Can someone explain the process of fool-proofing? What resources do you use? Does is matter if I fool proof before or after going through CC? How many months (average) does is take?

hey all,

in many of JY's LR explanation videos, he often visualizes the LR stimulus - either by drawing something, or diagramming, or putting some numbers down. Note : this 'writing stuff down' isn't just for conditional logic, but for other things as well.

often, i find that for very long and convoluted LR stimuluses, i need to write some things down to keep track of the various relationships among the various variables. this is especially true for LR questions that are very math heavy/a math problem in disguise.

anyway, do other people do this...or do they manage to just keep it all in their head? any advice or comments would be appreciated. thanks!

I know most people have a pretty hard time with RC and there are a host of issues going on. One issue that I think trips up a lot of people is familiarity. If you were an art history major who hates science, then that passage on chemistry is probably going to suck for you. The opposite is also true, as many of the writings on the humanities or law may be difficult for STEM experts. With all of the work everyone is putting in simply to go through the curriculum, learn the test, drill questions and do PTs, there isn't much time left to follow the common advice to read Science, Nature, The New Yorker, The Economist, etc. So what's an aspiring law student to do? One word: audiobooks. I searched the forum and couldn't find any mention of using them and so I thought I'd offer it as a possible solution for developing familiarity, and it won't even cost you a dime. A few months ago I got my first library card since I was a kid and started checking out a variety of audiobooks to listen to during my commute to work (~60-90 minutes roundtrip). While at first I grabbed whatever was new, or seemed to have an interesting premise, I eventually realized that I should use it to familiarize myself with areas I hadn't studied in a long time. I can't begin to say how much it has helped me on RC, as well as on a small handful of random LR questions that were a bit dense with scientific terminology. Simply passively listening to books on chemistry, cosmology, physics, etc. has helped me read scientific passages more easily, to the point that I now get somewhat excited when science passages come up whereas I used to slog through them. I find it is also much easier to read these passages once you have heard many of the words out loud rather than reading them on your own elsewhere and not knowing what they sound like for sure.

So in the interest of building this thread as a catalog of possible choices of audiobooks to go find at your local library, here are a few I have both enjoyed and found helpful so far:

The Disappearing Spoon And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean (very entertaining book about chemistry through the lens of the periodic table, he's also written a couple other books I'm going to hunt down since I like his writing/reading style, they're called The Tale of The Dueling Neurosurgeons, and The Violinist's Thumb)

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (pretty heady physics and cosmology for casual listening but generally it's amazing)

The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking (a much more accessible and more recent work)

I haven't done this yet but I want to do it before the end of this month, if you go to this link you can download oral arguments from the Supreme Court and then put them on your phone or MP3 player or a CD and then listen which should help with some of those dense law passages we encounter: http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio.aspx

If anyone has any other audiobooks or other audio resources to suggest just post them here and I'll add them to this list so everyone can find a quick and consolidated list to help save time while passively learning new things. Good luck everyone and I hope this helps y'all in your prep!

The questions is regarding the computer simulations vs. actual test crashes. Why B cannot be the answer? Is that because "highly likely" is not good enough to be a premise? Could anyone share your ideas? Thank you.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-81-section-3-question-12/

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#help

I have a quick question that I was hoping some of the more experienced LSAT takers might be able to answer (or maybe JY himself).

In one of the first couple of Reading Comp videos, JY says that if you don't understand something, you'll just let it slide. But often, it will just snowball into a bigger and bigger misunderstanding.

Later, in several of the other videos, JY says that it's important to be able to compartmentalize things that you don't understand, and to not let them impact your efficiency in dissecting the rest of the passage, since it might not be worth spending all that time trying to understand something that turns out to be relatively insignificant.

Can someone please help me reconcile this apparent discrepancy (had to make the LR joke :p )? Does anyone have ways of determining when it's necessary to fully understand something versus when it's not? If you could share some of your own experiences and results that would be awesome.

Thanks so much.

I’m looking at PT 70’s game 2 right now and I’m trying to understand the intuition behind question 12. “Which one of the following is a pair of employees at least one of whom must be on the team?” Would someone mind explaining to me how they know which members must be in in an conditional chain for an in-out game? Is the logic that it’s the friendly variable that doesn’t kick many other variables out?

Any help would be much appreciated!

Any suggestions on how to "foolproof" LR, especially LR questions you got wrong?

Also, any advice on how to get better at identifying and understanding LR cookie cutters? Thanks!

Hey all,

I know Blind reviewing is usually done before one looks at the answers, where one thinks to himself why one answer choice is 100% right and the other four are 100% wrong.

I wanted to hear your thoughts on "Blind reviewing" after you watch JY's LR video explanation. What I mean by this is that after you watch the video, maybe have some time distance away from that specific LR problem (like 1 or 2 days), and then go back to that question you got wrong and then really think and explain to yourself why 1 answer is 100% right and the other 4 are 100% wrong.

Granted, this is after you already watched the video explanation, but with this you're testing yourself to see if you REALLY understood the question and why you got it wrong...rather than tricking yourself that you fully understood the question simply because you watched JY's video explanation when in actuality you perhaps didn't really understand it. With this method, by dissecting wrong questions after having watched JY's video explanation, you're also trying to understand any "cookie cutter" lesson to be learned from that question, or find any general LR pattern.

I've heard top scorers do something similar to this where they cut out all their wrong LR questions and then review them scrupulously (re-resolve them, break down the grammar, fully analyze wrong answer choices and the right one, etc.) from time to time.

I've been realizing that sometimes when I redo LR questions, I get a same question wrong AGAIN, so this is just a way to really force myself to fully learn from my past mistakes. My LR score has for sometime hit a wall (-3/-4 per section) and i'm hoping to use this method of reviewing wrong LR questions to improve (granted I also blind review in the normal sense where I BR before looking at the right AC).

What are your thoughts 7sage?

Thanks.

hi guys,

can you guys help explaining to me as to what the difference is between answer choice (d) and (e)?

(d) says "some" and (e) says "many" but if I remember correctly, those two words are used interchangeably.

So I am confused as to why answer is (d) and not (e).

Thanks a bunch!

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I have noticed that one of my biggest issues is the time it takes me to do an initial set up for a game. For example, on a target 9 minute game I will literally spend 4 minutes setting up the game and still realize that I am going to have to do hypos for a number of the questions. Any pointers?

Hi Guys,

I am stuck in parsing a sentence. I can't understand its meaning.

Here is the passage..

The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downward. To have

done anything by which you earned money merely is to have been truly idle or worse. If the

laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats

himself. If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down

perpendicularly.

This line is taken Life without principles by Henry David.

Please help.TIA.

These questions always trip me up. Sometimes, the LSAT is asking for exact definitions and sometimes, as in this case, they are asking for context. I've been studying the stimuli to come up with a system of when they want which one. In this case, I chose E as that is the closest definition to initiatory. I believe the words "intended meaning" are the key here in that they mean context and not definition. Thoughts?

I'm thinking that the trick is to ask yourself "What perspective is used in the question? Are they asking for the WORD's meaning (ie. Definition) or for the AUTHOR's purpose/intended meaning (ie. Context)?"

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The school I'll be attending this fall said I could increase my scholarship by improving my LSAT score (even by 1 point!). So... What do you guys suggest I do to increase my RC score in such a short period? I rock games (thank you FP method!) and LR is my second best section, but RC was averaging -12 when I was PTing before the Dec test... I run out of time AND miss questions on the passages I am able to get through.

My Ultimate + ran out about a month ago, but I have hard copies of most PTs and have the Starter to review CC.

Thanks!

There's a common questions type in RC where they ask you to predict the first sentence in the next paragraph (ex. PT7.S3.Q7 and PT1.S1.Q27)

I seem to be having trouble with this question type at a high level. What's the best strategic approach for these? And does anyone have a good resource for drilling this question type. #help

Can someone pls explain how, after reading the setup, you would know this should be set up as a chart vs a double layer sequencing setup?? Thanks

Hi,

I have been doing untimed reading comprehension drill. I am still getting -12 wrong on the section.

Any tips on improving and how to drill properly for reading comprehension?

Hi Guys,

Can anyone explain the differences between

Marxism

Socialism

Communism

Capitalism

Fascism

Nazism

Differences between these with examples or any Video explanation?

Thanks in Advance. :)

When I do my problem set, do I need check explanation for every question even if I got it right?

Is 16 weeks enough time to boost my score? I really froze on the last one. This would theoretically be my last chance. I was getting 170s on practice tests but ended up with a 155 on the actual test. Awful. Thoughts? I could also wait and take it in September. I just don't know how good that long of a study period would do for me. Also...I fear that I have taken all of the practice tests.

Worth noting that I have yet to use 7Sage. I used another prep company before. It honestly was helpful (like I said, I was super pleased with my practice tests), but I would love to really sharpen my skills and crush all of the logic games with 7Sage.

Help!

I truly don't understand how the answer for this question is (a) and not (c). I literally spent an hour trying to come up with reasons as to why that could be but still can't seem to find an answer. Can someone please help? How is there an analogy being made here?

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I'm having serious trouble with weaken questions. I am only averaging about 1/2 correct. Could anyone help?

What is your plan of attack for weaken questions?

I'd love to hear some opinions.

Hey all,

(heads up: many words in this remark, but thanks so much in advance for reading and taking the time to help! i really appreciate it and am very grateful for everyone's thoughtful advice/comments :] )

I started LR usually around -14 total. After about 2 months of doing solely LR (I've also already spent 2 months doing LG), I've gotten LR down to around -8/-7 consistently (this score is after blind review. i usually correctly fix around 4 total Q's during BR, so prior to BR, my total LR misses would be like -11). After BR, my misses are about -4 on each LR sections (if I'm lucky I'll get a -3/-2).

When I do LR sections timed, I try to have a skipping strategy but I end up leaving 1 or 2 Q's (that are hard and I skipped) blank when time ends.

When I'm doing the LR section, I try to go 15 in 15 minutes, and then work from there. I can usually get 10 for 10 minutes, but then as I hit questions like #15-25, I find myself slowing down. I'll finish the section with like 4 minutes extra, but there will be 2-3 questions I completely skipped, and 3 circled questions that I was really unsure of. With those extra 4 minutes, I can usually finish only 1 or 2 of those questions I completely skipped, and then don't have enough time to check other questions I wasn't sure about. Sometimes I run out of time before I can get to 1 question I skipped.

I've gone through CC. I've also read LSAT trainer and Powerscore LR bible, but I think CC was much better and more thorough.

My LR misses have been pretty scattered, but I see that some of my weak spots are flaw, weaken, strengthen. With weaken/strengthen questions, I think one of my weaknesses is causation/correlation. I've missed a lot of these due to not realizing that a question is actually testing causation/correlation, and for failure to properly map out the causation/correlation logic and to think of the correct prephrases (X causes A and B, A causes B rather than B causes A, etc) when tackling these questions.

I've already drilled all of the weaken, flaw, and strengthen Q's in PT's 20-30, but am still struggling with them to a certain extent as I'm doing PTs. Over the past 2 months, I've also already done all the LR sections from PT 29-40.

I blind review after I do the section. As I stated earlier, the above misses (-8/-7) are my blind review scores. I've been getting -8/-7 on LR's for like the past 4 PT's I've taken -- even though I've been blind reviewing after each section and have drilled from PT's 20-30s.

The way I blind review - As i do a LR section, I circle questions that I'm not 100% sure I got right. I usually circle around 8-10 Q's for BR. After time finishes, I go back to those circled questions and then try to re work them out again with no time limit. When I try to rework them again, I read the stimulus, identify conclusion and premise, and then try to identify the concrete reasons why 4 AC's are wrong and 1 AC is right. This is all happening in my head, so I potentially might not be as rigorous in doing this as I should be. For many of these circle questions, I end up changing the answer, and sometimes my new answer is right, and sometimes the new answer is wrong.

My BR misses and misses in general are kind of all over the place. They can fall into several categories: 1) questions I'm completely spoofed where I'll change the answer like 2 times during BR and still get it wrong. 2) I was down to 2 AC's and picked the wrong one. 3) Silly mistake where I should've gotten it right - I just rushed too quickly and chose a wrong AC without clearly eliminating the rest of the AC's. 4) Overconfidence error - where I didn't circle the question in BR and chose the trap AC that 70% of other test takers chose as well (these are often the level 5 questions where there's a very attractive trap AC...an example is PT 40.1.23).

In general, many of my misses are level 3-5 questions, with many of them being level 4/5.

For questions I get wrong, I watch JY's video explanation and scroll through the comments for that question to see other ppl's explanation. I also go on Manhattan's LR forum and Powerscore's LR forum to look at other answer explanations/ways to look at the question.

I'm kinda frustrated that I'm hitting this -8/-7 LR wall, especially after trying to work hard to improve it. I really want to try to get my LR score down to like -2 per section. I've been mostly focusing on my BR score because if my BR score is still -7, how can I get my timed score down to -2? Trying to go step by step -- and to first get my BR score as low as I can, and then work on ramping up speed.

I'm starting to see the patterns/cookie cutters in the various LR sections, but I still get tripped/tricked by the harder questions, which is kinda frustrating. There are always like three or four level 5 questions in a LR section, and I often get a few of those wrong.

I think moving forward, I really want to reexamine/redo/review all of the wrong LR questions I got and just try to redo them in my head, systematically break them down, etc. I think I've done around 25 PT's in total, mostly from PT's 20-40, so if it's an average of like 10 LR questions wrong per test, I'll be reviewing about 250 wrong LR questions these next few days.

Any advice or suggestions moving forward to get my LR score down to like -2 per section?

Also, out of curiosity, how long did it take you guys to get your LR section down to -1/-2?

Thanks guys.

Hi all,

I am having issues with my speed while going through Reading Comprehension with roughly 5 mins remaining typically going into the last passage. Does anyone have any tips or tricks that could be of use?

Hey guys! I'm sure most of you, like me, get excited whenever JY says that a question is a curve breaker question and you happened to get it right. I know the question bank has questions organized by most difficult. But I was wondering if any of you have a few specific questions that have been deemed "curve breaker." I'm asking because I'd like to gather them all and hone in on them haha. These are the questions that stump even the highest scorers. I have horrible recollection of past specific preptests and which questions were hard but of course every test has them. So far I only have a couple specific ones in mind:

If you know any specifics, please comment! :)