Hi everyone,

I'm not sure if anyone has encountered the situation I am in but I'm sure you all will have some helpful input regardless! My cold diagnostic before studying was a 138. I recently took the June 2016 test and scored a 156. I was PTing around 156-161 prior to the test so accounting for the test day nerves, the score sounds about right. I studied for about 5-6 weeks through the Powerscore bibles so I guess it was an okay score. Also used the 7sage LG video explanations on Youtube and the RC seminar by Nicole Hopkins. I wasn't aiming for a very high score regardless (my mistake), rather I just wanted to get a feel of the testing situation so that my nerves for the second time around would be a little calmer. Breakdown of the June test:

RC : -13

LR : -9

LG: -2

LR: -9

Unfortunately I wasn't very smart about my studying (hadn't really stumbled onto the 7Sage forums yet and was just clueless about how to study) and ended up completely burning through preptests 29-79... My problem now that I am retaking in Sept is that I don't have any more recent preptests to go through. I am currently about halfway through the 70% done with the CC and I feel I have a better grasp of understanding the LSAT than I did for the June test. But I haven't taken any preptests yet so I'm not sure how I will perform on a timed test. So far, most of the questions that are given in the CC w/video explanations - I've been getting them right, though I don't know if this may be because I can recognize the familiarity of the questions (I haven't done the problem sets at the end of each lesson.. saving these for the end)

I am aiming for at least 163-164 (ideally, I would really love something above 165+ but given the time constraints, I am wary that this is achievable for September). Also, December is not really an option as I have a full course load for September and I don't think I would be able to manage all of that together.

Do you guys have any tips on how to proceed after finishing the CC? I think I will try preptests 1-28 and probably redo the more recent ones (65-80), but I'm a little cautious as to how accurate the scoring would be considering I would be slightly familiar with the answer choices already. Also, any tips on RC? It's a little ironic... during the beginning of my studying I was scoring around -5-6 on RC..

Thanks everyone!

For the past week I have been far too busy at work to do any LSAT. This weekend I freaked out when I tried to do an LSAT and could not for the life of me focus....

So I stopped...I did literally nothing but watch terrible horror movies on Netflix (The Void is TERRIBLE), play video games and sleep for two days.

Today I took a timed test - an earlier one (PT 19) - and scored my highest score I have ever scored. This isn't like a small jump either. After bashing my head against the LSAT wall for almost three months non-stop without a break, I scored a 175. I went -0 and -2 in LR for the first time ever. Questions that made me mad before, made sense today. I felt revitalized and confident.

I understand that there is still a TON of work to be done. I also understand that this PT score of 175 is not indicative of what I might actually get come test day.

What it does show me is that our minds need breaks.

I admit it, you guys were right.

@"Cant Get Right"

@"Alex Divine"

Hey all, just wanted to share some positivity and see how you all are progressing with your studies! I've finished the CC and foolproofed LG 1-35 and have started PTing. I've scored an average 5 points higher on my first few PTs after the CC from when I took the December 2016 LSAT!! I am beyond excited to have made such a jump and am even more excited to improve even further. I am slowly creeping towards my goal and with my December 2017 tentative test date, I am gaining more and more confidence that I will be able to hit my target score when test day comes. Just thought I'd share something good with the community and would love to hear how you all have been progressing!

Should we identify the answer before looking at the answer choices?

Hi! I have some problems regarding the payments. Im from the Philippines and Im going to take my LSAT here. Then all my requirements and stuff about taking the exam, I made it through online using the LSAC but my parents are worrying on how we will pay for the $180. Can you help me? I would really appreciate it! Thank you!

I was curious if anyone had any idea of when these would be released.

Hello 7sage community. I wanted some advice on how to utilize the rest of my prep time before the september LSAT. I have read the LSAT trainer and have read Powerscore's LG bible. My first diagnostic before reading any of those was a 152. I just took another PT and scored 156 with a 167 BR score.

My question is whether my focus should be on doing timed individual sections during the week, and a full PT at the end of the week? Just want some help on how to utilize my time. I'm pretty sure timing is my main issue. My goal for the September LSAT is 163+, so anyone's advice who has personally scored in that range would be much appreciated. Any advice is appreciated honestly.

Redacted

Hey everybody!

I wanted to share my 18-point increase story with you all and outline how I did it while working full time. I started studying for the December 2016 LSAT in late July on very short notice. My wife is in graduate school in a very remote part of Missouri and the only job I could find was 1.5 hours away at an agricultural law firm. I’ve worked a full eight-hour day every day since August 1st and only studied for a little over a week before starting my job, so it’s pretty much been a constant balancing act.

I’m not anything special. I have a very average intelligence level. My diagnostic PT was a 145. I had to work my tail off for the score I got, and the score I got reflects my best effort over six months of, on average, four or five hours of studying a day (minus Fridays). That’s what I have to work with and it reflects my absolute best effort. Sure, I’d love it if I was naturally smart enough to get a 170 with ease, but at the end of the day the most fulfilling part of this entire process is the knowledge that I gave it everything.

I was blessed to have the amazing advice and wisdom of Sage Daniel (@danielznelson) throughout my prep process. If he was able to take every single 7sager in the world as his personal pupil, I would make it mandatory. As it turns out, he went to middle school and high school with my wife and came to our wedding, so we had a connection to begin with. If you are stuck at any point of your prep and need to break through a plateau, get in touch with Daniel and let him help you. It’ll be the best thing you could ever do for your LSAT score.

My daily schedule was the same throughout my entire LSAT experience. I would wake up at 6, study from about 6:30 – 8:00am, get ready for work and go to work from 9 – 5, then either work out and study till 11pm or go home and study until 10:30 or 11pm. Some days I would also go to the library until 10 or 11pm if I wanted a change of scenery. I would also utilize any spare moment I had at work (down time, lunch breaks, etc) to do a few extra logic games, complete an RC passage or two, or peruse the 7sage discussion forums. On slow days at work, I would sometimes get in an extra two hours of studying this way.

The way to beat the LSAT is to become obsessed with it. Steve at lsatblogspot.com has a great document of 101 tips for the LSAT from pupils of his that improved ridiculous amounts (like 140 to 170), and the biggest take-away from that list is that the people who conquer the test are the people who make it their life. I did that, and it paid off, especially near the end of my prep. If you really want it, you have to mold your entire life around the test. For instance, I decreased my frequency of working out, started timing my morning chai tea so that I would be most awake around the time I knew the LSAT would start, started some basic meditation that I would do before each section, made sure that I was always putting in focused study time on weekends from 8am to 1pm, and much more. I made a binder, divided into sections for Games, LR, and RC, and filled it with notes, reminders, tips, and tricks that I learned from the LSAT Trainer, the 7sage curriculum, my conversations with Daniel, and my personal discoveries as I studied. I’ve condensed that binder into a bullet point list that is at the bottom of this post that covers the most important things I learned for each section.

Now for the actual study schedule. I broke my studying down into two phases – an understanding phase and a preparation phase. Since I had just over four months to get ready for the December LSAT, I spent the first two months learning the test and second two months taking practice tests and working on my weaknesses. Do not start taking practice tests until you have a broad, functional, relatively comprehensive knowledge of the test. Knowing how the LSAT works and what it will try to do to you is half the battle. To that end, spend the first half of your prep (or at least two months) just learning the test. Read the LSAT Trainer, go through the entire 7sage curriculum and take religious notes, answer questions on the 7sage forums, read the Powerscore bibles (but only to do the problems and get extra practice – I wouldn’t recommend their games-tackling methods, for instance), subscribe to Steve from lsatblogspot.com’s weekly LSAT emails, do the free logic games at Cambridge LSAT’s website, read papers on formal logic, do at least 4 logic games a day and watch JY’s videos for them, read a book or two to keep your reading skills sharp, get used to reading RC passages quickly, choose a few LR sections a day from the early PT’s to do untimed, etc. I used predominantly the prep tests from 1 – 39 for this part of my prep, which lasted from late July until mid-September. This approach paid off bigtime for me. I was shooting for a 160 on the December LSAT, and when I took my first PT in late September after doing nothing but learning the test for two months, I hit a 160.

Then comes the preparation part of the process. This entailed starting with 1 PT per week on Saturday mornings for two weeks, then doing 2 PT’s a week until two weeks out from the LSAT. I understand this might change for some of you depending on your timeline. I started with PT 67 and worked my way up through PT 77 a week and a half before the LSAT. The weekend before the LSAT I took a retake so that I could build confidence. For me, I took my PT’s on Tuesday evenings and Saturday mornings (Fridays were my off day – make sure you have an off day every week! It’s important for mental health). In the days between your PT’s, your focus should be identifying your weaknesses and drilling them to find ways to improve.

I want to add a little bit of my personal experience here to explain what I really mean by drilling your weaknesses. This is where your obsession has to change focus but increase in its intensity. After every PT, I would go through the 7sage analytics. This gives you a good idea of where your weaknesses are. However, I would also do my own set of analytics, and this is where you can really break down your weaknesses. For me, Flaw, NA, and MSS were my original weaknesses. Up through the December test, I would count how many of each I got wrong and drill them over and over. This worked to some extent, as I was able to achieve a 163 on the December test, tying my previous best PT score. However, it was in prepping for the February LSAT that I discovered what it really takes to conquer your weaknesses. You have to get much more in-depth with your analysis. Ask yourself, “Why did I get this wrong? Was the issue in the stimulus or the answer choices?” For me, it was the answer choices. “Did I not reading the answer choices carefully enough? Did I not understanding how the answer choice impacts the argument? Or was the issue in my lack of scrutiny? Did I not think carefully enough through whether or not the stimulus actually says what the answer choices says it does?” In short, you have to get down to this level of nitty gritty in order to truly understand your weaknesses. I realized after several PT’s that I wasn’t fully understanding what certain AC’s were doing to the argument. This was especially troublesome on Strengthen and Weaken questions. Only by getting to this level of understanding will you know your weaknesses.

That’s how you understand them. Now, the way to conquer them is to write out explanations for why each and every answer choice on a troublesome question is right or wrong. I did this for LR and RC and can honestly say it was the single most beneficial technique I ever used for increasing my LSAT capabilities. I wish I had started doing it earlier, so if you are in the later stages of your prep, start doing it today! Write your explanations out by hand, and then, if the question is really hard, type a full explanation. In my opinion, this is the key to breaking through that huge mid-160’s plateau that so many of us struggle to get out of. A week after implementing this habit, I rocketed to a 167. I’m telling you, it works. You just have to put in the time.

The list of tips for each section is below. Before I go, I want to share with you one more thing about the mindset for the LSAT that I believe is very important for anyone setting their sights on the test. I grew up on a small-scale, draft-powered, self-sustaining organic farm in New Hampshire. I fully intend to buy some land and have a farm again myself once I am out of law school. Part of our farm’s unique appeal was that we used teams of oxen for all of the farm work, rather than tractors. Over the years, I spent hours each day with our teams of oxen, hauling firewood, plowing gardens, bringing in the harvest, and much more. Years of this kind of closeness have shown me the intricacies of these massive animals’ gentle personalities (some of them weighed over 3,000 lbs). They are smart, goofy, athletic, loyal, devoted, caring, and courageous in ways I will never be. Not to mention tremendously, unbelievably, mind-blowingly strong. But one thing that all of them have, no matter what their personality differences may be, is an unquenchable sense of commitment to the task at hand. I’ve stood next to them as they’ve strained to move a giant downed tree, falling on their knees and back up again, foaming at the mouth, clashing their horns together, just for the sheer joy of trying. Even when I managed to get them to rest for a few moments, they would restlessly paw the ground and shake their heads, eager to throw themselves against the yoke again and conquer their nemesis. As you approach the LSAT, think carefully about what you are willing to put into it and what you hope to get out of it. If you’re willing to be even half as consistent and committed as these oxen were, you’ll go far.

LR:

Games:

RC:

I went to pre-order this and it says the release date will be first week of Oct. Seriously not releasing this before the Sept exam??? Does anyone know why they would do this (besides the obvious money factor buying the other tests individually)?

I have the LSAT Starter course and have completed the CC. I have been practice testing now and am slated to take the test in September.

My PT scores range from 158 (my lowest…today eek) to 176 (last week). My diagnostic was 162; I am very disappointed and frustrated. Is my only chance at succeeding on this test delaying to December? I felt really good last week after the 176 and am now starting to wonder if this just wasn't meant to be for the September date.

My main issue is LR at this point (I want to improve LG, too, but I'm more confident in my ability to fix that on my own). The problem sets and explanations in the Starter course are generally easy for me---rewatching those videos hasn't really helped. Would upgrading for access to harder problem sets be worth it? Is regular tutoring the way to go? I'm willing to spend some money, but I'm also not looking to break the bank here if I can avoid it.

Hi,

Does anyone know if a Chronograph watch is allowed on the test? They have analog automatic versions(aka nondigital). I am about to start practicing PTs and would like to know before I practice with it and acclimate. I have seen past discussions that it is up to the test proctor. So is there no way to know ahead of time if my particular test proctor will decide to let me use a legal item?

Thanks!

see question above

Hey everyone,

I have a question about what you recommend I do next in my study schedule.

As some background, I completed the CC about 2 months ago and have just finished fool proofing 1-35 using the @Pacifico method. Throughout the process, I have been drilling LR sections from old PT's every few days or so. I also took the time to do a cursory read through the LSAT Trainer. I didn't do all of the exercises in the book by any means but I found it helpful in solidifying some concepts and with RC reasoning structure.

I seem to have improved in my LG abilities (I missed 9 LG questions on my diagnostic and seem to be right around -1/-2 now). As for LR, I seem to be missing about 4 questions per section with the greater majority of them being RRE and NA questions. My specific question is, should I move on to PT'ing at this point or should I spend some time drilling LR some more before that?

Thank you!

What is the difference between making the premises less supportive of the conclusion and attacking the premises? Wouldn’t attacking the premises reduce the support that the conclusion receives?

For anyone using Powerscore with 7sage:

In 7sage LR language, how would you classify/approach the LR Question type: "Justify the Conclusion" (this is Powerscore language). I am using both resources together.

Thanks!

I had to take a week off of the LSAT because of a work conference that kept me extremely busy.

I tried to return to it today with a PT.

The issue; I was incapable of doing it. LG that normally took me 5min took me 15. I would read easy LR stimulus and have to repeat it over and over and over, because I could not retain an ounce of information. I felt 0 confidence in any of my answer.

I normally score in the 167 range - if I had kept going I would have been lucky to break the 160's.

What's going on? It's kinda bothering me...

I just finished my first LG lesson with 7Sage and WOW. I've tried learning Logic Games under other programs and they were AWFUL. Then comes JY and his mastery for all things logic and it just clicks. I've become more confident in LG in the last hour than I have in the 2 months I spent studying other lessons. So now I'm just curious -how/when did JY start tutoring? Did he just realize he had a knack for teaching and the rest was history? He truly has a gift and I'm just thankful I'm learning the LSAT in the age of 7Sage.

Hey everyone,

So i've decided I do not want to wait anymore, and attend law school starting 2018.

How will admissions look at an applicant who has taken the LSAT 3 times? Does that put one at a disadvantage?

Any response is much appreciated!

Hey All-

I'm looking for a good warmup to start using before PTs that can hopefully serve as a warmup through test day. Does anyone out there have a pretest warmup exercise that they're happy with? I was thinking about doing a logic game and maybe one of J.Y.'s LR problem sets, but I'd love to hear what works for everyone else.

Thanks!

I had a general question I was hoping some people here might have some views or insights on.

I'm Canadian and have done a ton of research on different law schools. University of Toronto is our #1 law school here, and I'd be totally happy to get in (average LSAT is 167, which I think is totally doable for me based on my current prep tests and my soft credentials). Although we have some other great law schools here in Canada, I don't really have a desire to move anywhere else in Canada, and UofT is the best, so I'm aiming high.

My absolute dream school, though, is Yale. It's mostly because of my more academic bent and I love their small class sizes and 6:1 student teacher ratio. They also really support people to take non-traditional paths with their law degree and I also feel I'd meet some exceptional people. I also realize getting into Yale is a bit of a lottery, so I'm speaking in hypotheticals if I can score a 170 or higher I'll at least apply (I have a book published with New York University Press and a few other creds that I think might make me at least worth looking at if my LSAT is high enough).

I'm considered also applying to Harvard. I'll be honest that Harvard doesn't entice me as much as Yale. Harvard seems much more geared towards streaming people into corporate law (nothing wrong with that if that is what you want to do, but not sure if it is for me). That said, it is still a great school and brand obviously, but it seems to me that Yale has a much better repayment program that adjusts to whatever work you decide to do after...

Anyways, that all said, I guess my larger question is whether it is worth going to either Yale or Harvard if one got in as a Canadian. That is, do people think the cost is worth the trade off of the prestige? For Yale I feel it could be because the program feels so up my alley of interest and is really unique, but even then I wonder if the price tag is worth it. A law degree at UofToronto is $32,000 a year, compared to 60K at Yale or Harvard.

I imagine that a degree from Yale or Harvard would be pretty transferable back to Canada if I decide to return after my degree? But I don't really know. I don't really have a strong desire to stay in the U.S after I graduate.

I realize I'm jumping the gun a bit, but it would be useful to get some feedback on this because it will help determine how many schools I apply to (each application is a lot of work and I want to put my best into them).

Thanks!

Hello,

I am PT-ing for the september test, and am wondering if anyone in greater vancouver area want to meet up or facetime to do BR together maybe twice a week.

Hey guys,

I'm 25 years old and have been studying for the LSAT well over two years on and off. I've sat in the exam 3 times already and my scores have been respectively 142, 154, and 152. Even thought I've been pting in the 160s, I keep messing up on the actual test.

I live with my parents and work full-time as well. They're quite upset I haven't started law school yet. I know if I take the exam this last time I can hit my goal of low 160s. However, I'm getting a lot pressure from friends, cousins, and my parents to start law school as I've wasted a lot of time.

So, I figure you guys could give me sound advice as to if the benefits exceed the costs of waiting one more year. I do have a full-ride to t3 schools and have been accepted to bottom t1 schools like uf and even temple.

Obviously, I am asking this on the 7 sage forum, and so many people will be biased when answering- particularly those who work with/for 7 sage. However, when answering, please keep your biases to a minimum. I'm wondering if the type of package we purchase influences our LSAT score, and if so, to what degree?

Hello everyone. I'm feeling very discouraged and need some guidance.

I took a diagnostic test before starting 7sage and got a 158 and then a 160 on BR. I'm almost done with the core curriculum (save for some logic material), and I took a test to see if I had improved my score. I got the same exact score - a 158 and a 160 on BR. I'm really trying to hit 170 by September.

It's pretty clear from the tests that I'm still not strong on LG and some LR. How do you suggest improving before taking more tests? I don't want to take another test because I don't want to "waste" material. Should I print out the LR and LG sections from the two tests and I took? Should I review the practice problems on 7sage? If so, how should I review them? Do I simply just do them over and over again? I'm a bit lost on how to improve without taking more tests, but, I fear if I take more tests, I'll be wasting those tests.

Any help is appreciated!!