So since beginning my LSAT journey in April 2018, I've seen my RC improve as I worked through PT's 1-60. However, after taking a few PT's in the 70's my RC score has plummeted. I've noticed that the passages are similar and I am not having an issue understanding the passages.. However, the answer choices seem more convoluted to me and even through BR I have a very hard time understanding and learning from trap answer choices. Another problem is that drilling earlier PT's is not helping and I can't drill the 70's and 80's for RC purposes since I'm saving them for full tests. I would appreciate any advice on how to improve and learn from my mistakes.

Currently, I'm following the syllabus and in middle of the MSS questions sets. While I got almost all of the early--and easy--question sets correct, I haven't kept that up for the more difficult ones. My question is, is that normal, and am I expected to know how to answer these difficult questions without any knowledge of logic (that's the order the syllabus has them)?

Hi,

I've gone through the entire CC, but i'm still have trouble being able to translate passages to their Conditional Reasoning equivalencies intuitively or with enough speed and accuracy. What tools to people use to internalize conditional reasoning translations?

Also with weakening questions I tend to just as easily talk myself out of the correct answer on the grounds of it making assumptions. What are strategies y'all use to approach weaken questions? Thanks!

I am talking for example the viruses or dinosaurs (PT 79 and PT 57).

These are the kinda games that look like things might fall into place once we get into the questions, but they actually don't.

However, the logic is fairly usual when you think about it.

So, when this happens on the actual PT, esp seeing as how LG is a section where one can get the most points, how to not be frazzled and work through a proper strategy?

Am I allowed to post about the fairy circles question and get help having someone explain why the answer is what it is? Delete if I’m not. I just really don’t get it.

When doing this question, I could not agree with JY's explanation no matter how many times I've heard it. I simply think his reasoning on why he eliminated answer choice A is incorrect. In absolute terms, the rain will definitely increase, because we know the proportion of precipitation as rain has also increased, so in relative terms too, rain has increased more compared to snow.

To me, this answer choice can only be eliminated because of the use of "probably" in both the answer choice and in the stimulus. How should I understand the use of probably, though?

Should I think of it as "in most cases", meaning, in more than 50% of the cases? In that case, I suppose that just like how when given A-most->B-most->C, we can't make any inferences between A and C, in this question, the two cases of "probably" disconnect the causal relationship in the argument, and therefore does not actually strengthen the argument?

What do you guys think of my reasoning, and my analysis on "probably"? The more I think about it, the more it makes sense, and I think as I was typing this out, I've convinced myself that this is the correct reasoning for eliminating A.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-71-section-1-question-12/

Hi guys,

I am progressively getting worse at LR. My first handful of PTs I was -4 on average. The next batch was around 5 and 6. I took last week to review my CC in depth on the question types I was missing most and today I am -9 and -11.

I am scoring 50/50 with Flaw and struggle with NA too. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated! I went from 167, to the mid 160s, to today in the 150s. Really confused and disheartened to be getting worse scores with time...

Thanks!

how would you negate "either few customers would want free gift wrapping or most customers would want it"?

I took the LSAT for the first time in September and didn't get the score I wanted, so I'm retaking in November. Does anyone have tips to help prepare for a 2nd attempt? Should I just study my weak areas and continue to take PTs? I want to make sure I am fully prepared the second time around. Let me know what you think!! :)

Hello fellow 7sagers,

I am feeling a bit discouraged, as the LG Section has been destroying my confidence and overall my score. As a whole, I am pretty solid on on the RC and LR sections, but the LG section has been holding me back. My problem is i cannot identify which game board to use via the word problem prompt. I am somewhat confident in my abilities to solve the problem but getting to the game board and knowing which one to use has been difficult. I have been scoring on average -11 to -16 on LG sections. Anyone have any tips or advice on how to decipher these prompts in order to identify which game board to use?

I am confused because the correct answer to this question seems like it's a necessary assumption and not a sufficient assumption, as the question stem would describe it to be. I generally regard necessary assumptions to be the "bare minimum" standard. It seems that "societies being geographically isolated enough not to have been influenced by any other society" only allows for, and does not guarantee, the conclusion to be drawn. When I really analyze the question I guess I could see how it's sufficient, but am I crazy to think that this reads so similarly to a necessary assumption? Is there a helpful technique for distinguishing the two in a situation like this?

Admin note: edited title

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-60-section-1-question-22/

I was wondering if the following answers are all correct predictions for the following Sufficient Assumption question.

Every student who walks to school goes home for lunch. It follows That some students who have part-time jobs do not walk to School.

Diagramed as: WS -> GHL

/GHL->/WS

---------------------------

PT some /WS

My predictions:

a. Some students who do not go home for lunch have a part-time job.

b. Every student who does not go home for lunch has a part-time job.

c. Most students who do not go home for lunch have a part-time job.

Thank you :)

Hi Guys!

Ive have been a member of the 7Sage community since December. I have been to BR sessions, Webinars, and have done the classes. I got my September score. Using the 7Sage Predictor, I atleast have a decent chance of getting into one of the schools I wanted. 11% for my dream school but hell Ill take what I can get and apply.

I started from a ghastly diagnostic score of 136! and most forums talked about how you can only get up to 10 points. I call BS on that because I am one of the outliers that proved those forums wrong. Albeit Im not the golden-180-unicorn, my point increase is more than 10. So for those worrying about their diagnostic score, take it with a grain of salt. I think as long as you work hard and actually push yourself to improve it is possible to get a decent score. Live and Breathe LSAT (for now). If becoming a badass lawyer is your dream, it will take courage and perseverance to get there. By the words of Mr. Specter, "I believe in work, I dont **** with luck". I still have a long way ahead, but 7Sage videos and the community made the LSAT bearable.

I was wondering what other people feel about their scores? This community has kept my sanity intact, and I want to give back.

What do you guys feel about your September 2018 score? Was it what you expected? What will be your action plan from here on out? Applications, Retake, etc.

Vent or Celebrate down below

Hey 7Sagers,

Here's the official September 2018 LSAT Discussion Thread.

**Please keep all discussions of the September 2018 LSAT here!**(/red)

We know that everyone will be excited to discuss what was on the September 2018 LSAT, but here are some ground rules:

✅ Saying that the test was hard/easy is okay!

For example, you can say "LG section was hard!"

❌ Don't talk specifics about the test. (e.g. "I got B for the main point question of the judicial passage" or "the 3rd LG was sequencing") It can get both us and you in a lot of trouble! ☠️

✅ You can say which sections were real or experimental.

For example, asking questions like “Was the LG with "flowers" experimental?” is okay. You can say “The LG section with "flowers" was real!”

❌ You cannot say “the 3rd game of the real section was In/Out game.”

TL;DR: PLEASE don't talk specifics about the September 2018 LSAT!

Have fun discussing!

Hey guys!

I was hoping someone could possibly shed some light on this question. My break down of the stimulus is:

Conclusion: all whale- hunting should be banned

Premise 1: a ban on the whaling of endangered species cannot be enforced without banning the whaling of all other species

Premise 2: hunting endangered whale species should be banned

When I read the explanation in the book, they mention that premise 1 tells us that “a choice has to be made: either we do without an effective ban on the hunting of endangered species or else we ban the hunting of nonendangered species. The argument comes down in favour of banning the hunting of nonendangered species but provides no justification for preferring this choice over the alternative”

The problem I’m having is that I initially viewed that as a conditional statement. I dont see how we could chose between two options.

Any insight on this would be super helpful!

Thanks guys! :)

Admin note: edited title

Why can't you split using the MY not both rule? #help

All,

On the 7Sage LR flowchart I cant figure out what “piece together the information” entails.

Any input on this would be greatly appreciated.

Tjanks

Hey y'all,

Since I've already taken PT 60 to 68, I have been foolproofing games in these PTs alongside ones in 1 all the way up to 40 and A, B, C, Feb 97 and C2. I personally like this combination very much. But I haven't touched PTs in the 70s yet.

With the exception of the last game in 72 and the virus game in 79, would you say games in the 70s are more or less very similar to games from 60 to 68? I'd like to know whether foolproofing games in the 60s(I've repeated each and every one of them at least 3 times thus far) in addition to the old PTs has prepped me well for the 70s or not.

Thank you :)

Probably the thousandth person to ask this, but how can I improve my time on LG? I can go either -0 or -2 now, but it takes me an hour to figure out all four games completely. I do the game board up front and don’t have to really refer to the stimulus that much (or at all) after I’ve made my board, but I do know that figuring out which game board to use can take me some time, and shaking loose the inferences takes me a while. Looking for concrete tips. TIA

Hey 7Sage community,

I fluctuate between -5 to -12 on RC with little consistency, which really grinds my gears given how much I've tried to improve RC. I've honed in my notation, worked on parsing difficult argument structures in previous RC passages and even in my extracurricular reading, and avoid referencing the passage under timed conditions unless a question specifies a line or word. Can't say it's the science passages that get me specifically, since I usually find them to be the most straight-forward. I'd chalk up my RC pitfalls to two things: (1) I always run out of time -- I'm usually hitting the 30 minute mark when I'm about to start the 4th passage; (2) I find "Most Strongly Supported" questions are the ones that invariably give me the most trouble.

Bearing in mind these two issues, does anyone have any tips and tricks that have helped them improve their RC performance?

I always see posts about timing for RC for people who have completed the CC and have decent fundamentals, but are having trouble going faster. Although I consistently still get -2 on RC, here's what I went through, to achieve a decent speed.

In the past, RC was always my weakest section, and in both actual tests, I ran out of time. Here's more details on the 2 things I did:

For example, on the September LSAT, there was a law passage that I honestly had no idea what it was talking about, but I knew what the author was trying to say, and how he or she felt about it. And from experience, I knew that even if I read it again, I simply wouldn't get it, because I lacked the technical knowledge.

If you're like me, and have relatively little background with law, this is a 6th sense you have to develop to do well in RC, and can only develop through doing countless difficult RC passages and analyzing each one slowly. I timed every passage, analyzed how big a difference it made in my understanding when I read it twice, on what type of topics were the differences the largest (which is how I knew rereading law passages were ineffectual for me), and timed every question, did them twice, and on the second time, analyzed any questions that took me over a minute and why it took me over a minute, and if possible, compared it to JY's live recordings for the same passage (I did this on top of the standard BR process, of course. In case you're wonder about the specific order: I do the BR after my second attempt, check for wrong answers after that, and then compare with JY's live recording last). This leads me to my second thing.

After recording, you then compare it to JY's recordings to see what you 'should' have done. This shaved off 4-5 minutes of my time, because I found out I refer back to passage way too often when I had no reason to (well, there's always reasons to refer back, but the cost/benefit is too high). This led me to develop my personal golden rule, which helped me shave off the 5 minutes: only refer back to the passage if the question refers to a specific section, or if you eliminated the answers down to 2 choices and remember where one of the two choices is in the passage; otherwise, just circle it and skip. Statistically, unless you can easily finish the section with 10 minutes left over, if you refer to the passage outside of those two specific conditions, then you are wasting more time than you have. Just imagine referring back to multiple parts of the passage and trying to compare them. We do this all the time in BR, but it takes at least a minute or two, time that you cannot afford on the real test. Side note: if you find yourself reading the answer choices more than twice, skip, because for RC, the stimulus is so large and confusing that it's much more unlikely for you to have an "Ahah!" moment when you re-read a question and it's answers, compared to LR.

Hope this helps someone.

I just got my scores back from the September lsat and scored eight points below my average PTs. Could this be a fluke? I did have trouble bubbling in my answers on time. Does anyone know if we can request a copy our of exam with the scantron sheet?

Also, I am applying to law school for the Fall of 2018. Would it be too late to apply in November? Do I still have a shot at getting into schools?

Hi there. I live in Asia. But as it turns out, I'm travelling to the US in November and I was wondering whether I can take the November LSAT there, even though I'm not a citizen or a resident. I'm guessing it shouldn't matter? Anyone know anything about this?

For those of you who mastered logic games, how long did it take you? I’m considering retaking in November, but I don't know if that's enough time to go from -8 to 0 in LG

Hi wonderful people,

I am just reaching the end of the LR portion of the CC and I am feeling good, but nervous for logic games. Do you think I should review all of the LR i studied from the beginning for a few days and then move to logic games, or just carry on or alternatively, do both at the same time.

Any advice and encouragement for logic games is appreciated :')