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! :)

So I'm going -2 to -6 per section on LR.

I am missing a wide range of questions it's not just a specific question type. Does anyone have some advice or what has helped them for prepping?

I'm using all the time allotted.

BR'ing to -1 or -2.

What have you guys done to get LR down to -0?

Hey all,

So for some SA Q that use logic and are formulaic, there are cases where there are 2 premises in the stimulus, and it turns out that you're only supposed to use one as the "bridge" or "link" to get to the conclusion. The other premise is thus USELESS. How do you know/decide which premise to use?

An example is PrepTest June 2007, Section 2, #23.

2 premises are stated in the stimulus. You then have to figure out the common sense assumption that one element in the conclusion links up to ONE premise, and then use that as the bridge to the conclusion. the other premise is thus useless/nonrelavent.

it's easy to say this now after knowing the correct answer choice, but when you're doing SA questions on the fly and you're presented with multiple premises/bridges/conditional statements, how do you know which one to use, and on the flip sides, which ones are useless?

Many thanks for the help.

Hi everyone,

I'm gearing up for June and LG is holding me back from easily scoring in the 170s. Over the last four PTs I'm averaging -6.5 on this section. I've been studying for over half a year, and I already did PT 1-35 FPing. Before the last four PTs I used to go approximately -3 (never -0), but now I'm -6.5. I even took two weeks off from PTing in March to focus on LG--did drilling by type, but on the two PTs afterwards I got -5 and -6 on LG. Worth mentioning that I do the pacifico method with each new weekly PT I take.

As expected, I BR 100% nearly every time. During the exam here's what I think happens: I go too slow (feel this most during my setups; often feel rushed for the last game/or the game I skip and come back to at the end), my setups aren't 100% (sometimes I freeze while diagramming/miss an opportunity to optimally diagram), I make avoidable (in hindsight) mistakes with questions. I've also been running a list of every mistake I've made, if anyone wants more info.

Maybe my procedure is sloppy? (I also wrote up a worddoc describing my ideal procedure, lol I'm trying everything.) Idk what's up. Getting frustrated because this is the section everyone says is easiest to improve on, but it doesn't seem that way for me.

Now I'm at a loss as to how to improve and would appreciate targeted help. I know I need to do more drilling but I want to be efficient about it before June. Should I be doing more sets of LGs from new PTs? Does this sound like time pressure anxiety?

Would really appreciate any words of advice (3(/p)

The question stem in this question reads: "In order for the conclusion that Bevex is safe for people to be properly drawn, which one of the following must be true?"

Before doing blind review, I labelled this question as a MBT question (as is also labelled on 7Sage). However, after some thought, this question seems much better suited as a SA question. Does anyone agree?

Hello 7sage community! This is my first time posting here but I've been reading the forum for quite some time. I'm posting as I have a question from prep test 53 (https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-53-section-1-question-09/). I'm wondering why answer choice A is a necessary assumption. The answer choice is that the decline in population of nesting females is proportional to that of the larger population My thought is that this is not a necessary assumption as the argument's conclusion could still be valid if the general population was declining MORE than the nesting female population (which would mean the decline was not proportional). This also made me wonder whether a necessary assumption relates to the argument or conclusion. In other words, is an assumption necessary if its falsehood destroys the argument but still allows for the possibility of the truth of the conclusion? Thank you in advance for the help.

NOTE: I edited this post because I was unaware that we could not directly quote the test. My apologies.

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I've been studying for about four months now, at first I started out getting -8 on LR. I did the core curriculem, and I'm still getting -8 on LR. I go back and BR, I write down the types of questions I got wrong. I go back to core curriculem or the LSAT trainer and focus on those questions. The one silver lining is, I'll get -5 every now and then on my second LR section, and it's always my second LR section that I do better on, but yea. I know this takes a while but it's just very frustrating. Not sure what to do guys. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

does anyone else find that they do worse on LR practice problems from tests before 2001? I find myself struggling with old problems more, particularly the vocabulary.

@mkang89

Correct answers in MSS questions are almost always one of two types: restatement of an idea from the stimulus or the conclusion of the stimulus (which was left unsaid in the stimulus).

But I've noticed a slight variant of the latter where the right answer choice asks us to identify a sub-conclusion -- slight more complex since we need to account for the premises and the conclusion stated in the stimulus. As a result, these operate a lot like a bridging question.

In 52.3.23, the stimulus gives us two survival benefits of HS and concludes from that support that a dense colony could survive indefinitely. That conclusion isn’t supported very strongly at all. There is so much we don’t know. But we need to accept the stimulus as true: these premises support that conclusion. It feels a lot like a bridge which means we are likely pushing out a sub-conclusion from the stimulus.

A. "If there was a dense colony then that colony would be capable of carrying out the two benefits indefinitely" (paraphrase). This is perfect -- it connects the survival benefits in the premises to the indefinite time horizon in the conclusion and in that way receives support.

B. This gives us a little more info about how one of those survival benefits operates but that's not supported by anything in the stimulus.

C. We don't know anything about "most organisms"

D. "If this bacteria thrives indefinitely, then HS has removed all oxygen and killed some organisms". There are two big problems here. First, it says these HS survival benefits are necessary for indefinite thriving. That's just not supported. What if we put the bacteria in a highly controlled lab environment with no oxygen and plenty of food which didin't need to be killed? Second, the stimulus doesn't say that all oxygen has to be removed.

E. Any colony? Ensures? Not supported in the least.

46.4.09 is another example of such a MSS although I think it is much more difficult.

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Planning on taking the September 2018, unless I just feel so confident that I decide to take June/July, so I will FINALLY be able to study full time during the summer and would love a study/accountability buddy especially if you will be PT-ing during the summer. I would also love to know if anyone has a specific study schedule that they follow for studying full time, I have never had the opportunity to do anything but work full time and study once I got home so I am really trying to make that before I make the transition from working 8 hours a day to studying most of the day because I know myself, and I know that without structure my time tends to fly by. If you have a day/study schedule with extensive detail that would be amazing and any other suggestions, tips what to-dos , and what NOT to-do list please share!

The correct answer choice (E) states that the argument "implies that brains and muscle are similar in one respect because they are similar in another respect." If the first respect refers to being able to improve if exercised, what is the latter respect?

Is this a PSA or SA? Or is it a principle question?

"Which one of the following principles most helps to justify the mathematics teacher's argument?"

I did see a post on distinguishing these argument forms a little while ago, but my question is when are these applicable? I only imagine that these are helpful with SA, PSA, F/DW, type questions, though I imagine it could be useful in all question types. Are there any other sections of the LSAT where this lesson will be needed? How often/where do you find yourself coming back to these forms while studying or PTing?

Finally done with the LR section of CC and going through my notes.

I dont remember which exact LR question this is from but I remember one of the questions said something along the lines of "doing A will ensure that B happens."

I have in my notes A -> B, but I want to make sure I didnt write that down wrong.

It sounds like A is sufficient for the occurence of B, not that A is necessary to make B happen.

Thoughts?

Hello Everyone,

I Just finished going through all the CC. I am also taking the June 2018 Test. I haven't taken a diagnostic yet and plan to do it this weekend and then from there work on the BR method in all areas for a month till May 11 (planning to purchase all the LSAT Bibles as well and incorporate them for my month long BR session) and then do timed PT's from May 11 till the test date on June 11. I have been working full time M-F 8-5 while doing the CC and plan to do so for the rest of my studies for the LSAT. I wanted to know peoples thoughts on my current game plan and that if I score below a 150 on my diagnostic test and given my current study plan while working full time, would the June 2018 test date be worth it or should I wait till the September 2018 LSAT?

Gracias.

Hey guys, I'm doing some LR drills and I can't seem to wrap my head around the correct answer for this question. Here's my lawgic for the stimulus:

L(LCF) --> FA --> ~~MR~~

L~~LCF)~~ --> S --> ICW --> MR

~~S~~ --> ~~ICW~~ --> ~~MR~~

When doing the drill, I picked C because: S --> ICW --> ~~MR~~ must be false. The sufficient is satisfied so the rule must trigger, which means that MR can't be negated.

According to the question bank, though, D is the correct answer. My lawgic translation for that choice is as follows: ~~S~~ --> ~~ICW~~ --> ~~MR~~

It seems to me that D could be true. I know I'm missing something, but I just can't see it. Any insight, my friends?

Hey everyone,

Ever since I've been studying, I've had some trouble with parallel flaw/reasoning questions. Not really sure what it is about them that's giving me so much trouble, but out of all the question types, I've seen the least improvement with these two. How do you approach these questions? What is your strategy, and what, if anything, helped you perform consistently well on these two question types?

Thanks for the help.

I wanted to get the community's concensus on this question.

[A] after an intense BR is wrong, i beleive, bc the proponents of papercrete dont ever claim that its promising for small scale projects. They just beleive its promising for large builidings. Thoughts?

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Hi 7Sages,

I am facing a bit difficulty in dealing with the ACs of the MSS type of questions.

I want to ask about the best way to deal with these ACs.

When you go through each of the ACs, what do you try to do just after reading it?

Do you try to find reasons as to why that AC might be wrong ie Like trying to find a flaw which might occur here? Finding a subtle flaw is bit of a problem on my part. I am lacking in that respect.

Or Do you try to support the AC and try to find possible reasons how the AC can be the conclusion supported by the premises given in the question?

Thanks and Regards :)

Hi guys

After fool proofing LG some time, I found out that I tend to make some small but potential fatal mistakes during game setup under timed drilling.

For example, I will misread "A immediately before B" as " A immediately before or after B" because I was thinking some similar games associated with the later rule while I was writing down the former rules.

It's really annoying and a bit frustrating to lose points on easy games. On the contrary, I tend to have a higher accurate rate on many of harder games during timed drilling.

I am trying to find ways to get rid of this tendency. Anyone has similar experience ？

Thanks

For some reason during the introduction videos, I kept getting these questions wrong. I am quite confused and at this point am very frustrated with myself. So if anyone has any tips or some type of guidance that helped them solve these type of questions let me know.

I think this is the first question I've come across that I truly don't understand. I don't think I'm getting what the "obvious alternative" is. Not sending police officers? Dying here, plz help.

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Hi 7Sages,

I have a confusion in representing "if then must" conditions.

Suppose there is a sentence given as :

If N is not selected then T must be selected .

So, is the representation like this?

not N -> T

contrapositive is

not T -> N

If here, N is satisfied then does the rule drops away and does T becomes a floater ?

Since there is a 'must' keyword involved..I am confused.

Please clarify this.

Thank you.

I know there are so many threads on how to squash RC on here. But I really feel like I'm a rare case of someone who sucks harder than average at RC. Like oh my god. Every PT I take, I go -0-3 on each section. Then RC rolls around and even during BR, I get like -10+. Like what the hell??? Please someone lol give me a hand. Teach me your ways. How do I own RC instead of RC owning me?!?!?!?! It's literally the only thing stopping me from hitting 175+

If the stimulus is formal logic and does not mention the word "should" and an AC is almost identical but uses the word "should" [i.e. "A" should be exercised only to "B" or to "C"] is this enough to disqualify it?

IMO it should be enough bc if the AC continues saying we have "A" and its not "B" therefore conclude = "C" this is not 100% bc maybe the person is not doing what he "should" do

Is my line of reasoning false?