Hey guys!

So, I've spent the majority of my study time focusing on LR and LG. I know I need to dive into RC but I'm not really sure how to go about it. I've read others notation strategies and have skimmed question types but I want to know if one is prioritized over the other.

Did you focus on getting your timing and notation right before diving into questions or, did you focus on the questions first?

Not sure how to be the most productive with my time when it comes to RC.

Any tips are greatly appreciated!

-M

I am having a very difficult time coming up with low resolution summaries during timed tests, I usually only do them for the first one or two paragraphs and then am pressed for time. I really appreciate the change in core curriculum with JY emphasizing this however it would be very helpful if the summaries were also included in the explanations! I have nothing to compare my summaries to.

Is anybody else struggling with this? For those of you whom have mastered this your input is appreciated!

Thanks,

Stephanie

G'day, 7sagers!

I have a hard time diagramming the logic in these questions but seem to be doing OK without diagramming and just going by the English alone. Will this ever come back and bite me in the arse? Should I work on getting better at mapping out the formal logic? I feel like my main issue is determining what to use as symbols in translating the English to lawgic. I tend to do better on LR than any other section, but still have room to improve. I also have difficulty with LG and feel that this may be an issue in that case. Any suggestions/ideas are appreciated!

-Brett.

It's the problem about sales representatives. I've read several explanations about this one on the Manhattan/PowerScore boards and sort of understand them, but am still really struggling because I just don't get how B is the correct answer. I can see how the other four might be wrong, but I'd at least like to know why this one is RIGHT as opposed to the other four being wrong.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-69-section-1-question-22/

Hi,

So I understand basic argument structures, but when it comes to complex arguments and intense language, I ended up missing the questions. When I look at it with no time pressure, I am able to strip arguments down to their basic structures, but under time, I do not do that. Are there any drills out there for this? Has anyone else run into this problem? Thanks in advance! :)

Im in the middle of BRing and i like AC E bc how does the author know that having so much artwork that can satisfy every taste imaginable will affect someones aesthetic fulfilment.

But AC D... does the author have to assume there is such a scenario? That some people have access to the contemporarys work and not others? Is it the word "many" that disqualifies it? Thoughts?

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-72-section-2-question-16/

After BR a LR section, how do you decide when it's helpful to watch JY's video explanation?

I think I might be over killing it right now. I'm probably watching videos for about 18 of the 25 LR questions. Perhaps it's a reflection of my confidence level. My reasoning is that I want to make sure that I'm thoroughly reviewing a question and possibly learning takeaways that I may not otherwise have gotten. But, I'm beginning to think there's a downside where I'm not using my time the most wisely and I'm somewhat boring myself.

I'm thinking of changing my criteria for which videos to watch based on: confidence errors, any questions I got incorrect during BR, and questions that took me over 90 seconds or that should have just been quicker. One LR section ranges from -4 to -7.

Any thoughts or advice?

I had a lot of trouble with this in drilling and BR. I believe what I was missing is the following:

Likelihood of theft

Average for theft-prone cars (with anti theft): 50%

Average for theft-prone cars (without anti theft): 80%

Average for non-theft-prone cars (with anti theft): 10%

Average for non-theft-prone cars (without anti theft): 8%

So yes, anti-theft devices do generally reduce the chance of theft, but if most anti-theft devices are on the most theft-prone cars, then there will still be a correlative relationship between these two.

Hey 7sage community! Quick question- I don't quite understand how we're supposed to correctly practice the memory method? When do you move from phase 1 to phase 2? Is it basically like full proofing LG? Should we be repeating passages until we've mastered them?

Thanks you guys are awesome!

Hi all,

I'm doing really well with LG/LR and am consistently improving in these areas.

RC, however, is a completely different story.

Quick background: I have been studying on and off since Dec. 2015, while working full-time & part-time simultaneously. Right now, I'm doing about 2 PT's and 2 BR's/week. I wrote Dec. 2016 and Feb 2017. I improved about 5 points on the latest write, putting me just barely at the average score for students (huge disappointment). Because it wasn't enough for admissions in Ontario, I am giving it another shot and writing in December again.

RC is still by far my weakest section. No matter what I do, I cannot seem to improve on timing. I find it so difficult to obtain enough info from the passages AND accurately answer all of the questions in under 7-9 min/passage. Along with the RC curriculum (which I plan to redo this week) I have turned to the Trainer. I consistently see the same advice: focus on the WHY, not the WHAT. Ok, easy, so I read and get a general idea of reasoning structure, relationships between paragraphs, fine. As soon as I do that, I run into EASILY 3-4 questions asking for specific meanings of words in sentences, or details from the passage. I have a general idea of where to find all of these details but I end up referring to the passage to re-read the necessary sentence anyway. Everything about RC is sucking up time for me. Long story short, I am finding RC impossible these days to the point that when I'm writing a test and I see RC, I immediately panic.

My shortcomings in RC have been mentally draining to the point that I have days where I wonder if law school is even for me. This kind of thought process is so far from my usual way of thinking that I am beyond frustrated with both myself and the exam. I do not give up. Anyone who knows me knows that I will make law school happen whether or not it's now or three years from now. I'm not changing my mind for anything or anyone. The LSAT, though, has made me come close.

It has a way of making you feel like such a failure, and I find myself putting in daily effort to change this mindset.

SOS people!!! Please helppp

Can someone please share with me the formal logic? I can't seem to arrive at the correct answer.

Hi guys. I am having trouble with an LR question.

PT 23 S3 Q14

Premises: If tax adopted -> Discontinue story hours -> parents inconvenienced

Conclusion: Tax reduction package not adopted

So in my mind to get to this we would have to know either that parents are not inconvenienced or story hours are not discontinued

so: ~(Parents incon) -> ~(discontinue story) -> ~(tax adopted)

Maybe I am not translating correctly, but I don't see how the correct answer D leads to this.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-23-section-3-question-14/

So I've compiled a very thorough list of all of the LR problems that I've missed or struggled mightily with on previous PTs, and have gone over them again by doing them as if they were real LR sections - doing 26-27 problems at a time in 35 minutes. I'm still missing anywhere from 2-5 of them each "section." These are the problems I now see that I truly struggle with. I was wondering what's the best way to tackle these problems going forward?

I currently approach problems first by identifying the structure and conclusion of the argument if there is one, looking for key words and phrases (e.g. "some people"; "minimal risk"), and tricky/subtle changes in subject (e.g. premise discusses mammals but conclusion mentions marine reptiles).

When I compiled the list, I made sure to look for trends in the types of questions I was missing (necessary assumption, weaken, etc.) But how can I hone this strategy to the few problems I missed again? I feel like there are specific and various tricks employed within each question type.

Tips & advice welcome, thanks in advance.

Under question #2 in this section, JY uses the conditional indicator "If" to translate the sentence to the sufficient part instead of "Any" at the beginning of the sentence. Can someone explain why this is? If there are two conditional indicators from the same group listed in the sentence, which one are we supposed to use as sufficient and which one should we use for necessary?

I haven't taken very many full prep tests yet, but so far I'm noticing in my trends that I am overall improving in LG and RC, but my LR gets worse when I'm working in newer PT's (tests in the 60s and maybe 50s also). It's really frustrating because as I'm doing the questions, I feel ok about them. But then during BR I'm seeing how many I got wrong and it's not usually any particular question type or any one reason I'm getting it wrong. I'm a little all over the board. I don't seem to have this problem with earlier tests though (30s and 40s). Any insight to the evolution of the LR questions? Have they just gotten harder? More sneaky answers? It's so frustrating to see my score actually going down over time because I'm bombing those so hard! Argh.

Questions like these are tougher for me to find guidance when I am stuck since there are not videos or explanations for them. So can anyone please help me understand why C was the answer and not D.

Do you answer every question by the 25 minute mark? Or do you skip some?

How do you pick which questions to re-do in your extra time (obviously if you haven't skipped any questions)? How do you know which ones you made mistakes in? Do you gauge importance based on your confidence level?

So about a month out from the September test and I'm feeling....okay. There is one kind of questions that really bothers me though. Flaw. People always tell me that "in repetition you'll eventually get them" and that they repeat. Well I'm like 20 PT's in at least and they still look pretty foreign to me. It's specifically the flaw questions with abstract answer choices.

"Presents only evidence whose relevancy to the issue raised by the opponents has not been established."

Presents stuff that is not relevant?

Okay but the amount of time it takes me to translate each AC out, and then to figure out what is going on, is far to great. Even then I still choose wrong a great deal of the time.

One method that has not worked for me is the Trainer. That book is very vague. 1+2 =/=3 doesn't help me, my mind doesn't see it as such.

How do you handle flaw questions?

Hi friends,

Wondering if anyone else is having a similar problem: I was scoring -0 or -1 in RC on the older tests, but in the 60s and 70s, I'm trending towards -4 or -5. I'm sort of depending on ace-ing RC to keep my score within my target range. Does anyone have any tips for what to look for in the newer RC sections, or else how to practice not falling for the subtle differences? I'm currently planning on writing in September.

Thanks a million!

From a fun video!

See if you can summarize the content from the video, low/high res, RC style. Try to use the words "phenomenon" and "hypothesis".

Hi All,

I've made an observation regarding Main Point questions on some of the most recent RC passages (70s primarily). I was reading a post on the Manhattan Prep LSAT forum, where another poster verified my suspicion. I want to share my observation with you below in the hope that it will help someone approach Main Point questions in the future.

Historically, the LSAT writers have favored answer choices that encompass the main point of the passage and whatever subsidiary point was made in the passage. The correct answer choices have been broad, inclusive statements and certain incorrect answer choices were incorrect because they were “too narrow” or did not encompass one of the subsidiary points while another answer choice did. In recent tests, however, the LSAT writers have started to exploit our conditioning to this type of strategy. They will add a broad answer choice with unwarranted strong language (subtle strong language, like “most” or “prominent”) or with incorrect time frames (like “recently” or “historically”) that encompasses both the main point and the subsidiary point. They are trying to utilize the fact that we have been conditioned to look for “more complete” answer choices and hope that we will overlook the subtle characteristics that ultimately make the answer choice incorrect. The correct answer choice ends up being something more direct, narrow, and only concerned with the author’s overall takeaway rather than any “exceptions” or “sub-points” he/she gets into. (See PT73.S1.Q16- answer choice D & PT74.S3.Q9- answer choice E for examples)

With one month until the September test, I know keeping this in mind will help me be more aware of these types of strategies the LSAT writers have been utilizing. Has anyone else noticed this as well?

Hey, guys! I would like any advice you guys can give on splitting boards. I seem to always spend too much time trying to split and it's not really needed or I don't spend enough time trying to split and I could've saved time. I tend to always end up brute forcing too much or using previous game boards from previous questions to answer questions but I know that's not always going to work for me. LG is my best section so I've kinda dismissed it but I'm not always -0 so I'm looking for pointers. Can you guys provide any hints on when to split and what to split on (meaning a specific rule like a not both rule or something)?

Hi,

Amongst all sections, LG is probably my weakest. It takes me way too much time.

Which is a better way to go through the CC ( I started with LG about a week ago)

Doing the questions and PS's of each question type and fool proofing until you get everything before moving on the next question type. ( I find, my inferences are usually correct but i take up too much time and end up getting questions wrong once i realise how much time has gone by- Watching Jy's explanations help, but my techniques are mostly the same)

Doing the Questions and PS's of all question types in the CC, watching the explanations simultaneously and fool proofing everything together in the end.

I'd love as much advise as i can get on how to go about LR since some questions are taking me upto 20 min and it's really stressing me out.

I know these seem fairly straight forward. But its my weakest question type. Any tips, or approaches?

Hey guys!

So I have been struggling with RC, however I was wondering if you guys read the passage first or make notes while reading? I don't know why but I find a hard time trying to read and write at the same time. I would say I am a pretty fast reader and always have been.. but I find it hard to understand the passages when I stop to make notes. Should I make notes after reading the entire passage first or after every paragraph? What has worked for you guys?

RC I would say is my worst section, but I believe I can improve the most on this section since I can usually understand the material pretty well regardless of what the passage is discussing.