@ I found a tablet with a stylus invaluable. I took a Samsung Galaxy Tab A w/ S Pen on travel with me, loaded it full of prep test PDFs, and was able to study on the train, in cafes, and on the beach. It totally obviates the need for printing, and is awesome for Blind Review.

Of course nothing replaces testing under LSAT conditions, so this is only a gap fill.

@ I've banned myself from TLS. There is no replacement for patient, methodical LSAT prep and solid application writing. TLS is a hive of neuroses.

@ I would make only one adjustment to your plan: make every Saturday a firm Practice Test day, and begin around 10am (roughly the time you will begin the actual test in February. Build your week around that most sacred of days. Test Day doesn't begin when you wake up; it starts on the night before (in this case, Friday afternoon and evening) with a calm mind, materials prepared, and a solid night of rest. I would strongly recommend against making Saturday a drilling day, as you are conditioning your mindset. Be a machine. Wake up every Saturday at 6:30, calmly prepare, and take a 5-section PT under test conditions. Then walk into your test center and slaughter it on Saturday February 4th, just like you did every previous Saturday.

(If you can swing it, take a few tests at the actual test center. I did that this last Saturday, went to the law school hosting my February test and took a timed PT in one of the empty classrooms. The psychological effect was enormous. As I walked out of the building, I visualized doing so in February, and asked myself: what between now and then is as important as complete peace of mind in that moment? Nothing.)

Alex is absolutely correct about this. I visited the campus this year, and a student I talked to said she had no business being at Yale. She had a 164 and a basic state university degree. She wrote her statement and 250 the day the admission cycle closed, hit "send," and was stunned to get in. She had traveled and worked overseas, and found a way to tell that story; they loved something in her written materials. Yale loves denying 180/4.3 candidates and admitting people whose pursuits tell a story. A friend of mine who attended there said a kid in his class had a 155.

Tell your story in an original and compelling way.

@

No, that's too strong. I've heard you just don't get extra points for having family there. So it doesn't hurt you; it just doesn't help.

Another small but powerful "compromise" between the options mentioned above is to time individual questions, games, RC passages, or small blocks of them. It's the "aim small, miss small" approach, breaking a challenge down into its component parts and perfecting them.

Slow is smooth; smooth is fast.

Yeah, this one is a bit sketchy. Different =/= unique. An example to demonstrate.

United Wire is selecting individuals based on their language aptitude in translating international cables. Three candidates besides Jones have been proposed. They speak French, Italian, and German, all common languages. Jones, however, speaks a rare dialect of Swahili.

Different =/= unique.

C'mon LSAC.

Powerscore lists this as one of the 15 hardest LR questions of all time.

I am still not grasping a crystal-clear reason why (D) is not "a flaw in the argument's reasoning," as the stem states. There are not supposed to be "runner-up" answer choices - four are completely and totally wrong, and one is absolutely correct. How does (D) not describe a flaw?

"It draws an inference..." - It is likely that Tom is an insomniac since he drinks large amounts of coffee

"...about one specific individual..." - Tom

"...from evidence that describes only the characteristics..." - Drinking large amounts of coffee

"...of a class of individuals..." - Extreme insomniacs

(C) does more precisely describe the flaw, but there cannot be two correct answer choices, between which students must choose the best. What makes (D) absolutely, utterly, completely wrong?

This often is related to "legacy" considerations, and depending on the school can swing either way. By way of example, I've heard (but not confirmed) that Berkeley actively eschews legacy points.

Additionally, were I an admissions officer I'd prefer to know if you had an uncle on the faculty who was lobbying on your behalf.

I'm still grappling with the extent to which we are allowed, in Flaw/Weaken questions, to bring outside explanations to bear in demonstrating flawed reasoning. There are other Flaw questions in these problem sets (29.1.14 comes to mind) where the wrong answer choices are a random list of "X may have..." outside explanations which don't emanate from the argument.

It appears that the standard is that we have room to allow for generic and external "plausible explanations" so long as they are not stated outright. For example: would (E) still have been correct had it said, "Fails to consider that a pesticide leak has resulted in a nation-wide potato scare" ? No, it would be wrong, because the flawed reasoning in the argument didn't lead us to it. It is just random, one of a million different explanations. Yet it is still plausible, and therefore would fall into the generic "plausible explanations of a phenomenon" category established by the correct answer. The difference is that we are only permitted to allow for the mere existence of alternative external explanations...we just cannot rest our answer on a single one unless the argument led us directly to it. Hence (E) is the correct answer, because it countenances the existence of alternative explanations without randomly selecting one.

Am I off here?

LSAC writers need to learn about the business world before they try to write "airtight" questions.

So what if the family is paid low wages? Hello? Stock options? Home-based business model wherein all expenses count as tax-deductible? Is it a famous family-run restaurant, and the kids are the employees and get paid in tips? Many employees get paid poor wages, with the understanding they will be remunerated outside the salary structure. The "road to prosperity" led me to avoid "C", as who cares if wages are low in the short term, so long as the family is profitable and eventually reaches prosperity in the long term.

Overthinking, I know...but these are supposed to be absolutely airtight.

@ Another aspect of GW is its reputation as a policy/politics-oriented program. If you are aiming to practice at a firm, this won't be a consideration. But if you want, even eventually, to work within the Beltway in something besides black-letter law, GW has the upper hand.

@ said:

Did anybody think the Hindu/Roman reading comp passage was overly difficult? I had one of WTF moments after reading about the Hindu stuff. I was hoping that was experimental. Sigh.

@ Unfortunately, that section containing the Hindu/Roman passage was real. It was my only RC section.

@ said:

In my LR section:

more cyclist more accident, 10 years later more cyclists less accident

Lysozyme 80 mins pollution test

@ Confirmed. Both those are real.

@ Ah yes! Those are both real:

Ravens/crows and worms (dropping pebbles in a tube)

Children estimating half-full beakers (it was for me the toughest question of both LR sections)

Yeah...it isn't linear. That would be too easy. The LSAC is too good at what they do.

@ Because the experimental section is not the same for everyone. Common denominators + test structure.

Official RC was:

Judges and juries

Indian literature vs Roman political history

Liberal environmentalists and ecology

Bees (optic measuring, distance traveled, multiple studies)

I had two LR sections. I remember:

Meteorite and nanodiamonds

Supernova and a king's birth

Will update more as they occur to me.

@

From the LSAC website FAQ:

How many times can I take the LSAT?

Normally, you may not take the LSAT more than three times in any two-year period. This policy applies even if you cancel your score or it is not otherwise reported. LSAC reserves the right to withdraw your registration, rescind your admission ticket, or take any other steps necessary to enforce this policy.

The LG section with the 12 weeks of summer camp was a real section. A girl from my room was with me on the train ride home, and said she had the summer camp game, plus three LR sections.

For those of you with your sights set on Yale, just be aware that the application specifically asks if you sought outside assistance in crafting your application. It's not an absolute make-or-break, but just be aware of that so you aren't blindsided by it. The admissions director is somewhat coy about how much weight is applied to that question, but the subtext is that the school appreciates purely original content.

This is exactly the kind of discussion I wanted to start. Great points all!

The insistent urge to move on to the next PT is seductive but detrimental. It inherently assumes there is an absolute and positive relationship between volume of PTs and score level.

The most important PT is the one you're working on right now. Milk it.

@ I do them all. It takes me precisely two hours to BR an individual LR section, yet it is a powerful process. It is critical you slowly review each answer choice, and document why it is wrong or right. Over time the patterns emerge, and additionally all of that patient reading helps you quickly decipher the LSAT's often cryptic and convoluted prose. That then translates to higher scores in other sections, especially RC.

Tedious? Yes. Beneficial? Hugely.