Ask just about anyone taken the LSAT what the hardest part of the test was, and there’s a pretty good chance they’ll say it was the Logic Games. If you’re prepping for the LSAT and you’ve already started struggling with the Logic Games, you can at least take comfort in knowing that just about everyone who takes the test goes through the same challenge.
But the truth is, Logic Games don’t have to be especially hard or intimidating. What makes them stand out is mostly just that they’re unfamiliar to us. They don’t necessarily require a level of skill or intelligence that most people don’t possess. But our minds naturally stop processing information well when we encounter information we’re unfamiliar with.
The good news is that you can develop familiarity with the LSAT Logic Games pretty easily if you try, because they all tend to fall into one of a small number of types. In this article, we explain what those types are and how to recognize them. Once you’re able to correctly identify which type of Logic Game you’re dealing with, you’ll be able to draw on the stablished strategies for that game type.
The first and most common type of LSAT Logic Game is the Sequencing Game, sometimes called the Ordering Game. These types of games give you a set of elements and requires you to place them in some kind of sequence according to the given information. One Sequencing Game might involve determining the order in which different race car drivers finish. Another Sequencing Game might involve seating dinner guests around a table. Whether it’s a spatial sequence, a temporal sequence, or some other kind of order, recognizing that you’re dealing with a Sequencing Game will help you know how to start attacking the problem. In a Sequencing Game, each element typically only appears once in the sequence.
The next most common type of LSAT Logic Game is the Grouping Game, which is sometimes called the Distribution Game. These games require you to distribute elements into different groups according to the given information. These questions can come with several different kinds of constraints. For example, some groups might also involve sub-groups. In some Grouping Games, an element can be placed in more than one group, but in other games they can’t. There’s also a sub-category of the Grouping Game called the Selection Game, in which each element can be said to fall into either the Selected/In Group, or the Rejected/Out Group.
A Grouping Game might give you a list of volleyball players along with information about who is assigned to the A Team and who is assigned to the B Team. Or it might give you a list of menu items at a restaurant alongside information about which items are on sale. A particularly hard Grouping Game might differentiate which menu items are on sale according to the day of the week.
The third most common type of LSAT Logic Game is the Matching Game. Matching Games typically involve assigning different elements to one another in pairs according to the given information. A Matching Game might involve determining which students at a school dance serve as dance partners together.
One type of Logic Game that’s less common but often difficult is the Hybrid Game. Hybrid Games typically involve two or more different types of Games from the above three. For example, a Hybrid Game might require you assign students to pairs of dance partners (Matching Game), then determine which order they come in for a dance contest (Sequencing Game).
The least common and often most difficult type of LSAT Logic Game is the Outlier Game, sometimes called the Oddball Game. These are Logic Games that don’t seem to neatly fit any of the above categories. The truth is, most Outlier Games actually can be understood according to one of the classic LSAT Logic Game Types, only with a slightly unusual condition. For example, one notorious recent LSAT Logic Game involved determining the path a computer virus took to infect a network of computers. This infamously hard Logic Game could actually be approached like a Sequencing Game, only each computer had the ability to infect two others rather than just one. This meant that the proper sequence was not strictly linear but operated more like a network or web. If you read carefully and focus on drawing a proper diagram, many Outlier Games don’t necessarily wind up being much harder than other Logic Games.
Being able to identify the type of Logic Game you’re working with will help you draw a proper diagram and identify an appropriate strategy for solving it. But as you practice the different kinds of LSAT Logic Games, you don’t have to go it alone. The best thing you can do for yourself, when it comes to Logic Games specifically and the LSAT more broadly, is pursue one-on-one tutoring. Working directly with an LSAT tutor is the gold-standard for students who are trying to get the most out of their LSAT prep. MyGuru’s tutors all have several years of experience, and have scored on average in the 98th percentile or above on an official LSAT exam. Our tutors are all experts in every kind of Logic Game available. They’ll be able to help you quickly identify what kind of Logic Game you’re working with, and they’ll teach you proven strategies for solving the Logic Game as quickly and accurately as possible.