Recent Logic game trend

[etwcho]

With the June exam approaching, I just wanted to get some advise on what type of LGs to focus on. I've heard through the grapevine that the recent trend in LGs is 3 easy (PS/simple linear/I&O) + one incredibly hard game (combination of some sort). Is there any truth to this rumor?

And what range of PT's should I review? Lower, mid or upper range? At least with the mid range LGs (PT30~45), I know I can finish them with about 5min to spare. I'm just not sure how these games compare to current trend in LGs.

Thanks in advance!

[ohthatpatrick]

The older tests, let's say from 1 to 40 or so (although there's no clear dividing line), often feature 1 or 2 really easy normal games, 1 medium game, and 1 hard, if not crazy-weird, game.

So the older tests are good for practicing two different things:

1. If you want to practice dominating easy games in 5-7 minutes, then open up any older test, find a familiar looking game, and crush it.

2. If you want to practice thinking on the fly, reacting to curveballs, dealing with the unexpected, then open up an older test, find a weird looking game, and try to manage it in under 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, I think the more modern tests are characterized by familiar types of games (very few weird ones), but harder versions of them.

So you may get two Ordering games but find it's not easy to crush them in 5-7 minutes. You may get a 3D Ordering game and find that it doesn't actually have powerful up-front inferences. You may get an In n' Out but find that the rules don't chain together that well.

Plus, there are normally a few questions throughout the section that just involve more reading/brainpower than most regular questions (for instance, over the past ten tests or so, there's always at least one Rule Equivalency, which asks "Which of the following rules, if substituted for Rule 3, would have the same effect in determining the possible arrangements?").

Thus, I think it's super important you practice the modern games as much as you can, but feel free to use the older ones for skill-building.

You might wanna think about raiding the older games for individual games you want to practice, while saving the modern game sections for whenever you want to do 35 minute timed sections.

I think you'll find that nowadays, your time might be a little more evenly distributed than before.

But really all of this is just aggregate trend stuff and somewhat subjective; the best strategy is to prepare for everything so that you're as comfortable handing 4 mediums as you would be handling 3 easy's / 1 killer.

Good luck.

[etwcho]

Thank you for a detailed reply. Very much appreciated!