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?

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)?

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 seen many explanations regarding this infamous Han purple question--none of which have addressed my specific confusion:

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-74-section-1-question-17/

I chose the correct answer A during my timed take, but hesitantly changed it to E during BR. I'm still confused and I'd love for someone to read my reasoning and give me some guidance as to where I am going wrong.

CTX: How the ancient Chinese of the Qin and Han dynasties synthesized Han purple has confused scientists.

P1: A common type of white glass and Han purple were produced with the same chemical ingredients.

P2: Both were produced by similar processes involving high heat and lead.

C: Han purple was probably discovered by accident during glass production.

One thing I noticed was the how the premises give us similarities regarding how white glass and Han purple were produced, but then the conclusion randomly brings up how Han purple was discovered. My thoughts were that the correct answer will probably have something to do with this. Either that, or the wrong answers would exploit this subtle distinction.

Another thing I noticed was that, except for the contextual information about Han purple confusing scientists, every piece of information that was given in the stimulus equally applies to both the white glass and Han purple. All we know is that they both have the same properties--we don't know if one was better than the other or that one was more prevalent. So the conclusion could also very well be that "White glass was probably discovered by accident during Han purple production." We have the same exact support for that conclusion as we do the conclusion we are given. So I figured the correct answer choice could assist with this by creating some sort of supporting distinction.

A- I originally chose this because I did not initially notice the produced/discovered distinction in the stimulus. Upon BR, I noticed it and figured that A was wrong because where Han purple was produced does not seem play into how it was discovered. Something can be discovered intentionally in the middle of a forest (anywhere really), but then the following production of that thing can be in a factory once it had been improved and commercialized. To me, production and discovery are two clearly distinctive events. Also, this just contributes to the similarities between white glass and Han purple. There is no distinguishing effects of this answer choice, so, like I pointed above, the conclusion could still just as reasonable be: "White glass was probably discovered by accident during Han purple production."

(B, C, and D were easy for me to eliminate. For anyone interested in seeing my reasoning for these answer choices, feel free to ask!).

E- I never loved E, especially since it ambiguously used the term "more" without telling us how much more (1% more or 80% more?). I also didn't love that E qualifies the artifacts as "surviving artifacts." I initially figured that, the fact that white glass was more prevalent in surviving artifacts could be because 1) it was more easily preserved or 2) it was more commonly used. Then I realized that if it was more commonly used, this answer choice could be introducing the possibility that white glass was used longer than Han purple was. I thought that that was what they were trying to get us to see? That white glass was produced and discovered first and that is why there is more of it than Han purple? If that was the case, then I guess it supports the conclusion. It weakly supports it, but it presents us with a new possibility that would render the conclusion more likely. Also, this does point out the supporting distinction between white glass and Han purple that would lead us to the conclusion we are given rather than the alternative conclusion: "White glass was probably discovered by accident during Han purple production."

Between A and E, I do not like either of them. I really struggled between both of these answers, but I finally concluded that A requires us to assume that discovery and the following production process are the same event. To me, that's equivalent to saying that the birth of a child and the child's following life events are the same event. They just are not. E also wasn't a great answer. I recognize the steps and assumptions needed to choose E. But given the remaining 4, I figured (and still consider) it to be the best option because it at least slightly introduced a possibility for the conclusion to be true.

Help! Thanks in advance!

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

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?

For those of us 7sagers that have done countless PT's and drilling packets, I think it would be safe to say that we all can round about guess what difficulty a question would be---from 1-5 (how it is shown in the analytics). Because of this, I recently started guessing, on each blind review question I did, what the question difficulty might be. I have really found this to be a valuable tool to see what exactly my confidence is in a particular question compared to the community's results in the analytics. At least for myself, I found that my own perception and biases of how difficult the question was tends to skew the 1-5 difficulty guess. Where the questions I got right and I am confident in are usually lower then the actual analytic difficulty. On the other hand, on the questions I got wrong, my guess tends to be even or of a higher difficulty then the actual analytic difficulty. The most helpful part of this process is finding out the questions I got right both in timed and in BR, but I still rated the question higher then the analytics. These questions are ones that would slip though the cracks as the analytics are unable to capture this.

Using the 1-5 metric difficulty guess has started exposing question types that, although I got it right both times, I need to work on more to drop my perceived difficulty. It shows were I am quick and confident, but it also shows where I am lacking this.

I am not sure if this would be useful at all for anyone, but I wanted to share a little something to the community that I learn a lot from. Thank you!

P.S. - I do know there is a 'circle the question' confidence method, but I redo every question in blind review over again so this didn't work for me.

I have been studying since May rigorously and have gone through the whole LG Bible as well as done PTs and have been working through 7Sage's curriculum as well. LG is just not clicking. I keep trying, but it seems every game besides a simple sequencing game (which I still may have -1or -2) I am simply not making the inferences either correctly or quickly enough. Let's just say I never get LG, though I'll keep trying, what's the worst case scenario here? Pick one game on the LSAT, hope I get them all, then just...what...guess on the rest? Do as many inferences as possible and...what...guess on the rest? Pulling my hair out over here. JY's videos make so much sense and I'll think, hey, it's finally happening for me. Then I'll look at a game, work through it, think - that wasn't too bad, bu then I'll get -4 and it took me 15 minutes. Any advice??

Hey, guys! Can you help me make sense of my reasoning for selecting this answer choice, if that makes sense?! Lol

Ok so I chose D but I get why B is correct. I still don't know for certain that I wouldn't have the same thoughts that lead me to choose D, if presented again.

D) draws conclusion about a specific belief (more ppl believe elected officials should resign if indicted than believe that they should resign if convicted. I -> R and C - > R) based on responses to inquiries (I -> R and R - > C) about two diff specific beliefs. So basically, I said the conclusion was based on I - R and C - > R and not based on I -> R and R - > C. I said this equaled two different specific beliefs.

Does this make sense to anyone?? Or, am I just doing too much? Was I just totally off here? Hopefully I wrote this up correctly and you guys understand what I mean here. TIA

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-22-section-2-question-25/

I'm a little confused about why the video explanation shows the first sentence as PISM --most--> /DOR. I thought that the "without" would negate the first part of the sentence and it would look like /PISM --most--> DOR. If someone could explain that to me, I would appreciate it! Thanks!

I eliminated answer choice D because it says, "fails to exclude...." As I see it, answer choice D would perfectly address the flaw in the argument if it said something like, "excludes the possibility..." or "fails to consider the possibility...." Am I missing something?

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-77-section-2-question-18/

I know this is usually said to be a huge no-no, but in my studies (poli sci and sociology student) i skim read all the time and find it super helpful to save time.

When it comes to RC, I find I struggle the most with the wordings of the questions as opposed to the passage itself, so when I take 3-4mins to read the passage, I don't have enough time to answer all the questions properly and usually range anywhere from -7 to -10 on an RC section in the 60+ PTs.

Any ideas on how to overcome this? Even when I use the Memory Method, I still feel like I don't have enough time to answer the questions. Would skimming over specific details be beneficial or detrimental?

Reading comprehension is my worst section. Relatively speaking. But on the situations where my timing is a little off and i don't have much time on the last passage or even the last two passages, i'll just speed read through the passages and quickly answer the questions. I'm talking doing a passage and the questions in 6 minutes. As crazy as this sounds i get most of the questions right when i do this. Maybe missing one per passage. And i always check to see if that passage was an easier or harder passage and regardless of the difficulty, i always always always do well when I'm in a rush and just trust my gut and answer. When i do this i don't really even eliminate, i just look for the right answer. But when i have time I'm not as accurate on harder passages.

Does this happen to anyone else? I'm always shocked at how many i get right when i didn't even fully grasp the passage and just ran with what i could gather quickly.

This is a MMS question that just doesn't make sense to me.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-71-section-1-question-15/

In the stimulus you are presented with this;

Vitamins A and D can be toxic if you exceed the daily recommended intake.

Some foods, as stated by the manufacturer, have 100% daily recommend value per serving.

Many people over estimate what counts as a serving, sometimes eating 2-3 times more.

I follow it so far.

Here is the issue;

Correct Answer says;

B.) Some people who consume vitamin-fortified foods, exceed the daily intake of Vitamins A and D.

What? How is this supported? Vitamin A and D were never said to be in those foods. It could be Vitamin B and E that are in the foods that people over eat. How do I know some of those foods contain vitamin A and D. It never says anything about that.

The answer choice I picked;

D.) Most people who eat vitamin fortified foods should not take any vitamin supplements.

Isn't this more supported. If many people eat more than they should of vitamin fortified foods, then they need to avoid even more of those vitamins because it's unhealthy. This could be ANY vitamin, A/B/D/E. This seems logically way more supported than AC B. Even with J.Y.'s explanation I still don't understand how B is more supported than D.

Good morning. This is a recurring thought that I've had and trying to find a framework/rule of thumb that I can use, although it may not work for every question, I'd like to have a go-to base to start from.

One of my toughest things, on the LSAT, has been trying to come up with how JY have what the potential answer may look like. An Answer Choice Framework (this is what I call it), as you think about which answer choice maybe correct before you get to them. I think I've found what JY may use as a basis, other than just gut intuition, as an Answer Choice Framework (as I summon my inner JY), please tell me if I'm wrong: A caused B; B caused A; C caused both A&B; or total Unrelated/or off topic?

I'm thinking, if I label the parts of the argument as 'A' or 'B', etc., then simply look for reversals or alternatives, etc.

What I'm thinking is, that should be my ground rules or rule of thumb, to formulate what a potential answer may look like. Please tell me if I'm totally off base?

PS

On the logical indicators, "Is/Are", they introduce subsets, JY didn't say this but it seems to me that the Subsets these words introduce should be the Sufficient Condition. Am I wrong in thinking this way when speaking of them as Logical Indicators?

I was wondering whether you guys read the question stimulus or question stem first? Powerscore says stimulus first, but the Trainer says the stem first, and I'm trying to figure out which would be better to improve my LR score

For some reason, regardless of the rest of the test, my first LR section is always worse than my last.

The past 3 tests have been

LR (sec 1) -5 LR (sec 3) -2

LR (sec 2) -4 LR (sec 4) -1

LR (sec 1) -6 LR (sec 3) -2

The difficulty of each section doesn't seem to matter. LG and RC stay fairly consistent.

What could this be? Fluke?

Ok, so I can see right away as i'm doing the CC that NA Questions will be the death of me.

I completely understand the theory, but i'm having a hard time applying it to pull out the question answer. When I read the stimulus i'm projecting that, "This must be the NA". Get to the answers and none of them even talk about my NA. Even when I guesstimate the right topic or area, it's still off. I have not run into this problem with any other question. While I struggled through a few, I still was able to successfully apply the theory after a little while and some practice with 90%+ accuracy. I'm genuinely missing these consistently.

Anyone have some serious tips or tricks?

When I watch the video explanation I get why it's the answer but i'm having a hard time making those inferences ahead of the explanation.

I find it so strange that this should be the question type I struggle with in RC. After all, isn't this what RC boils down to? "What did that passage say?". And yet, it's by far my most missed question. I am only getting 69% of these correct, which crushes me because they are the most prevalent question type.

My other weak spot is Recognition - Main Point.

I am quite strong on all other types, but these 2 make up about 40% of my misses and What Is Stated is the lion's share of that. I haven't put much effort into RC yet and I've got 3.5 months until December. Right now I miss anywhere between 3 and 7, but usually 4-5.

If anyone has specific strategies for addressing these QTs, that would be really helpful. But I suppose I just need to develop a consistent approach to RC, which I haven't done yet. I don't like notating very much, so I guess I need to improve my internal organization for the passage. That should help me to quickly confirm on "what is stated" questions.

In approaching those "most vulnerable to criticism" question, do you guys think I can treat it as a weakening question and if the AC is correct, it will weaken the argument? Any other suggestion to solve this type?

(Or point me to that resource that does explain it)

I recently purchased the Starter package, almost exclusively for the LG fool-proof method. I am debating a refund though, bc I am not able to see or understand how the benefits come from this method (NOT at all saying it doesn't work, I realize 2 weeks is not enough time to reap the benefits- but that is why I'm inquiring here!).

Everytime JY says to repeat the game + inferences from memory, my mind goes all mushy, bc I don't see how that will help me (THAT much) on test day? I know the games are all pretty similar in structure, etc. (Have been studying for over a year and a half, probably have done abt 3/4 of the games that exist), but I feel like I would benefit from drilling into my mind how each inference came to be, vs. just writing an rule down bc I literally remembered writing it down the last time I did it? JY explicitly says to do straight from memory and NOT based on remembering how each rule kicked in to create that inference. (Seems similar, for ex., to learning the word "lackadaisical" bc my Ex's band name is Lackadaisical, & he is a really lazy person, instead of learning what the actual word means)

I guess I am getting pretty frustrated with the course too bc JY fails to explain this--the "How"--in his videos (at least as far as I've gotten so far. If it's in a certain lesson, pls let me know!!). Also, he doesn't address how to do the LG Questions, either. Do I choose those answers from memory, too ?? Do I read each word in the question stem?? (Same thing with the game set-up, do I read each word there, too, As if it was test day??)

I've just heard so many great things about his videos, strategy, & explanations, and I guess I just had a very different expectation. I would seriously seriously appreciate it if someone could help me out. Would love to get to ~2/3 wrong on LG as so many people here have mentioned here, but my frustration / confusion with the method is really keeping me from being motivated enough to continue with it.

Thanks for listening / reading !!

I'm finding myself getting -1 or -2 wrong for some of the (LR)... Even though for the majority of the ones I am getting incorrect, I understand the reasoning for the answer choice and why the right one is the correct choice and why the wrong answer choices are incorrect, but I still end up going with the incorrect answer choice... It's almost a letdown because it makes me question my abilities and doing really well on the LSAT. Is it because I may not have as much confidence in myself?

Hi all,

I'm new to the 7sage community, so its my first time posting! I made a big mistake and missed the deadline for the September exam. (It's like a nightmare come true) I'm currently on a 2 month study leave (aug 1 - sept 30) from work. Now I'm taking the December exam. That means I'll be studying full time for 2 months, and then working full time 2 months before my exam.

The thing is, the work I do requires alot of reading and by the end of the day, my brain feels exhausted and I have a hard time studying because my intellectual energy is spent by the end of the day. Does anyone have recommendations on how I can maximize my study time? Currently, I'm doing 2-3 exams per week. My major focus and goal during my FT study period is to meticulously analyze the exams I take to see my weak points.

But once I start working, I might only be able to do one exam per week (on the weekends). Is that enough to keep me going for the 2 month buffer period before the Dec 2 exam?

Any help is appreciated!! Thanks!

Are the MP questions in PT1-35 representative of the MP questions on the newer tests? I know how to find the conclusion and main point, but for some reason I do not seem to get all of them right even though I should when I am drilling. I have done the corresponding problem sets and went over the CC covering MP and how to identify conclusions for the second time.. and I have gotten them all correct so I don't know what's going on.

HELP!

Hi. My first post and was just wondering if JY has done anything like a concise summary (cheat sheet .pdf) that distills the initial "plan of attack" for each of the various LR question types. What I mean is, after reading the q-stem and determining q-type, a "go-to" guide for just the first few steps to take on that specific q-type, just so we can get rolling as fast as possible once we know q-type. This would be so helpful for developing and perfecting solid approaches for all of the various q-types, and it could be referred back to while working to improve strategy, reduce time per question, etc. With so many different LR q-types out there, something like this would be... awesome! If such an "LR q-type attack plan" cheat sheet already exists in 7Sage's materials (or elsewhere), please let us know; if one doesn't yet exist, please (JY, if you can hear me) do one for us ASAP. Thanks!