Despite my long journey of preperation for yesterday, my neurosis is not stopping the "what if's" in my head. So I am strongly considering registering for feb, and not wasting an entire month that I could be studying while waiting for scores to release. I am applying for Fall of next year and I am wondering if anyone knows how I would go about disclosing or not disclosing my choice to take feb in my applications... Do I tell schools that I will be taking feb? Will that mean that they will not yet consider my application until feb scores release? Or do I simply send out apps with December score and approach said schools with my feb score when it releases? Not sure how this exactly works. Sorry this is so convoluted but I'm sure the 7 sage community knows what I'm trying to get at ...

Hey guys! Just looking for any and all advice you can give me regarding the below:

I just took the December LSAT and I felt okay about it until I found out that what I thought was my experimental LG section was actually the real scored section. For reference, LG is usually my best section (max I've gotten is -3 on LG). On this test, one LG section seemed relatively normal and I finished on time, while the other LG section I was completely confused and ended up randomly bubbling in about 6-8 questions. Naturally, I assumed that was the experimental section but retrospectively, I must have just been REALLY off my game for that section (granted, I have been/currently am pretty sick, but trying not to use that as an excuse).

So my question is - Should I cancel this score? For reference, I took the test once already last year and got a 160. Before this Dec test, I was PT'ing in mid to high 160s, with BR scores in mid to high 170s (I'm pretty sure it's a timing issue, so going into this test I was already considering taking it a third time because I know I can still improve). Now I think I should cancel my score, because best case scenario (somehow the answer for every question on one of the logic games is 'C' and I somehow don't lose too much on LG), my score will still likely not be where I want/what I know I'm capable of. Worst case scenario, I do much worse on this test and get a lower score than last time (which is very likely because I don't feel confident that I did well enough on RC/LR to offset this poor LG section). My thought process is what's the point in having a worse score on my record if even the potential benefit of a best case scenario score is still not where I want it to be?

I'm really leaning towards cancelling because I'm 99% sure I'm going to take it again, but I would greatly appreciate any and all advice/experiences about cancelling (mostly if there are any repercussions in doing so in terms of my future applications).

Thank you in advance, and if you took the December test as well, congratulations on making it and good luck!!

I usually do pretty well with reading speed. Never more than 5minutes (which is rare). Normally between 3:30 and 4. But when I hear JY's target times I don't understand how anyone could get through the questions that fast. Does anyone have any feedback on how to improve speed?

Do I need to improve my accuracy before I improve my speed?

I have noticed that there are no Logic Games Bundle past PT 35. Is that because of licensing reasons with LSAC?

Thanks!

So, give it to an established news source, or keep it for her own website?

Please note that the information below will change to reflect the information we get! Contribute if you can via the official December 2017 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:

-Cruise ship trips to Manila/Osaka/Shanghai

-Musical Performances

-Metro Closures

-Apartment Cleaning

RC:

-Chinese Language

-Heroes and Multiverse

-Copywriting Comedians and Chefs

-Social Theorists about Darwinism

LR:

-Indian Spice

-Nuclear Fusion of Atoms/Heat

-T. Rex

-Tilapia Fish

-Alzheimer's Disease

-Herbal Medicines that Become Harmful

-Herniated Disks

-Dolphin Habitat

-Raising Prices by 25 Cents

-7pm and 6pm

-Fish Fingers

-Copper Tools and Canoes

-Sensing Tornadoes

-Movie Review

-Caligula

-Mayor Getting Re-Elected

-Black/White Camoflage

-Greek Character Reading Oracle's Tablet

-Disagreement About How Companies Should Go About Things

Experimental Sections:

LG:

-Rumor

-Fruits

-Voting Committees and Zoning Committees

RC:

-Protest Fiction

-Tax Alternatives

-Ice Cores

LR:

-Mosquitoes and Leaves

-Potato Insects

-Whistleblower

-Birds Feigning Injury

UNCONFIRMED:

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

LR:

-PTSD, stress, and cortisol levels

-Planet 256

-Lake Sassafras

-Lichens

This thread is closed for discussion. Official post Feb LSAT discussion stickied!

Hi everyone,

I'm pretty sure the answer is I can't take the test (I was planning on canceling my score anyway) but does anyone know if there is anything that can be done about being admitted to the exam if you lose your only form of ID the night before the exam?

My LSAT ticket has horizontal lines across the picture, does this matter? also if so how can i get them off?

Hello everyone,

My latest hurdle on LR is trying to parse out the referential phrasing. Has anyone had an issue with this and compiled a list of questions to practice? Let me know! It would be the biggest help on my journey to improving my LR score!

All the best!

Hope for your goal score!

Is anyone considering withdrawing? I've already withdrew once before and it sucks to eat the money but I'm just wondering if anyone else is going to withdraw from this Saturday's test.

I'm still 5+ points away from my goal score so I know it won't happen. I'm already registered for February's test so still contemplating what to do.

I was reviewing Q19 from Section 1 of PT 27 answer choice A, which got me wondering about causal chains.

According to the stimulus, pollen can cause the release of histamines, and histamine cannot cause cold symptoms.

Answer A says: "Pollen and other allergens do not cause colds" and it is an incorrect answer.

Can we not link this up into a causal chain like "pollen --> histamine --> ~cold symptoms" and conclude (through the transitive property) that pollen cannot cause cold symptoms?

I know for conditional reasoning, if you have a chain like "a-->b-->~c" you can conclude "a-->~c", but is this not the case for causal reasoning?

In a similar vein, if you have a causal chain like "a causes b. b causes c", you CAN conclude that "a causes c," right?...

Thank you!

I am taking the December LSAT and from my prep work and thinking I am going to be in the 155-158 range. I am going to retake the exam in February, does anyone think it is possible to increase my score to 165?

My biggest issue is timing! I have always been a slow reader and I am finding reading comp impossible. Any suggestions on how I can improve my score if I am a slow reader?

I still cannot figure out where my test center is. All it says is Rutgers New Brunswick 14411. I clicked on the web address it provided and it just sent me to rutgers.edu. Not helpful at all! Helppppppp

During question #2 of Negate Quiz #4, it states that:

Every doctor in this hospital is qualified to work on combating the city’s zombie epidemic.

Wouldn’t the logical negation be “not all doctors” instead of “some doctors….are not”, the reason being that “every" implies 100%, thus a binary division would mean 0-99, which translates as "not all", whereas “some...are not” translates as 1-99. Or is it the case that since we are negating the conditional relationship, it cannot include 0, which translates to “none”, which is a universal quantifier which implies a conditional relationship. Thus, 1-99 or “some” is the correct negation because it implies inter sectional relationship only and precludes a conditional relationship.

I would truly appreciate some feedback, because I trying to address any misconceptions.

So I've been studying for the LSAT for nearly two months now. Only in the past two weeks have I actually done more rigorous work to progress my studying. I've increased 10 points in the last week alone. With this being said, the reason I've studied like this is because I work 2 jobs and take 5 classes, plus extra circular activities at school (I took a week off of school and work, which financially killed me). My current average is 154, but I know if I take at least 4-6 months to dedicate all my focus towards the LSAT, I can score a 165+. So my question is, should I take the LSAT on Saturday and perform average, or take a year off and hopefully perform exceptional. It might sound like an obvious answer, but I just want to get into law school and get this shit over with. I legit no longer care about getting into Tier 1 or Tier 2 schools, I'm too fucking stressed to waste another year of my life because of an exam.

Hi everyone (sorry for the second post in one day),

Just starting my PT grind, and I've noticed I usually fail to get to the last 2-3 questions in LR. I also feel myself spending too much time on the first ~10 questions on LR, which is concerning because everyone tells me these are the "freebies."

So is there a rule for the general amt of time I should be spending on these questions? I want to say I heard someone say 10 min for the first 10 but I'm not sure if I'm making this up.

I'm thinking about taking old PTs and drilling the first 10-15 LR q and forcing myself to get them all right under a certain amount of time so I have more time for the more difficult q at the end of the section.

Thanks!

Hello! I'm in desperate need of some advice. I am scheduled to take the LSAT for the FIRST time next Monday, Dec 4th. I have been studying since July, but not studying correctly. This is how my studying has been since July:

JULY: Start reading Powerscore LR book

AUGUST: Reading Powerscore LR book

SEPTEMBER: Reading Powerscore LR book

OCTOBER: Finish Powerscore LR book, Start reading Powerscore RC book, Got Powerscore LG flashcards and reviewed almost every day, start taking LSAT prep test sections (untimed) at the end of Oct

NOVEMBER: Finish Powerscore RC book, Started reading Powerscore LG book (halfway through now), Reviewed LG flashcards every few days, Have taken maybe 10-15 practice sections so far, Took two timed full tests one week apart (scored 137 on first one and 139 on second one - did blind review for second one and the potential score was 149)

*** NOTE: I looked into tutors and courses in August and they were all incredibly expensive, but I found out about 7sage less than a week ago and I signed up for the Beginner's course thinking it might miraculously help -_-

I feel like I went about studying all wrong and did not take it as seriously as I should have. There's no way I would apply to law school with the scores I've been getting on the practice tests, so I'm wondering if I should just cancel the test on Monday and create a new study plan to take it at a later time. Or if I should just go to at least "see the beast" so that way I at least know what to expect when I take it again.

Thoughts?

Hello everyone,

I am REALLY struggling with the level 5 difficulty Flaw questions. Even during the blind review I’m getting tripped up. I sent the question where more people got it wrong than those who got it right to a few friends of mine (one is an engineer studying for the patent bar and other is an ESL student)... They got it right on the fly... I feel like the core curriculum has shattered my intuitive side and I am not able to get it back...? Some of you might be familiar with the book by Dr. Kahnemann, “Thinking Fast and Slow”, and it talks about two systems in the way people think. One is the intuitive side that just instinctively does something and other is the slow, analytical and thorough side. I feel like I’m stuck on the side that is being “thorough”. Whenever I get to these questions, I can’t just do them “on the fly”. Can I get some perspective? Lol

Hello fellow December test-takers! I'm brushing up on PSA questions for this Saturday, and I came across a question that I think is an excellent learning opportunity in regards to domains and precision within the wider scope of tackling LSAT arguments that deal with assumptions. Below I offer my explanation of the question, PT68 S3 Q02, (link to JY's explanation: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-68-section-3-question-12/) and a link to another question with a similar layout of argument and trap answer choices.

I’ve noticed that PSA questions that are “curvebreaker” level difficulty often have a very tempting trap answer that exactly mimics what you would formulate as your pre-phrase, and the right answer uses more veiled or sideways language that requires you to stop and think about the argument for a second. An analogous PSA question is PT 67 S4Q08, regarding burden of policy changes and salt on roads. Link: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-67-section-4-question-08/

For the parsley question, a general pre-phrase would go something along the lines of,

“If you have two varieties (V) of a cooking ingredient, and one is LESS GOOD on two particular qualities (T and H), NEVER use the worse variety.”

Note that the reasoning never tells us what variety we SHOULD use, only what we should not; and that it’s a comparative statement, not absolute.

But here’s where the curvebreaker feature of a PSA question comes in: PRECISION. Especially, precision in relation to which domain of item the argument is referring to. The trap answer will use all the keywords that sound appealing to you, so if you aren’t reading carefully, you might just think you lucked out on prephrasing the answer, choose it quickly, and move on.

But WAIT: D is a trap because it is out of the proper domain of the argument, so it’s useless to justify our conclusion. D tells us that we shouldn’t use V that have no T and H. But that doesn’t apply to dried parsley: all we know is that it has LESS T and H than fresh parsley. It’s an unwarranted assumption to say that it has no T and H at all.

B, on the other hand, seems at first to not be substantial enough to justify the argument, and it doesn't use all of the matching keywords from the argument; but remember, we’re laying out a sufficient condition (Pseudo SUFFICIENT assumption), so if an AC points the precise premise to the precise conclusion in a pretty much airtight way, then we have a winner. And B definitely does this, because it correctly references the COMPARATIVE quality of the argument, and tells us to not use the lesser T & H Variety.

My takeaway: be concise when figuring out what the conclusion of the argument is, and make sure on PSAs that your correct answer is connecting the premises to THAT conclusion, and not just repeating words from the stimulus. With a clearer understanding of what the conclusion of the argument is, you'll be able to solve all assumption questions more quickly and with increased confidence.

Does anyone know of any other Logic Games that are similar to this one? These parrern like games always ruin my LG score.

http://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-72-section-4-game-4/

I know this is odd to ask but is there any rules against wearing say a coat during the lsat in the winters? I'm planning on just wearing a long sleeve and hoping the centre isnt cold.

I read the question twice before the answers. Anybody else do this? It seems to be the way my brain absorbs things..

Hey guys, so we are just under a week away from the December 2017 test and I know nerves are high! For many Sagers it is their first time taking the actual LSAT. There are also many Sagers who have taken the real test once, twice or even more times before. I wanted to start a thread where we could come together and ask questions and relieve some nerves before the test! Feel free to comment advice, tips, or questions so we can all help each other out and we have a useful thread to refer to!

Helpful Links;

1.) Photo requirements - https://www.lsac.org/jd/lsat/day-of-test/photo-requirements

2.) Day of test information (what to bring) https://www.lsac.org/jd/lsat/day-of-test

3.) Dates and deadlines (Including predicted score release) https://www.lsac.org/jd/lsat/test-dates-deadlines/2017-2018/us-canada-dec

4.) List of common questions - https://www.lsac.org/jd/help/faqs-lsat

My Advice;

Understand that the test doesn’t start right at 8:30. Depending on the size of your testing center it will probably start closer to 9-9:30. You will have a bunch of time where you sit and wait. Followed by directions.

Be weary of talking to other test takers about the LSAT. You don’t know their level of preparedness and it might get you nervous if they say something you were not expecting.

Use the bathroom before the test.

Scout out the location before you go. My test center has one bathroom, and it’s small. The line, especially for girls, is HUGE.

Bring a snack! You might be hungry by the time the break comes.

Don't try "cheat drugs" - don't overload on caffeine - go to bed early!

Try not to change your routine at all.

Stay calm, don't get into your own head.

Listen to the proctors, follow the rules. Don't be the person who bubbles after time and gets flagged!!

Please feel free to add your own advice, questions or experiences guys!

Hello All,

I had a question regarding whether or not to negate "NO" in the translations section and how that works. Below, I have highlighted why I am unsure about this. I have recently started the course so if this is something that is touched on later, I have yet to reach that point.

Group 3 Translations 3 with Answers.

Question 4

"Without brown being present [BP], NO new large store can be attracted to the downtown area[NLSA}"

My answer

/BP--->NLSA

/NLSA--->BP

JY Answer

/BP--->/NLSA

NLSA--->BP

In JY's answer, he negated the sentence that included NO. However, in the previous section, he did not and I was confused as to whether that was a preference or following a rule.

Group 3 Translations 2 with Answers

“Until there is NO shred of doubt that nuclear dumps are safe (100% safe), it makes sense to situate them where they pose the least threat to the public (SLT)”

My Answer

100% safe—>SLT

/SLT—>/100%

JY’s Answer

/100% safe–>SLT

/SLT–>100% safe

For this question, it was explained to me by another Sager that you have to understand the context of when NO is used, which is why this was not negated.

Question 5

“Unless something is done about the alcohol problem at this university (DSA), I’ll have to transfer to a university where there are NO fraternities (TU)”

My Answer

/DSA—>/TU

TU—>DSA

JY’s Answer

/DSA—>TU

/TU—>DSA

For myself, if it was read as "I'll have to transfer to a university where there are fraternities (TU)," I can understand why it is not negated. But with the NO included, intuitively I assume it should be negated since you are stating the opposite. Semantics of course are crucial but is there any rule of thumb that can help with discerning when to negate or not?

Thank you in Advance