Weird / Oddball Games

[aaronvoldman]

Do you have advice for how to train for weird, oddball games that fall outside of the categories that Manhattan primarily teaches? Do you have a list of the weirdest games that you could share? Are there other game types outside of those Manhattan primarily teaches that we could start studying as well? I have gotten rather thrown by these oddball games, resulting in some rather substantial variation in my LG scores when I encounter them. I know that these types of games are a minority on the LG section, but it seems they may be showing up more often than compared with a few years ago. My current approach to tackle this issue is to keep practicing the weirdest games I've come across, especially those from the early days of the LSAT, and to also keep focusing on the other nuts and bolts categories in order to pick up time for these types of games. My growth opportunity/challenge on these games seems to be quickly understanding the game concept, thinking through developing a creative diagram, and then finding the path through the game -- all of which at this point seems substantially harder for me when it's outside of a Manhattan game category that we learned.

[maryadkins]

It's tricky because oddball, rare games are by definition oddball and rare. So if there were a bunch to practice with, they wouldn't be oddball and rare. I think the best resource I can refer you to are the Challenge Logic Games on the site which we've written to be especially difficult. And your strategy of continuing to re-do the weird, difficult games you've encountered in the past is a good one. If I were you, I'd keep a bank of those games and return to them intermittently, spacing them out over the weeks so that you are having to re-conceptualize once again rather than relying solely on rote memory. Wish I could help more!