I apologize that I'm posting on here even though I've already seen several people post about the same thing. I read through those articles and realized I need a bit more knowledge from experienced LSATers.

My dilemma, as you may have noticed, is that today (August 30th), is the last day to change my LSAT test date. My score on the last 3 timed PTs I took were all 161. I tend to score LG: 13/23, LR: 20/25, LR 20/25, RC 23/27. Obviously, I'm focusing on Logic Games. I will admit, I enjoy LR and RC far too much and thus spent most of the last 2 1/2 months on those.

I'm going into third year, so really, I'm not worried about being late for the admissions process. Even if I do postpone and still don't reach my target score (which would be hella shitty) I can retake it next September/October. My only concern is balancing school with the LSAT. 1. From your experience do you think that one can make significant improvements (aiming for a 170) whilst in school? 2. Do you think it is possible to put a sufficient amount of work to see improvements DURING exam season (as the December LSAT and my exam season coincide)?. 3. Overall, should I postpone in the hopes of a higher score at the risk of being able to put in less work per day than I have been these past 2ish months? 4. If yes to the last question, any tips on how to efficiently and strategically study while in school?

Thanks for the help ya'll!

Hey 7sagers :)

We're now under four weeks before the September test and the anxiety is creeping in. While I've seen a drastic improvement from starting just three months ago (a 9 point bump) I'm still slightly below my bare-minimum goal to where I wouldn't feel the need to commit seppuku. In the last four weeks (nearly 6-7 PTs) I have not scored below a 162 and I've completely turned around my LG ability thanks to some fantastic advice from @"Cant Get Right" and others by using @Pacifico 's method. I've gone from getting at least -7 to getting -2 or -3 consistently on LG sections. However, I'm not quite where I need to be. While I've hit a 165 twice in the last three weeks (my bare minimum score to prevent seppuku), my most recent score went back down to a 163. Here are the section breakdowns from my most recent test:

Logic Games: 87%: 20 correct of 23

Logical Reasoning: 80%: 20 correct of 25

Logical Reasoning: 76%: 19 correct of 25

Reading Comp. 74%: 20 correct of 27

If you were me, where would you try and focus? I've gone through some reviewing up to this point and I've noticed quite a few stupid mistakes made trying to account for time -- i.e., not reading all of the answer choices, selecting answers based off of keywords, etc. If I were to have minimized those slight mental errors and mistakes and correct timing issues I should have reached a 165 easily but I'm still below my ACTUAL goal of 168. My reading comp score is weak and it feels like I'm consistently getting -6/-7 on those sections but I could also stand to improve LR. I've looked at my analytics and I've tried drilling up to this point but I haven't seen any significant improvement yet. Should I stay the course or switch to RC? Any help would be greatly appreciated -- thank you to everyone who has helped so far.

Good luck September LSATers!

-James

I know there has been various threads on this. I was just curious to see what are peoples thoughts on their success with either not reading the reading comprehension questions beforehand or not.

Admin edit: Please don't use all caps in titles, I don't like to be yelled at.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-68-section-4-game-4

someone said we can make it a double layer sequencing game representing the type of article (finance, nutrition, and wildlife) on the top row....what would the game board look like? could anyone draw the diagram or explain it a bit? thank you

I'm having hard time to solve substitution Qs like PT61,S4,Q19, PT63,S1,Q18 or PT63,S3,Q22.

I've seen these kinds of Qs after PT60.

Whenever I encounter these kinds of questions, I can't usually pick the right answer. I feel much harder than regular principle or necessary assumption questions.

Is there any effective tactic to crack this kind of the Qs?

Please someone enlighten me.

Thanks in advance!

Hi,

I was not sure about E...the language is so confusing.

How should I understand the answer choice and why is it wrong?

Thanks in advance!

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-62-section-2-question-11/

I'm not sure if any of you have this trouble but I seem to be missing quite a few more questions (2-3) on the first LR section than the second. This is especially prevalent when LR is the first section of the exam. Any suggestions to remedy this?

How is the group 3 or inclusive?? Doesn't negating one element make it exclusive?

For example Jon or Tommy will go to lunch is translated as:

/J -> T

/T -> J

Doesn't that make it so we can only choose one at the expense of the other making it exclusive?

Are the words "all potential" just meant to throw us off?

I am curious to see if anyone can tell me why they use the term "all potential"nuclear reactor sites in such a region.... why did they not just say "nuclear reactor sites in such a region" is the addition of "all potential" just a term to throw us off..... if you removed the word all potential from the stimulus and the answer choices would he question be the same? because to me it just seems that the term all potential is just a label to try and throw us off... because once you mention nuclear reactor sites in such a region.. you already know that you are talking about nuclear reactor sites that are in a geologically quiet region.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-17-section-2-question-21/

Hi,

So I'm not sure about the correct answer C...

Why do we have to assume or compare the ancestors to Neanderthals? Why it's required?

Even though we know homo sapiens ancestors of contemporary humans was not significantly more similar to that of Neanderthals than is the DNA of people today, that only means people today was more similar to Homo sapiens when we compared to Neanderthals.

It could be true there are some similarities between ppl and Neanderthals, just not as much as with homo sapiense.

In that case, we cannot conclude homo sapiens did not interbred with Neanderthals (and it could be true both neanderthals and homo sapiens were ancestors of humans).

I'm really confused with C and do not understand why it's required to make the conclusion in the argument (which is they did not "interbreed")

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-63-section-1-question-19/

Hello,

I'm having trouble understanding why B is incorrect, and why E is the correct answer.

So originally when going over the stimulus I only found one flaw in the stimulus: The individual players don't tell us about the quality of the team (Parts doesn't equal the whole)

And, I assumed "B" was the correct answer since it kind of described the flaw. "features that are not relevant to the quality of that entity", I guess the features are relevant, but I assumed that those features are not relevant to the overall quality of that entity. Meaning the individual parts can't give us any detail of the quality of the whole.

I don't understand how "E" is the correct answer. Best team most likely to win -> Our club will almost certainly be city champions.....Okay...they have the same transitional conditions...what's wrong here?

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-65-section-4-question-26/

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-b-section-2-game-2/

I have some questions about the proper diagram and meaning of a rule in this in/out game.

Rule 3: "If Yews are not in the park, then either L or O, but not both, are in the park."

- Could someone explain about how to properly diagram this rule (ideally in notation that does NOT involve biconditionals)? I diagrammed it as 2 separate rules (shown below), but I think it only confused me more...

/Y --> L or O (representing 'either/or')

/Y --> /L and /O (representing 'not both')

- If I'm understanding the meaning of this rule correctly, does the contrapositive of this rule basically mean/state that "if both L & O are in the park, then Y is in the park." ? Does the contrapositive of this rule also include "if both L & O are OUT, then Y is IN"?

TIA!

This is a principle question.

I got this wrong in both drilling and blind review.

So I thought I am looking for something that will do the following:

connect the premise to the conclusion

SO, say something about how something that is a health hazard should be banned

My reasoning:

A) This is the one I picked in BR. I thought the phrase "should not be allowed" could be a referent to banned. It could be taking it a bit to the extreme, i.e. making that extra assumption, but to me this seemed like the strongest answer choice.

B) The argument is not about misleading claims, but rather if something is a health hazard it should be banned. This answer choice does not do that.

C) This is stretching the argument to an extreme. This is like saying advertisements for vitamins should include all side effects etc. This answer choice says all health hazards associated with promoted products should be included. The argument says if a product has a health hazard, it should be banned.

D) This answer choice is irrelevant. Conforming to regulations and standards is information that is extraneous and the argument did not address.

E) I thought this was wrong because of the word ban while this answer choice is discussing promoting a product. I guess it could be correct because if it is not a health hazard then it would be healthful. This could be the contrapositive, "if a product does not promote smoking then it is not a health hazard" Then you would take the extra leap and say if it does not promote smoking then it is a healthful product, and you would just ignore the health hazard part since that is no longer relevant.

I'm really confused. In my reasoning, I did not address the "promote smoking" part, maybe that's where I went wrong. I still think this could be a big leap of assumptions. If someone can tell me if my reasoning is valid/reasonable and explain answer choices A and E to me, I would be most appreciative!

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-44-section-3-game-3/

I have a question relating to conditionals in grouping games.

Although this was a relatively simple game in that L and P are together and G and H are not together, rendering a limited number of combinations, the two conditional statements upon which the more difficult questions depended made the game significantly more challenging.

In the video explanation for this game, instead of diagramming the conditionals in the typical if---> then format, J.Y. instead quickly jotted down the resulting game boards for each conditional. In this sense, the game is unique in that the two conditionals provided actually resulted in two fully solved "worlds." Because this rarely happens in grouping games, I wasn't in the habit of looking to see if the conditionals resulted in solved worlds. What J.Y. does, makes the game significantly easier.

My question is this: Whenever we have conditional statements in a grouping game that result in a solved game-board, should we jot down the solved game board? Or should we wait to see if questions require it? I suppose that doesn't make much sense...maybe what I'm getting at is, HOW do we know when use this technique.

Either way, this was a very simple game, made difficult by conditionals. I'd like to know how to avoid making the error I made in the future. Thoughts?

So, I've drilled LR using Tests 29-58. I BR all my work. I was getting 2-3 wrong per section, which is my target, but once I moved into the 50's I started getting 5-6 wrong per section.

I just can't seem to cut this number down. Most of my wrong answers hinge on details that are so subtle it's absolutely infuriating; answer choices that hinge on the correct interpretation of the word "susceptible" or other minutia.

I seem to have hit this plateau where nothing I'm doing is helping. How do I improve when most of my wrong answers hinge on these really small details? BR doesn't seem to be helping. I'm wondering if there are suggestions.

I want to save Tests 60 and above for full-timed tests, so I think I'm going to go back to the beginning and drill LR all over again :(

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-27-section-4-question-13/

Admin: Edited out passage because it was word for word. Please paraphrase.

I wanted to ask if this is the breakdown. because in J.Y.'s video he says that where it states "so it is no less wrong to grant this power to society" is the conclusion, but i see that as the sub conclusion.

and I thought the main conclusion would be [The ancient Greeks failed to recognize that morally, democracy is no improvement over monarchy] ..... because then you say "why should i believe this" and the rest of the argument tells you why.

The "/A->B" rule is so important for grouping games that PowerScore uses a special symbol ("A(-|-)B", or "the double-not arrow") to note it. As a person who understands how important this is for grouping games, I think the "double-not arrow" is brilliant. As a person who has tried to explain it to others, it is both frustrating and confusing. The "double not arrow" is ONLY used when the sufficient term is negative and the necessary term is positive--or is it the opposite? It makes a huge difference, but I find it almost impossible to keep it straight in my head, much less explain it to someone else. For that reason, I think JY is wise to avoid using it here at 7Sage.

But what if it were not confusing? I have come up with TWO arrows that practically write themselves and make grouping games much easier. All you have to do is look at the way we write out "/A->B" and "A->/B."

Note how the slash comes first in the "/A->B" situation, but comes second in the "A->/B" case. Let's turn those slashes into pictures. If we put the forward slash first, we can make a "/\" picture. If we put it second, we get a "\/" picture.

/A->B turns into A(-/\-)B

A->/B turns into A(-\/-)B

Pictures are helpful if they mean something, so let's call the "/\" picture an "erupting volcano." The "erupting volcano arrow" means that something is erupting, so that something must be in your slot. The "\/" looks like a "leaky funnel," which means something is leaking, which means something must be OUT.

If you can remember that "slash comes first" means "/\," and "/\" means "erupting volcano," and "erupting volcano" means something must be in, you can turn a "/A->B" rule into a full slot within seconds. And if you can remember what a "leaky funnel" does, you'll fill an out slot just as fast.

And there's no reason to ever get them mixed up!

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-28-section-3-question-21/

hello everyone, this is a question that was asked but there was no clear answer. The answer choice for A, if you take the contraceptive it matches the flaw. Is A only wrong because D just has a better match? if D were not there, would A be correct?

Hi, I'm not sure why D is wrong and B is correct...

since it says there was reasonable grounds...etc I thought it follows the conditional statement and it's justified.

Any ideas why D is wrong ? :(

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-64-section-3-question-18/

If you had to name the top 5 things you always keep in mind while doing the RC section, what would they be? I am really having trouble breaking a -6 average on RC and was looking for some helpful hints that I may be overlooking.

Hi everyone, do you do comp. passages last or first or just in the order they appear?

Context: My goal is a 173. I will be taking the September LSAT. RC was usually my forte, and I never had to worry about it, but ever since hitting the modern tests (60+), something has not been clicking, and on my last two p-tests, I got 6 wrong in each RC section. Minus 6!! My goal is to get -1 or -2 on each section, and LR and LG have (slowly) been shaping up to this standard or exceeding it. So RC is definitely now my Achilles heel.

I think it's because I suck at comparative passages or because the questions just seem harder on modern tests (or both). Not sure. I was wondering if it would help to do comp. passages in a certain order.

Near the end of my RC sections, with 5 minutes left, I panic a lot and it blinds my intuition. If I'm between two answer choices, you best believe I end up choosing the wrong one in those 5 minutes because I'm not thinking clearly.

If I do comp passages first, I get the hardest thing out of the way and I have a peace of mind for the rest. The danger is that I spend way too much time in the beginning and then panic because I don't have time and miss questions on easy passages.

If I do comp passages last, I get the easiest/easier passages down first, but totally bomb the comp passages because they are harder to solve in general, but add in the fact that I'm also panicking!

Aghhh. Any suggestions/help/anecdotes regarding RC are super welcome!

It's just frustrating because once I think I've got a certain section down, another pops its head up! Like fighting a hydra.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-33-section-1-question-11/

I got my answer right for this question. But in JY's explanation, he explained the meaning of the last sentence as: # of people who consume Caffeine is GREATER OR EQUAL to # of people who consume other addictive substances.

I am confused that JY explained "as many as"="GREATER OR EQUAL to". I always remember "as many as" means "EQUAL to" from my grammar lesson. Could someone help me with this confusion?

Thank you in advance!

BTW, JY mentioned this question is extremely hard. How much time should I spend on an extremely hard questions? I am still in drilling mode and I spend 4 mins on this question. I know for sure that is too much time for 1 question........

I saw someone post in a different discussion a video of Nichole Hopkins (from ilovelsat.com) going over her notation method. Does anyone else use her method? I just wanted to get some thoughts from others who have tried it. While watching the video, I was excited because I really thought it was going to be helpful. However, trying to implement it has been difficult.

I haven't had a lot of trouble with the RC section, except when I'm taking a full practice test. I haven't really employed any notation method because during the core curriculum, I was doing very well on RC. My notation method was pretty much just circling random things I thought might come up and notating the argument structure loosely. Before I started doing full tests, I was getting -1 or -2 on full, timed RC sections. But on the full test, I've been getting -5 to -7.

So, I thought I'd try Nichole's method. So far, it's really slowing me down and I don't comprehend as much as I used to. I'm just wondering, is it just a matter of doing it over and over until it becomes second nature before it becomes helpful? Or should I just go back to what I was doing before?

Hello fellow September LSATters :)

What's your game plan for the next month?

My last two PTs (71,72), I scored a 173 and 172 respectively. I'd be BEYOND happy with that score on the actual LSAT. But I'm getting nervous about the actual test date and wanted to hear some thoughts on what might be the best way to embrace the final month. At the moment, I plan on PTing and BRing twice a week (expect the final week before test) with a day or two or timed-sections in between. Thoughts?

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-24-section-4-game-4/

Hi guys, I got a problem with translation of last rule of Game 4 of PT 24.It would be great if someone could help me and explain my error to me?

The rule states V cannot be in 'unless' (negate sufficient) both H and M are in.

Can, is a indicator (negate necessary) which in this case because we have cannot should be translated /H or /M -->V and its contrapositive would be /V --> H and M.

The correct translation based on J.Y. video and answer choices is V ---> H and M.