As a preface, I know quality matters much than length, and someone could respond not to worry about the average, just focus on making a clear strong case, but I'd like to get an idea of about how many words an average LSAT writing response is/should be. Thanks!

So I was trying to understand what is different about the LSAT-flex and noticed on the LSAC website it said it is made up of 3 sections: Analytical Reasoning, Logical Reasoning, and Reading Comprehension. So there is no logic games section on the flex version or am I missing something?

^ would the current trend of crazy number of 175+ continue once we are back to the original LSAT format?

Hello!

I am currently going through the 7Sage Core curriculum and am looking to test in January. I am a fee waiver recipient and was wondering if there was free/low cost high quality 1:1 tutoring available.

Thank you!

Hi 7sagers!

Given that several people expressed interest in my RC methodology, here is the basic outline of my approach for the Reading Comprehension section based on my own progression. This covers some very broad concepts that were significant for me. If there is interest, let me know and I will work to do a couple more installments like this and drill down on some very specific areas that are much more targeted, such as how to approach specific arguments, subjects, and question types in RC.

For now, I think that I noticed three distinct tiers or levels that I went through in my RC prep. My hope is that since these three levels represent three distinct stages in my own preparation, people at many different stages of their LSAT journeys will be able to benefit from at least something in here.

When I started out on the LSAT I frequently missed 18 or more questions on an RC section. I had to work hard to develop good reading habits. But, the good news is that these skills are like riding a bike. Once you have got them, it is just a matter of maintenance at that point. I know I am just going to be repeating things that other people have said here, so I will be brief, but it is so important. Reading with an eye to structure is incredibly important on the LSAT. This includes picking up on the low resolution and high resolution of the content as well as the structure. I think that it is very beneficial to do several RC passages/sections untimed (these can be retakes) and work on ingraining these skills. Although I am sure many of you have seen my posts on the RC passage explanation videos, here is the template that I used.

Paragraph 1 –

• Low resolution content:

• High Resolution:

• Structure:

• Sneak Peak:

Paragraph 2 –

• Low resolution content:

• High Resolution:

• Structure:

Paragraph 3 –

• Low resolution content:

• High Resolution:

• Structure:

Paragraph 4 –

• Low resolution content:

• High Resolution:

• Structure:

Main Point:

Tone:

Viewpoints:

Organization:

Cookie Cutter:

For those who aren't familiar with some of the terms, "sneak peak" refers to taking a quick moment after reading the first paragraph to see if you can anticipate what will come next and maybe even glance ahead in the passage to see if you are on the right track. The more you can anticipate what comes next, the more "at home" you will feel. Although we never want to become complacent or neglect to read actively, being "at home" with the passage will reduce the anxiety that I know I can feel when reading a new and overwhelming passage. There actually is a lot of uniformity in RC and many structures and patterns are used over and over again. For example, if the first paragraph describes to me a scientific study that was done a while ago, then my anticipation is that the next paragraph is probably going to tell me that the first group of scientists didn't really know what they were talking about. Another example would be a passage where the first paragraph describes some very complex or unexpected phenomenon that was noticed in nature. My anticipation here would be that the next paragraph will give me a hypothesis to explain what comes next. Those are pretty straight forward examples, but the principle applies broadly. Obviously, some passages are weird and your anticipation will be wrong. That is fine, that is not a bad thing. Anticipating what comes next is a tool to keep you active and engaged in the reading. The correct-ness of your anticipation is not nearly as important as the thought that you put into making the anticipation.

"Cookie cutter" is a related concept and refers to the common forms that are reused over and over in RC. So an example might be "phenomenon/hypothesis" or "OPA (other people's argument) is wrong."

"Viewpoints" is where I note which viewpoints we got in the passage. For example, we might have gotten the viewpoints of the author, some economists, and some political theorists. "Structure" under each paragraph is where I note what role that paragraph plays in the structure of the passage. Is it the main point? A premise? A sub-conclusion? Just context?

"Organization" refers to how the passage is put together structurally, so an example might be "two competing alternative explanations for an unexplained occurrence are given, an experiment is done that indicates one is more likely than the other to be correct, and the implications of this research are discussed."

In my own prep, I filled out the above template for every single RC passage from PT 7-89. While I think for most people that is overkill (and i'm probably just a slow learner) the repetition helped. I did it over and over for untimed retakes and I did it for every passage that I blind reviewed. Overtime, I developed enough muscle memory that I got to the point where I didn't have to think consciously about these things so much during a timed run. Having all (or at least most) of this information floating around in your head means you will have the information you need to answer probably all but the hardest and most detail oriented questions on the RC section. If you are a beginner in reading comp or are missing 4 or more questions in blind review, then I would say that this is probably the place to start.

As important as it is to master good reading habits, unless these habits are paired with a proper timing strategy then you will have a difficult time translating your new skills into a significantly higher score when the clock is running. For some people this information will be repetitive, but it is worth repeating for those who haven't heard it. The single biggest jump in RC that I had came from treating the RC section similarly to the LG section. Initially, if I ran into a hard RC passage my instinct would be to give myself as much time as possible to deal with the questions, which inevitably comes at the expense of having time to deal with the passage.

But that isn't how I would approach a very challenging logic game. If I ran into a difficult game with a lot of rules that interacted in complex ways, the first thing I would do would be to see if I could split the game board, force out inferences, and see how much I could figure out before ever getting to the questions. Of course, splitting game boards takes time. But this is always worth it in the end because the questions go by so much faster, I am much more confident, and I am more accurate.

I used to try to think that I needed to finish reading an RC passage in about 3 minutes in order to have time for the questions. I had to actually let this go and give myself permission to take the time that I needed to understand everything in the passage. For many passages I easily took 3 and a half minutes, 4 minutes, or even more. For some of the difficult passages, I took more than 5 minutes to read it. We all know that 5 minutes is practically an eternity in LSAT time. However, this actually made me faster in the long run. My understanding of the passage was so improved by taking this time that I was able to dramatically cut down on the time spent on questions. In fact, I was able to cut my average time spent on a question by half. After spending so much time on the passage, I frequently could cruise through most questions in 20-30 seconds. This meant that even though I was spending way more time on the passage, my total average time for the passage plus questions dropped noticeably.

This was a game changer for me for another reason as well. For the first time ever, I started to semi-consistently have time for a second round on RC to go back to a question or two that I had skipped. Furthermore, because I had taken so much time with the passage up front, I had really retained the information and did not need to waste precious time on my second round trying to reread part or all of the passage. I was able to much more efficiently target my time and my effort. This is in contrast to before I had ingrained good timing habits. Back then, even if by some miracle I had a minute or two left over for a second round, I couldn't do anything productive with that time because I basically had to go back and reread the passage to give a question a second chance since I hadn't meaningfully retained the things that I needed to the first time I read the passage.

In my experience, a combination of good reading habits and decent time was enough to get my average PT score into the low 170s. I think this was because these skills together will be enough to allow you to answer all the questions that deal with the low res (I find that in a typical RC section about 19ish questions will be low res focused). After that, there will be another 3-5 questions that deal with the high-res that are aren't too challenging and can be picked up with a decent understanding that good reading habits will give you. Combined with a good timing strategy then, this much is usually enough to get you to a consistent -3/-4 in RC.

Now, at least in my case, the last points on the table are typically the result of the extremely difficult questions that are detail-oriented. These are generally the MSS/inference curvebrearker questions. For me, I generally knew that I would take so much time getting them correct that they would cost me points elsewhere, so I just had to accept that I didn't know the answer and move on to save time.

I knew that to push my score past the early 170s I needed to increase my retention of the very fine-grain information in the passage, which brings me to highlighting.

Although many people have said that this can be counter-productive, highlighting made a noticeable difference for me. I began to consistently use the highlighting function liberally, including all three colors. I found this had two purposes. First, it just helped me to read actively, remain engaged, and cement details in my head. Second, I also began to use highlighting as a tool to keep track of and remember the little, tiny, out of the way details that the LSAT loves to use as support for very difficult MSS questions in RC. For example, I would highlight any word that was in quotes but was not a direct quote, since that means the author is using the word outside of its ordinary meaning. Whenever I would see something like that, as I highlighted it I would be thinking about the distinction between the way that the word might be ordinarily used in contradistinction to how the word is being used by the author at this time.

I would also highlight any conditional statement. I actually ended up being surprised how many conditionals are in RC. The LSAT hides these RC conditionals by almost never using group 1 or group 2 indicators, but they are there in almost every section and the majority of passages. For some reason, I was also surprised by how much conditionals matter in RC. I was well aware of their importance in LG and LR because those sections make much heavier use of them. But conditionals are no less powerful in RC. Sometimes they can be major premises and sometimes are they are conclusions. Sometimes they are just "throw away statements" and don't really contribute meaningfully to the argument. But regardless of what they do, they are very powerful. That makes them prime targets for very difficult MSS questions. The LSAT can take a statement that barely even relates to the argument in the passage, but use it to conclusively prove out one answer choice.

I also highlighted the little details that are irrelevant to the actual argument. This includes the little things where the author isn't even editorializing (since I would pick up on the editorializations as indications of the author's tone as part of having good reading habits). I'm talking about where the author is just adding extra words. This happens most often in the context of a passage that sets the stage for an argument. Sometimes a whole sentence falls into this category, sometimes it is just a word or two. But a lot of times the hard inference or MSS questions pull their correct answers from these details. All of this is in addition to highlighting things like viewpoint shifts, structural elements, and other things to keep me engaged and reading actively.

If you are thinking at this point that RC is generally the section where people are most pressed for time and this highlighting strategy sounds like it takes an additional chunk of time, then you are absolutely correct. However, I found that it was a worthwhile price considering how much my retention improved. I am a big proponent of taking a lot of time to understand the passage and then being able to power through the questions very quickly. One disclaimer that I should state up front is that this method takes a lot of self-confidence and trust that if you invest the time you will have a proper understanding. It can be jarring when you glance at the clock and see how much time you spent reading the passage, but I think that this is the path to a high score for many people. It certainly was important for me. If we take the time to really understand the passage in all of its intricacies and nuances (just like we take the time to split gameboards in LG) then we are going to be rewarded by not really having too much work to do in the questions, since we already did our hard work in the passage.

Full disclosure, with the exception of my proclivity for highlighting, pretty much all of this is material that I originally learned from @Sami who was my fantastic tutor during my LSAT prep. I hope that this helps some people with RC, it really is an extremely challenging section. If you have questions feel free to drop them in the comments. Im happy to try to answer anything!

I earned a 168 on my November Flex (my first real LSAT) I started out in the mid-140s as a diagnostic. It's been 3 weeks since I looked at any LSAT material. I registered yesterday to write again in January. I have taken every single PT (some of them twice). I was wondering how to choose which full PTs to take from now until January in order to maximize value.

Do I stick to PTs from the 40s and 50s so the material is not as fresh in my head or do I take some from the 70s and 80s anyway? If anyone has any other experience or advice pertaining to studying for a retake I would greatly appreciate it.

Not entirely sure how to approach this. I was taking a full length PT every other day towards the end of my studies. Is continuing on that course going to be effective? Or do I primarily focus on drilling and take 1-2 PTs a week? I truly appreciate you all for taking the time to read this.

hey everyone,

I remember JY used to do group-based BR for every new PT that comes out.

I'm just wondering if there is any news that he might do the same for the may 2020 test? Or did I miss it?

Thanks y'all

Hi Non-native English speakers out there, many people don't realize my English is not my first language in everyday life but when it comes to LSAT, I definitely feel the "non-native" language comprehension problem. Especially under pressure, I can't read and understand the RC passage correctly and accurately... so it will be a slow journey for me to get a good score on LSAT.

Non-native English speakers, how long did it take you to achieve the score you want ?

How do I unlock PTs 1-30 with Ultimate Plan?

Hey everyone, I just wanted to echo what others have said about 7Sage. It has been an immense help during my struggle with this test! There were times I thought I could not get over this hurdle. I was crushed, I had anxiety, I thought my dreams of attending law school would never be realized. It too every ounce of resolve to defeat this test once and for all.

You know it's tough, for others on the outside to comprehend what we all put ourselves through. The stress is real and you all understand that! I cannot thank you guys in the community enough for helping me through this. I am usually a lurker, and do not post often like so many of you, but it has nevertheless been amazing to be surrounded by so many dedicated individuals.

To JY, I owe you many thanks. Your countless video explanations along with your dry and witty sense of humor made the journey a little more enjoyable. I am sitting at the airport waiting to return home, drinking a blood orange IPA, and it feels good to sit bac kind reflect on my journey.

Thank you to all and god bless 7Sage! I hope you all have a great night, crush the LSAT, and get into the school of your dreams. It's not about the score, it's about your journey. Wow that's a cliché. But the thing about clichés is... they are usually true!

does anyone know how many questions you can skip and still get 170+ on the flex?

Hi all! I wanted to post one last time to the forum to offer my gratitude to 7Sage and well wishes for those who are still studying. This program was instrumental in getting me the score I aimed for (146 --> 167). I just got accepted to UGA and am waiting to hear back on eight others. I just want to encourage everyone to keep up the hard work and offer help to anyone who feels they could use some guidance (e.g. on tough LR questions you can't parse, LG tricks, or just a friend to vent to). I'm honestly a little sad to no longer be studying, so don't hesitate to throw questions/thoughts my way. I know how tough this process can be, and just want to do my part and make it a little easier. My access to 7Sage expires in 5 days, so the best way to reach me will be through: dmarwh0@gmail.com.

Good luck to everyone! You got this =)

I noticed that the way the core curriculum is structured has you taking one diagnostic PT very early on, and then has you complete the entire course before taking another PT (and then at that point, it's just PT after PT until you run out).

Is this the actual recommended way to study? Would it not be beneficial to sprinkle in a few PTs throughout the core curriculum to see how you're progressing?

Curious how you all have tailored your 7Sage and LSAT studies to fit your needs, and would love to hear what worked best for you (or if the 7Sage prescribed path is in fact the most fruitful method). Thanks!

This discussion is for those who are feeling overwhelmed in the process of studying and preparing for the LSAT.

I started with a 129 diagnostic mid-October, I have about six weeks left until the January LSAT and I've improved to a 152 today.

I remind myself it's okay to take a mental break and recoup, keep practicing, stay strong, and don't forget to breathe!

I am aiming for a 170.

I wanted to make sure I was doing correctly, are we supposed to BR every question immediately after done or just the ones we had troubled/skipped?

Hi all,

I recently upgraded to a new Mac with the silicon M1 chip. Any tech-savvy people know if I might have any issues with proctor U? I've heard that some software has issues because of the new chips

Hi guys, I’m a little confused with how the study schedule is set up. I know it starts with core curriculum but when I build a schedule it makes it so the only “lessons” in the last months are practice tests. Is that really how I should be studying or should I incorporate other things like drills and what not towards those last few months or should I truly just be taking full length tests and blind reviewing? Thanks in advance

Hello , I have finished the CC and taken the PTs up to 42 so far. I will most likely do the April Flex and wanted to know how many and which PTs should I take for score improvement (~15pts) . I do not want to take the flex without having enough pts under my belt and also was concerned about saving some in case of a retake. Thanks so much!

Hello Everyone!

After looking at the results of the poll I put up about what sort of free tutoring opportunities people would like to see, it is clear that (by a relatively small margin) the people have spoken and BR calls for full length PTs has a plurality of support. Therefore, that is what I shall do. I want to involve students as much as possible, so here is another poll. You let me know what era of PT would be most helpful and I will select one from that era that I think presents particularly noteworthy pedagogical opportunities (likely a challenging RC section among other things). Once I have these results, i'll make an announcement with more details, a PT choice, and a date within a day or two! Thank you!

Wanted to do a study write-up because I read a bunch of these while I was preparing for the LSAT, hope it helps a couple of people. I began studying in January, diagnostic of 148, then took Aug-Oct-Nov (163, 163, 167)

Study materials: LSAT Trainer, PowerScore Bibles, Loophole, Blueprint for RC, 7Sage. I think these were all great resources, and even the ones that weren’t necessary taught me a couple of things that helped out in the long run. HIGHLY recommend 7Sage—JY’s videos are unparalleled and the subscription is comparatively cheap. Also listened to the PowerScore and 7Sage podcasts, which I found really helpful. As an aside, not going to post link, but online library websites do have a majority of free PT PDF’s if you are not planning on getting them through LSAC.

LG: My strongest section, all due to 7Sage. I averaged -0 pretty early on in my prep, even though I did notice I was slower at grouping games for some reason. I pretty much did every logic game at least once, and then re-worked the ones I struggled with. Key for me was to get really good at making inferences up-front and splitting whenever possible, learning when to do so became natural after lots of practice and drilling. Find the split-node, and just do it— I know you might be worried about timing issues but: accuracy > speed, and in the end I was usually faster when I split. Work on conditional logic, it is necessary if you want to score below a -5 in the section; if you read unless or [either or, but not both] and don’t immediately think negate sufficient/bi-conditional, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Get good at chaining up rules, especially for in-out games and linear. I also was soooo worried about having a Misc. game come up on my first test, so I spent alot of time working on them even though I didn’t get any on any of my three tests; take a look at the classic Misc. games, but try not to get too caught up in them, focus on mastering linear and grouping games first. Also, do not fret over skipping a hard question and going back later. I routinely entered the fourth game having skipped around five questions that I just didn’t seem to understand quickly, and after I went back at the end I was able to figure it out easily. Always keep moving and don’t get stuck, whether it is in regards to a singular hard question or a game that is difficult.

LR: Second best section, didn’t really struggle on a specific question type‚ it was more of an overall missing the harder questions. I really liked Loophole, and how it built on the Core Curriculum foundation I had through 7Sage—I would definitely recommend the book. I made a big jump late in my studies from averaging about -5 to -1 after listening to one of 7Sage’s podcasts, I don’t remember exactly which episode it was but it was one of the first five. JY and a student were talking about their speed and skipping strategy in LR, and it was something I focused on and it was arguably the biggest thing I did to raise my score. I felt confident enough that I could zoom through the first ten questions, usually in about 5-6 minutes where It took me about thirty seconds a question (confidence is key). I slowed down a bit towards the middle of the section, and often skipped three or four questions that were difficult, but I would have about ten minutes or so to basically do a second run through of all the questions, which is where I would pick up on mistakes, or use the extra time to figure out a tough question. It takes time for you to build up that speed, and you definitely have to be making sure you aren’t missing any of those first ten, but if you figure out the cookie-cutter and simple questions at the beginning without second guessing yourself, you’ll have so much extra time left over at the end. Learn the classic flaws, get good at conditional logic, and work on your skipping!!

RC: My enemy. I tried everything for this section; I bought every RC book from every test-prep company, I blind-reviewed, I slowed down, I sped up and read passages twice, and the lowest score I was able to get was -4, and it definitely wasn’t consistent. What helped out a bit though was to write a single sentence/ word per paragraph during timed run through’s. I found this would slow me down, which I wanted, and helped me connect the paragraphs in my mind. I also blind-reviewed the section after and used PowerScore’s VIEWSTAMP method, which was useful. I switched up my approach for the November test, and actually slowed myself down while reading considerably. This helped me pick up the two or three questions that I would miss out of pure carelessness and helped shore up the section. I guess biggest advice would be to try out the different methods, find what works best for you, and just keep practicing. I let myself focus on LG and LR to the detriment of RC, and thought if I could do -1 between those two then I would be fine with the variability I had on RC, but it definitely is learnable and you start to get good at finding what to look for in the passages.

Random tips:

Take real-condition PT’s, early-on I would do un-timed PT’s and would lie to myself that it was like the real thing, mainly because I didn’t want to kill my confidence with a low score. However, this didn’t help me out in the long run, and I definitely struggled a bit with the pressure of the clock on my first take.

I know the stress is real, and the majority of us know the importance of this test. While I am confident that this test doesn’t define any of us— be real with yourself and make sure you are putting in your best effort. A couple of questions makes the difference between an admit and a deny, or years of debt vs. a scholarship. Study diligently, blind-review, make sure you are spending time with your wrong answers, re-do games. I promise you this test is learnable, and you’ll only regret it later if you half-assed your studies or didn’t believe in yourself to get a high score.

Don’t get discouraged, this really is a marathon and not a sprint. My diagnostic was low, then my PT average was 170+ for months, and then I underperformed considerably on August and October. After seeing a repeat score in October (a test I thought I had killed), I was devastated. But the November test was only three weeks away, and I knew I had another chance. There are going to be games that floor you and passages that destroy you, learn from them, pick yourself back up and keep grinding.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, never forget throughout this process—that practicing the law is what we will one day do, it is not who we are. Don’t let this test make you think otherwise.

I blind reviewed but it still doesn't give me an option to check my answers etc. Someone tell me how to proceed. Thanks

Hi everyone!

Just wanted to recommend a book for anyone who is worried about underperforming on the LSAT. I know for a lot of people January is their last shot to apply this cycle so I hope this recommendation helps. The book is called "Performing Under Pressure" written by Hendrie Weisinger and J. P. Pawliw-Fry. This book basically talks about how the people you see on TV that seem to be "clutch" don't have a clutch gene but probably utilize various tools to ease a high pressure situation. This book also explains various tactics/tools that can help you. This book has definitely helped me as I was definitely underperforming during the real LSAT vs practice tests - the real thing is a whole different beast for sure.

If you don't have a lot of time and don't want to go into the science of "choking" you can skip part 1 and focus on part 2 and 3!

Hope this book helps anyone!

Hello 7sagers!

This Saturday, I will be hosting a discussion panel with three amazing 7sage members: @Christopherr (173), @Jmarmaduke96 (179), and @DINOSAUR (167). They will be sharing their personal LSAT journey with all of you and what each of them had to overcome to get their score. You really don't want to miss out on this as they are incredible students and have a lot to give!

Join Zoom Meeting

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Hi guys!

Sorry this may be a long post but I am in need of MOTIVATION for studying for the LSAT. My story basically starts with me idiotically investing a TON of money to study for the LSAT through Kaplan. Long story short, I did not do my research on the course and although I'm sure it works fabulous for some people, I personally did not make ANY gains throughout the course. Being totally honest, I feel like a lot of their strategies confused me more. Fast forward to late October right before the LSAT, I was BURNT. Not only do I not feel like I learned a lot, the sessions were at a minimum one hour long and I felt drained. In the worst timing possible, I felt like I couldn't retain anything and was not making gains! I got a 147 on the LSAT and am now planning on applying for next years cycle because I don't think I have the energy needed to make significant enough gains by January to be accepted by my ideal schools nevertheless get scholarship money from them. I feel like I need motivation to start studying again (would love some success stories from possibly previous Kaplan students or other courses or 140ers?) as well as easing my fear that it's too late! I'm 24 and would have been starting law school at 25 and for some reason (I'm sure idiot) but starting that late seems daunting to me. Any other experiences with this?

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to help!