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Wizards and Robots

Wizards understand how a game works by looking hard at it. Then they look at the questions and instantly know all the answers.

Robots learn how games work by playing them. They rely on making hypos, rather than hoping for magical insights, to definitively (dis)prove answers.

Caution

Most guides to the LSAT, including this one, are written by people who are naturally wizards.

Wizards Are Fragile

To understand the problem with wizards, this framework created by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is useful:

Fragile Robust Anti-Fragile
vulnerable to surprise resistant to surprise benefits from surprise

Wizards are fragile because when they fail, they fail catastrophically. A single weird rule ruins the whole game, a single surprising game ruins the whole test.

The wizard's magic depends on completely understanding how games work. Which means that the wizard's magic fails when it's most needed, on hard games.

At best, wizards can become robust wizard-knights by memorizing every game the LSAT has ever made.

Reminder about knights

Knights try to make armor out of knowledge about the test. But their armor is heavy and ineffective.

See: Pitfalls.

This approach can work. But as more students learn how to be wizard-knights, games have been getting increasingly weird.

That's actually good news for robots, because robots are anti-fragile. The robot's method works on every game, no matter how weird. While wizards stare at games they can't solve, robots are making progress by creating valid hypos.

Side note

The arms race between the LSAC and test prep in the Games section might tell us something about the Reasoning and Reading sections. The success of test prep has forced the LSAC to make games harder. They've had to do this to preserve the curve, that is to ensure that the same % of students end up in each score band.

But the Reading and Reasoning sections haven't changed much. This suggests that test prep strategies for those sections haven't successfully helped enough students improve enough to impact the curve.

Pros & Cons

Wizardry

  • may be able to immediately answer many questions based on upfront understanding
  • connecting rules reduces the number of variables to keep track of
  • must juggle variables in head
  • can't reuse work
  • can waste time staring
  • lose time and get 0 points on hard games
  • ego is tied to success

Robotics

  • can learn about the game by playing it
  • thinking on paper can be easier
  • can reuse hypos from one question on another
  • prevents silly mistakes
  • can get at least some points on even the hardest games
  • drawing takes time
  • may be hard to follow the rules if you don't understand how they work together
  • may need to create many hypos to get a single answer
  • may miss insights about how the game works if too focused on making hypos

Robot-Wizard-Hybrids

To be fair you can, and arguably should, be both. Going to either extreme would be a mistake.

When you're being a robot, don't get stuck in the slog of making hypos. Build in brief moments for inspiration into your practice, like:

  • Take a second to breathe and see the big picture during your scan or check.
  • On WHICH questions, give yourself a chance to wizard after you've reused old hypos to eliminate wrong answers.
  • In review, analyze your work to identify the deeper patterns that drove that game.

If you insist on being a wizard on test day. Take time to practice being a robot too:

  • If making hypos is always your plan B, you won't be able to make them efficiently for when you need to.
  • Trying to play an "impossible" game like a robot will help you understand it more deeply than any expert explanation.
  • Being a robot might improve the rigor of your thought, which will make you a better wizard.