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Office Hours with Sage Daniel

Tuesday, April 25, 7:30 PM EDT

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I was accepted At northeastern on a full ride and was selected for the public interest fellowship. I was waitlisted at Georgetown(preferred waitlist), Duke, Northwesten and UPENN. I am having hard time deciding is it worth fighting to get into a t-16 with More name recognition but eventually getting deep in debt because I likely wouldn't be receiving scholarship I assume even if I got in since I've been waitlisted. I am a URM from very humble background. Graduating from law school debt free would mean a lot to me.

Figting to get into higher ranked school + plus accumulate debt verses lower ranked school and fill ride.

I want to go into public interest law and northeastern fits that model perfectly.

Hey guys, wanted some insight into an issue I'm having with PT'ing. Long story short, I underperform on the first section because it takes at least 15 questions for my brain to warm up.

This doesn't even necessarily translate to getting those first 15 wrong - it simply takes me longer to understand and answer them correctly. Which then DOES lead to mistakes towards the end of the section, because I have less time to answer the harder ones.

This is especially an issue with LR. Normally I try to do the first 10 questions in 10 minutes or under, in fact usually 15 in 15 and (on a good day) 20 in 20. This is always do-able for me when it's the second section of LR. My brain is fired up and ready to go. But if it's the first section of the exam I'm just slow to adjust, don't hit those targets, and as aforementioned, it throws everything off balance.

I don't know how to get my brain to naturally be in that warmed-up stage from the get-go; in fact it seems almost natural that it would take your brain a second to adjust from "I'm just living my life" to "I'm doing hardcore logic for 4 hours"

I know meditation helps as a general thing with concentration (and I'm currently working on it), but I was wondering if anyone else experienced this and had advice for that FIRST section specifically. Take a timed 35 minute section every morning, perhaps? Some people even say they did a full section as warmup before sitting for the exam. Would love to know your thoughts.

My PT scores took a hit when I initially moved onto recent PTs (60s and up) from the older PTs.

I wondered why. Below is my theory and I was wondering if anyone can corroborate.

(This is limited to LR and RC)

My theory is that the LSAT is testing more on "meaning" of the text as opposed to "literal" understanding. What I mean by "meaning" is something like the range of valid inferences that can be made from the information, whether that is either from a sentence alone, or in combination with other parts of the stimulus/ passage. In the previous LSATs, they did test the meaning, but the correct answer choices also closely matched what's stated in the text quite literally. The wrong answer choices were more obviously wrong, in that they did not match the "text" in very obvious ways. So what I'm saying is that in the older LSATs, you could afford to NOT understand the meaning and still get the question right most of the times. In the more recent ones, you really have to understand the meaning, or else you are in for trouble.

In the more recent LSATs, they really test whether you've understood the meaning of the text. The "meaning" must be matched, as opposed to literally matching the text.

Attractor answers: They are very similar in wording from the text. It is sometimes just one word, one preposition, or something that's so subtle as to almost imperceptible that makes the answer choice wrong. "They sound right," which means that they contain familiar language.

Correct answers: matches in meaning, but not necessarily the language. It's easy to dismiss as wrong because it contains unfamiliar and "not sounding right" language.

So the litmus test for a correct answer is : Does it match the meaning?

There is nothing new about this. But I find myself needing to be especially more careful in the more recent PTs.

I used to have a very precise pre-phrase and looked for certain wordings. They works alright in PTS before 60s. They began to backfire on me on PTs after 60s.

I would like to know where 7Sagers usually take PrepTests. I read somewhere that it is better to get used to distractions so I usually take in a public library. But do you think it's ok to do PTs at home?

I'm asking this because I want to record myself doing PTs, and today I stacked a bunch of large books on a library desk and put iPhone on top of it to record myself (I was definitely the weirdest person in the library), but the battery went out after 1.5 hours of recording....! (Next time I'll bring a portable battery charger....and I also ordered an iPhone clip holder stand so that I don't have to stack books....still going to be the weirdest person in the library though)

Sorry for a stupid question!

Hi all,

2 questions.

I likely will only have 3 full days off before the June LSAT I am planning to take. Is this enough time? (I.e., I will work on Thursday and take the test on Monday) Or should I try and swing for more days?

Any advice appreciated, especially from people that have already taken the test before!

@"Dillon A. Wright" Can you please check my account? Yesterday my unlocked content was at 100% and now it is not. I don't know what changed. I am an Ultimate+.

Thanks in advance,

S.S

so Einstein has this riddle i'll paste it here .. basically he said 98% of people dont get it right.. not sure if thats true or not, but once i saw it i realized .. ITS A LOGIC GAME !!! its not evena full game its the sitting up of a game give it a try and i'll tell you the answer ...

Einstein's riddle

The situation

There are 5 houses in five different colors.

In each house lives a person with a different nationality.

These five owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar and keep a certain pet.

No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar or drink the same beverage.

The question is: Who owns the fish?

Hints

the Brit lives in the red house

the Swede keeps dogs as pets

the Dane drinks tea

the green house is on the left of the white house

the green house's owner drinks coffee

the person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds

the owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill

the man living in the center house drinks milk

the Norwegian lives in the first house

the man who smokes blends lives next to the one who keeps cats

the man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill

the owner who smokes BlueMaster drinks beer

the German smokes Prince

the Norwegian lives next to the blue house

the man who smokes blend has a neighbor who drinks water

Einstein wrote this riddle this century. He said that 98% of the world could not solve it.

I sensed a burn out/ slump and took off last Thursday afternoon and the entire weekend. Before taking the time off, I think I was getting emotionally involved with the exam. I was getting anxious just by seeing the questions. I was focusing on getting all the details right and was not in the right mindset to see structures. I think when I get anxious, I tend to want to control everything and understand everything perfectly, which is detrimental to succeeding on the LSAT (and anything in life in general...). Now I am in quite a happy place again. Here's a note to a future self (and also to my current self to ingrain these insights) and to anyone who wants to prevent/ overcome a slump. Please feel free to add any more insights.

Anyways, I think the weekend off helped me to really experience all of the 3 above (these are all quite common wisdom, but really believing in them and acting in accordance with them is a different issue). I'm going to keep this in mind going forward.

Please add any more insights to this if you have them!!

I just received the news that I have been accepted to University of Ottawa!!! One year ago today, I never thought that this would be possible. I must say, thank you to the 7sage community for making this happen. The video explanations helped me tremendously as well as all the discussion boards.

To all those applying, never give up! I know the battle is long and treacherous but trust me, hard work really does pay off. If it takes you 6 months of studying or1 year or even 2 years... who cares. The only dreams that are unreachable are the ones you don't reach for.

Thanks again (3(/p)

Since I make markings on my test, and I don't want to get new blank copies to BR, is it acceptable if I just use the question bank for the BR? I was thinking since the time element does not matter, using electronic questions wouldn't really hurt anything. But, of course, if it is detrimental to my progress, I can just get new copies. What do you guys think?

haha sorry guys just found out, wife said dont tell anyone yet, so i figured.. well i'll tell my 7sage friends they wont tell anyone she knows lol. so now im doing this for me and my family !! extra motivated now !!

Anyone think 10 points can be gained in the next two months of LSAT prep? I am at 159 right now after 2nd PT and hoped to reach close to 169 by June test. I'm missing over half on Games right now & simple mistakes on LR, so I plan on drilling that a lot between now and test day. Thoughts or previous experiences with this are much appreciated!

Where exactly can we print the PTs that are available to print? I'm trying to print every LG 1-40 after going through the LG CC again. I have PDFs, but they are older and have the LGs on one page...I would like to be practicing with two-page LGs.

hey all,

just wanted to share a bit of my experience... after completing the core curriculum i was eager to jump into prep-tests. at first i would focus well during my actual prep-test, but when it came time to blind review i was so excited to see my score that i quickly agreed with myself and did not spend enough time with each question. my score plateaued in the low 160's.

then, while reviewing the material in the curriculum and the webinars (shout out to the LSAT Prep for 170+ webinar) i learned three important things about the blind review:

focus on your blind review score. your actual score tends to be about 10 points lower than your blind review score. thus, if i could get my blind review close to 180, then i could get my actual score above 170. my entire focus shifted from the prep-test to the blind review. rather than getting discouraged by a low actual score i became excited by a high blind review score.

blind review on a blank copy of the test. thanks to allison for this suggestion in the LSAT Prep for 170+ webinar. without access to my answers from the timed prep-test i stopped arguing with my ego and was able to really dig into the material. my blind review score became a more accurate representation of my knowledge base.

review your blind review score thoroughly. this is discussed in the curriculum, but after finishing a prep-test and blind reviewing it i was usually eager to move on to the next test. i would check a couple of the harder questions, watch jy's explanation and be done. this was not educative. i began to dive into accumulated answers to discover the subjects i struggled with the most. 7Sage's analytics are great for this. i returned to the curriculum to review most strongly supported and parallel flaw questions. reviewing the material helped me re-learn it.

.

.

.

shifting the focus of my emotional well being from the timed prep-test to the blind review helped me get over my frustration and my plateau. i just broke 170 for the first time and it feels great!

i still can't believe kaplan doesn't teach the blind review...

Hey Everyone,

Could anyone give me an example (whether on some test or just an example you could make up) of this valid form:

A --> C

B --> C

~A some ~B

I know it abstractly, but I struggled earlier to give someone a decent example and explanation earlier. So, I feel that means there's a hole in my knowledge.

I started 7sage back in September 2016, with the intention to take the September 2017 LSAT (which I pushed back to December). After doing the core, and doing five prep tests, I have yet to score above 150, which I've achieved twice. My average is 147.8.

After PT 39, I have felt defeated and crushed. It's not the worst I have ever done, but it's also a dip back down to my starting point. I feel like I'm doing something wrong, but I don't know what it is. As I can only dedicate 15 to 20 hours a week to studying for this test (which is mostly done at night when I'm burned out from work), my time is precious.

My process for the last five prep tests has been as follows - take the test, blind review the test, and then do a comprehensive review of each section of the test. Why the right answers are right. Why the wrong answers are wrong. Why I picked the wrong answers when I did. Drill the games. Drill the reading comp. This has been the advice of multiple people, and I don't feel like I've gotten the gains I'm supposed to. In fact, I feel as though I haven't gained anything.

Doing what I'm doing now isn't working, so there must be something I'm missing. I feel as though my worst section is logic games, but it's only edging out slightly compared to every other section. Should I just focus on drilling? Do I need to just dedicate my hours of studying to just logical reasoning until I'm answering 20 in 20 correctly? Alternatively, is this just a problem with the older tests being a lot harder than the newer ones?

Hi everyone,

I'm applying for accommodations for the June exam and was just wondering if someone who has applied before could provide some guidance. I have the "qualified professional" statement ready to go, but is it necessary to also send my own statement ("Candidate Statement of Need") as well? If so, any tips for how to write a decent candidate statement? Many thanks!

Query failed: connection to 172.31.3.4:9312 failed (errno=111, msg=Connection refused).

Seeing this when I search the forum. Cleared cache. Rebooted. Turned off VPN.

Anyone?

I've seen a few Sages recommend this and I'm curious how you find it helpful. I'm also curious what sort of things you write about, how often your write, and what kind of structure do you use?

Thanks for sharing : )

Note I am applying to Australian Law School meaning that my application is due in September 2017.

I originally took the LSAT in Feb 2017 and was quite disappointed with my score (it was 7 points below my average). Since then I purchased the 7sage course and have been aiming for a re-take for June 2017. I'm now thinking of pushing that retake back to September 2017.

The positives are:

The drawbacks are:

What would you guys recommend?

my question is, should i keep studying as if i had 35 min per serction? or should i maybe put my clock at 45, this is the best news I could get since the test is around the corner, how can i take the best possible advantage of this as to get the best possible score considering the time extension. ? any tips?

For the early birds out there, come ask David @"Accounts Playable" about the LSAT!

Office Hours with Sage David

Saturday, April 15, 11:00 AM EDT

Please join my meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone.

https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/912696957

You can also dial in using your phone.

United States: +1 (312) 757-3121

Access Code: 912-696-957

First GoToMeeting? Try a test session: http://help.citrix.com/getready

Today is pretty weird. I am usually quite positive and optimistic when studying the LSAT, but today I'm fraught with anxiety and sheer frustration. I think the reason is that when I was working on PTs in 20-30s range, I was doing very well and established all my strategies based on them. Now I started to solve PTs in 60s-70s, and I noticed a score drop and having to rearrange and rethink some of my strategies. Now I am redoing some problems in PTs in 20-30s (the ones I usually do well in) and I notice a time lag and anxiety as well. My mind is not focusing at all. LOL...

Right now when I am reading, I have this urge / anxiety to comprehend every single thing I am reading, to be in control of everything. I don't think I've been this frustrated with the LSAT before. Usually, when I am frustrated, I don't mind much and I still keep a positive attitude. Today is just a disaster.

Anyone know a way to get out of this slump?

When you take a re-take do you wipe your old data from the analytics section? That is what I've been doing after transposing my old answers on the backside of the bubble sheet. That way I can update my analytics to see my current weaknesses but still have the ability to compare my newer test to my old answers. But I just took a retake (PT 56) and think I did waaaay better so I'm not even sure it's worth it. I don't want my average to get too inflated.

Thoughts?