Curse you logic games!

[Ryans5]

Seriously, I hate these things. What makes it worse is I have zero issue with the other sections whatsoever. right now prior to the powerprep course I'm going to take I'm hovering around a 8-10 out of 24 score which is not at all acceptable if I want to go anywhere decent. Is anyone else having issues with these? How much can a person improve with practice? I feel like I could improve a lot simply because I don't have a damn clue where to even start with these things.

[FalconJimmy]

I got nailed on that section.  I got a good enough score to get into the school I want, but if I had studied and prepared, I would probably have had a shot at a full-ride.

There are a few books on how to prepare on Amazon, and if I were doing it over again, I'd do one of those.  I think the key is diagramming and I had no clue how to diagram.  I ended up with a 159 LSAT, but if I had prepared for logic games, I bet I'd have been in the 170+ range.

[Ryans5]

Yeah it's weird because I thought I had it in the practice section and then when I took the practice test in my booklet, no clue. I freaked out and just quit by the second question. I'm not very good with graphs.

Here's an example of what I'm struggling with and this is an easy one!

Exactly 8 boats-Jewel,Kashmir,Neptune,Objibwa, Pacific, Spain, Tornado and Valhalla-arrived at a dock. No boat arrived at the same time as any other boat. The boats arrived in an order consistent with the following conditions:

Tornado arrived before Spain but after Jewel
Neptune Arrived before Tornado
Kashmire arrived after Jewel but after Spain
Spain arrived before Obijibwa

If Neptune arrived after Kashmir which one of the following must be false?

A) Jewel was the 2nd boat to arrive
B) Kashmir was 5th
C) Neptune was 3rd
D) Objiwa was 6th
E) Spain was 7th

Bleh shoot me now.

[John1990]

The logic games section is probably the easiest section to improve on.  I read the powerscore bible for it and went from getting 10-12 per section right to getting 18-23 every time.  It's also easy to get nervous when taking the whole test and, as a result, perform much worse than you do in practice by rushing.  If you avoid getting anxious and get more involved in the game you will become much better. 
Some times it can be better to only try 3 games.  I do this commonly in reading comprehension, and every once in a while i dont complete the LG section but still get a good amount of questions right. 
My advice is to slow down for now and get a higher percentage right. 

[FalconJimmy]

I read the powerscore bible for it and went from getting 10-12 per section right to getting 18-23 every time. 

FWIW, I wish I had done the powerscore bible prior to taking the LSAT.  If I had to re-take, I'd do the Powerscore bible, first. 

[MikePing]

FWIW, I wish I had done the powerscore bible prior to taking the LSAT.  If I had to re-take, I'd do the Powerscore bible, first.

Ditto.

Get the Powerscore Bible.

[Flyer32]

I've given this advice on another thread on here (which I got off another website's forum). I'm currently preparing for the June '11 test, and doing the following has helped me tremendously.

Read the Powerscore LG Bible - read through it at least once, then use it to supplement your prep if need be.
Get all of the games you can, group them by game type (http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/ has this done for you), then make three copies of each game.
Drill the games by type, making sure to keep decent spacing between the same games (at least 48 hours between doing the same game).
Review games once you complete them, making sure you are deducting the inferences necessary to correctly answer the questions. Ensure that you "see" the underlying workings within the game. This is key; with practice you will start gaining accuracy and speed. I started out going -10/-13 when I first started prepping. Now I am down to about -2/-4 (went -3 on the LG section in the PT I took this morning).

Good luck!

[Ryans5]

I'm all over the place with these logic games. Some I can get literally every question right, others I can get like 1/5. Overall I am scored 7-11 right out of 24. Which really sucks. If I don't improve dramatically I doubt I'll even take the test.

[FalconJimmy]

I'm all over the place with these logic games. Some I can get literally every question right, others I can get like 1/5. Overall I am scored 7-11 right out of 24. Which really sucks. If I don't improve dramatically I doubt I'll even take the test.

ryan, when I took the sample test available on LSAC, I got maybe 20+ logic questions right.  Thing is, I didn't really time myslef per se.

What happened when I took the exam, though, is I got hung up on a very difficult 2nd question and didn't do the rest.  I bombed that section.

Get the powerscore bible and learn how to diagram these things.  That's your only way to be pretty sure of a good score.

[scenariosolver]

As I have posted before I have solved every one of thes logic games and placed them on video.  The best way to improve is to do them.  There are 268 games that have been released since 1991.  Work four of them a day for about 60 days and you will master them.  The key is to understand what you did wrong.  Another key is to understand that 70% of the games require work to be done before you look at the questions. Of that, 50% of the games can be wholly solved.  20% require scenario templates.  This leaves 30% of logic games that require no work up front. 

Talking about setups is a good thing but continually doing the games makes the setups occur intuitively.  The real issue with logic games is to determine very quickly what amount of work is necessary up front.  This is done by understanding the hierarchy of rules.  Put another way, the types of rules given dictate waht your solution strategy will be.