Logic Games Myths: The Set-Up Is IMPOSSIBLE!

A common time trap that many lsat students fall into is spending time memorizing a pre-built system of logic game set-ups for each particular question type. (I won't point fingers, but you Taplan and Lowerscore students know who you are.) While this idea may have its merits in theory, for many, this is just another layer of information that needs to some how become jammed in your head with everything else you're trying to learn.

After doing hundreds, if not thousands of logic games, I'm here to tell you that this strategy, more often then not, wastes your time and brain power. I say this for a number of reasons. First, while being able to label a particular game makes sense when discussing it, whether a game is a grouping, sequencing, matching, or anything else is wholly irrelevant in terms of the actual completion of the game. As we'll discuss in future posts, there is no difference in terms of the execution of the questions, no matter what type of game there is. Once you get past the set-up, these games only differ in the amount of variables of which you will be keeping track. That's it.

Another problem with the pre-built, one set-up fits all strategy is that one set-up DOESN'T fit all. I have seen too many examples of students spending a lot of time trying to fit a particular game into one of these pre-built set-ups, only to see that the game doesn't fit perfectly. Instead of taking a fresh look at the way they describe the game in the first paragraph, these students went in trying to assign a label to the question, which places more pressure towards pushing a square peg through a round hole. This leads me to my final point:

In the vast majority of the questions, they will tell you how to set up your game, if you pay attention. In many cases, the initial instructions of the game, in the opening paragraph, will detail how the author wants you to set the game up. For example: Three corporate offices, X, Y, and Z, each have two stories containing a single office. Six employees, a, b, c, d, e, f, and g all use an office at one particular... While I made that particular instruction up off the top of my head, the point is there. They told you to draw three vertical rectangles each cut in half, so you have an upstairs box and a downstairs box. Now, all you have to do is figure out who to assign to each of the vacant buildings.

The majority of the set-ups are just that easy. All you have to do is pay attention to ALL of the facts that they give you. If you don't waste your time learning the pre-packaged crap the larger programs give you, you'll have more time to do what you should have been doing all along:practicing the questions instead of learning the different types.