Running Out of LG's

[moshei24]

What should I do once I finish all the LG's?

I go through 3-4 a day, if not more, and I'm coming down to about a week's worth left.

What should I do once I have none left?

Thanks!

[Dave Killoran]

Go through them again, but in a different fashion.

When you take a game once, you get a lot of knowledge, but you do not get it all. Review these games again as if you were being put in a position to have to teach them to someone else. That will really help you see things on a more abstract level, and it will show you where your weaknesses are.

Work also to link game types and concepts together, because on the LSAT the past is prologue--what has come before will reappear again.

Thanks!

[moshei24]

Can you expound on that?

How would I go about pretending I'm teaching someone else? Explaining to myself how I found the inferences? Why I used template or possibilities?

Also, how would I go about linking games, etc.?

Thanks, Dave!

[Adam Tyson]

One approach to thinking like a teacher is to actually try teaching someone. If you have a friend or family member that is willing to work with you, try explaining to them the process by which you analyze a given game, how you diagram a particularly tricky rule, how you might go about making inferences that are less obvious. If you do that, be willing to listen to their feedback - they may ask questions or make suggestions just like my students do with me (for example, "wouldn't it be better if you just did the not-laws?"). When they do that, listen to them - they may actually be right, even though they haven't studied this stuff as much as you have. I've absolutely gained insight from a student's instinctive approach. If they are wrong, though, find a way to show why your approach is more efficient, more accurate, better. The process of you thinking through it and explaining it will help crystallize it for you, and you'll gain deeper insight into the process.

Even if you can't find someone to be your guinea pig, you can try approaching a game as if you are preparing a lesson plan. Ask not how you you would teach it to yourself, but how you would teach it to someone else who is preparing to take the LSAT. When you write out a plan on how to teach it, you have to pull yourself out of your instinctual mode of working and really focus on exactly why a particular method works the way it does, why a rule should be diagrammed in a certain way, etc.

Finally, I don't think Dave means you should link games together literally - he means look for ways that a concept or a rule from one game might also work in a different game. If you are dealing with a grouping game with three groups and come across a rule that limits one variable to only two of them, ask yourself how that same rule might work if there were four groups. When you come across a tricky rule in an advanced linear game, think about how that rule may be similar to one you saw in a basic linear game. We're talking about making mental links here. As you learn rules and concepts, think not just about how this rule works in THIS game, but how it might show up in a future game.

Adam

[Dave Killoran]

Adam is correct on all counts. Thanks Adam!