35 posts in the last 30 days
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
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).
Hi 7sagers!
Can anyone recommend good books about law school and the legal profession? I would love some references to read more about what a legal career entails, and the in-and-outs of law school.
Thanks in advance!
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?
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
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!
hey guys, i havent bought a plan yet. I learn through video explanations the best. which subscription plan has the most LR videos by JY?
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?
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!!!
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 !
"LSAT will be fully digital in North America starting September 2019"
Full press release here:
https://www.lsac.org/about/news/lsac-announces-digital-lsat-launch-schedule
The press release strongly implies that starting in Sept. 2019, there won't be an option to take paper LSATs anymore. (Maybe they'll offer the paper test as an accommodation?)
It did not specify whether there will be the option to have scratch paper (for LG).
Good news is that they're offering it 9 times a year starting in 2019-2020.
The LSAC is making the July 15, 2019 test a special transition test where students get to see their scores first before deciding to cancel! That's huge. You should sign up to take the July test. I don't think they're extending this option to other LSAT administrations.
Here is my situation. I am currently in my third year. I was thinking to start studying for the LSAT next summer but i know that 3 months is not enough.. So should i take a gap year after I finish my studies? or is there a way for my situation to study for the LSAT and at the same time not to affect my studies in university? Also, I have all the preptests so which plan should i buy ?
We're excited to announce the 7Sage podcast! The podcast will cover various LSAT strategies, law school admissions, life in law school, and more!
Subscribe to our podcast:
iTunes (Apple Podcasts) | Google Play Music | SoundCloud
We've released three episodes:
We will be releasing two more episodes in the next two weeks. And then we'll be releasing one episode a month.
Update: Two more episodes (4 and 5) released!
Update: Episodes 6 and 7 released!
Hey there, fellow 7sage students. This is a collection of thoughts from chatting with others on 7sage and I thought it might be helpful to share.
Mentality and Getting Back on Track
First off, I want to say it's going to be ok. It's ok to lose to the LSAT some times. It's ok to concede and retreat, and recover to fight another day. The LSAT is hard and although some people on the forums surprisingly will consistently get 180s, most won't. I've talked to some of the sages and tutors on 7sage, and they all agree on this: that one of the most essential skills to take away from LSAT is the ability to walk away from defeat without giving up, and to be able to get up after taking a punch.
For me, after I get a hard punch in the face, I usually need some sort of external stimulus, and that's usually a book, a friend, or maybe just a good old bottle of whiskey, just something that will help me ice the bruise, but remind me why I'm doing this in the first place. I remind myself that I actually like the LSAT, and going to law school. I profoundly look forward to the challenge and opportunities they offer, and additionally, I am confident in my persistence, and that my persistence will yield results. And I believe those qualities apply to you as well. Constantly remind yourself of your intrinsic motivation and that you can overcome the LSAT. But like I said, even with these two internal factors, I still need a little external help. So build a support system for yourself. My favourite books for this are: The meditations, by marcus arelius, Prinicples, by ray dalio, A man's search for meaning, by viktor frankl. Or podcasts, like this american life, serial, or one not even related to law. Essentially, they just remind me to stop being a whiny little bitch and take it like a (wo)man. If that's too much commitment, then feel free to talk to me, or make a post about it on the forums, and the others and I will be happy to help you get back on track! If you didn't notice, under my earlier vent about my big drop, a lot of peers gave very helpful advice and cheered me on. You can do that too =). We're here for each other.
Also, remember that time is limited, and running out, and remember that regret sucks more than trying your best and failing. I've regretted so many things in my life, that at this point that I am intimate with it and can feel it just by closing my eyes, and can use it to motivate myself so that I won't have to feel it again. If you don't want to feel regret, then let your actions prove that. We have 3 weeks left (if you're taking november), and that's very little time; really only 2 weeks left, since we're not suppose to study hard on the last week. So just put everything into these last two week, so you won't have to regret anything. There is an added benefit of feeling a lot less stress when you go into a test knowing you did everything you could, whether or not you will able to achieve a specific score.
Back on Track and Stronger than Before
It's ok to regress sometimes, but with that said, there's definitely no excuse not to learn something from your defeats. In fact, I welcome terrible defeats, because it'll be easier for me to recognize my mistakes and weaknesses than under normal conditions. Ask yourself: have you noticed any patterns or trends in your recent PTs that differ from previous PTs? Using the LSAT analytics, or just by tallying the mistakes yourself, you should be able to find some obvious weaknesses in your skillset.
That's step one, recognition. Step two is both the more straightforward and difficult part. You have to drill.
For some people, just redoing the core curriculum for the question types that they're weak on will fix the problem, but doing it right is the hard part. It's not perfect, but this is how I drill: I aim for perfection in drills, to do 5, 10, 15, or 25 hardest questions in a row, timed, and get none of them wrong. How do you get there? By taking it slowly and incrementally. I'll further break this down into smaller parts:
First, start with easier questions, and do them timed.
Second, BR them, but here's the important part: don't just BR them the way you normally would. Instead, now that you're not timed, take your pencil and, whenever you can, write down how you would pre-phrase the answer, write down the exact reason why you think the answer you chose is the right answer, and, if you can, also write down why you think a trap answer is attractive, but ultimately wrong (and ignore the obviously wrong answer choices). (Now, I see a lot of people doing this in the comments under questions, and that's great, but few people do it correctly. For reference, 7sage alumn, Accounts Playable, does it well)
Third, watch the video for any questions you circled or got wrong, but when you're watching it, don't just follow along; instead, I want you to actively engage with and try to anticipate and predict how JY would explain the question as he goes through it, and take notes on how his actually explanation conformed to or differed from your prediction. This is an important part of my mantra of: anticipate the JY, feel the JY, become the JY. Quite a few 7sagers have come out to say that they've started to think like JY, and I believe they probably used a similar process.
Fourth, move up a difficulty (according to the question bank), when you have gotten 10 or 15 questions of that difficulty correct in a row... or at least if you feel like you've gotten there, and repeat the steps.
Fooled by Randomness
Consistency is hard; it is a goal. But don't be discouraged because you're inconsistent. Just a few weeks ago, one of my test was 10 points below my average score, and even ignoring that test, my score has an upper/bottom spread of +/-3. I think over time, luck plays a part in the score too. Sometimes, you get a hard science or law passage that just destroys your mojo for the whole test, and other times, everything just goes your way. If you think about what the LSAT is, a large part is really just a game of probability. To illustrate this, here's an example:
Even if you can BR 180, I suspect that under timed conditions, you would consistently have anywhere from 10-12 questions that you're not 100% certain about. You've eliminated 3 answer choices, but are left deciding between two. On average, that's a -5/-6, and on a good day, it can be a -3, but alternatively, on a bad day, that can be a -10. That's almost a 10 point score difference purely from luck. On top of that, we have to consider the variability of mood and physical conditions, and that's another few points that you can't really control. So expect inconsistency, and focus on the factors that you 'can' control. Remind yourself that being nervous about such things that are out of your control is meaningless, and hopefully that will help sooth the stress.
Hope this helps =)
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!
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.
For those of you who have already taken the test, what time were you finally able to leave? The reporting time is 8:30 so what time would you get there? The testing center is only a few blocks from my house. I'm taking the LSAT in November.
Hey 7Sage Fam,
I have consistently been scoring around -3 on LR for tests 50-69. Recently I have started taking tests in the 70-80 range and all of a sudden my average has dropped to -6. Is this a general trend, or am I just losing my mind?? I feel like the LR has gotten more difficult and at this point it isnt an outlier, it is a trend. Is there any evidence pointing to LR on the more recent tests being more difficult?
Hey 7Sagers,
For a limited time, you can pick up PT84 for $5.97 here:
https://classic.7sage.com/addons/
This comes with the printable DRM e-doc and a +1 month extension to your account.
Once the explanations are available, they will automatically be added to your account if you have access to PT84.
J.Y. is leading BR calls for LR sections of PT84:
https://classic.7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/16810/pt-84-br-sessions-with-j-y-lr-sections-only
Please note that you must be enrolled in a Starter, Premium, or Ultimate course to add this PT on. Ultimate+ automatically has this PT added on.
So, I broke the cardinal rule. I burned through a decent amount of recent PTs (70-77) because I thought I was going to take the November test. Instead, I'm waiting another cycle due to a new job opportunity (which I think will give me an edge admissions wise), my genuine feeling that I can still improve, and my desire to be an early applicant (aiming for June LSAT to apply for fall 2020).
I still have some PTs from 50-60s untouched along with 78 and up. Would it be a bad idea to alternate my weekly PTs from older to newer? Or just jump around in general ? How signifigant are the differences between the way exams are formulated among these groups ? Will I be hurting/confusing myself? Either way, I feel like this may be my only option. As I like the momentum of taking a PT every week and strcuturing the rest of my study week around BR and question type drills.
Hi all,
I'm retaking the LSAT in November. I sat for the September test and received a 162. I prepared really ineffectively and only took about 10 PTs altogether with virtually nonexistent BR. I've since changed those habits. I want to break 170 and I know that my main problem is logic games.
During recent PTs, I'll often go -5 to -7 on LG simply because I've run out of time and can't answer all the questions in the last game. Combined with my performance on LR and RC, I end up with scores in the mid to high 160s (most around 167-168). When I BR, I go -0 on LG and my score is in the high 170s with the occasional 180.
Is it possible to improve enough on speed in LG to shore up the points by the Nov. test? Is it too late to start fool proofing? Should I push the Nov. test to a later date?
I was wondering if anyone here has bought used copies of Powerscore books and what the result was. I mean, did it arrive all marked up inside or was were you able to save money without sacrifice in quality? I would think that having answers penciled in already would detract from the benefits of the practice sections. A new book is rather expensive though.
One thing I have been asked and am starting to take note of is goal setting on LG. Generally speaking, LG is looked at as a section very amenable to improvement. I believe this is rooted in the fact that upon first encounter, for many test takers LG is the weirdest section of the exam and that unfamiliarity translates into a lack of correct answers on one’s diagnostic or first attempt. It is often after one has gained familiarity with the games and developed a systematic strategy to approach the games where one starts to see their scores improve.
This post is dedicated to those who are what feels like a lifetime of prep away from their goal score on LG. It took me over 2,000 games to get from where I was (maybe 1 or 2 questions correct on the entire section), to close to where I want to be (a -1 for the whole section). I’m writing this for people who are -10,-12,-8 or even -5 on an LG section.
Let’s pretend you as the reader are attaining a -10 on a fresh, timed LG section and you want as your goal a -3 come test day. From someone who has put in so much work into the games, what do I recommend?
The first thing I recommend doing is figuring out precisely where your current problems are emanating from, is it a failure to make inferences? Do you occasionally misread rules? Is your understanding of conditional logic weaker than it should be, ie, not as sharp/quick/confident as it should be? Are you failing to keep track of your game pieces in a cogent way and therefore you have missed “floaters” or MBT placements? These are some of the possible places where errors might be introduced into our approach. The first step I recommend here would be to record yourself doing a section and review and watch the video on 7Sage for the game and see precisely where you failed to do something. Note here that you want to focus on the big things you missed, there might be smaller, stylistic differences between how you and MR. Ping set up a game board, sometimes, this is not a problem, other times it might be, in short, we are looking for substantive areas that are missed and not stylistic areas per se.
Next, use the filtering option on 7Sage’s question bank to find three or four games similar to the one you messed up on from a section of exam history you have dedicated to drills: for many this section of exam history is PT 36 and below: 35,34, etc, for me, my fool proofing/drilling “bundle” at this stage was PT 49 and below. Do these games several times along with the game you missed questions on. Look for similarities between the games on a deep level, how many rules chained together along with the inherent constrictions of what the game board allowed, for an inference on an in and out game? Where did you know to look for s possible inference? One small clue I will dispense here is that if you want to search for inferences after or during the writing of your rules: start with a piece mentioned in more than 1 rule. If a single piece as multiple restrictions/rules attached to it, there might be an inference attached to that piece!
All of this is outlined by 7Sage and by 7Sagers. Where I want to go with this post is , where to next?
After you’ve done the supplemental drills, located and hopefully fixed an issue, the next section you take (5,6 maybe 7 days later because you’ll be consciously drilling away the issue you discovered) your goal for that section is to not get a -10 or more missed questions. Your goal for that section is a -9 and maybe even a -8. The goal here is proximate: to be slightly better than where you were, meaning you have fixed something small and in addition to that kept everything else consistent. -9 here is a victory, you’ve survived and are no worse for the wear.
A quick detour: I’m reminded here of the first Pacquiao vs. Marquez fight. A thrilling match. Manny Pacquiao is, even to people who don’t follow boxing, one of the all time greatest fighters to ever live. Certainly (for my money) the greatest left handed fighter to ever live. Manny Pacquiao posses one of the greatest combinations of speed, precision and power ever. Tremendously physically gifted. But Marquez is brilliant, he knew he was outmatched in the physical areas of boxing and had to rely on what boxing experts call “ring generalship” or “boxing IQ.” In their first fight, Marquez got very badly knocked down several times in the first round: about as bad a start one can get fighting Pacquiao, who jumps on wounded opponents with precision like no other.
The fight was an inch away from being stopped by technical knock out. The round ended and Marquez went back to his corner: not defeated and deflated, but curious as to what he could do better the next round. Sure enough his corner started noticing things that he was doing wrong: not enough head movement, not enough jabs etc. From each round forward Marquez started implementing those things into his approach, one by one. His goal in the second round: stay alive and don’t get knocked down again. His goal in the third round: shake out all those cobwebs and start moving your head. Inch by inch all those things that got him into trouble in the first round, were being removed from his approach. He started winning rounds!
Sometimes we are going to get knocked down by an LG section, much like Pacquiao knocked down Marquez. But we’ve got to get to what went wrong and the next time we do a section (round) we implement that skill. Round by round Marquez started implementing all these things! And when the 12 rounds were over, it was a draw! A guy who had been knocked down three times in the first round by one of the greatest fighters to ever live was able: inch by inch to get back into the fight! If you’ve bombed a section: find one of the issues and drill it away. Bring that lesson into your next section, next time find another issue and drill that away! Marquez wasn’t looking to knock Pacquiao out in the second and third round, that would have been too much of a mountain to climb, Marquez was looking to win inch by inch. In your next section, don't look to crush the section and move from -10 to -2, instead look to turn that -10 into a -9. There are enough sections out there to implement this strategy across time.
Take a 6 minute brain break and watch the highlight:
So once you’ve improved by 1 point and you’ve improved something specific, it’s time to thoroughly review that new section, what went wrong and what went right? Your first goal is to stay consistent and your second goal is to improve upon that consistency. Consistency is improvement: for Marquez, consistency not getting knocked down again was an improvement! Drill via the question bank for the next week: your new goal is a -8 or maybe even a -7. Rinse and repeat, every 2 points in improvement taking an additional 3-5 days to drill the supplemental material along with the game in question. We do this because as you get better and better the problems might become more nebulous. Meaning, where once your improvement rested upon confidence in conditional logic, now your improvement relies on not making the inferences quick enough. Everything is great, it's just not fast enough to net a score improvement. These issues are going to take a bit more time to improve, but in the meantime you have hopefully attained a new normal when it comes to your score: a -7!
This is what I mean by LG goal setting: your process of diagnosing what is wrong and keeping the good things and fixing a single issue is a game of inches. I see many people not happy that they haven’t gone from -11 to -2. For some people-myself included- thats not how it works for us. A -11 to a consistent -7 is amazing progress and is something great to improve upon. More specifically, going from a -11 to a consistent -7 is tremendous. We want structure our goals piece by piece with games. People don’t climb Everest in one shot, they climb 200 feet and camp out, 400 feet and camp out, the next day there is a storm and their goal is: don’t lose an inch, stay where we are (consistent) and then they climb 200 feet and camp out when the weather is better.
Inch by inch, when we add up all of our progress, we will make it into that -2/-1 range, as long as we are honest with our mistakes and implement the solutions consciously. I should add in closing here that for many, this is not a linear process, there are going to be setbacks, but as long as we are focusing on sustaining where we are and building upon the foundation: improvements should come.
For further questions, feel free to reach out to me.
David
do I also have to double space them? How long do they each have to be? no requirements written on the schools website.Can they be 10 point font smallest?
