Hey, whats up.

I am taking the LSAT in October and reading comprehension is by far my worst section. I could use any tips that has helped you so I could try and see if it helps me. I am generally getting -10 to -13 per section. I would love to get that down before I actually take the exam.

Thanks

Hi everyone,

I am feeling really discouraged. My diagnostic was a 145 and did not change substantially until I did 7sage. Last week, I got a 156, which was AMAZING to me, and I couldn't believe it. Now my score has only gotten worse: I got a 154, then a 149, and today I got a 147. This has all been in the span of a week or so. I'm very sad and I was planning on taking all of Friday off to relax, and do some drills today in my problem areas. Saturday is August LSAT Day.

What do you guys think? Is this a good idea? Any words of advice or encouragement? It's hard to not feel hopeless. I'm really hoping to get into the 150s so I don't have to go through this again, and I think that is what is making me so anxious.

EDIT: Would like to note that I have essentially cherrypicked my needs in the CC, because I definitely did not have time to do all of it, as much as I would have loved to. I started using the LSAT Trainer and studied very inconsistently, but it wasn't until July that I started really picking up on concepts and stuff. I know that my situation is less than ideal, but I think it's important for the full context to be here too. Please don't be harsh, as I know what I should have done.

I enjoyed this Q and thought I'd do a write-up.

The hard things on this Q for me were seeing the conclusion and understanding AC D.

The statement about development not negatively affecting the wildlife in the park is the conclusion, because it draws support from the following statements about #s on wildlife increasing and the Park's resources can support the current numbers. At first I thought this would just be a premise but after I read the paragraph I had to go back and see what the conclusion actually was.

The second sentence is a bit confusing, let's unpack it. We're talking about 2 surveys - the most recent surgery compared to one taken just before the development started. We should be asking "how far apart were these surveys taken?" The stim tells us a decade, so ten years. That's enough time to see a sizeable difference.

Next we see that theamount of wildlife has increased in those 10 years. Here is where your flaw detector should be going off!! The amount of wildlife has increased, but do we know that this means the Park's wildlife has not been negatively affected? Heck no. What if the development led to the death of all bears, and now without predators the bunny population is 20million? Or what if development led to every animal getting really sick, so now they don't kill each other, they just sit there in a catatonic state? Definitely a negative impact.

We're given 1 more premise that is not really important for getting the right answer. The parks current resources can support the current population. Ok? Will it support 1 more animal? Idk.

I've identified a flaw and now ready for ACs:

A. (Going bit by bit): ok, the recent survey and 10 years ago survey. This was the bunny flaw we identified. What if 9/10 species died due to the development? We're saying that's NOT the case. Still 10 species alive now, no fewer. Now we see the latest survey shows increased #s in each species. Bears, bunnies, etc all have increased populations. Good! This addresses a big flaw, and I like it. Def keep this answer. Turns out this is the correct AC.

B. If we took a snapshot of wildlife total numbers we need to know those numbers aren't skewed. B is showing it IS skewed - we took a snapshot at the peak time.

If this is how you read B you made the same mistake I did. "Diversity" is not the same as gross numbers. If this AC read "in addition to total number increase, diversity increased as well." This would add support to the argument that wildlife has not been negatively affected by the development.

The issue with B is it does indicate the snapshot is skewed - it was taken during summer when the numbers look best. Also make sure to note diversity isn't the same as gross numbers.

C. If animals are migrating in, then what can we conclude about the numbers of animals within the park? No idea!! The argument is using the total number of animals in the park increasing as a premise. Now that number is skewed by outside interference. What if 100% of animals within the park died, and 200% that number migrated in? Certainly we can't say the development had no negative impact.

D. This is a great subtle AC which makes it a little hard to see why is wrong. What does it mean that we can locate hard to find animals now that we couldn't in the past? It means in the past we could find 8/10 animals and now we're finding all 10/10. This weakens the support that the premise gives to the conclusion. What if population numbers didn't increase and you're just finding the last 2/10 animals?

E. Plant life - what about alien life? Did they find SpongeBob and Patrick? This is a throwaway AC because I don't care about plants - plants don't have a place in the argument we're given.

Admin Note: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-71-section-3-question-25/

Hi 7Sagers

I'm planning on taking the October Flex but am struggling to improve my LG score. Currently I'm averaging around between 3 to 5 incorrect, and am hoping to reduce that to 0-2 by October, but not sure if that's being unrealistic :( I'm feeling a bit discouraged after taking PT 57 (the section with the infamous dinosaur game). I feel like my biggest struggles are finishing the section on time, not being able to draw my game board and draw global inferences as efficiently/quickly, and not knowing when to decisively split my game board.

I've already taken full practice tests: PT 1-20, and a couple from the 20/30/40/50's range and am planning on taking several more from those ranges and from the 60/70/80's range before I take the October test. I know it may not be ideal to take a few from each range instead of solving them chronologically, but I've heard it's good to practice with recent tests as well and I simply don't have the time to solve everything before the October test. I'm currently drilling PT 21-35 (games only), foolproofing those, and foolproofing all the LG sections from the full PTs I'm taking, but it's frustrating to see close to no improvement.

Do you guys have any advice on how to improve LG score in a month, and if this is even the most efficient method? Not sure if I should focus on solving more games before test day (even if that means I have less time to foolproof and review previously solved games), or focus on perfecting the ones I've solved before (even if that means I have less time to solve games either in drills or in full PTs).

Also, is it worthwhile to foolproof games based on game type (so today I foolproof Pure Sequencing games only, tomorrow Grouping In+Out only, etc.)

Open to hearing any of your guys' thoughts - Thank you so much!

Hi - I wasn't sure under which category this question would fit so I chose LR. I am drilling diff types of LR questions from the Question Bank. Is there a way to get analytics for these questions? I only see analytics if we take a full PT.

I've done this problem twice on two separate occasions, and predicted the wrong assumption both times. When I read the stimulus, I see a gap between the speed of the animal and the info. we're given in the premises, which is the energy afforded by surface area and the energy needed to be overcome by the weight. Could someone please tell me why this isn't a relevant assumption?

Regardless of the overall difficulty of an LR section, I seem to always miss exactly 2 or exactly 3 questions. Easiest, hardest, doesn't matter. Even more frustrating is that one of them is usually a level 3 difficulty, and something I get immediately on BR and wonder "why the hell did I choose X over (correct) Y?"

In general, these incorrect choices are usually the result of me reading a convincing (but incorrect) answer choice wrong. I usually know in the moment that something is off, but I don't figure out the "why" in time.

How can I eliminate these fringe misreads that are keeping me from a higher score? What internal monologues can help me read answer choices correctly when I'm doubtful of my first interpretation?

I've been going over correlation causation and it's closely related cousin phenomenon hypothesis arguments and I realized a very important distinction. Phenomenon hypothesis (hereafter known as PH) deals with cause and effect whereas correlation causation deals with cause and effect over time. Here's why this is important:

Nicole Hopkins has a great webinar in the 7sage archives about weakening and strengthening arguments. She says we can strengthen arguments by showing more data that A->B, block an alternate explanation C->A&B, or block no relation between A and B. I'd like to additionally state that chronology can impact an argument as well. If we say A->B, staying that A did indeed come before B strengthens the argument. If B came before A how could A->B?

The important concept I realized was that in many PH questions the above methods don't cut it. In 70.1.6, 70.1.12, and 80LR1.23, we need to use a different approach: if cause, we want to see the effect. If no cause, no effect.

The arguments say "here's a phenomenon, here's my hypothesis." This is implying a casual relationship between A and B. But if I show the effect with no cause, what happens to the hypothesis? It's weakened. If I show your cause with it's effect, this strengths. Too, "no cause no effect" is a very subtle way of strengthening an argument.

Did I miss a PDF for the valid vs. invalid forms or are they just in the videos?

Gosh, this question was hard.

Can anyone explain why B is not a weakener?

I thought B weakened because, if most people in the painting did resemble real people from history, then if we follow the author's logic, this would mean that any of those people could also be the painter of the painting.

Any #help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

Admin Note: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-88-section-2-question-24/

Could anyone elaborate what the difference between the two types are? I cannot for the life of me figure it out! Would appreciate greatly for any help :).

I didn't realize it at the time, but what I considered to be my proactive, go-get-em study technique of making my own problem sets of Logic games to practice has now spoiled almost ALL of the practice tests I have access to! Doing the games in the test, I keep coming across ones that I have done before. Beating myself up right now, I wish I had thought to check if they were the games from the Ptests I was going to take in the future. It's still good practice, but I don't think my scores are genuine. Not sure what to do :(

I always seem to crash and burn (-7/8) on that.

Any ideas on what I should be doing?

So far I have been doing drills from easiest to hardest, then focusing the strategies off all question types.

Thank you!

I've never fully understood why one LR section of the LSAT has 25 questions and the other 26, but I always find myself pressed for time on the 26 question version. Often, it seems like those questions aren't any easier to make up for the additional time constraint. I understand the questions on the FLEX are supposed to be 'balanced', but do we know if there is going to be 25 or 26 questions on the section? Thanks!

Hi there,

I'm at the point of my study where I'm drilling LR questions by type.

I am starting with Must be True/MSS because they're foundational.

What should I follow up with?

Thanks

Hi,

I have had fluctuating results on LR. I have been consistently scoring at the 166 level. I have broken into the 170s twice, and those times I managed -1 to -3 on LR. However, I have tests where I miss around 9 on on the LR and it really drags my score down [on BR I get almost every question I flag correct (scoring 170-174)]. I have been consistently scoring -3 to -4 on RC and -0 on LG.

So far, I have taken 14 PT's (36-50). If anyone would please share what specific steps they took to achieve consistency on LR I would really appreciate it. I am hoping to utilize your advice to make the most of PT's 51-89. It feels like I've hit a plateau for weeks now and it's incredibly frustrating.

Best Regards,

Noah

I was making a note to myself that in grouping games, if they tell you there are X amount of groups and they don't give any rules regarding who can go in which group number, then I shouldn't worry about making game boards based on if M can go in groups 1, 2, or 3 because it doesn't matter, as long as it isn't with P.

Don't let the group numbers interfere with your game.

Get it? Game?

Where are my New Yorkers at who would get this?

Though these questions don't appear on every PT I tend to go 50/50 on whether or not I get these right. Sometimes the right answer speaks to me, other times I have no clue; either way it's pure intuition and I'm curious if anyone has some advice for how to approach these questions more systematically?

Are there any types of cookie cutter wrong / right ACs?

I'll throw out something that I ~think~ I picked up from looking at one of these questions - an attractive, though albeit wrong, AC is one that is internally coherent (makes sense) but goes off in a tangential direction.

I usually got -4 to -6 on RC, and -4 on the rest of other sections on PTs. I have significant improvement on the other two sections following blind review method, but Reading Comprehension is the section that I found no improvement after 2 months of full-time studying.

I saw people mentioned to figure out the relationships between various subjects and opinions and to anticipate the answer after reading question stems, but I found it very difficult to do so. I usually can get a fair understanding on the structure and any shifts from paragraph to paragraph, but I found it insufficient to answer inference questions.

There are usually at least 3-4 different subjects and opinions in a passage. The relationships among them are extremely difficult to keep track of. For difficult passages, the subject matters and different people's opinions themselves are difficult to understand, not to mention handling their relationships with each other. For example, in a passage (PT30, S3, P2) there is a debate going on about Greek Dramas tragedies written by an author X, and 3 scholars give different and distinct opinions on what lead to the consequences. When I read, I understood that there was a debate going on, and three scholars give different opinions about the same subject, which is Greek drama tragedies. But one question asks what is the difference between the opinions of scholar No2 and scholar No3, I can't summarize the difference, even after going back to read it one more time.

Convoluted answer choices add another layer of difficulties to the questions, which sometimes give me trouble, since I am not a native English speaker. But this problem is a minor one compared to the former. These all give rise to trouble when doing inference questions.

Does anyone have experience on improving skills on handling relationships and make inference upfront? Or any general advice on how to deal with these problems? And if any of you know a tutor can help with these issues, tell me please. I'd really appreciate your help, and thank you in advance.

Good luck studying, everyone!

Just wondering if anybody could explain this sufficient assumption question (PT 15 S3 Q18)

I really think E is the answer. But B turned out to be the correct one. Can someone please elaborate on why B would be the correct one and not E? thanks in advance

Admin Note: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-31-section-2-question-19/

Why was this B, not C?

How would y'all translate this into "lawgic":

"He's nothing if not lazy" ??

Hi everyone- can anyone point me to the hardest LR questions that they have ever seen implicating numbers, percentages, market share etc.?

Is there anything I can do between now and the August LSAT to bridge this gap? RC used to be my best subject. I don't run out of time. I do the same methods every time I take it. Yet results widely vary. Please advise. My LG and LR are consistent with little variance (except improvement over time) and so RC is literally gatekeeping me. I scored 159 on July LSAT. On my practice tests when I score well on RC I am getting around 165. This is making me cry. Had my lowest PT today in a long time (156) because of the - 13 on RC.