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Many on TLS have noted that their best section on the LSAT is the Analytical Reasoning section. I want to hear from people who dominate this section, specifically relating to the methods you used to consistently score perfectly. Please share your thoughts with those of us that are willing to work hard to get to -0.

I'm not one of those people, but from what I've read they all swear by the methods in Logic Games Bible and Manhattan.

Velocity lsat techniques followed to the letter.

Clearlynotstefan wrote:Velocity lsat techniques followed to the letter.

Good for flexibility as well? I just read that Velocity doesn't allow for swiftness due to a-ha inferences - just lots of hypos instead. Is that true?

I read the Logic Games Bible and using their techniques coupled with drilling and drilling until I was quick as could be, I went -0 on my last 8 preptests and on test day for LG.

Went -0 on LG in June. Took me a lot of work. I basically read every LG guide on the market (and did every included exercise), then did lots and lots of game type drilling with the Cambridge LG packets, and then worked on doing LG sections. I did many full LG sections several times. I believe I ultimately completed every LG section at least once. Throughout the process of doing sections, I input my data onto LSATQA.com, and made note of where in LG I was struggling, then would put in work on drilling this particular game types.

RuleSubstitution wrote:

Clearlynotstefan wrote:Velocity lsat techniques followed to the letter.

Good for flexibility as well? I just read that Velocity doesn't allow for swiftness due to a-ha inferences - just lots of hypos instead. Is that true?

I seem to see that originating from people associated with other prep companies lol.

I couldn't disagree more, there is a distinct step for dealing with inferences. Its no less accentuated than in any other program I've worked with. The only difference is what you do after the inferences, paying attention to efficiency and use of prior work.

Pithypike- 3 copies of every game etc etc

TheMostDangerousLG wrote:Went -0 on LG in June. Took me a lot of work. I basically read every LG guide on the market (and did every included exercise), then did lots and lots of game type drilling with the Cambridge LG packets, and then worked on doing LG sections. I did many full LG sections several times. I believe I ultimately completed every LG section at least once. Throughout the process of doing sections, I input my data onto LSATQA.com, and made note of where in LG I was struggling, then would put in work on drilling this particular game types.

I just read PithyPike's guide and also 7sage's foolproof method advice. Is it necessary, you think, to group by type, chronologically when drilling? It seems like a pain to segregate these using the hardcopy preptests I have; is cambridge worth it?

RuleSubstitution wrote: I just read PithyPike's guide and also 7sage's foolproof method advice. Is it necessary, you think, to group by type, chronologically when drilling? It seems like a pain to segregate these using the hardcopy preptests I have; is cambridge worth it?

I firmly believe that this is the ONLY way to study LG.

The LG is a series of progressions. It makes absolutely no sense to do grouping games when you cannot reliably do linear games, etc. Grouping games require you to know everything required for linear games.

Clearlynotstefan wrote:

RuleSubstitution wrote:

Clearlynotstefan wrote:Velocity lsat techniques followed to the letter.

Good for flexibility as well? I just read that Velocity doesn't allow for swiftness due to a-ha inferences - just lots of hypos instead. Is that true?

I seem to see that originating from people associated with other prep companies lol.

I couldn't disagree more, there is a distinct step for dealing with inferences. Its no less accentuated than in any other program I've worked with. The only difference is what you do after the inferences, paying attention to efficiency and use of prior work.

I'm probably the one whose conversation with rulesubstitution prompted his question. I bought the full Velocity package, and his LG strategy wasn't the best method for me, although I acknowledged that it's a good method for other people.

And while the Velocity method certainly allows for the use of inferences, it doesn't give you much time to see any of them beyond "this four-item chunk is probably going to be a factor" and similarly-obvious inferences. When his book covers "Getting Fierce" (p.18), Dave says "It is not fierce to sit and think. It is fierce to collect your evidence, and then get your pencil on the paper and keep it moving." (emphasis mine)

That's a pretty stark contrast with the "Big Pause" employed by Manhattan and similar methods, where you have a chance to get your head up out of the trees and start looking at the forest before you start answering questions.

With the Velocity method, I got very good at drawing accurate diagrams, and accurately depicting the game's given rules, but the rush right into answering questions didn't give me a chance to see anything subtle at all, and the time I saved by diving right into the questions was more than lost on the extra hypos I had to "plug and chug".

Again, this is only my personal experience, but I've found that the extra time I take on the front end gets me through the questions faster, and my overall game times have dropped significantly.

And no, I'm not affiliated with any of the prep companies beyond just being a retail consumer.

ScottRiqui wrote:

Clearlynotstefan wrote:

RuleSubstitution wrote:

Clearlynotstefan wrote:Velocity lsat techniques followed to the letter.

Good for flexibility as well? I just read that Velocity doesn't allow for swiftness due to a-ha inferences - just lots of hypos instead. Is that true?

I seem to see that originating from people associated with other prep companies lol.

I couldn't disagree more, there is a distinct step for dealing with inferences. Its no less accentuated than in any other program I've worked with. The only difference is what you do after the inferences, paying attention to efficiency and use of prior work.

I'm probably the one whose conversation with rulesubstitution prompted his question. I bought the full Velocity package, and his LG strategy wasn't the best method for me, although I acknowledged that it's a good method for other people.

And while the Velocity method certainly allows for the use of inferences, it doesn't give you much time to see any of them beyond "this four-item chunk is probably going to be a factor" and similarly-obvious inferences. When his book covers "Getting Fierce" (p.18), Dave says "It is not fierce to sit and think. It is fierce to collect your evidence, and then get your pencil on the paper and keep it moving." (emphasis mine)

That's a pretty stark contrast with the "Big Pause" employed by Manhattan and similar methods, where you have a chance to get your head up out of the trees and start looking at the forest before you start answering questions.

With the Velocity method, I got very good at drawing accurate diagrams, and accurately depicting the game's given rules, but the rush right into answering questions didn't give me a chance to see anything subtle at all, and the time I saved by diving right into the questions was more than lost on the extra hypos I had to "plug and chug".

Again, this is only my personal experience, but I've found that the extra time I take on the front end gets me through the questions faster, and my overall game times have dropped significantly.

And no, I'm not affiliated with any of the prep companies beyond just being a retail consumer.

I seem to remember a distinct "moment of zen" step that specifically is there to slow you down, and allow you to look big inferences. How is moment of zen any different than big pause? lol The person I was referencing advancing this view wasn't you, but is certainly affiliated with another prep company, although clearly I have no idea who's post influenced his opinion.
Its a "to each his own" situation, obviously no one method is going to work for everyone. I personally don't understand why more prep companies don't place as much emphasis on the things velocity does, like neat use of prior work, and attempting to diagram more efficiently than writing all over the page; but everyone gets better gains out of a program that puts more stress on the things that a particular student was lacking. Some people are naturally good at following inferences, but are wildly inefficient thinkers with games, and velocity might be more helpful to them that it would be to someone who is naturally efficient with games, but doesn't place enough stress on making inferences.

Clearlynotstefan wrote: I seem to remember a distinct "moment of zen" step that specifically is there to slow you down, and allow you to look big inferences. How is moment of zen any different than big pause? lol The person I was referencing advancing this view wasn't you, but is certainly affiliated with another prep company, although clearly I have no idea who's post influenced his opinion.
Its a "to each his own" situation, obviously no one method is going to work for everyone. I personally don't understand why more prep companies don't place as much emphasis on the things velocity does, like neat use of prior work, and attempting to diagram more efficiently than writing all over the page; but everyone gets better gains out of a program that puts more stress on the things that a particular student was lacking. Some people are naturally good at following inferences, but are wildly inefficient thinkers with games, and velocity might be more helpful to them that it would be to someone who is naturally efficient with games, but doesn't place enough stress on making inferences.

Well, Dave might have talked about a "moment of Zen", but I don't remember it, and any sort of "forced pause" to reflect would run exactly counter to his "don't sit and think, just start writing and keep writing" philosophy.

But like you said, it's a "horses for courses" thing, and how "good" a method is depends on how well it works for the student. Velocity didn't work for me, but even so, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend that another student at least give it a try.

Ok guys. Let's all pause and take a moment of zen. These test prep cos crack me up. I like TMDLG's advice. It looks like it's down to obsessive drilling until perfection.

I never did any official LG guide and have gone -0 on my past two actual sittings of the LSAT. I have a pretty unorthodox approach. I have never formally thought of "types" of games. I know they exist (ordering, grouping, etc.), and I could probably figure out what is what, but when actually taking a test, I never think of what type of game it is mid-section.

This probably sounds drastic, probably isn't a good technique, and is kind of strange, but at times, whenever I'm re-doing a game, my disregard for "types" of games leads me to do two entirely different diagrams for the same game with no real differences in performance.

To me, the secret is all in the questions, which makes my methods kind of a glorified trial-and-error method. It was absolutely critical to immediately figure out what task each question is making me do. To accomplish this, I had to understand quickly what I needed to fill in to my diagram to answer a could be true question or a must be true question, for example.

Another thing that makes my method pretty unorthodox is that unless inferences jump out at me immediately as I go through the rules, I don't really dwell on them. Because I'm breaking down each question into its own task and proving that task in a mathematical way, the inferences will make themselves apparently if and when I need to know them.

Since we now have more room to diagram for AR, what do people think about using scratch paper when drilling games? It seems pretty pointless to try and deal with the contrived difficulty that is fitting our work when it is unnecessary.

RuleSubstitution wrote:Since we now have more room to diagram for AR, what do people think about using scratch paper when drilling games? It seems pretty pointless to try and deal with the contrived difficulty that is fitting our work when it is unnecessary.

If you're super anal, you could always scan them and edit the pdf to reflect a current layout...Rules and first question on one page, rest of the questions on the other. My only recommendation for students with the new format is draw your rules and diagram on the RIGHT page under the questions, not on the left page where you are used to doing it. Beyond the first question which is almost always acceptability anyway, you shouldn't need to go back to that page, and its easier to just look down, than have to look at opposite pages for your diagram, and the questions you're trying to answer. Also, if you should be so unfortunate as to be at a desk so small that you have to fold the booklet in half, you'd be doomed if your diagram was on the other side.

Clearlynotstefan wrote:

RuleSubstitution wrote:Since we now have more room to diagram for AR, what do people think about using scratch paper when drilling games? It seems pretty pointless to try and deal with the contrived difficulty that is fitting our work when it is unnecessary.

If you're super anal, you could always scan them and edit the pdf to reflect a current layout...Rules and first question on one page, rest of the questions on the other. My only recommendation for students with the new format is draw your rules and diagram on the RIGHT page under the questions, not on the left page where you are used to doing it. Beyond the first question which is almost always acceptability anyway, you shouldn't need to go back to that page, and its easier to just look down, than have to look at opposite pages for your diagram, and the questions you're trying to answer. Also, if you should be so unfortunate as to be at a desk so small that you have to fold the booklet in half, you'd be doomed if your diagram was on the other side.

Great tip.