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Now that we don't have any access to the lsat questions, for those of us who prepaid for a year's membership, will we be getting a partial refund due to this inconvenience? I extended my purchase based on this fact as we had no information about the pdf being taken down until April and I repurchased on March 15th not knowing that this would happen.

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HALPP!!!! For all you 175+ scorers, how did you get from the low 170s to the mid to high 170s? My BR scores are 177-180 but can't seem to get those few points to translate into my practice tests.

On a related note, have you guys identified weird quirks that nobody really talks about (preptests) but that got you to realize what's making you misread a question? I rarely get questions wrong because I miss the argument but there are times when (1) I don't 100% understand what's going on in the argument or (2) when I don't really understand what the answer choice is saying. I want to take this knowledge of my lack of understanding and dive further but don't really know where to start. I've talked to a few people and they mentioned things like, "I realized I misread the word 'and' in a stimulus and therefore didn't know what it meant" or "I didn't fully internalize what the difference between 'presumes without warrant' or 'fails to recognize' for flaw answer choices." Mine thus far have been missing a specific type of causal argument where you're implicitly given "2" causes for "1" treatment, which I know is a big no-no in LSAT land.

What are your strategies? What are your quirks?

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Hey guys,

I'm planning to apply for law school this coming fall and would like to attend the fall of 2016. I had been planning on taking the lsat this June, and I've been studying since about October of 2014. Though it's been about 6 months, it hasn't really been intensive studying, just fitting it in with college and work, here and there, etc. I can do some intensive studying beginning in May for a little less than a month right before the test and I'm wondering whether I should just take it in June and then take it again in October, or wait until October. I feel like I'd do better in October after having the entire summer to really study but if I don't take the June test, October will be the first and last time I'll be able to take it (and still be able to apply on time). Any advice would be appreciated :)

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I am just coming to the end of the core curriculum and plan to throughly do the following before heading to PTs:

- Complete the logic games bundle (I am sure this will take far longer than the 48 hours quoted!)

- Do the core curriculum one more time. I believe this second sweep will solidify mainly points of confusion

- Get through The Trainer

My plan is to complete all of this before July and then spent 3 months drilling PTs ready for the October test (or possibly December if I feel I need to push it back).

Does this sound sensible, in terms of allowing three full months for PTs? I am in a slightly better position than most as I run a business from home that only takes about 3 hours of work a day, so I can easily dedicate 7/8/9 hours daily to the LSAT.

Amy advice would be great!

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I plan on taking the June LSAT and seem to be running out of time. I took 21 hours during this semester at school and it has been kickin my butt! That being said I didn't have anywhere near as much time to study for the LSAT as I had planned. I still have about 30 hours of "course work" left but with the end of the semester coming up I don't know how much extra time I'm going to have. I've taken a couple of PT's randomly and I'm scoring about a 155 - which is no where where I would like to be. I was wondering if it would be more beneficial if I used my spare time taking and blind reviewing tests, or if I should finish and review the coursework and then do some tests? Please help. My goal is around 163-165. Thanks!!

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Here is an LR Cheat Sheet I derived quite a while ago. I hope it helps some of you out there.

Best of luck to all!

LR Question Type Cheat Sheet

Inference Questions (Must Be True)

General:

• Requires you to select the answer choice that can be proven by the information presented in the stimulus.

• Pre-phrasing answer choices is often difficult

• Correct answer choices tend to be conservative and free of “load-bearing” language

• Often the stimulus is a fact set and not an argument

Correct Answer Types:

• Paraphrased answers: are answers that restate a portion of the stimulus (at times easy to miss b/c stated in different language than the stimulus)

• Combination answers: answers that result from combining two or more statements in the stimulus

Incorrect Answer Types:

• Could be true answers: are attractive b/c they could be true, but are nevertheless incorrect b/c they do not HAVE to be true

• Extreme answers: are exaggerated answers that are too extreme to be supported by the information presented in the stimulus

• New information: answer choices that bring in new information without warrant (make sure it is not the result of combining two or more statements which would make it the right answer)

• Opposite answers: answers that are completely opposite from the information presented in the stimulus

• Shell Game: vey subtle shift in concept or term that makes the answer choice slightly incorrect (Alex is greedy therefore Alex is mean: greedy and mean are not the same thing despite being similar)

• Reverse answer: answer choice will reverse the relationship of two key terms

Weaken Questions

General:

• Stimulus will almost always contain an argument

• Understand the structure of the argument to gain perspective necessary to attack the author’s position (reasoning errors are usually present)

• Weaken questions often yield strong pre-phrases

• Correct answers rarely attack the premises, rather they almost always show that the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premises (that is to say, the answers will attack the relationship between the premises and the conclusion made by the author)

• When you have conditional reasoning in the stimulus and a Weaken question, immediately look for an answer that attacks the necessary condition (show that the necessary condition does not need to occur in order for the sufficient condition to occur)

Correct Answer Types:

• Incomplete information: the author fails to consider all of the possibilities or relies upon evidence that is incomplete

• Improper comparison: the author tries to compare two or more elements that are essentially different

• Qualified conclusion: The author qualifies or limits the conclusion in such a way as to leave the argument open to attack

Incorrect Answer Types:

• Opposite answers: answer choices that actually strengthen the argument (tempting because it relates perfectly to the argument but in the opposite way needed to be correct)

• Shell game answers

• Out of scope answer choices

65

I have been receiving a lot of emails from The Council on Legal Education Opportunity, Inc. (CLEO) and I wanted to know if anyone on here participated in this? If so, how was your experience and was it worth it?

2

Hi everyone,

I posted a while back about how I was feeling down and wasn't motivated to do LSAT work. It got better for a couple of weeks but then it got way worse. It's a long story but I'm on the road to recovery. Anyway, I have been out of the loop on all LSAT prep for another few weeks trying to focus on getting my mind in the right place. But now I've been feeling like I'm ready to slowly ease myself back in. I've already accepted the fact that I think I will have to push back to December and may even have to push back law school another year (which I really don't want to do). However, I feel like I need a good review before delving semi-randomly into a question type. I have a decent base of knowledge from being a retaker but this time I've been working through the Ultimate course and I have The Trainer, Manhattan LR guide, and the PowerScore Bibles. I'm thinking it will just be more efficient to just review using my various materials and notes. But there's a part of me that thinks it would be better to just start over. Any thoughts?

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@gqalvi3

said:

is the site running super slow for anyone else? takes forever for the videos to load since the 21st....

@gqalvi3 I'm reposting this under the "Technical Problems" forum.

I'm also experiencing the same issue...wonder what the problem might be? I'm pretty sure I'm using the updated Chrome browser with the latest version of Adobe Flash...

0

Hey guys! I was wondering if anyone here has already started the laws school prep? If so, what does it encompass exactly? Does it go in-depth with 1L courses? And how will it help?

1

Hey everyone!

I have pretty severe ADHD, which has led me to change my study habits for the LSAT quite a bit. @nicole.hopkins, @amanda_kw and I have been working pretty hard on really nailing the fundamentals of logic to improve our scores over the past several weeks, and it's been helping immensely. That said, there's still a lot to be done and as Jonathan said a few weeks ago, knowing logic like the back of your hand is crucial to scoring highly on the LSAT.

I've been studying up on mind-maps to help stimulate my creative side and find something that'll really make all of the logic lessons click for me. I'm finishing up the full logic map tonight, and will be doing two more over the course of the week: one for valid/invalid argument types, and one for LR question types.

I wanted to reach out and see if anyone would have an interest in me uploading these to share with anyone who might be more of a visual learner such as myself, or even if any of y'all have made mind maps that have worked for you!

5

Hello 7sage! As always, thanks so much for all the help and resources.

I was wondering if there will be a price discount since the PDFs of LSAT questions are now all gone. I really want to enroll in the Ultimate course but its quite over my budget. Thanks!

0

Hi all!

I desperately need your help! I planned for the February test, procrastinated and postponed it to June. After the winter break, I've decided to take LSAT really seriously and finished the core lessons with 7Sage. Now I have been through more than 10 pts but don't see anything above 161, though my highest br score is 174.

My final goal is at least to break 165.

I am not sure if I am ready to take the June test. But I don't think I should postpone again because I have studied for several months. Another three or four months may lead to burnt out, besides my internship starts in July.

However, I am graduating this May from grad school, lots of things going on before graduation. I doubt I will have enough time to score 170s consistently to feel ready for the June test.

Any suggestions/thoughts? Shall I take the June test anyway? Maybe cancel the score if I performed badly?

Thanks for your time!

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Hi All-

Shot in the dark...

Does anyone know of a "7Sage" type of online resource for learning to Code?

I used LSAT classes and books and even another online course before finding 7Sage and nothing has been better for learning the LSAT. I'm now trying to learn to Code, so as a shot in the dark, does anyone know of anything close to 7sage for coding?

0

***I love to write, and I also happen to have a little knowledge about the LSAT and law school admissions generally. With JY’s blessing, I have decided that I will scratch my writing itch on a semi-regular basis by posting long-form blog-style pieces on the forums. If you have a topic that you’d like to see me write about, feel free to PM me. And please, discuss the piece freely in the comments below, especially if you disagree – I love to hear other viewpoints and am happy to engage in respectful and reasoned discourse.

Not a lot of people know this about me, but once upon a time, I was a Dance Dance Revolution fiend.

I picked it up around the year 2000 or so, when DDR was just starting to make a splash in the US market. At first, I was obviously awful at it, but I was enamored so I stuck with it. Eventually, I managed to become a pretty good player, though I never quite made it into the top tier.

When I was still developing my skills, there was a song called “MAX 300” that I made it my mission to beat. At that time, it was one of the two ‘boss’ songs in the game - songs that even the best players could barely beat, never mind score well on. Nowadays it’s a joke, but back then nobody had ever seen anything like it. For reference, a video of the song being played (not me, in case that wasn’t clear):

Pay particular attention about 1:15 into the video as the song approaches its midpoint, starting with the appearance of green ‘freeze’ arrows (which require you to hold down the arrows in question). After 366 steps in about 45 seconds, the song seems to be giving you a reprieve – an 8-count to catch your breath and rest a bit before launching into the second half of the song. How nice of them, right?

Wrong.

For most people, it’s much easier to stay in “the zone” once you’re already there, as opposed to having to find it from scratch. When you’re in a state of full concentration, it’s easier to maintain your thought process as you make your way through the task at hand. In DDR, once you get in the rhythm of parsing the arrows and stomping the appropriate arrows, you can essentially go on autopilot and play almost unconsciously, just reading and reacting. MAX 300, as hard as it was, was essentially just a stamina test – no weird rhythms, no tricky step patterns, just a straight up challenge to see if you could keep up. And indeed, many fairly average players were able to do so, at least for a while.

But, when they gave you those precious seconds to rest, all of a sudden you had time to realize that your lungs and thighs are burning and you can’t quite stand up straight or see clearly anymore. And when the steps started up again, you simply didn’t have the energy to keep up anymore. So, while it superficially looked like a gift from above, that break was actually one of the harder parts of the song – not just for the actual physical difficulty of going from full speed to a full stop and immediately back to full speed again, but also for the sheer psychological toll it took on the player in doing so.

That’s what the break in the LSAT does to you. If you’re not careful, you will spend the entire 15 minutes dwelling on things that you did wrong in the first half of the test. You’ll suddenly remember that you didn’t get much sleep the night before, or remember that you’re actually incredibly nervous because this is your third attempt and you REALLY don’t want to wait another year for another bite at the apple. You’ll spot that despondent test-taker (there’s always at least one) who’s already contemplating canceling his score due to bombing the first half of the test, and that’ll start you questioning how well you’re doing. You’ll hear some guy talking about how he got two RC sections, and panic because you could have SWORN that your experimental was that unusually difficult LR section. No matter which one of these happens to you, you’re sunk. Your mental game is torpedoed, and there’s only one thing that happens from there.

What DDR players took to doing during this break was doing something – anything – to stay active and maintain the beat and not allow themselves to be psyched out by the structure of the song. Take a look at this video for an example, around 1:04:

He could take a break, and it would likely be well-deserved, but instead he’s making additional work for himself in order to avoid taking that break. This allows him to continue on after the pause without a hitch, because he never actually stops what he’s doing – he’s “in the zone” even when he’s not explicitly required to be.

Treat the LSAT the same way. Test day is one monolithic entity, from the moment you wake up to the moment you exit that testing room, and you must maintain your focus at all times. The break is not a time for you to relax – it is a test of your ability to remain focused. During your practice, make sure to simulate your breaks, because they are not optional and they have the potential to completely derail you if you’re not used to taking them. Eventually, you’ll get used to maintaining your focus through the break, or at the very least quickly picking back up where you left off once the break is over.

My suggestion for the break is to maintain a low-level state of readiness. What I mean by that is that you should focus on some concepts that you know like the back of your hand, and keep yourself LSAT-engaged by using those concepts to occupy your mind. Recite all of the LR questions types, or play with some conditional translations and make sure you can go between all four groups fluently, or go over your strategy for tackling a particular section you haven’t seen yet, or even just run your personal highlight reel (we’ll talk about this some other time) through your head over and over again. The name of the game is to make sure that you’re not headed into section 4 cold – that you “hit the ground walking”, as I like to say.

Oh, and make sure to seek out a local DDR machine and pump some quarters into it during one of your study breaks. 15 years and many mixes later, it’s still a ton of fun.

26

Please could you share your advice related to law school choices? I most likely want to work in SoCal after graduation and am accepted at UC Irvine, but because of rankings should I go with WashULaw in St. Louis instead? Personally I'm really impressed with Irvine going straight in at #30 and I love the feel of the place and community.

Also, I'm wait listed for Northwestern's accelerated JD program. Should I hold out as long as possible in case a slot opens up?

Thoughts?? -- Many thanks!

1

I've been trying to improve the RC section for the last 4 months with little luck. I've tried a few notable methods, but I'm still consistently picking incorrect answer choices in every passage. I do pretty well on LG and LR however so I've been thinking of just allocating the time I'd use on the fourth passage to making sure the first three are perfect. Do you guys think this is a good idea?

I'm not sure what else I can do with RC. Thanks.

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