How long does it take to get good at logic games? (if you're not a natural) Forum

[conticuere]

I've been on and off prepping for a month now and my logic games performance has only marginally improved. I'm far too slow, and I don't see the deductions and can even get easy questions wrong. I know I have much more potential than this. But progress is slow and it's frustrating. I've only done chapter 1 of LGB so far, but have also been following Blueprint's online course. Am I impatient?

[mcat4life87]

Are you saying that you're struggling on the basic pure sequencing games? Don't worry about other kinds of games yet, because you've just started your prep.

[Mikey]

Took me about a month of non stop LG only prep to get good at them (excluding unusual games). There's really no "trick" to it, just keep doing them and even do ones that you've done before even if you remember the answers because what matters is your familiarity with diagramming and making inferences.

[somewhatferal]

4

[conticuere]

Are you saying that you're struggling on the basic pure sequencing games? Don't worry about other kinds of games yet, because you've just started your prep.

I often make small mistakes that completely ruin everything. Mistakes of the eye, like putting C after G when the rule says C before G. I'm doing what Blueprint calls "underbooked" and "overbooked" ordering games and I find myself counting too much etc.

[NYC2012]

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[Deardevil]

The key is repetition.

I've read through the LGB twice over the past three weeks or so.
As of today, I've done almost every game three times and started to see some progress.
When I first timed myself during the ReChallenge, I couldn't hit the mark for a lot of games.
What I did was refine some skills and just understand them untimed; this was maybe a day or two ago.
Today, I still missed a few, but for the ones that I did complete,
I did so within roughly three minutes at best and seven and a half at worst.
For the ones I ran out of time on, the reason is almost always one question taking too long,
so I reviewed it untimed until I understood what I needed to modify or implement.
I'm currently on the mapping game, which is still probably my worst nightmare, but at least I know what to go over again.

So read through the chapters since you still have a long way to go, then drill like crazy.
You won't get it the first or even the second time around; grinding is the formula.

[Barack O'Drama]

Yeah, dude. TheMikey et al are correct..

I remember about a month ago when I felt exactly like you, and you can go back in my post history a couple weeks back even and see I basically said the same thing. After about a month of logic games (plus doing some LR/RC on the side) I am .......alright at ordering games. I have just started doing grouping games which are killing me now

But, I am much more confident and faithful that because of my experience with getting simple, advanced, and relative ordering down, that I will prevail. It truly can be painful mentally to learn at first, but I would recommend this:

Read the Chapter in the LG's Bible. Make it your highest priority to understand the most basic skills needs to solve the games in the chapter. Correct, consistent, and flawless diagramming tend to be sine qua non for you to advance in your skills. So first, just master how to diagram and read the rules correct. This may take a few days. That is OK--it is going to pay off. If you skip the basics, you are only shooting yourself in the foot later. While you may get through a game or two--painfully slow--you will only continue to have trouble later on. Trust me on this because I did exactly that. I would skip the basics if I didn't understand something or didn't think it was important. For me, this consisted of skipping important conditional logic. Yeah, a lot of the basic and even advanced ordering games didn't require it---but I ended up having to only go back, and re-learn how to diagram conditional logic correctly to use in Advanced/3D ordering and every grouping game.

Next you really have to get good at making inferences. These will come if you continue to do tons of games the correct way. The truth is for games there is no substitution for drilling, drilling, and drilling some more. Through shear volume of games and drilling inferences will become almost second nature.

Once you can diagram correctly and make inferences, answering the questions becomes pretty much a science. You'll see a question, maybe a MBT for example, and know that perhaps you have made an inference that G has to be in 2nd place, and low and behold one of the ACs is (G-->2)

Once you implement all these things you should start seeing results. How long...? I would say after a month or so you'll feel good. Perfection may take some more time depending on how much you put in.

HTH

[Deardevil]

Yeah, this goes without saying, but the setup is SO vital to your success with LG.
Besides the mapping game that I was struggling with (I think it's okay now after the 7Sage explanation),
the other game that I recall having a LOT of trouble on is the one with learning languages.
I had NO clue where to start; can't even remember what my diagram was like, but it couldn't get me through half the problems.
7Sage came through with a good strategy, I adopted it, and the answers came within seconds.
The setup took the longest, but the trade-off was well worth it,
so definitely try to perfect the setup because it's the single most important thing in a game.
Of course, the prerequisite would have to be to read the scenario carefully since one error leads to many more and time being wasted.

[dontsaywhatyoumean]

I went through a cycle of : doing poorly -> doing well -> doing poorly -> doing well again.

The biggest things I've found have been: 7Sage videos, watching them in their ENTIRETY. Spending A LOT of time on your set up, often 50%, at least of your total game time. And not timing yourself for a while, until you are able to answer all of the questions correctly untimed. Drilling same game types. Being positive.

Honestly, the LGB felt helpful, but I'm not sure how helpful it really was, at least compared to using something like 7Sage. I did however find the RC and LRB's to be very helpful.

[Clearly]

Please please try velocity lsat. Speed is about efficiency and practice. Practicing slow techniques leads to slow students. It's true that you're early in your prep, but starting with an efficient program means not having to undo things later. For me it took a long time to get comfy with them, then prob two months of velocity and practice. Eventually I got to the point where I could prob do two sections in 35 min lol.