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I have a rough draft for my PS and I was hoping someone could please read it for me, offer suggestions, or anything. If you want, we could even swap them and I would love to read yours as well. Let me know please!

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7Sage’s first lesson in the core curriculum is: the LSAT is hard. I recently reread this lesson and wanted to add some thoughts: especially for people who might not have gotten the score they desired from the most recent administration of the exam or who are currently struggling to hit their goals.

An elite score on the LSAT has the potential to be worth $100,000 in scholarship money. This is a ton of money. To give some perspective: the average winner of an episode of Jeopardy wins about $12,000. Years of memorizing facts and figures ranging from everything from state capitals, flags, quotes from literature, pop culture references and even physics comes down to 21 minutes of rapid fire questions and an average award of $12,000. A person who wins Jeopardy has undoubtably spent years-decades even- collecting knowledge and fashioning skills for that moment.

What’s worse is that if that person wants to win what an elite LSAT score can provide them: they have to win 8 times in a row, this against 8 different pairs of equally qualified, equally hungry people who have been preparing equally hard for the next 21 minutes.

For what it’s worth, Uncle Sam will then take roughly 25% of their earnings. Which means the person who wants to win the equivalent of what an elite LSAT score can afford them must win about 11 straight games against a total of 22 other equally qualified, equally hungry people who have been studying a lifetime for the next 21 minutes!

So what we have here when we draw these parallels, is a reassertion that what an elite school can afford us is quite amazing and therefore it shouldn’t be surprising that the LSAT is hard. More specifically: that an elite score on the LSAT is hard. But, inch by inch progress can come and with the right study schedule, discipline and a supportive community: progress will come.

But, when you’re in the thick of RC or LG drilling or cracking necessary assumption question patterns, don’t get down if your score is not increasing quickly or linearly, for many test takers, it will be a laborious process. This thing is supposed to be hard and sometimes we lose sight of that, especially on the internet, where it seems like everyone has a high score. I think given some perspective on what an elite score can provide a test taker, it’s really no surprise: the LSAT is hard! Hang in there!

David

https://classic.7sage.com/lesson/the-lsat-is-hard/

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I am having serious neck and upper back pain from studying for LSAT. I am studying 4-5 hours per day, and it is really affecting my performance.

Has anybody had this problem? If yes, what did you do ?

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I feel like I've been studying for the Nov LSAT for years!

I need to re-group and give the last 2 weeks all I have, but I can't seem to get myself mentally back to where I need to be.

I feel like my family doesn't want to talk about it with me anymore because it has been such an all consuming thing in our house for so long, and so I am left to internalize all my stress and sleepless anxiety alone.

Sorry to be such a downer, I'm just exhausted.

Has anyone else out there felt anything similar? The weird thing is that my numbers are okay and I really do want this goal for myself, so I don't know why I'm falling apart right at the 5 yard line.

Anyway, any advise or encouragement would be appreciated. Thank you all for being there for me in the short time I've spent with the 7sage community. It has been incredible. You guys are great.

1

Hi!

If you've ever tested in a hotel, do you have any recommendations/stories of experience? I'm thinking about staying at the hotel the night before, even though I only live about fifteen minutes away. Have any of you stayed in the hotel where you were testing before?

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Hi everyone,

I've been meaning to post about my September administration for some time but I've been too busy studying/traumatized. With November's test coming up, however, I figured I would share my story a) as a distraction from stress studying and b) to make sure no one else does what I did in September.

I took my September test at USF in San Francisco. My roommate, the protagonist in this story, agreed to drive me to the test center in the early morning. I lived in the Mission District of San Francisco, which is a solid 15-17 minute drive away from the test center, and so I decided to get to the test center about forty-five minutes early. I solidly packed my ziplock bag, printed my admissions ticket, and got to USF about forty minutes before the test started. My roommate Bryan drove off with my iPhone (I wrote down his number on a piece of paper and planned to call him on a friendly stranger's phone after I got out of the test), and I decided to calm my nerves across the law school at the cathedral that loomed over the campus on an enormous hill. As my Catholic concentration began to break during my third Hail Mary, I glanced at my ziplock bag and mentally went down the checklist of the things I wanted to have with me in the test center. Beef jerky - check. Water bottle - check. Apple - check. NYT article to read before the test - check. Admission ticket - ...fuck.

I had forgotten my admission ticket in my roommate's car. By the time I realized, there was only twenty minutes left before the test center closed its doors. I began to panic. I ran out of the cathedral and hysterically began asking undergraduates around campus for their phones to call my roommate. In my crazed paranoia, I didn't even think about asking someone to use a printer at USF's library. I needed that admission ticket - it was the only way in. Finally, a Good Samaritan (who I must have terrified by my hysteria) lent me her phone, and I was able to reach my friend. He was home, in the Mission, fifteen minutes away from campus. It was 8:17. I asked him to do whatever he could to get to me, but at that point I was resigned to sit for November.

My friend drove a silver Acura and the law school was situated at an intersection at the top of a massive hill, where one could clearly see each car driving up from its base. Every silver car I saw for those excruciating minutes made my heart rise to my throat only to feel crushing disappointment when it turned out to be yet another San Francisco Prius/Tesla. 8:27. 8:28. 8:29. Those last sixty seconds between 8:29 and 8:30 were the most draining sixty seconds I ever felt between eight months of studying. 8:30. 8:31. It was over. Then, suddenly, I saw a silver car gunning up the hill. I sprinted in its direction, and like a quarterback handing off the football to a running back in the end zone, I grabbed my admission ticket and ran back up the hill to the front of the law school. 8:32. I was the last person in line, and by some miracle, was let into my test room. I had forgotten all my meditation techniques, my negation techniques, my focus on looking for the word "any," etc. All I cared about was that I had gotten into the test center, and although I bombed my first section (my heart rate was through the roof), I was glad I had the opportunity to sit for September.

My September test was about six points below my average and therefore I plan on retaking for November. I attribute the lower score to some personal relationship problems that arose a week before the test and also my self-inflicted meltdown before September. What would I do differently? Probably focus less on making sure my jerky is packed and make sure I secured my admissions ticket.

TLDR: 1) Show up early to your test center. 2) Print more than one admission ticket and staple one on your body.

14

Hi all --

I'm looking for some advice in terms of studying for the LSAT and pacing myself leading up to my upcoming exam.

A little background: I took the February exam this year. I also took a course leading up to it (Test Masters), and while I really liked the course, and I really threw myself into it, I realized after I got my score that maybe cramming all of that information in 3 months wasn't the best for me. When I first took my dry practice test on the first day of class, I got something like a 145. My score definitely improved a ton through the course, and by the time I was taking practice tests independently leading up to the test, I was pretty consistently getting 160s. I also got some 170s too, which was encouraging but seemed too good to be true.

And I was correct. I don't know what happened, well, I kind of do know what happened because logic games are usually my strength and I sort of froze after a very confusing section, plus my reading comprehension stands to be improved....and let's be real, I make silly mistakes in logical reasoning too. I ended up getting a 150, which was pretty disappointing. I definitely put way too much pressure on myself and burnt out on test day.

So, I'm taking another stab at this via 7sage. I just took my practice test and got a 159 (161 BR). I want to take a disclosed test next time around because it really sucked not to know what I got wrong, so, I can't take the test until June. That's a lot of time. I want to use it wisely but also not die/fizzle out. But I'd really like to aim for a 170. Is that insane? Can I do this without losing my mind? As a 26 year old, am I running out of time/waiting too long?

Honestly, this is all so foreign to me because I would theoretically be the first lawyer in my family and I certainly was not surrounded by lawyers growing up or even in college. I work in politics now, so really it's tough to detect sincere advice :)

I hope I don't sound like a complete dummy!

0

hi everyone, what would you suggest are the best study tools to prepare for the LSAT. i am currently using the lsat prep offered by the khan academy online but i’m not sure how effective it is. i plan on retaking the lsat in january

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I subscribed The Economist paper magazines and thought it helped my reading skills. But they don’t have many LSAT-style law articles. Is there any law magazines that are recommended for LSAT extra-curriculum reading? Preferably something that has paper version since I prefer to read on paper and won’t be taking the digital LSAT (hopefully).

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I have a quite low cGPA as I was pretty sick during my 2nd and 3rd year but it is not well documented.

I have 3.09 cGPA, 3.49 L2/B2 GPA, 166 LSAT.

My background is Biomedical Engineering and was part of a varsity team at the uni.

I do have quite strong background in research and all. Also, strong ECs including Policy researcher.

Not sure if anyone is familiar with Canadian Law school admission..

I applied to Western, Ottawa, York, Queen's with Access Claim and will be applying to Dalhousie.

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At least once or twice during a PT I'll catch myself losing interest or feeling tired. I'm sure I'm not the only one who runs into this issue. Are there any techniques or tricks that can help re-energize you mid section? I know sometimes changing my posture helps. In undergrad I would to raise my hand and speak if I found myself getting tired. That seemed to help so perhaps quietly reading the stimulus under your breath can achieve a similar result. Yawning is also something that seems to positively affect alertness and puts you in a more relaxed state. I'd love to hear how you all stay alert!

2

This past weekend I was going for run and I tripped, fell, and broke my distal scaphoid (small bone in my right, dominant hand). I can write but very slowly. I can still diagram but it is painful and difficult. I took the September test and got a 155 so I was really hoping to take it in two weeks again as I feel ready to kill it. I am all ready to apply to law schools for this admissions cycle otherwise so I am supper bummed :(

How do I go about this? Do I just email them?

If I can't get accommodated, is January too late?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

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Hello,

LR has always been the section that came the most naturally to me. After reaching a certain baseline of studying/understanding the test, I’ve consistently scored a -4/-5 on most LR sections. The issue is, I found that during the real exam + the digital field exam I was getting -7/-8 on at least one LR section from test day nerves + not having an actual strategy for many question types and second-guessing my “gut” on test day. The 7Sage analytics pointed out that my errors generally come from Flaw, Sufficient & Pseudo Sufficient Assumption, and MSS questions. I focused on those videos/problem sets in the core curriculum for about two weeks, and saw the minute differences between the right answers and the trap answers I would pick. I did fairly well on the drills and felt like I had a better strategy of how to approach the question + how to decide between two answer choices that seemed right on first glance rather than solely relying on my gut answer choice.

But, upon returning to timed section practice, I found that I was second-guessing myself on virtually all of the LR section (not just the question types I was studying). I would go back and forth about whether I was missing some tiny detail that was important or over-analyzing that same detail. It seems, based on my incorrect answer analysis, that was doing the latter (over-analyzing) especially if I gave myself more time and blind-reviewed (my LR BR changes have been almost always wrong lately). It’s frustrating though because analyzing all the details is exactly what I trained my mind to do in order to do well during the question-specific drills. I saw my score go from -4/-5 to -8/-9 and I’m not sure what to do. I’m taking the November exam and have been studying for a very very long time (on and off for over a year... I will not be taking this exam again haha) so I’m not sure if I should just go back to my original “gut” feelings and accept my -4/-5 range (with likely more wrong on test day) or if there’s some way I can absorb this improvement by the 17th. It makes logical sense that doing well on the drills should have helped overall, but it didn’t.

Anyone have suggestions or experience something similar?

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Anyone have notes or a summary from the "Powerscore 2018 Crystal Ball Webinar" I was hoping they would have a transcribed rendition of the webinar but I just see the vvideo and I was trying to read it at work ? if anyone has the notes I would greatly appreciate it !

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I understand that the downside to this would be that you don't necessarily get accustomed to your own confidence/accuracy (since you aren't circling specific questions to blind review), but I think it may still be a net gain because you're blind reviewing far more questions. Anyone have insight on this?

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We got a new version of the iOS app ready to be released soon, but you can try it out today with TestFlight if you don't mind being a guinea pig. Here are the main changes:

• New: Remembers your last place in Discussion, Proctor, Logic Games, and Course - even after the app is restarted.

• Improved: Background audio keeps playing when app is loaded.

• Improved: Proctor settings are easier to adjust.

• Improved: PDFs in course are downloadable.

• Improved: Grader result tables maintain color after being selected.

To see it, first go to the AppStore and install "TestFlight". This is an official Apple app that lets people try out versions of apps before they are released on the AppStore.

Then tap the link below:

https://testflight.apple.com/join/PpzI6KHc

This is the first time we're trying a public TestFlight, so please let me know if you run into any difficulties. And of course if you notice any issues with the app, we want to know about it, so please share!

7

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to ask if anyone has experienced this situation, and how they went about motivating themselves to keep studying and retake the test a 3rd time. I took the Feb 2018 and Oct 2018 LSAT in Australia, and aiming for admission into an Australian uni Feb 2020.

Both of my tests are nondisclosed, so I can’t actually check where I’m going wrong (either for this year only all the tests have become non-disclosed, or in the future all Australian tests will be non-disclosed, I’m not sure.) Anyway, I usually struggle the most with LR, but I panicked during the Oct LSAT and couldn’t solve the LGs properly, even though in my opinion they would have been easy to solve if under other circumstances.

So, as a result I dropped 3 LSAT score marks, but dropped a massive 9 percentile marks. Both marks aren’t near my desired168+.

Any tips on perhaps how to go about improving, staying motivated, and adapting to the changed LSAT style of questions in LR and LG?

Thank you!

0

I am currently a junior and took the LSAT for the first time in September 2018 beginning of my Junior year of college. I got a 171 on the test.(-1 LG, -5 LR and -4 RC) I am shooting for a top 20 Law school and know a top 6 is probably not realistic. A scholarship would be great but is not a deal breaker. I am not a URM , have a good GPA(not great 3.5 ) from a top LAC with a difficult major economics and math minor and great leadership in college (on board of my college Mock trial and worked for residence life). also have 2 good summer internships mostly economics focused and hoping to have a great legal internship as a rising senior this summer.

I studied for about 7 wks last summer following my internship in DC last summer and before I went back to start my junior year of college. I had a concentrated 7 wks (not working, was finished my internship) so although only 7 wks of studying , It was FT studying without working or school stressors. I purchased the Starter course in addition to purchasing from Amazon PT 72-84. I got a 162 on my diagnostic in June prior to studying and focused MY timed practice test (72-84, 36, 44 )on the more recent exams instead of the older exams included in the starter course. My 15 timed PT were between166-174 so I guess I was pleased with the 171 I got on test day although I believe I could have gotten a little higher.

I know law schools only use the highest score, but my fear is if i shoot for a second time not only could i be wasting a whole lot of time , I could score lower and it might look better to have one attempt at 171 with no repeats or cancellations rather than take it a second time and posssibly score below 170.

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Anxiety and worry are getting in the way of my reaching my full LSAT potential. How do I stop this? Or deal with it so that it's not affecting me during the timed LSAT sections I do?

This hasn't been a problem lately until this past weekend when the proximity of the November LSAT hit me.

I just reread this and will be following the tips: https://classic.7sage.com/lesson/winning-the-psychological-battle/

If you have any other suggestions, please share!

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I’m guessing there’s not a large contingent of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend fans around these parts (everyone should be though - guys, it’s so good), but the show just gave us a new anthem for aspiring law students. Enjoy.

14

When I was taking the September LSAT, there was one guy in the room that kept making this periodic noise of coughing-wincing. It wasn’t loud but was certainly distracting and he had been making that noise for quite a while.

I’m afraid that during the November LSAT, the chance of this happening will be higher since it’s cold now and many people might get sick but still come to the test. Have you guys encountered a similar situation like this and how did you manage to overcome the distractions and focus on the test instead?

TIA!!!

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So I pulled up the first practice question through Kira and it’s “how would you estimate the revenue generated from ticket sales at the London 2012 Olympics”

Is this for real? I don’t even understand the question?? I would hope that in 2012 there would be a computer system that just scans the tickets and does the math for you? Maybe use Quickbooks? Did my Kira interview practice questions get switched with a business school interview??

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