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I just took the September LSAT! I’m so relieved that it’s over and that I can finally have free weekends lol. I’ve been studying for almost a year now and this is my second time taking it. I feel like I did good but nerves got to me in the beginning. Here’s my experience and tips for anyone anxious!
I was super nervous when the test started because I was psyched out about people watching me focus (lol), but I gradually got used to it as time went on later in the exam. If anyone also struggles with anxiety or adhd, I would recommend just staying calm and ignoring everything around you. Don’t psych yourself out or get frustrated if you can’t focus. Just take a breath and slowly read the stimulus. It’s ok if you’re slower than usual, just don’t stop and worry! It’s also ok if you find yourself wandering a bit, just correct yourself and you’ll hopefully become adjusted throughout the test.
Good luck to everyone else scheduled to take it! Hope everyone gets their target scores ⭐️
For RC, try this method: reading an untimed passage without highlighting and then spend as much time as needed writing down short sentences/ideas of each paragraph from MEMORY.
Then, using these short sentences/ideas only try to answer the questions without referring back to the passage. This may be a bit annoying at first but it will train you to retain more information and really focus on what the questions are about usually.
For RC, you typically want to know the main idea or purpose of the passage, the authors tone and opinions, and any other opinions from 3rd parties. This is general for most passages, but look into the specific passage types and they will give you more insight.
Make sure you review RC implied and strongly supported questions. Also, keep in mind that every answer choice should be somewhat supported or reasonably inferred by the passage. Meaning you want to really pay attention to direct support, specific wording, strong and weak language, and descriptive accuracy in ACs.
Conclusion: It's not true that folktales lack deeper meaning.
Reasoning: Folktales provide great insight into the wisdom of a culture.
How can we prove that folktales have deeper meaning with this reasoning? Sufficient Assumption questions are open-ended, meaning you can either find a creative answer that makes the conclusion 100% true, or find an easy answer that makes the answer 100% true. You should read all the answer choices, but know that upon reading B, it is a clear missing link between support and conclusion that makes the conclusion SOLID!
B solidifies the missing link by saying folktale that has great insight into the wisdom of a culture has deep meaning.
Example for B
My company hires 11 employees. 2 have extensive sales experience. 9 have engineering degrees.
5 of these employees are the best sales reps. This includes 2/2 of the employees with extensive sales experience and 3/9 of the employees with engineering degrees.
100% of the employees with extensive sales experience are top performers, while only 33% of the employees with engineering degrees are top performers.
Why should we hire more people with engineering degrees? Let's instead hire more folks with extensive sales degrees since 100% of these folks at my company are top performers!
how is this assumption in the analysis correct: He also assumes that watching the film is the primary or sole cause of the children's behavior, ignoring other potential factors that could contribute to their behavior.
when the stimulus states: watching violent films is at least partly responsible for this aggressive behavior.
This doesn't necessarily mean sole or primary, it could mean it's 5% responsible, right?
@alliah777799 The intended effect is a decrease in the mosquito population. The opposite of decreasing is increasing. We cannot assume anything else. Think of scale. Opposite of one end.
negative--------nothing--------positive
@Ossyborn Generally follow this structure:
Structure: /[the way things are]-> unless statement ( the "exception")
I am always breathing unless there is no air.
Application: /[Always breathing]-> no air
If I am not breathing, then there is no air.
#feedback I think the analyses of the stimuli in this PT is great, but the explanations of some ACs seem a bit convoluted. It's a bit hard to read as a logical explanation and I feel like I have translate it in my head. Not saying it's entirely unhelpful, but it could be slightly cutdown? Although I do understand there are different instructor styles. It feels a bit similar to LSATDemon in that it's fun but I switched to 7Sage because of how straightforward and concise the explanations were.
Never choose an answer that was not supported in some way with the passage.
AC B can be eliminated because the author does not mention that the theory can always predict, rather than the theory cannot always predict the behavior of complicated systems. A lack of one thing does not imply the existence of another thing. Another flaw is the implicit equivocation of two concepts in AC B, complicated and chaotic. These are two separate things.
AC D is also a much stronger choice because it is closer to the purpose of why the author claims the theory is misleading. Look around the sentence in P1. The author immediately after states "such a theory would still be limited to interpreting fundamental interactions and explaining why subatomic particles have the mass, charge, and other characteristics that they do"
Agree that this questions was sooooo buns. Good luck to everyone on the June LSAT #slay
Picked AC B on this one. I see why D is correct, but wondering how to better eliminate AC B.
The author states that the theory of everything cannot "explain "everything" only in the sense that everything is made of particles. It could not predict the behavior of complicated systems like thunderstorms or human beings." I chose this because it also aligns to the theory that the scientists are pursuing, although they do not know that the theory will be unable to predict everything.
My best guess for eliminating this would be that the theory "assumes"- this implies that the scientists know that the theory is not consistently predictable, which is not true. The scientists in the passage do not acknowledge this, the author does.
Ok lol, just figured it out. Ugh
@goblue27 You actually don't need to make a big assumption for AC C. In P3, the author states "Between the extremes of simple predictability and chaos there can arise behavior that is partly linear and partly chaotic" and then introduces cells as an example of a system behaving this way.
From this, we can say that a cell's behavior is partly linear (partly linear and partly chaotic)
Aggressive elimination!
AC A, C, and D don't work because the author does not make any claims about excellence being required for something or that something else is required to achieve excellence. The author mentions excellence only as an uncontroversial concept by the sports public for performance but does not claim anything else.
AC B also claims an unnecessary requirement for judgment and the author does not mention beauty as a requirement for anything.
The only semi-good answer is AC E by process of elimination. If you're being tripped up by the word "serious"- SAME! But in the end, it's the best AC. Also note that this is a principle, not an explicit draw from the passage. The principle definitely underlies Passage A, as one of the claims made is that the sports public has the discriminating judgement for the sport. Why? Well, most of the people participated in the sport and acquired that capacity for judgment. The word "serious" in this case is definitely meant to trick you. Typically, something like this may eliminate the answer, but since there are no other ACs that are anywhere close to true, this is the best guess.
The LSAT is sometimes making that gut decision that nothing else is relatively close, so this is the best choice. It also depends on what the question type is and what can be most reasonably defended.
@ChadC this was helpful thanks! Shows how much a word or phrase strengthens an AC, which is really important for these types of questions
This was such a ridiculous answer choice that it made me laugh out loud on blind review. I crossed it out fast on the timed portion because of the introduction of the new concept, but it makes sense since some deaf people (folks who were born deaf compared to later becoming deaf) typically do not use speech to accompany their communication
It's the best answer out of the ACs.
@doodeedoo inference questions are not as strong as NA questions. AC A is the bare minimum needed to support this question. AC B is too strong because of the words "generally" and "many"
@Zanderantochow - this definition of intermediate conclusions helped me: "It will have a "why" below it (evidence proving it) and lead to a "so what?" above it (the main conclusion it helps prove)."
The statement is not being supported by any other statement.
Try this: The purpose of a law is to deter certain actions by threatening to punish those performing the actions.
Ok, why?
Because This threat works only if potential violators believe that they are likely to be punished.
This doesn't make sense. The second statement does not support the first in explaining why the purpose of the law is to deter certain actions. It only elaborates on the statement in order to support the conclusion.
Imagine the statements as a group. They all add additional support for the conclusion but they do not rely on each other to exist. They are all reasons to believe the conclusion, not each other.
A- author provides examples of effective programming in P4 that would support the success of native language preservations.
B and E- author does not provide examples or implications of what is REQUIRED for the success or failure of the preservation of language. these answers were too strong.
C- no mention anywhere that this was a "main roadblock"
D- no mention of economy or tech in the passage.
Tip: aggressively eliminate answers. even one or two words can make the answer wrong! if it seems a bit off, it's likely wrong, but always check all the answers before moving on to the next question.
If I'm confused about a stimulus, I usually reorder to passage with the conclusion first and then the support.
Ex.
According to NT, you don't need to know what two bodies are made of to calculate their orbit. That's because NT says that gravitational theory depends only on their mass and distance between them.
Missing link: What would make this conclusion 100% true? Likely something that has to do with the new concept of how to calculate orbits mentioned in the conclusion.
Also - Compared to earlier PTs, there a lot more of these questions on this PT's LR than usual:
Sufficient Assumption
Role in Argument
Parallel Flaw Method of Reasoning
Didn't see the different wording used:
"flash pasteurization"
vs.
"intensive pasteurization"
ugh!!
I think it depends on how many hours you study per day and what your score goal is! I've been studying anywhere from 1-4 hours per day for the past 6 months and I'm in the 160s. I work full time so I try to squeeze in as much time possible on the bus, during lunch, before bed. I would recommend drilling every day, doing preptests at least 1x a week, and always blind reviewing any drills/sections/tests. Even if you think you know the content, you also need to master the timing and testing conditions. Hope this helps. Good luck!
#help. I'm confused on why C would be correct if it does not address the gas-fired plant. For this question, shouldn't we be looking for ways in which the waste-to-energy plant is better than the gas-fired plant?
AC C only addresses why it's better than the existing trash incinerator, so aren't we making an unfounded assumption that the gas-fired plant produces more pollution than the waste-to-energy?
What if the gas-fired plant is better in terms of air pollution than the waste-to-energy plant? the explanation for answer B does not make sense to me, because it also says that "it isn't relevant to which new plant we should build." My thought for answer B was there is a need for the waste-to-energy because it will reduce the abundance of waste and produce additional energy to account for the increase of energy.
I'm still confused on two things.
For AC A: how does passage A espouse a general view without providing details? To me, it seems like they expanded on the view provided and how it applies to unjust ownership.
For AC C: how is the approach for passage A incorrect? I interpreted this as the author invoked fundamental ("commonly held") justice principles, adjusted this to apply to unjust ownership, and then recommended that we adjust real ownership to conform to the adjusted principles.
How is this interpretation incorrect, and is there a way to avoid this train of through? I don't see how the approach described for Passage A in AC A is clearer and more accurate than C. Although I do understand that the approach for Passage B is better in AC A.
Wouldn't it be bad to assume that environmental factors include cultural changes or different time periods? I eliminated D because I didn't want to assume.
I was confused by this question because I didn't know if we could infer if the 7 day cycle was referring to the observed weather pattern. Overthinking lol. The analysis was super helpful on this, this was probably the hardest LR question I've come across.
The conclusion is that human activity has appreciable, large scale effects on weather. We know this because the other possible cause, natural seven day cycles, can't cause measurable weather patterns. We can infer based on the phrase '7 day cycle' that the author wants this to refer to the information provided about industrial urban areas: the weather here (cloudier on weekends compared to weekdays) follows the 7 day cycle.
What we are assuming is that natural seven day cycles are the only other possible cause of measurable weather patterns, and if this is not possible, then the other option is human activity.
A flaw in this argument would be to say "well what if there's a natural cause with a 5 day cycle"? That's a gap that we need to rectify, and to do so, we would need to claim that if there is a natural cause, then it must have a 7 day cycle. If this were false, the author could not claim that human activity is the the cause based on their elimination technique.
I used to read the question stem but then I ended up re reading it again later so it was a waste of time. It also distracted me from understanding what the argument was by just looking for the answer to the question stem. But then I wasn’t able to understand it without fully reading the stimulus.
So in my opinion, read the stimulus first and fully understand what is being said, and identify any loopholes or immediate flaws or assumptions. Then read the question stem.
But up to you and what you think works best for you. Each person is different and what may work for one person might not be the best for another!