Hi everyone!

How do you guys approach Reading Comprehension and what improvements have you seen on that section? Last month I did well on it, scoring 24/27 a couple times in a timed full test. Last 2 or 3 times I did a full 4 or 5 section timed test, I scored -8 or -9 on RC, which is bad enough. But just now, I did 2 timed readings (cause I fell asleep in the middle of the reading the third passage), and I got like 3/7 on each LOL. WTF is happening?! I know being tired is a factor, but I was fully awake during the first passage I read, and then the third one about osmoregulation killed me. help :(

Hi all, just hoping for some of your opinions. I have lots of preptests already (all up to #62) and I am wondering if these are enough to practise off or should I ignore these and purchase "newer" tests? Theres not a lot of time left before June and I would like to study as effectively as possible and I can't do all of them, at most I think I could do 10-12.

What are you doing?

=D THANKS

Just wondering guys do you take notes, as you go along the lessons, or do you just solely concentrate on lesson itself and if needed just re-read/-re-watch it?

How would you make it more simple to understand? I took me 5 minutes just to figure out all those negations. Preptest 51, Section 3, Question 23.

Looking for a study buddy for June 2014 in Halifax, NS! Give me a shout if you're from there and want to study together!

I am starting to have difficulty finding old tests to use as practice tests. Suggestions on where to find tests?

the June test is right around the corner. i'm still doing horribly in sequencing games. still not being able to make the inferences i need to in order to score better. what are your methods to improve this. i try to drill without looking at the video explanations, so that i can recognize patterns and gather inferences on my own but it doesn't seem to be working. advice please?!?!?!

...is my theme song for this test. To me, it represents the struggle to achieve a difficult goal.

The main theme permeates the whole piece (ya know, dun dun dun DUUUUN..... dun dun dun DUUUUUUN).

The piece seems to travel between two emotional climates. On one hand, a dark cloud of confusion and pessimism, and on the other hand, clarity and optimism.

That mirrors my experience in preparing for this test so well, that I have been listening to it over and over again. It reminds me that even in my moments of despair or confusion, there will eventually be an ensuing revelation, or a 'light at the end of the tunnel.'

As the piece goes on, the lows get lower and the highs get higher, until the piece ends in a magnificent triumph over obstacle. It really helps me put my moments of self-doubt in context.

I am using this piece to trigger the habit that my brain craves, to get me in the right mind set for the test by repetitively associating my LSAT journey with the 5th. I am going to listen to it as the last thing I do before the test as a warm-up.

Does anyone else have some sort of music that they go to for inspiration or courage?

Here's a link to Dudamel conducting the first movement of the 5th:

Hey Guys!

You guys have been super helpful so far.

I feel like i’m burning out!! I’m 4 -6 points away from my goal score, i just need to tune up my LR and RC section…

What are some tips on how to regain the brain power? Not sure whats going on, i royally bombed PT68 today and it was over a mixture of STUPID mistakes and fell for probably EVERY trick the LSAT had to offer me, especially in LR.

I’m thinking about taking a day off.. but on that day, can i read a lot of articles from the economist? or should i just not even touch a book?

I am registered for the June LSAT. In the past few weeks (as the date approaches), I have held onto the possibility of putting the exam off until September just in case I didn't feel prepared for the June date. However, it then dawned on me that putting it off until September is not a possibility, because I have done every prep test available except for 66-71. I have just enough time (I hope) to squeeze in these 6 prep tests before the test, but I think if I put off the test til September, I'll actually harm my chances at a good score...

To me, stretching 6 tests out over 3 months would be too little practice to be useful.

It seems, then, that I'm locked into this June date whether I feel ready enough or not.

No turning back.

Anyone have a similar experience or perspective?

On the flip side, does anyone think that putting it off until September, given my situation, could be helpful? If I did, that would mean one prep test every 2 weeks.

It is very hard to talk to friends or family about this test. I think only those who are actually preparing or the test can understand how hard it is and how emotionally draining it can be so I thank you all for understanding. I have decided to postpone taking the LSAT in June and taking the September/October. This time I will prep with a 7sage tutor, (maybe he or she can identify mistakes that I don't see) and read more as reading comp is my worst enemy. There were a lot of you who have messaged me when you could've used that time to study. I just want to say I really appreciate you all

Hi Everyone, I have been studying For the LSAT for the past few months and am not where I want to be (score wise, High 140, Low 150). I Just graduated Last year and Don't have other material or courses to study but this. Knowing that the score that I will get the FIRST time around ( I don't want to take it, get a bad score and then retake) will really be the most important aspect in this test, what are you guy's advice on when to take it. I have done a quite amount of research and it seems that the June test considering how late in the day it's offered, giving you more time to prepare letters and statements and also giving you the chance to apply early is the best choice. Following the June test, September seems to be the next best choice, For it still gives you time to apply given that every other part of your applications are ready and be considered "early" and that give you time during summer to study (less time to enjoy summer) but is offered in the morning ( which is a downside for me). Please advice me on how much I'll be missing out if I postpone my test to september instead of the June test coming up. Thank you, looking forward to hearing all different ways of thinking about this situation and really appreciate anyone's point of view.

Does anyone remember which game Ping drew a star to indicate the shared rules between each entity? I would like to review all abnormal game types before the June test and was wondering which PT that game is from. Also I would love if anyone would share any game they feel is different than the cookie cutter games we are used to, we can all be better prepared if the LSAT can't throw us any curve ball games, like the Feb circular sequence game.

Subject says it all. I am hypersensitive to noting that several events occurring together is always correlative (yet often mistakenly construed by authors as causal), but I am wondering whether this will ever come back to haunt me.

I suppose that more specifically, I am referring to flaw questions. Tangibly, I want to make sure that whenever two (or more) phenomena are said to occur, and an author draws a conclusion based on those phenomena somehow being associated, I can be sure that this is a mistake because it is concluding causality based on events that haven't been shown to necessarily be causally connected.

Is it ever the case that when two (or more) events are said to have occurred in a premise that they are, in fact, necessarily causally connected, and so any conclusion that assumes such is fine? This would mean that the flaw lies elsewhere.

Thanks in advance.

Ok, I am joking about this being the hardest LR question of all time. Of course, there have been harder questions, but for some reason, this one took me days and days to get....

First of all, this is a very unique principle question. Usually, the correct answer to a principle question is a conditional or just look likes a principle-you know, has a "should" or the equivalent of a should in there somewhere....but this problem looks more like a "find the necessary assumption question."

I get why A is the correct answer. It fills in the gap between the premise and conclusion. The premise is that certain factors can increase or undermine a witness' confidence without hurting the accuracy or reliability of identification. Then there is a big jump to a conclusion (which comes out of nowhere!) that states that thus, based on the abovementioned premise, police officers are advised to stop suspect lineups in which witnesses can hear one another identifying suspects...So the big assumption here is that the confidence of witnesses in suspect lineups is affected by hearing other witnesses identifying suspects, and that's how A connects the premise to the conclusion.

But the thing which took me so long to get was, why would this matter?!?! Why would police officers disallow suspect lineups in which witnesses can hear one another identifying suspects because it might affect their confidence levels, if their level of confidence has no effect on the reliability of their accuracy?

So I talked to my dad about it, who is in the military and thinks more like a cop, and he said that if a witness' confidence is lowered, they might not be as forthcoming about what they think, and they might be less willing to cooperate.

What do you guys think?

Hi there,

is there anyone prepping for October LSAT in Daegu, Korea?

I'm flying back to home in early June.

My PTs range in 160s.

I would be more than happy to have a dedicated study buddy(s) who would PT/review,Q&A and etc.

I am looking forward to hearing back!

jjojjokyokyo@gmail.com

I usually score around 149-150 on actual timed PTs however, after Blind review my score goes up by 10-11 points- end up around 160-161.

This has been going on for a while now, I would like to see some improvement on the actual timed PTs. Do any of you have any suggestions/tips on how I can turn my BR score into my actual score. Any input would be valuable and appreciated. Thank you!!!

As the title says, I just completed all of the 7sage course lessons and took my first timed PT last week ago. I blind reviewed this PT as well. The timed and blind review scores came back the same as the cold diagnostic (about mid 140s and mid 150s respectively.) Needless to say I was pretty disappointed.

Today I tried to take another PT (62) but in the middle of it I blanked out. I started off strong with the RC section (mainly because it was topics with which I am familiar, or that I actually give a crap about), then I started gassing through the first LR section and by the time I got to LG (section 3) I completely lost motivation. By the second LR section I was running on fumes and I wasn't particularly confident in my answer choices. It didn't help that I was having issues with the proctor app which kept freezing on my phone, making me go over the allotted time. I'm feeling pretty discouraged at this time since its seeming like all this coursework was for naught. I also decided to scrap PT 62 entirely since I was feeling pretty disgusted with myself by the end of it.

I had originally planned to take the June LSAT but I don't think I'll have enough time between then and now to sufficiently address all of my issues so I'm likely going to reschedule to September.

So with all of that I could really use some pointers as to how to proceed with my studies. As JY mentioned in one of his blog posts, there are only a limited number of PTs available and I want to make the most efficient use of them so that I don't fuck it up for myself come October.

Edit: Sorry, I meant to say that ideally I'd like to correct some of the mistakes I'm making, whether it be from not getting mentally fatigued so quickly to working on weak spots before I resume PTing.

Does anyone know how to quickly recognize these? or how to notice one right when you see it? especially with the time constraint? how do you almost perfect RC and LR scorers do it?

I would appreciate any tip on how to recognize these more often, i find that most of my wrong answer choices are bc of these.

Does "In fact" function as a transitional indicator? That is, does in fact signal the switch from context to argument?

eg (PT 64 section III Q 22)

scientists astounding success..........causes public to believe that science can solve any problem. IN FACT, the problems selected by scientists .... etcetc etc

I apologize in advance for the long discussion post. I am sure there are others in my shoes, so I'd like to ask the community for some assistance on my progress thus far and some guidance going forward. My story is that I began studying last summer before my last year of university, but have yet to write an LSAT (Did not sign up for Oct 2013 as planned). I studied hard last summer, but once school began in September I fell off the wagon and dramatically reduced my studying. I have began to study hard again for the June 2014 test and have noticed my progress over the last 2 weeks has slightly improved. I don't know how to properly diagnose myself to determine the best way to improve.

My biggest weakness is LR, I can typically complete a section in 35 minutes (though some sections I cannot) and achieve anywhere between a -6/7 - /12/13. Two things I have noticed looking back at my test and blind reviewing them. First, there does not seem to be ONE particular question type that chokes me up, rather all the question types seem to be in the mix of my wrong answer. So, how do I actually determine which areas I need improvement on most, since it seems to really only be the most difficult questions for all types that choke me up. Second, when I go to check my answers against the correct answer, I have a hard time firmly reviewing because once I see the answer it seems so obvious (i.e: I either make a really dumb mistake a lot, or I fell for the trap).

My second weakest area is RC, I cannot complete a section in the 35 minutes and any hard passages take me over 10 minutes and include me getting completely demolished on the questions. I have noticed a slight increase in my ability to read for reasoning structure, but I cannot figure out a way to increase my ability to answer questions while at the same time learning to reduce my time. I understand that drill drill drill is what needs to happen for this kind of improvement, so my question is how did you drill RC and what exactly did you do that made you see the improvements you desired?

Lastly, my LG is actually pretty good. I can score anywhere between -3/4- -0. BUT the biggest thing for me in this section is my timing. Games that should take me 5 mins end up taking me 8/9 mins. So, any of the more challenging games just completely throw my timing off, allowing me to only finish 3 games in 35 minutes. My question here is how can I improve my time without hurting my accuracy. Any time that I have tried to improve my time I notice I make sloppy mistakes and rush rather than actually trying to think things through (which inevitably takes more time).

Again sorry for the long post, but I am really desperate to properly diagnose my progress. As of right now I don't know what to do. Obviously drilling and practicing is necessary to improve, but I am curious to know what others think and suggest. Also, given my progress so far what should I expect for test date realistically. My last actual fully timed PT was 153, and I have scored around 163/164 but went over the time limit.

Thanks to all who assist me and provide input! I look forward to hearing all of the responses.

Hi guys,

June 2014 LSAT test is a month away, and many of us probably still need to improve on all of the three LSAT sections. I have noticed from reading the recent discussions that most people are struggling with LR, especially with completing it on time. I think that maybe we should share our tips on how to improve on this section to help each other do better on the upcoming test (or later tests for those who are not taking June 2014 test).

For, instance what I have learnt after struggling with this section is that there are a lot of questions which talk about some sort of experiment. Those are usually Weakening/Strengething/Resolve Paradox questions. So, to answer these type of questions faster, it is important to know how proper experiment is to be conducted, especially, keeping things other than the thing being measured similar/same. The correct answer choice would often be the one that would address the issue of other things being equal/not equal depending on the type of question. Sometimes, they would specifically say in the stimulus that the experiment was held under similar conditions, but include an incorrect answer choice which would say that the conditions were different.

So, we you guys can make some input on how things you need to know to go through LR faster, I think it would help at least some of us improve on it.

Hey folks, I was curious as to the typical distribution of a test writer's scores. I am beginning to write full length PTs and i'm wondering how indicative they are of my true 'mean' score. For example, should i expect +/- 2, 3, or 4 etc.? I realize the answer to this is likely to be dependent on each individual person but I was wondering if anyone could offer insight.

Sam

Check out this really great NY Times article about women empowerment. What's really neat about the article is how causation theory is used to substantiate the need to educate women globally.

Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/11/opinion/sunday/kristof-whats-so-scary-about-smart-girls.html?_r=0

If you don't have time to read the whole article, here is the excerpt that I found relatable to our causation lesson:

"One study found that for every 1 percentage point increase in the share of the population aged 15 to 24, the risk of civil war increases by 4 percent.That means that curbing birthrates tends to lead to stability, and that’s where educating girls comes in. You educate a boy, and he’ll have fewer children, but it’s a small effect. You educate a girl, and, on average, she will have a significantly smaller family. One robust Nigeria study managed to tease out correlation from causation and found that for each additional year of primary school, a girl has 0.26 fewer children. So if we want to reduce the youth bulge a decade from now, educate girls today."

^-^

As the June test is fast approaching, I have been focusing on what seems to be my weakest section which is reading comprehension. I miss at best 8 or 9 questions, and usually do not finish within the time restraints. I would like to reduce this number to about -5. This would help me boost my score by two or more points. Does anyone have a specific way that they attack the passages which has led them to see an increase to their score on this section? I employ certain techniques such as circling keywords and names as well as evidence/conclusions. I have also tried looking at the questions before reading the passages but it does not seem to help me improve. I am open to any suggestions anyone might have. Good luck with your studying!