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I started taking a full-time Kaplan course last week. Between their homework assignments & my own intense preparation(at least 30PT's, LG,RC,LR Bibles & more), I'm aiming to take the LSAT in February(IF I feel READY). If not I'm not comfortable, pushing back to June will not be an issue, it will still be early for me anyway. I tanked the LG section on my first diagnostic(cold), and only got 4 right. I simply had NO idea how to solve these during the test and basically guessed for much of it. After about 3 days of practice, I'm at the point where I can work through the LG questions and get the right answers, in a dreadfully SLOW fashion. So, my question is directed towards anyone who struggled at first with the LG section and then eventually MASTERED it. Did you start off taking a long time to come up with the right answers? With how much practice did you begin to master being both accurate and fast? How long were you practicing? How many games(roughly). Any helpful stories or advice would be very appreciated as well. Thank you all for your time.

Some games originally took me 18 minutes. Now all except the rare, rare exception take me 11.5 minutes or less. The more and more you practice, the quicker you do them. Your times should improve once you start taking PrepTests too.

But worry about accuracy for now, timing will eventually improve.

Once LG games "click" for you, I think you will notice considerable speed in which you do games in. I started off taking 35+ minutes, missing about 4-8 questions per game section, and then got down to about 30 (or even 25 minutes on some game sections) and missing less than 2 per test before the June 2010 test.

Though I took all 35 minutes in June (due to misreading the rule on the interns game), I still only missed 2, though it should have been one seeing as I forgot to bubble an answer.

Interesting. If you had to give me a ball park figure of how many individual logic games you went through during your preparation procces, what would your guess be?

Figure out inferences/consequences of the rules that are beyond the given information right away, not just when you're answering the questions. That's probably a very obvious thing to say, but I went from a dreadfully slow -4LG to a reasonably quicker -2LG just by a) getting used to the games and b) spending more time on my diagram and extrapolating beyond the given rules. Make sure you are connecting rules and seeing chains of if/then reasoning. For example, x must be in either 4th or 6th position. If R is in 5th, then Y is 6th. Diagram both those rules and then make sure to note that if x = 4th, r cannot equal 5th. If R =5, then you know 4) x 5) r 6)y.

When I started off, I was kind of confining myself to the given rules and not spotting the inferences very quickly. Perhaps you're already doing lovely diagrams and this advice is useless, but I found it really speeded things up while answering questions if I slowed down during diagramming.

eit wrote:I found it really speeded things up while answering questions if I slowed down during diagramming.

+1

I noticed this too. Without wasting too much time, create as many hypotheticals as possible. It makes future questions and scenarios easier.

I probably did around 50 total logic games during my prep. The first section I ever did, I only got through 7 questions in 35 minutes. By the time I was done prepping, I was getting through almost all of the questions and getting none to one wrong. The Logic games section is always the toughest section at the beginning, but it's the section you can improve the most on by practicing.

I had very similar results in the beginning and after gruesome practice and LG bible I improved dramatically. Practice and read the solutions. BTW I took Kaplan too and LG Bible is a lot better. Invest into it.

Do wind sprints between each logic game

Use the Force.

As long as it's old school force (first three movies) and not the new force (latest three movies).

glucose101 wrote:

eit wrote:I found it really speeded things up while answering questions if I slowed down during diagramming.

+1

I noticed this too. Without wasting too much time, create as many hypotheticals as possible. It makes future questions and scenarios easier.

ugh, no. Figure out things that you know are true based on the rules, look at where the limitations are in the game (kind of like noting where you would start with hypos), but don't write out tons of hypos. You should only write out hypos if you can figure out the game is a relatively limited number of possibilities (like the pohl children game, where only four things can happen or the professor specialties game, where only three things can happen).

Audio Technica Guy wrote:

glucose101 wrote:

eit wrote:I found it really speeded things up while answering questions if I slowed down during diagramming.

+1

I noticed this too. Without wasting too much time, create as many hypotheticals as possible. It makes future questions and scenarios easier.

ugh, no. Figure out things that you know are true based on the rules, look at where the limitations are in the game (kind of like noting where you would start with hypos), but don't write out tons of hypos. You should only write out hypos if you can figure out the game is a relatively limited number of possibilities (like the pohl children game, where only four things can happen or the professor specialties game, where only three things can happen).

+1

Also forget about speed for a while. Do the problems slowly, and you will get better. Just make sure you are doing them somewhat deductively and not just trying every answer choice.

Audio Technica Guy wrote: Figure out things that you know are true based on the rules, look at where the limitations are in the game (kind of like noting where you would start with hypos), but don't write out tons of hypos.

"Well, duh." I wasn't saying write down every hypothetical ever known. Obviously, you would follow all the rules deductively and find inferences...and then create hypotheticals so the questions become a breeze.

glucose101 wrote:

Audio Technica Guy wrote: Figure out things that you know are true based on the rules, look at where the limitations are in the game (kind of like noting where you would start with hypos), but don't write out tons of hypos.

"Well, duh." I wasn't saying write down every hypothetical ever known. Obviously, you would follow all the rules deductively and find inferences...and then create hypotheticals so the questions become a breeze.

I'm saying doing hypotheticals is a bad idea for most students (if not all), in general. You might look at one spot where you know that only two things can happen and briefly think about what could happen there. But don't just create hypotheticals. It's a huge waste of time. I'm also not sure what the point of creating a few hypotheticals is? it seems like that would run the risk of only looking at a few possible scenarios in the game and is a recipe for low accuracy, when the greatest strength of games is the ability to nail 100% accuracy.

Writing out all the possibilities is a huge waste of time, what you should do is, draw the diagrams (or whatever applicable) (unless its a process game, which just are easy but annoying since you cannot draw anything and that makes you sad), make the key deductions (like, if K takes LSAT L also takes LSAT, if L takes LSAT M does not ->> ooh no M if there is K etc), and adjust according to new conditions given in the questions (if any).

+1

Also forget about speed for a while. Do the problems slowly, and you will get better. Just make sure you are doing them somewhat deductively and not just trying every answer choice.

Yes, I've definitely noticed from my practice so far that looking through every choice is a NO NO. The biggest problem to me, thus far, has been figuring out which type of diagram I need to use for the different types of games. I'd say this is where the majority of my struggles have been. Moreover, I haven't really looked into the circle games yet, which from what people tell me, are the most difficult. I guess this is why I'm so concerned with my speed, being that I've only begun the relatively "easy games" in comparison to the others.

GoGetIt wrote:

+1

Also forget about speed for a while. Do the problems slowly, and you will get better. Just make sure you are doing them somewhat deductively and not just trying every answer choice.

Yes, I've definitely noticed from my practice so far that looking through every choice is a NO NO. The biggest problem to me, thus far, has been figuring out which type of diagram I need to use for the different types of games. I'd say this is where the majority of my struggles have been. Moreover, I haven't really looked into the circle games yet, which from what people tell me, are the most difficult. I guess this is why I'm so concerned with my speed, being that I've only begun the relatively "easy games" in comparison to the others.

Do what's best for you. Obviously what you're doing isn't working, however. I think everyone's totally hounding me and my hypotheticals. It isn't like I'm writing every possible situation. For me--again, do what's best for you, it may not work for you, but it does for me--I generally manage to figure out which hypotheticals the games require, which makes answering the questions super quick and painless.

Not exactly sure which strategies are the most effective yet. So far the input I've received all sounds great, especially since it has proven to be sucessful for you personally. I'm open to all suggestions from people who've had sucess with these games because I haven't found a system that "works best" for me yet, being that I've only been working on them for what, four days now? So I am far from the point where I have an established system, one which I'm comfortable with at least.

GoGetIt wrote:Not exactly sure which strategies are the most effective yet. So far the input I've received all sounds great, especially since it has proven to be sucessful for you personally. I'm open to all suggestions from people who've had sucess with these games because I haven't found a system that "works best" for me yet, being that I've only been working on them for what, four days now? So I am far from the point where I have an established system, one which I'm comfortable with at least.

Also, one thing that significantly reduces time is sticking with an answer after it works out and NOT trying out every choice. LG is the one section where this is a good strategy. However, I recommend at this point to check every answer choice until you get good at the games (the point where you destroy the easy games, and do fairly well even on the hard ones), so you can fully understand why the wrong answers are wrong.

Audio Technica Guy wrote:

glucose101 wrote:

Audio Technica Guy wrote: Figure out things that you know are true based on the rules, look at where the limitations are in the game (kind of like noting where you would start with hypos), but don't write out tons of hypos.

"Well, duh." I wasn't saying write down every hypothetical ever known. Obviously, you would follow all the rules deductively and find inferences...and then create hypotheticals so the questions become a breeze.

I'm saying doing hypotheticals is a bad idea for most students (if not all), in general. You might look at one spot where you know that only two things can happen and briefly think about what could happen there. But don't just create hypotheticals. It's a huge waste of time. I'm also not sure what the point of creating a few hypotheticals is? it seems like that would run the risk of only looking at a few possible scenarios in the game and is a recipe for low accuracy, when the greatest strength of games is the ability to nail 100% accuracy.

I'm going to disagree with you here in part. On some grouping games I will quickly hammer out one valid hypo when I feel a little unsure of the interaction of the rules. IT only takes a moment, is not something I do every time and often whatever I create can be of use later. In the case of linear games when I can see that the number of options for solving it is limited (say a large grouping block) I hammer out some hypos. THere was one I did recently about a guy named Ron washing dishes and once the minutes of hypo creation allowed me to answer all but one question in about 2 minutes. The entire game took 5 minutes with 100% accuracy. Again, I think you are generally right, but there are valid excpetions to your advice.

youknowryan wrote:

Audio Technica Guy wrote:

glucose101 wrote:

Audio Technica Guy wrote: Figure out things that you know are true based on the rules, look at where the limitations are in the game (kind of like noting where you would start with hypos), but don't write out tons of hypos.

"Well, duh." I wasn't saying write down every hypothetical ever known. Obviously, you would follow all the rules deductively and find inferences...and then create hypotheticals so the questions become a breeze.

I'm saying doing hypotheticals is a bad idea for most students (if not all), in general. You might look at one spot where you know that only two things can happen and briefly think about what could happen there. But don't just create hypotheticals. It's a huge waste of time. I'm also not sure what the point of creating a few hypotheticals is? it seems like that would run the risk of only looking at a few possible scenarios in the game and is a recipe for low accuracy, when the greatest strength of games is the ability to nail 100% accuracy.

I'm going to disagree with you here in part. On some grouping games I will quickly hammer out one valid hypo when I feel a little unsure of the interaction of the rules. IT only takes a moment, is not something I do every time and often whatever I create can be of use later. In the case of linear games when I can see that the number of options for solving it is limited (say a large grouping block) I hammer out some hypos. THere was one I did recently about a guy named Ron washing dishes and once the minutes of hypo creation allowed me to answer all but one question in about 2 minutes. The entire game took 5 minutes with 100% accuracy. Again, I think you are generally right, but there are valid excpetions to your advice.

Thank you! Finally someone that understands what I'm talking about. I think in some instances, it makes all your options visible, and thus easier to crank out and answer.

youknowryan wrote: I'm going to disagree with you here in part. On some grouping games I will quickly hammer out one valid hypo when I feel a little unsure of the interaction of the rules. IT only takes a moment, is not something I do every time and often whatever I create can be of use later. In the case of linear games when I can see that the number of options for solving it is limited (say a large grouping block) I hammer out some hypos. THere was one I did recently about a guy named Ron washing dishes and once the minutes of hypo creation allowed me to answer all but one question in about 2 minutes. The entire game took 5 minutes with 100% accuracy. Again, I think you are generally right, but there are valid excpetions to your advice.

If you really want to crank out a hypo, then you can do the 1st question, which is, most of the time, just a hypothetical working of the game. Then you can do another general question if you want some more hypos.

Audio Technica Guy wrote:

youknowryan wrote: I'm going to disagree with you here in part. On some grouping games I will quickly hammer out one valid hypo when I feel a little unsure of the interaction of the rules. IT only takes a moment, is not something I do every time and often whatever I create can be of use later. In the case of linear games when I can see that the number of options for solving it is limited (say a large grouping block) I hammer out some hypos. THere was one I did recently about a guy named Ron washing dishes and once the minutes of hypo creation allowed me to answer all but one question in about 2 minutes. The entire game took 5 minutes with 100% accuracy. Again, I think you are generally right, but there are valid excpetions to your advice.

If you really want to crank out a hypo, then you can do the 1st question, which is, most of the time, just a hypothetical working of the game. Then you can do another general question if you want some more hypos.

I usually just get into a rhythm, and just do most situations if it's easy enough and time-worthy.