Unexpected massive drop in logic game.. what the hell Forum

[esther0123]

I used to be scoring in 0~-4 range, and now all of a sudden (within a week time) wopping -6~-9 are happening. I don't know what's going on.... I'm not really taking newer exams (randomizing between 40s and 50s) but this is really disheartening. This happened for the past 3 tests... Is focusing exclusively on a problem area making me lose my LG skills?

[Br3v]

I used to be scoring in 0~-4 range, and now all of a sudden (within a week time) wopping -6~-9 are happening. I don't know what's going on.... I'm not really taking newer exams (randomizing between 40s and 50s) but this is really disheartening. This happened for the past 3 tests... Is focusing exclusively on a problem area making me lose my LG skills?

Tomorrow, sit yourself down and remind yourself of your capability. Then produce. Your just experiencing a slight case of over thinking

[esther0123]

I used to be scoring in 0~-4 range, and now all of a sudden (within a week time) wopping -6~-9 are happening. I don't know what's going on.... I'm not really taking newer exams (randomizing between 40s and 50s) but this is really disheartening. This happened for the past 3 tests... Is focusing exclusively on a problem area making me lose my LG skills?

Tomorrow, sit yourself down and remind yourself of your capability. Then produce. Your just experiencing a slight case of over thinking

you're the best

[CyanIdes Of March]

There's some games in the 30s that are pretty difficult. Could be you've gone from straight forward games (40s/50s) to the more complicated/less common games of the late 20s/30s.

EDIT: Unless you said you ARE taking 40s/50s? Your post confused me a bit. If that's the case, just go over what happened with the bad ones and think about what you can do to fix it next time.

[esther0123]

There's some games in the 30s that are pretty difficult. Could be you've gone from straight forward games (40s/50s) to the more complicated/less common games of the late 20s/30s.

EDIT: Unless you said you ARE taking 40s/50s? Your post confused me a bit. If that's the case, just go over what happened with the bad ones and think about what you can do to fix it next time.

I AM taking 40s/50s and been getting 0~-3 in late 20s and mid 30s... I KNOW!! I don't even know what's going on

[keyanaut]

OP how often do you freak out in a games section?

[Ixiion]

I was getting -0 or -1 consistently on LG. Then on one, I completely forgot a rule and went -5, on another idk what happened and went -2, etc.

I'm not sure WHY - but perhaps it's because I've been focusing so much on LR/RC that I just want to get through the damn LG section, which I know I'm acing, so I can get to the others, and thus I lose focus. Confidence is good, cockiness is not. Does this sound familiar to you?

If not, then I have no idea, lol.

[cahwc12]

This may sound elitist, but if you aren't getting -1 or 2 average consistently you shouldn't even be taking LG sections in my opinion (and instead should be drilling games by type and repeating them). If you are missing 4 in a section, that connotes some kind of inadequacy in a certain game type or in your overall games approach. And if you're missing 6-9 that means the overall strategy you're taking toward games is inferior.

There are a lot of approaches you can take to improve, but without more specifics it's difficult to give you more salient advice.

One thing I can recommend to prevent you from ever forgetting a rule again is a dot-star system I use. Basically whenever I read/diagram a rule I put a dot to the left of it. This takes an extra 3-8 seconds per game but this time ensures I do not skip over a rule in diagramming. If I read a rule and decide it's not worth diagramming or something I can just internalize for the game (for example, everything must be selected exactly once, or the first and last cannot equal each other) I put a star to the left of the rule. If I see a very quirky and difficult to diagram rule, I'll put two stars next to it and I know to really pay attention to it.

Next, I created something of a "disaster recovery" flow chart. Once I felt like I had mastered games, the only time I would miss questions would be due to carelessness. This flowchart mostly eliminated that carelessness. Although I did go -1 on the June games, I haven't missed a question since, and I had only missed 2 questions in the 8 PTs prior to that test. (I still blame the mistake on #17 being poorly vetted and requiring several minutes to solve.)

I could give this to you, but I think if you sit down and make one for yourself it will be of more help (and it only took me about 20-30 minutes to make). Make a list of what causes you to miss certain questions, and what you can do to avoid each. Then make a list of what you should do if you ever get stuck on any question or part of a game. You should never get "stuck" where you are just staring at a game. If you are it's because you're doing something wrong. Anyway, after making this chart I went from averaging, say -1.5 per game to about -.3 per game, and -0 from prepping since June. I haven't missed a games question in two months, and I attribute it to putting methods in place that make it extremely difficult for me to miss a question due to my own carelessness.

[wtrc]

It could just be burn out (leading you to misread questions or forget to factor in the word "except" or something). If it's a more fundamental problem, I'd definitely recommend LSATBlog's free logic game schedule thing, which groups the games, especially if you have access to PT's 29-38.

I've gone from a consistent -4 to -6 to now a pretty consistent 0 or -1 or -2 at most

http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/ls ... games.html

[esther0123]

My most common mistake in those past three tests (well, it's actually THE mistake that leads to my ultimate doom) is that I skim-read the rules and miss a key rule (and thus screwing me over for the remainder of the game) or even when I read the rules properly, I would make a hypothetical whilst forgetting a particular rule. Overall careless rule-reading and not internalizing the rule on-cue. And when I go back and look at what I did, I feel like a total fool. Any remedy for this?

Also, do you see through major inferences during set up, or do you rather rely on hypotheticals? It seems like different people have different approach to the games, but I usually land somewhere in between (my inferences in master diagram are usually really basic ones, nothing ground breaking/use hypotheticals in roughly one or two questions per game)

................AAAAAAnd I'm back to drilling

[cahwc12]

anyone who tells you to play with the rules and make inferences before going to the questions is giving you bad advice.

Write down the rules and attack the questions and avoid wasting time by massaging rules, making multiple templates and other guesswork. You don't get any points for making elaborate diagrams and hypothetical templates on your paper, but you do get them for answering questions and you want to maximize your time spent solving them.

Every game has inferences and deductions that can be made, and the game's global questions will elucidate some of them. If you spend time doing extraneous hypotheticals and don't get tested on something you find, that's time you aren't getting back.

And even IF you manage to stumble upon some deduction that gives you a free question, you're no further ahead than if you had NOT made the deduction beforehand and simply relied on the question to guide you.

Playing with the rules before diving into the questions is akin to embarking on a treasure hunt before reading all the clues. You might figure out some of the clues and even some of the treasure on your own, but getting the clues for free will almost always be the best route. I can think of only a few games that it was ever better to make inferences before going to the questions, and none in the 25 most recent LSATs.

[esther0123]

anyone who tells you to play with the rules and make inferences before going to the questions is giving you bad advice.

Write down the rules and attack the questions and avoid wasting time by massaging rules, making multiple templates and other guesswork. You don't get any points for making elaborate diagrams and hypothetical templates on your paper, but you do get them for answering questions and you want to maximize your time spent solving them.

Every game has inferences and deductions that can be made, and the game's global questions will elucidate some of them. If you spend time doing extraneous hypotheticals and don't get tested on something you find, that's time you aren't getting back.

And even IF you manage to stumble upon some deduction that gives you a free question, you're no further ahead than if you had NOT made the deduction beforehand and simply relied on the question to guide you.

Playing with the rules before diving into the questions is akin to embarking on a treasure hunt before reading all the clues. You might figure out some of the clues and even some of the treasure on your own, but getting the clues for free will almost always be the best route. I can think of only a few games that it was ever better to make inferences before going to the questions, and none in the 25 most recent LSATs.

I feel you on losing time! in the past three tests, I was wasting so much time drawing out different templates for a basic linear games... i was such a fool!!!