Hey all,

I thought I'd share this discovery.

7Sage advocates doing what works best for you, but to be honest my "works best for me" patterns were heavily influenced by the first prep-materials I used: PowerScore. From what I remember, PowerScore heavily advocates diagramming RC passages. Of course then, I have been diagramming the heck out of RC passages since forever. But consequently, RC has always been my slowest section.

But I didn't care! I was doing really well on RC, at least in the earlier exams. But then RC changed. Starting in the mid-2000s RC became a lot more "big picture" and less "fact-test-y." I started missing a lot of questions (from -1 or -2 in early PTs to -5 or -6 on later PTs), usually because of rushing with timing, but also because diagramming for these didn't really help! The modern PTs were a lot less about "can you remember this specific word usage in this specific part" to "What statements would the author agree with?"

AKA - RC went more from specific to big picture.

Being stubborn, I didn't change my RC methods. And consequently, RC was consistently my worst section.

Coming back to PrepTesting after a months break (since Sept. exam), I tried a new method of approaching RC: just reading.

That's right. Just reading.

Underline stuff here or there, but no real marking of viewpoints, no circling indicator words, no writing "CC" or "Quest" beside certain passages. I just read. I focused less on the little details, and more on internalizing the text and really understanding what I was reading.

What has this given me? -0 to -1 on modern RC. (3 modern PTs so far!)

I thought I'd share this with you all; maybe it will help some of you!

TL;DR - Modern RC is less nitpicky about certain word usage, and will ask more questions that do not pertain directly to the text (the author would agree with which statement?). Consequently, just reading the passage, and not trying to diagram everything, could prove much more helpful.

Best,

Paul

I could not find anything to prove the conclusion > few people understand current events> and did not see the flaw the LSAT makers identified.

Here's is what I did:

Tried to create conditional statements but did not understand how to represent Appreciation of Significance.

TV --> DI and DOC

Newspaper --> DI and DOC

Fully understand current events ---> DI + Appreciation of Significance

Since > few people who seek out news sources other than newspapers and TV> was a premise I took it to be true. The conclusion jumped and inferred > few people ever understand current events>. There was nothing sufficient to prove the conclusion. Wasn't that the flaw?

Tried pushing forward to say that those other people must have been the few, but it still got me nowhere.

What all did I miss? Thanks!

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-22-section-4-question-19/

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-31-section-3-question-23/

would it be a good way to think alternative to JY's explanation that answer choice B is wrong merely in having few as the existential indicator rather than a universal indicator as in the stimulus and correct answer choice C...

i just find JY's thinking perhaps like the flip side of a coin to be a tad bit confusing....

any thoughts?

:)

Hi everyone!

So... I am watching the PT 61 LG section while FPing and I am having a little trouble understanding how JY got the contrapostive for R2 (—�) /U in the game. Can someone please clarify? Thank you so much!

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-61-section-3-game-3/

I am only starting out but I would like a simpler way to find premise/conclusion? Any help would be greatly appreciated! I struggled doing the problem set.

Also, is there a way I can print out the text underneath the videos w/out having to copy and paste them into a word document? I want to be able to highlight, etc...

Hello - I am studying the CC and was wondering when do we start timing ourselves when we do the problem sets after each section. I haven't been timing myself and taking my time answering the questions sets and then I BR. Thx.

Does anyone have a successful strategies in tackling this difficult question type? I always get them confused by one another and inevitably chose the wrong answer choice.

After a bombed reading comprehension section on my last practice test, I'm doing some reading comprehension drills and trying to evaluate myself and my methods.

This evening I drilled from practice test 31. Not even half way through the third passage, I thought, "Who is this hoe?" (the author the passage was discussing). On the fourth passage, about philosophers advocating subjectivity or objectivity, I realized I was drawing on past philosophy courses and personal reading, comparing what I was reading to knowledge and beliefs I already had. I bombed the questions for this passage and in going through them, argued against the correct answers (angry at LSAT again). Again, each time I had to say, "Fine. I see where you're coming from."

Then I had something of a eureka moment: in general, I've been reading very defensively and evaluatively and thus closing my mind off to a set of interpretations of the core subject matter, any one of which LSAT can subtly amplify and design the questions around.

PowerScore said to read "aggressively" but I'm not sure that was the right word to use. I now think the right mindset might better be described as actively receptive.

Maybe in logical reasoning, the defensive/evaluative mindset is where you need to be, but in reading comprehension you have to relax a little and be more receptive.

Has anyone else had a similar experience or, at least, found they needed to consciously shift their mindset between section types?

Is there a lesson or webinar on how/when to use subscripts in conditional statements?

I see JY uses subscripts in some of the questions, but I often find myself using regular conditional arrows for the same questions.

If there is no lecture, could someone please break it down for me?

Thanks.

Long question! Thought it would be helpful to keep everything organized in one place to hear the thoughts of folks as the questions below all seem to have a common thread and could help the next person.

Not all works of art represent something, but some do, and their doing so is relevant to our aesthetic experience of them; representation is therefore an aesthetically relevant property. Whether a work of art possesses this property is dependent upon context. Yet there are no clear criteria for determining whether context-dependent properties are present in an object, so there cannot be any clear criteria for determining whether an object qualifies as art.

There is no genuinely altruistic behavior. Everyone needs to have sufficient amount of self-esteem, which crucially depends on believing oneself to be useful and needed. Behavior that appears to be altruistic can be understood as being motivated by the desire to reinforce that belief, a clearly self-interested motivation.

As a political system, democracy does not promote political freedom. There are historical examples of democracies that ultimately resulted in some of the most oppressive societies. Likewise, there have been enlightened despotisms and oligarchies that have provided a remarkable level of political freedom to their subjects.

Climate and geology determine where human industry can be established. Drastic shifts in climate always result in migrations, and migrations bring about the intermingling of ideas necessary for rapid advances in civilization.

So I kinda make up my own rules

One rule that worked for me and saves me a lot of the time was

Not .... without/until sentence

Whenever I noticed this type of sentences I automatically remove not and make whatever condition that follows without .... a necessary condition. It conforms to the group 3 and group 4 rule so nothing new.

So sentence like

A is not feasible without or until B

Is always

A -> B

My question is about making a rule about

only A when/if B

I think it is safe to say that I can always translate this sentence into

A only when B

1.I only study when I feel urgent

These two sentences are exactly same I think.

If a certain verb follows only and then when pops up ( only a when B) what only would refer to can be none other than whatever condition that follows after when.

Would there be any contradiction or perhaps a counter example?

Thanks

Is there a clean way to diagram 'nothing' in LR using LAWGIC?

Heyyy 7sagers,

I have literally looked at 7sage, LSAT Trainer, and Kaplan's approach to necessary assumption questions and I just don't get it.

I have been drilling these questions down and I still have trouble with them. It takes me super long to get the answer if I somehow do even get them correct.

What has worked for y'all? I can use all the help I can get.

https://classic.7sage.com/lesson/hallstown-groceries-pf-question/?ss_completed_lesson=1143

while i agree AC b is incorrect...still seems to be a perfectly valid argument to me....anyone care to parse this one with me?

validity of answer choice B

How do I determine goal time per game during foolproofing? JY sometimes mentions them in his explanation videos, but when he doesn't should I just assume it's ~8.5?

Even better, does someone have a spreadsheet of these?

The whole argument is about SSH mechanism.But I think there is a huge mistake.All the author wants to prove is that the SSH is an independent factor affecting bird's status.And he did it.The question is that if a juvenile male bird with higher SSH confronts an adult male bird with lower SSH,who will win?And according to author, this question cannot be answered,because these factors are independent.So how can the SSH mechanism achieves its goal that it can reduce the conflicts?

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-20-section-2-passage-3-passage/

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-24-section-3-question-12/

would AC e be a close second....i seem to have glossed over d and missed it choosing e realizing my folly on BR. But isn't e another version of d so plausible in the absence of d..

what would you reckon??

vini

Hi everyone, so with the long LR drills from test 70-79. Do any of you time them? or do you just do these questions free form to further understand things.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

I can't believe I missed the date to register. I honestly thought I had longer. I have no idea why. I am kicking myself. I can't talk to my family, or they are going to judge me for not marking my calendar. I am venting. February test here I come, and it looks like I will put off entrance until 2019. Good grief. I guess that'll give me some more time to save some money, and my kids will be a bit older also. I am so angry at myself.

I feel like I'm having trouble with the SAs and the PSAs, even though JY says they should be freebies on the test. I did really well on the SAs in the core curriculum, when just working in lawgic. But when working through the English statements in the stimulus, it takes me a long time to translate the English into lawgic that feels aligned with the valid argument steps we learned. And sometimes I think I would get the answer much more quickly if I didn't go through those steps.

I've been using the Question Bank to focus in on just SAs and PSAs - usually getting 1-2 wrong and the rest right, out of sets of 5-7 questions...but for freebies on the test, I should be getting 100% right.

Anyone else have a similar issue? I'm so frustrated by this. Does anyone have suggestions for getting better? And getting faster?

https://classic.7sage.com/lesson/flaw-questions-problem-set-12/

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-20-section-1-question-10/

For this qs, while it fits well into the classic causation correlation flaw category with AC c as the correct answer, i am unable to get past AC e for its equitable validity as an answer choice as well....

can anyone help me get past this road block in my head please...

thanks heaps!

vini

I have been struggling with mainly questions where the conclusion is hard to understand. I have tried to drill down different LR question types but I honestly have trouble with any stimulus that I don't quite understand.

I am pretty good with logic and valid/invalid argument forms so I don't think that's the issue. Is this something just common on the older PTs?

I have been struggling on harder problems sets in the curriculum as well so I am not sure how to tackle this problem since doing drills at this point isn't really helping. I usually do fine with the first 10 questions on a LR section but it does downhill from there. I usually don't really move on to another problem set until I have completely understood why I have gotten it wrong but again, it's usually because I didn't identify the flaw with the argument or understand the stimulus.

In BR, I usually get around 17-19 correct on LR out of 25. Again, majority of the ones I get incorrect are near the end of the section.

I am unsure why A is wrong. I see the evidence for it at the very last sentence of the passage...

Thank you!

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-33-section-2-passage-3-passage/

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-33-section-2-passage-3-questions/

Just want to throw out there what I think constitutes sufficient assumption questions. Sorry if this doesn't belong here but I like to just write it out.

Sufficient assumption questions: How can we take the premises we are given and make them lead to the conclusion we are given. Obviously there is a gap, the sufficient assumption + the premises will then help lead to the conclusion.

I have been really struggling with NA questions and am working on understanding them better. I think I have figured something out but I want to confirm it.

When you do SA questions, we have to find the missing piece to make the argument valid. With NA questions we take the entire valid argument and accept the NA that come with it: [p1 + p2 = C] --> NA

So when I am looking at NA questions, do I accept the stimulus as a completed argument and am just looking for something an assumption that must be true/necessary? Almost like a MBT but I'm looking for something subtle?

Thoughts?