Best games for repeated practice

[bstampfl]

Hi all,

I am about 2 months into my 7 months of studying for the LSAT, and I would like to begin practicing logic games by doing the same game around 5-10 times in order to better understand how to make inferences, recognize common patterns, and enforce strategies. I'll do each game many times and hopefully by the final repetition I will (1) be able to do the game extremely quickly, and (2) learn a lot about inference-making and speed techniques.

1) Does anyone have any suggestions or warnings about this strategy? As a note, this won't be the only thing I do as part of my LG studying; it's just a new process I'd like to incorporate. Also, I won't try to memorize the answers to the game, I'll try to understand the intricacies of it and learn how my current strategies might be flawed.

2) What individual games might be best to use as my "repetition games"? This might seem like an odd question, but can anyone suggest individual games that would be great for this type of practice (i.e. games that require lots of inferences or that would otherwise be really helpful when repeated many times)?

Thanks so much in advance!

[Adam Tyson]

Thanks for the question, bstampfl. I have to say that I am not a big fan of this approach to games, because it can become too easy to quickly begin relying on memory, even if just subconsciously, rather than truly understanding why those inferences are correct and how to go about making them. That said, I DO think there is value to revisiting games that you have done in the past to see if, after you have had some time away from them and learned new concepts and strategies and have gotten generally better at connecting rules and making inferences. Doing the same game 5-10 times, especially in a short period of time, doesn't really do much other than drill that particular game into your head, in my opinion, and you won't be seeing that game on your actual test.

The games that you should revisit are games with which you struggled the first time you tried them. It doesn't matter so much what type of game they are, or if they were very inference-based or had very few inferences and instead required you to move quickly to the questions. When you come across a game that really stumps you, or that takes you a very long time, set that one aside to try again weeks or even months later, after you have studied and practiced other, similar games. Then, when your memory of the game has faded and is less likely to influence you, see if your newfound skills make a difference. If not, THEN perhaps consider digging more deeply into that game, to suss out inferences that you may have missed, perhaps by doing hypothetical solutions to the game, or by attempting to connect rules that involve the same variables or groups or spaces.