AMA with Sage @NotMyName hosted by @"J.Y. Ping"
Tuesday, December 11, 2018 at 7 p.m. ESTAMA = “Ask Me Anything"
Join us for a great discussion with Sage @NotMyName about how he worked his way up to scoring a 174 (official score) from his diagnostic LSAT score of 148. @"J.Y. Ping" will ask questions first and then he'll open the floor for questions!
🔸 NotMyName's LSAT timeline: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_XxszO_VyN75p0Cq-L8Jj4jXKrdhz11D/view?usp=sharing
🔸 NotMyName's LSAT tracker: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KlnKTzKr5fpR4SiKzDUp4xrBYUlJNYmj/view?usp=sharing
🔸 NotMyName's LSAT timing sheet:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sv1r-Qw4DZ4NucLQCO2KVSYyj1PdWRY8/view?usp=sharing
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42 comments
2,123+ logic games!?! 🤯
https://media.giphy.com/media/V2ugetSGlDik8/giphy.gif
@junhao31351 thank you. I did schedule vacations every so often though and also the 10-day-PT-cycle was a general guideline that I would deviate from if an area demanded more attention. PTs should be a gauge of progress and are not actually studying themselves (they're tests afterall). For example, in the summer and fall of 2017 when I was having a v difficult time learning to skip confidently, I'd delay a PT in exchange for a few more timed sections to practice skipping. As I progressed though, it would be rare for me to break the 10-day-PT-cycle unless it were to take a break from studying in general. does that make sense?
@akikookmt881 lol I know. LG was a tough nut to crack. 2-4 sections 6 days a week for a long time. I saw a big jump when I started emphasizing pattern recognition in LG.
I’m really excited for this. Thank you to JY and team for inviting me. I remember listening to these webinars after my discouraging first-take. They helped me reorient my approach and lifted me up when it seemed like a top score was out of reach. I incorporated a lot of what past Sages have suggested and added some of my own techniques along the way. I look forward to sharing these next week!
@studentservice said:
When will the podcast be made available?!
+1
When will the podcast be made available?!
This was my daily reminder:
get back to studying you lazy dirtbag
@gaeliverson3670 @chevalierkat315 @studentservice it's out https://classic.7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/18950/7sage-podcast-episode-11-7sager-notmyname-148-to-174-lsat
Does anyone know when the podcast will be ready by?
@ashleytien240
thank you for doing this! I wonder whether you have some advice for people who have almost exhausted their PTs (I have done PT1-80+ 82). Do you do some individual Q type drill from earlier sections or do more timed sections?
There are several problems that come with burning through PTs. Among them, it will be difficult to track your progress and the real test may be more jarring than for someone used to practicing on fresh material. Have you BRed all this thoroughly? I am assuming not since it's a ton of material. In that case, this is not the end of the world by any means.
Retakes and non-fresh material were a HUGE part of my prep. I used them for LR cookie-cutter review, lawgic drilling, LG foolproofing, and timing/skipping practice. I spent a great deal of time doing my best to read beyond the subject matter of a given question/game/passage and see the structure. I have a 3-ring binder full of LR questions with notes about their cookie-cutter structure. I thought up brief expressions to represent their structure so I could recognize it again like "this thing could have happened therefor it did happen". I also used non-fresh LR/RC sections to practice new timing strategies before trying them out on fresh material.
So cherish the remaining fresh takes you have and only use them when you're confident you've made some major progress.
@studentservice said:
Thanks @476 for sharing your experience! I missed the first part of this session and was wondering if this would be uploaded on youtube or other platforms?
It will be uploaded as a podcast episode!
@akikookmt881 said:
2,123+ logic games!?! 🤯
https://media.giphy.com/media/V2ugetSGlDik8/giphy.gif
Seriously! I'm so glad you provided us with this spreadsheet @476. It's one thing to say how much effort the LSAT requires, and another to actually see how much effort the LSAT requires lol
If anyone has additional questions they weren't able to ask, please feel free to ask them here or DM me and I will respond as soon as I can.
@gaeliverson3670 OMG! Thank you. I didn’t even notice the date! Lol.
Someone I've been messaging with since this AMA thought part of our conversation would be helpful to others. Here is that segment:
I think I took a week off every 6-8 weeks. It's difficult to pull yourself away but when you're thinking long-term like I was, it's more like an investment in longevity. Diet, exercise, and sleep were also important factors. It definitely sounds like you're flirting with burnout. 2 years is a looong time to be studying. After July, it felt like all the burnout I had avoided during my 2 years came crashing down on me. You might considering taking 2 weeks off and doing something fun or exerting to reset.
Why are you focused on 30 PTs? LSAT progress is more a function of quality than quantity. I'd say it's better to focus on becoming consistent in habits/abilities like quick lawgic translation, skipping, etc than a certain amount of work completed.
[He had asked how long it took me to move through scoring phases and that's what the timing describes below]
148 cold diagnostic to high 150s consistently (3 months)
High 150s consistently to mid 160s consistently (12 months but this counts CC and foolproofing)
Mid 160s consistently to high 160s consistently (4 months)
High 160s consistently to low 170s consistently (3 months)
In order to understand this I think I need to define hard and soft skills. Hard skills are things like being fluid in lawgic and understanding all the ways to weaken/strengthen a causal argument; basically everything that is presented in the CC. Soft skills are things like timing, skipping, etc. In the year that I worked to get consistently mid 160s, I was working almost entirely on hard skills and the soft skills I employed were very conservative (miss 5 per LR). So when it was time to break into the upper 160s/170s, my focus shifted to more aggressive soft skills and that is why you see less time to break into those scores.
@studentservice said:
@studentservice said:
Thanks @476 for sharing your experience! I missed the first part of this session and was wondering if this would be uploaded on youtube or other platforms?
It will be uploaded as a podcast episode!
When do you plan on updating it?
@476 shared a timing sheet with us and you can take a look here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sv1r-Qw4DZ4NucLQCO2KVSYyj1PdWRY8/view?usp=sharing
Hi @junhao31351
I didn't share the whole calendar because I was too lazy to go through it and anonymize it : ). I was PTing before 7Sage but I was doing it all wrong so I don't really count that time. I started PTing under the 7Sage approach in May/June of 2017 and took a PT every 10 days from that time onward.
I'm going to ask Student Services to share it in this thread. Stay tuned.
@katherinaturban644
@476 did you use any other resources besides 7sage for LG?
I was averaging -12 per LG section when I started with 7Sage and from that point I only used 7Sage.
It took 2 years for him to get to a 174?! That’s bad news for me...
This is perfect timing for those of us who underperformed in November and are looking to bounce back in Jan.
I can't make the webinar but I'm really excited to hear what you have to say afterwards. Thanks for doing this, @476!
I'm sure you're going to address these in the session but I want to throw them out there in case:
-How did you think about test retakes and plan them into your studying?
-You had a 10 point jump from June '18 to July '18. Congratulations, but how did that happen?
@dianao6512815 it hasn't happened yet, it is scheduled for next week.
😄😄😄😄😄 exciting stuff!
Hi! @476
Thanks so much for providing the tracking sheet. Would it be possible to get some clarity on how you used the sheet? I guess I am sort of wondering if the time it took you to read through the passage on RC, and answer each question, both things together, added up to 40 minutes - just the first time you ever went through a passage, and then on the second try it took you 40 minutes just for the questions.
Also, I am not sure what the circle column is for. I've listened to both the podcast twice and haven't been able to figure that out.
It looks like a super helpful tracker and I am hoping to use it as intended, just starting to track RC.
This is awesome. Thanks!