I had this one down to C and D and ultimately went with C. I saw C an an alternate explanation but would C have been eliminated because the increase was not specifically mentioned a well as the FM? Do both A and B both have to be specifically mentioned and not implied or assumed? Also, I get that C is incorrect because C-> A&B (Other M -> FM & Increase isn't possible due to no assumption in the stimulus that FM caused the increase but is instead the conclusion, so FM->Increase (A->B) was never a possibility. I ultimately eliminated D because I interpreted the AC as saying there was no increase in the algae population because there was no increase in the amount of shells left behind. I took that as meaning constant but didn't go further and see that it meant that we should see more shells if there was an increase, thus weakening the argument. Hopefully this all makes sense for you guys.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-19-section-2-question-04/

I've run into this problem a few times on NA questions, where I can't decide whether to negate by adding a not or negating the quantity. Here's an example of an answer choice from an NA question:

There are some illnesses that experienced physicians can diagnose accurately from physical examination alone.

In this instance, would you negate some to none or place a not after can to negate? Or both?

I found I particularly underperform in law reading regardless of difficulty. Any suggestion on improvement?

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-47-section-1-question-02/

I chose A for this and literally had to check the answer key three times because I thought I was seeing things. I cannot figure out why A is wrong and B is right.

This is a weaken question.

The stimulus says that there have been certain international efforts to protect the natural habitats of endangered species of animals. In spite of these efforts, apparently the extinction rate is still rising. The argument concludes that these efforts are wasted.

After reading the premises, I'm thinking "Oh, great! This is perfect-- What an assumption for this argument to make! I am definitely anticipating that the answer choice is going to have something to do with pointing out that, just because these efforts are aimed at protecting natural habitats, does not necessarily entail that these efforts are also aimed at preventing the extinction rate from rising!" Then I read the conclusion that claims that the efforts were wasted. At this point, I'm 100% anticipating answer choice A.

The international efforts are aimed at protecting the natural habitats of endangered species. This does not necessarily mean these efforts are also trying to prevent the extinction rate from increasing. I mean, in the real world, it is most likely the case that this is also the goal, but in LSAT world, I just don't see how we can make that assumption. What if these efforts were to satisfy the hippie/vegan population so that they think the government is prioritizing the protection of these natural habitats? Or what if their efforts were because there is some new law that requires the protection of these habitats? There could be a number of (yes, crazy yet) logically sufficient reasons for why they are protecting the natural habitats of these species that have nothing to do with the extinction rate. If the two concepts (protecting natural habitats and preventing extinction from increasing) were to be related in terms of our argument, wouldn't the first statement have to say "Despite increasing international efforts to protect the natural habitats of endangered species in order to maintain or decrease the extinction rate, the rate at which these species are becoming extinct continues to rise"?

A- Points out the assumption. Scientists are better able to preserve the habitats of endangered species. That was what their efforts were doing according to the stimulus. This answer choice points out how irrelevant the statement about the extinction rate increasing is to their efforts.

B- Animal refugees are not natural habitats. They are man-made sanctuaries that artificially mimic natural habitats. I rendered this answer choice as irrelevant because it is not even talking about the same subject matter.

I am very confused. I considered this to be an easy question that took me all of 20 seconds and even after reviewing it over and over again, I cannot for the life of me understand it.

Personally, I would go

RC: 1*

LR: 2*

LR: 2*

LG1: 2*

LG2: 2*

LG3: 4*

LG4: LOLNope*s

Hey, guys! I'm just drilling a few weaken questions on my lunch break and I have a question about AC C. I eliminated it but I haven't found my reasoning in the forums that matched mine, so I want to make sure I eliminated it for the right reasons. The AC only states that the coin was neither minted nor circulated after 1468. I eliminated it because the coin could've been minted or circulated prior to 1431. It also didn't see how it weakened any support between the premise and conclusion. Am I wrong here? There were other explanations that just seemed unnecessary to me. Thoughts?

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-24-section-3-question-09/

On the LR question boxed below, JY did not give an explanation as to why answer E was wrong. Please take a look at it real quick and then read my take below after.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-70-section-4-question-22/

My take: Answer D (the correct answer) is the exact same as answer E (if you switch positioning of the "if/then"), except that answer E says if NONE of the dairies meets federal standards whereas answer D says MOST dont meet them. How is E wrong? If most of the dairies dont meet federal standards and that results in pollution of the water, then of course we can say that if NONE of them meet federal standards then the water will get polluted. If anything, we can be more sure from none of them meeting standards that the water will be polluted rather than most.

An analogy of my reasoning: If in a city, most of the power plants dont work, than the whole city will not have power. Answer D is saying most of the power plants dont work, so there will not be power. Answer E is saying NONE of the power plants work, so we can definitely be sure there will be no power!

What am I missing?

So this section is by far my worst... I think the timing aspect is really killing me, any ideas on how to improve, or how perhaps you've seen gains within this section?

I've been averaging about 8-12 correct per section (I know, it's pretty bad) but after BR I usually get about 5-7 more answers correct. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

Admin edit: Ahh! No full-caps in titles, please. I'm a very timid admin and I don't like being yelled at. ):

I checked the LSAC and saw the Credential Assembly Service (CAS), which cost $50. How would it(elvuation) influence the admission? any idea?

Hey everyone

I am trying 7sage after taking the LSAT two times, 143 on my first with little studying and 149 with two months studying on my second.

I will be taking the Feb LSAT fro the third time. I am aiming to improve to the 160's. MY worst section is the Logical reasoning. I feel like i have room to improve on the RC and LG section but i am totally clueless with the LR.

I am also hoping i can find a community here that i can share problems with and keep me accountable.

I will be aiming to post here everyday with my activities and progress.

Please give me any tips on how I can improve on the LR and RC so i can reach my target score.

I will be using the 7sage lsat schedule to study

Thanks Tosin.

Experimental LR: Bumblebees and sleep study, Valley United

Real LR 1: The tiktaalik fish

Can't remember questions from the second LR, my apologies

Edit: LR 2: Pet allergies?

Real Games: which office floor on what day, which train stations are out of service, something with H before R

Real Reading: Chinese dialects, Multiverse and movies, Social Darwinism, Comedians and Chefs

Hi Guys,

As a general rule of thumb to score for a 170, for RC, at the current level, I can get level 1-2 difficulty -0; level 3 -0~-1; Level 4: -1~-2; Level 5: -2~--3.

How can you improve level 5 question answering accuracy. During review, I will spend almost 1 hour on the passage, and looking at it, I just have no idea how to not miss the question when under timed exam.

Should I get a tutor like Nicole to help out? Or how can you shore up those points?

Hey all, First off, thanks to all of you in this great community for being such an awesome resource and support network for this process of getting to law school!

So, I just sat for the December LSAT, and like others who are posting, Logic games 3 and 4 were a bit difficult (disappointing, because games are usually my -0 to -2 section). I ended up having to semi-blind guess on at least five questions in that section. On top of that, I really let anxiety get to me and didn't get much sleep at all. I felt nauseous all up until the experimental games section (3rd section for me) which ironically calmed me down by being so difficult that I was sure I was just gonna cancel.

My PT range for my last five tests were all in the 168-171 range, so I was pretty hopeful about being able to at least have a shot at my goal school of Cornell, but now I'm really not so sure. Honestly RC and LR are a blur for me, I could've knocked them out of the park, I could've failed miserably. SO, I'm considering a February re-take, with an emphasis on mental heath, but, are my chances for Cornell dashed? They have a deadline of Feb. 1st. However, they say that after this point, they will still accept apps, but admissions will be on "available seats only". This sounds like T14 language for, "98% chance sorry too late". My other schools will work for a February LSAT, but I'm still nervous even for them because of all i've heard about February being so late in the cycle.

I really don't think I can wait another cycle, doing so would cause some major family drama and involve making some really tough choices financially. So, thoughts?

Hi everyone,

I took the recent LSAT in London. I had two LG sections on my test, and I'm currently trying to work out which one of two was the experimental section. One was moderately difficult, I finished it without much of a problem. However, the 3rd and 4th games in the other LG were ridiculously difficult (similarly to the US LSAT with two LGs - weird coincidence). I remember the 3rd game involving seven Mechanics and Inventors (not a 100% sure about the name of the second group). I don't remember much else. Please let me know if you would happen to have any information on which of the two LG sections of the London LSAT was the real one, and which one was experimental.

Thanks a lot,

Piotr

Hey guys! Here's the official December LSAT Discussion Thread. Please keep all discussions of the December 2016 LSAT here!

Here's some ground rules, taken from my usual sticky:

We know that everyone will be excited to discuss what was on the December '16 LSAT, but mentioning specifics about the test (e.g., "I got B for question 6" or "the 3rd LG was sequencing") can get both us and you in a lot of trouble with LSAC. Saying that the test was hard/easy without going into detail is okay, but anything more specific is not okay. LSAC monitors this forum.

If you're unsure what may be too specific, feel free to PM me with what you'd like to post.

The only exception is you can say which sections were real or experimental. For example, the LG with "flowers" was experimental. That's okay.

TL;DR: PLEASE don't talk specifics about December's LSAT in detail!

Here's where you can see the current Real/Experimental Sections:

https://classic.7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/9666/december-2016-lsat-real-experimental-sections-keywords

Have fun discussing!

For this particular problem, I see how the author is making the link between stress and the way people approach and think about their problems. The correct answer choice states that refusing to think about something troubling contributes to stress, which captures this idea. However, I'm wondering why the relationship couldn't be reversed, with the refusal to think being a result rather than the cause of stress. Even after BR and reviewing the explanation, I understood that there was being link between those two concepts but didn't fully understand the direction of that causal link because the stimulus was so odd.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-70-section-4-question-10/

This is long, rambly story of going from about a -14 on RC to -4 on RC because I stopped being stubborn.

So a couple of days ago I had a substantial RC meltdown. Basically a whole bunch of events transpired that more or less showed me what I needed to do to help my RC. Here are the events that kind of resulted in me learning how to do RC more efficiently.

Until about four days ago, out of the practice tests I have completed, I had maybe gotten 2/4 passages completed on RC (Averaging about 12-15 minutes per passage – no joke). Even when I tried to do J.Y.’s memory method I would just sit there thinking “I just can’t do it, J.Y.! I’m just not smart enough!” (if you don’t think J.Y. is omniscient, you’re doing the course wrong).

Then, I did one passage and got ¾ passages done on a prep-test with one sneaky line reference question completed in the last passage. I heralded as a huge success thinking, okay. This means I’m getting faster at reading.

Correlation vs. Causation anyone?

After doing some R.C. drills (at my same obnoxiously slow pace), this was quickly disproved.

Then I just started experiencing dread at the myth that people can’t get higher on RC easily (or even at all, as some will tell you). And here I was, doing my drills, sometimes spending up to ten minutes just reading the darn thing.

Then things just spiraled out of control; I freaked out and asked the Internet.

In doing so, I found this article, https://lsathacks.com/email-course/reading-comprehension/. I took the reading speed test the article tells you to and I read it at the same speed I’d been reading LSAT questions. Basically the thing just confirmed I was like dial-up internet when it came to reading speed (although of course, my comprehension was super high because I was reading so darn slow).

The speed test told me I was in the "insufficient" category of readers. I thought, “Insufficient? Screw you online reading test! Your website is insufficient. I read Derrida. My Master’s thesis has 250 references -- I had to read all of those. My whole job revolves around editing and making recommendations on doctoral dissertations and master’s theses. There’s no way I’m an insufficient reader… Is there?”

But there was no way I could think to RRE this apparent paradox.

So I resigned myself to believing I had an irretrievably FMOR and gave in to crippling self-doubt, tabbed back to the article, mortified, thinking “save me from this death.” The article said I was probably “subvocalizing” (a word for pronouncing each word as you’re reading) as I was subvocalizing – super meta. It said smart people didn’t do that.

Mortified at the thought that I had been doing this very thing basically most of my life, the article said I should use Spreeder (basically an app that flashes words across the screen at a certain number of WPM and you can use it to increase your number of WPM and so that you can learn not to subvocalize).

So, I loaded some pretty dense material on Spreeder. For ten minutes I spreeded (hmmm… spred? sprud?) at different speeds. After my ten minutes were up, and before I continued with my spreeding like a time-wasting buffoon, I figured I should look in the LSAT forums and see what other people said about Spreeder.

Lo and behold, J.Y. had already chimed in on it (he’s omniscient, remember?):

If you're running out of time on RC, it's not because you can't read the passage fast enough. It's because you're waffling b/t answers. You do that because you don't read well - be it the passage, the question stem, or the answers. Focus on reading well. Focus on reading for structure. Advice on how to read faster targets casual reading. If you've done any RC at all you'll know all too well that the speed limit is not set by how quickly your eyes can move across the page, how many words your eyes can snap in one shot, or whether you're subvocalizing. Rather, the speed limit is set by lack of subject-matter familiarity and the dense grammatical structure.

I thought, “So magic doesn’t exist. Great. I still can’t read well so basically I’m just screwed.”

Then I tentatively tried to look up LSAT RC reading structures (look them up in the forums – there are some really interesting ones). They gave me some insight, but no cheat sheet in the world was going to help with my problem.

Crestfallen, I returned to my RC drills. I tried to use the highlighter method posted up here earlier by @kylereinhard, hoping that the effervescent yellow stain would incite some inner RC warrior like it had for him. Long story short, I took 8 minutes on the stimulus and 4 minutes on the questions. And I got three wrong. Well, a girl can dream. (Not bashing his method. Try this -- maybe it'll work for you).

Crushed, I tried to look for happy stories in the Webinar section of people who did awesome things after being not so awesome. I found Allison Gill Sanford’s webinar https://classic.7sage.com/webinar/lsat-prep-for-170-plus/ and jumped to the part where she talked about RC. In the webinar, she said, “I would spend way too much time up front on the easy passages…” Which was exactly how I felt. Then (and I’m pretty sure it was her who said this, or maybe it was something I saw in the Trainer, which I looked in after listening to her webinar), which basically said we should try to keep our reading rate more or less constant over our different stimuli and then also replicate this in the practice test (obviously with allowances for harder passages).

So I figured, ok. If I am going to succeed at RC maybe I should just try to read at a speed that will just get me there on time. So, there are maybe 440 words per RC section. If you read in 2 minutes, that means 220 words per minute. If you read in three minutes, that’s 146 words per minute. I knew what it felt like to read at both of those speeds because I had spreeded earlier that day – which showed me that I could read, comfortably, at both of those rates.

So, I decided: I’m going to ‘spreed’ the stimuli (not in the Spreeder app, just on the page but at the same rate as I would read had they been in the spreeder set to 220), using J.Y.’s memory method, for one RC section. I grabbed my analog watch and set it to zero, and-ahem-spreeded the passage until 3:30. Then did a 30 second review of structure. Then answered the question until the full 8 minutes was up. Then went onto the next one. And so on.

Results of the first try:

-4 (And this time, not -4 thanks to guesses!) -- obviously a significant difference for me.

And since I was actually able to focus on the problems (which I’ve since noticed, thanks to BRs and this method, are more so with the questions than with the actual passage itself), I’m improving on RC now just as if it was LR!

Moral:

If you’re like me and you’re doing RC like a sloth because you basically misunderstand everything everyone says because you are some sort of backwards and self-destructive over-achiever (and/or you’re just inherently defiant to omniscient authorities even when they are one hundred percent correct), then maybe just run over quickly to Spreedster, prove to yourself you can read faster than you are right now, come back, and ‘spreed’ it.

I’m not saying skim it. Just read it at a faster rate. For 3:30 or 4 minutes or less. As J.Y. pointed out earlier, don’t worry about subvocalizing or anything like that right now either. You can become a non-subvocalizing speed reader at a different time if that’s really your passion, but I’m not so sure the RC section is the time for it unless you have like ten years to prepare or something.

Anyways. I hope this is helpful to somebody so that they don’t go through the whole ridiculous situation I just went through.

Keep calm and carry on!

*P.s. Don’t mean to insinuate that the article mentioned above can’t be helpful to some folks! Maybe it is the secret way to victory and I'll just never really know.

Please note that the information below will change to reflect the information we get! Contribute if you can via the official December 2016 LSAT discussion (linked at the bottom of this thread) without going into too much detail. If you think something is wrong or should be added, please post in the thread and let me know.

Real Sections:

LG:

-Corporations Trading with Eachother / Building Trading

-Paintings on a Wall / Watercolors & Oils

-Mystery Clues / Chapters in a Book

-Students on a Research Team / Green/Red Teams

RC:

-Great Migration of African Americans from North to South

-Rawls Theory of Justice Differs from Utilitarianism

-Insider Trading

-Brain Scans

LR:

-Poison Ivy & Evolution

-Caterpillars

-Wolves Eating Moose

-Bugs Eating Things That Make Them Taste Bad

-Volunteers Showing up for an Event

-Television Station with Popular / Highly Watched Program

-Alexander the Great's Tomb

-T-Rex

-French Biology

-Winter/Summer Trout

-Water Fee on Roads Rather than Dams / Tax Dollars

-Cat Food

-Iguanas on an Island

-Birds and Their Nests

-18th-Century Church Organ

-Politician

-Leopard Magpie

-Puzzles

-Teenage Morning Driving Accidents / School Start Times

-Those Who Desire to be Kind

-Devaluing Companies

Experimental Sections:

LG:

-Pianist/Violinists Playing Duets

-Doctors Scheduling Days to Work

-Coal Mining Company

RC:

-How Humans Changed as Cooking Progresses

-Fukuyama

LR:

-Smokers, Low Body Weight, Health

-Blaming a Company for Pollution until there was Algae

-Doctors and Handwriting

UNCONFIRMED:

If you can confirm that these are real / experimental, please do so by PMing me or posting in the main thread.

LR:

-Touching Something Blue and Red

-What Year a Book was Written based on it Asking Where He Was

RC:

LG:

This thread is closed for discussion. Official post December LSAT discussion here:

https://classic.7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/9665/official-december-lsat-discussion-thread

Hello!

Would love to get a chat going for Asia test takers to figure out what the experimental sections are after the test tomorrow! I'm planning on signing on right after taking and would be psyched if others join.

So I decided to look on the discussion board to see what the December takers are doing the night before & I stumbled onto a different discussion about the December exam. It's REALLY screwed up how some people on here are writing negative things about the December exam just days before the exam. The people who are taking the December exam are nervous enough, with millions of thoughts going through their heads. How about being a little more suppportive & having more positive vibes for those taking the LSAT on Saturday.

Having trouble ruling out C.

I have tried many different approaches for RC. I am averaging only 65/70% correct and it is taking me overage of 14 min. to finish passages.

Can you please give me some pointers. I am starting to panic!

P.S. I have reviewed RC videos and have completed the first set of RC passages. I do not want to go further in RC without correcting what am doing wrong. VERY UPSET!

Hi Guys,

Are there any live question takers recordings that we can see?

I was on LG Problem set 1 question 1 and saw Leia doing her questions, it will greatly help if there is a chance to see someone who does RC live.

Thanks,

Panda

So I feel so stupid, but here is the deal, I've been scoring -6ish on LR, -3-6 on LG and -10ish on RC, generally scoring around a 157 on PTs. So I haven't been using a highlighter on RC and for the first time tonight I did and my score improved drastically (-5). I am planning on taking the LSAT this Saturday, my question is, is using a highlighter for RC a game changer? I honestly feel confident now that I can score in the 160s by using a highlighter on the RC section. Did using a highlighter on RC change anyone else's scores big time? Whooo!!! Good luck 7sagers!!!

Hi guys,

In the video, JY recommends re do questions, but what exactly does it mean?

Does it entail recalling everything by memory from the game?

or do you get to look at the questions and just plainly re do them while looking at the questions?

Thanks,

Panda