSAT gurus, are you actually doing the strategy mentioned above? I feel like "free styling" this section rather than set up all strategies in advance would be more efficient.....

I am aiming for 170+. Thanks in advance!

[LSAT Blog]

The more inferences you make, the easier the questions will be.

Sometimes there are enough initial inferences such that drawing out multiple main diagrams is worthwhile.

Sometimes there aren't enough inferences to make it worthwhile, in which case you'll need to make more hypotheticals over the course of the game itself.

I believe it's generally more efficient to do a more detailed setup than a less detailed one whenever possible.

In this way, you're doing all your drawing at once, then complete all the questions, rather than look at question, draw a diagram, look at another question, draw another diagram.

It's most efficient to do tasks of a particular type at once. Drawing is one task, looking at questions is another.

Let me know if you'd like more details on this approach, and I can give you some examples.

[tomwatts]

I worry about what MUST and what CAN'T happen in the game (in terms of where the letters can actually be placed) before going to the questions, but most other things I don't bother with. I don't draw out more than two arrangements of elements in advance of the questions, because there might be 10237512093583 possible arrangements and the game can only ask about 7 (well, maybe 9 or 10 if you've got a min/maxing question, but still).

Still, what I do ends up looking like fairly extensive preparation before working the questions. It's just that it's the same every time, so it goes pretty fast.

[harut44]

Games were my weak point as well. When I first started studying (~2 weeks ago) I used to freestyle the questions with the same rationale you're describing. I find that setting up the games initial with a diagram and all the assumptions you can make are helpful.

Yes, some games are entirely local while most games are global and local but diagramming helps either way. I complete the games in literally half the time by diagramming now than I did when I first started (a factor to consider is that I had no guidance when I started). Another attribute that led to successful completion of the games was the LG Bible which you've read.

My advice would be always always diagram. I'm a math and econ major and I usually do arithmetic/calculations in my head without writing it down. I did the same for logic games before. As often as it screws me over in my studies it does on LG as well. My 2 cents.