Could believe Lady Gaga and the LSAT have something in common?!

I recently had a conversation with a student about what he refers to as “sleeper rules” in games. Sleeper rules are the rules that don’t jive with the rest of the rules. They’re the odd man out, the lone ranger. In a Western, they’d be mavericks. On a playground, they’d be last picked. They’re Lady Gaga in the 2000s and Madonna in the ’80s. They’re the green circle next to the four blue … You get it.

We see sleeper rules all over the places in games, but a really good example is the standalone numbered-ordering rule in a relative ordering game: you are given seven rules, say, and six of them are relative (“X is before Y but after V”). The last one is not. It reads, “V can’t be third.” How many of you have gotten to a rule like this–one that you cannot easily incorporate into your diagram–and decided, I’ll just keep it in my head? Aha! Caught!

My guess is that it’s come back to bite you in the bum, as the ol’ “just keeping it in my head” is known to do in logic games.

While it may be your intuition to just keep it in your head, for most of us the best way to handle sleeper rules is actually to do the opposite. Rules that don’t conform to the expectations of the whole game should generally be treated like royalty. Give them a prominent spot on the page, circle them, underline them, shine a giant spotlight on them–that is, make them graphically obvious, and do so close to your diagram. In the example above, this might mean putting a big slash over “3” underneath the V in your diagram, or a big “V NOT THIRD!” note alongside it.

Obvious, nonconforming rules should be notated in the same way: conspicuously. This is the safest way to handle them.

The June 2013 LSAT is just one short month away.

Breath. Breath. Breath.

To kick off the one month countdown and help ease the anxiety, we’re going to make the full version of our LSAT Arcade App FREE for one week. Beginning today, May 10th through Thursday, May 16th, you can download the arcade to your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad free of charge. Using thousands of questions, the eight different mini games will stretch your ability to make inferences, draw diagrams, analyze arguments, and understand conditional statements. The four unlocked games are adaptive, delivering harder or easier questions depending on your performance and scores are based on number of questions correct.

Whether you’re looking for a fun way to change up your prep routine in time for the June LSAT or you’re just beginning to study, don’t miss out on this special opportunity. Working from the computer? Don’t forget that you can also play our Free Online LSAT Arcade via our website. The app will resume full price May 17th, so use this week as a time to stop studying and start playing!