My biggest break during my 7 months of prep was close to 3 weeks, followed up later by a day or two here and there as I felt they were necessary. I took one more week off a couple months out as well. They pay off, once you take the break and come back into the swing of things your mind is definitely sharper.
Three-sentence biography.
My name is Addison, I am the oldest of two children, first in my immediate family to attend university and I did in 2009 because I felt I had to, and I'd been accepted into a highly selective program out of high school. I couldn't gain traction during university, starting in 2013 I switched from a concurrent English Lit HBA/BEd program into a joint English Lit and Philosophy HBA, where I rediscovered my love and deep appreciation for law. I graduated June 2015 after being diagnosed with ADHD inattentive type in 2014 after seeking note taking help after shoulder surgery (during my meeting I broke down into tears, unable to understand why I didn't seem to care about any of my classes, couldn't focus on readings, and couldn't bring myself to work on anything ahead of time).
Your biggest worry about your application.
My GPA, a 2.9, doesn't accurately reflect my potential to succeed. I turned around 23 years of terrible academic habits and that doesn't happen overnight, so I didn't peak academically while completing my HBA. 12 months after graduating I scored 169 on the June 2016 LSAT.
I'm worried about how to properly address that time in my life, it's hard to describe the invisible barrier that was my disability while also pointing out the positive things that came from that time as well.
Two ideas for your personal statement.
1) The first time I can remember telling anyone I wanted to be a lawyer, it was my grade 8 teacher. The same man who I screamed at for 5 mins once over a 1mm wobble in a rectangle I'd drawn on a test, for which I was deducted one mark, dropping my grade below an 80. He aptly illuminated the fact I was depending on the use of a ruler to make my case, while I had clearly not used one on the test. Years later, after switching to philosophy, while I was discussing interpreting Marx's views regarding inheriting material conditions with a guest lecturer, I said, "so, we can accept these conditions as they are, doing nothing to change them, work to change them through whatever channels are made possible by our society, emigrate from the society, thereby validating the inherited condition's power, or kill yourself" to which she simply said "yes."
These stories, for me, reinforce how important, and meaningful, a career practicing law is. According to my psycho-educational assessment, I have a brain that loves rules, and the verbal reasoning to make a great litigator, my LSAT experience proves I have the work ethic.
2) Studying philosophy changed my life, and gave me a renewed interest in practicing law. Pairing my love for philosophy and its natural intersection with a legal career, I truly believe I was meant for this. My great grandfather was a lawyer, who graduated from Canada's oldest law school, Osgoode Hall, in 1918. I think of all the people who need help but do not have to capacity to represent themselves, they deserve the best representation, and I will deliver that with the training I receive during law school.
A recent example that solidified this belief for me was helping my father receive a disability tax credit for a knee injury he sustained at work years ago. He had already talked to his doctor about the forms, and his doctor had dismissed him, stating he did not qualify for various reasons. I spent less than an hour reviewing the form, the relevant definitions provided by the Canadian Government's website, and drafting a two page document for my father to bring with him and read verbatim to his doctor. After his next visit, his doctor approved his application for the credit. These kinds of things are exactly why I believe I should be a lawyer.
Did you attend last time? Did I get to you?
I did not attend last time.
I only see "No Active Terms/Programs for this Law School" when I select a US school and choose to start/submit an application, the Canadian schools show the Fall 2016 options but say the Fall 2017 aren't available yet.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
@jhaldy10325 Before you even look at the answers, you must identify what the flaw is.
Once again, Cant nailed this one,100%, especially the part about skipping!
My biggest improvement with this question type came from exposure, the more flaw questions I saw, the more I noticed their cookie cutter similarities; the faster I was able to identify the flaw, the faster I was eliminate all of the irrelevant answers before even looking at them. This trains your mind to know exactly what answer choice you need, and hone in on it without a second thought.
I remember a week near the beginning of the curriculum where I felt absolutely awful. I had to tap out and sleep more after work and my studying took a back seat.
Sometimes giving yourself a break is necessary, have you made room for breaks in your study schedule? It really helped me, though they weren't scheduled, the breaks I did take from studying helped me a lot with my understanding and I didn't get sick again after that!
What has been said about games being the easiest to make massive gains with is true. Also, I found them challenging enough that my desire to conquer anything the LSAT could throw at me was huge motivation.
I looked at it like this, whatever happens on LR and RC, if my LG is solid, I have a good chance of scoring where I want to!
What has been said about games being the easiest to make massive gains with is true. Also, I found them challenging enough that my desire to conquer anything the LSAT could throw at me was huge motivation.
I looked at it like this, whatever happens on LR and RC, if my LG is solid, I have a good chance of scoring where I want to!
Hello guys,
My first study buddy meeting has been really good, but I feel like I've stumbled a bit on explaining the difference between MBT and MSS questions!
I've touched on how MBT relies on formal logic and validity, if the stimulus is true, the answer must be true. Whereas MSS is more general, you are trying to add a conclusion to the information above by drawing one out of the stimulus.
Any input here would be greatly appreciated!
Do not give up! Keep grinding, you can raise that 144 dramatically if you keep at it... You will succeed so long as you persist!
Pushing back to 2018 isn't the worst thing in the world, especially if you want to apply with the strongest possible LSAT score, another year of participating in this community will give you a massive return on your investment, if you're willing to make it.
To give you an idea, my diagnostic was a 150 in November '15 that turned it into a 169 for the June '16 sitting.
I studied while working 7-3:30pm.
Or 6-430 if you account for the fact I cycled to and from work... But more like 4:15am-5:30pm if you account for making food, stretching, and packing up to leave every day.
I only had a couple hours every night, even then I was sacrificing a lot of sleep at times when I had to.
With time, it will come, feelings of discouragement are part of it. This test breaks you, but 7sage will continue building you back up until you're prepared to succeed!
Finding a routine that works for you is the best bet. Don't forget to mix in breaks... If you're sitting for that entire 3 hours, of course by the end you'll feel like mush!
Developing the routine will take time. Once you've built your good study habits, they will feel natural, almost effortless; with time, and enough repetition, so will writing the LSAT!
Are you studying after work? I was only able to really study for 1-3 hours a night after a long day, even on weekends 3-4 hours was a lot for me.
Giving yourself more time may come down to adding another 3-6 months before writing the LSAT, it's not going anywhere!
I second the comments about becoming familiar with questions, and skipping!
When I sat the test in June, there were a couple harder questions where I'd seen the blueprint so much before that it was a gimme.
Skipping and the reasons for it, cannot be stressed enough. JY's coconut analogy is on point, if you're trying to collect as many coconuts off a tree, why waste time and energy going for the hard to reach, difficult ones, when you haven't picked all of lower, easier ones off the ground? Skipping hard questions allows you to save mental energy by answering easier ones first and leaving yourself primed for tougher ones!
Wanna offer a quick affirmation of her awesomeness! Bruiser really opened up to me about the accommodations process and she was very helpful!
Thank you so much for the feedback everyone! Wow, @jhaldy10325 Yale down eh? That's inspiring, I will certainly apply to a couple Ivy League Schools now, I hadn't even considered it before.
@476.rizeq I'm looking to sit for December or February, we shall see.
Best of luck, set your target score and wait until you've hit it consistently, that will tell you that you're ready! :) Best of luck
Have you watched the logic games webinars? They are extremely helpful. Also, it's all about practice. If you're really stuck, you need to work through those 10 copies of a game! Time yourself with it, blind review it, watch JY do it, and if you're not going -0 and within the target time, do it again :) It will come with time!
Hello 7sage, it's been a while, good to see the forum is still bustling with activity and people putting in hard work in pursuit of their LSAT dreams!
It's October 2015, I was 6 months out from convocation, and I knew I had to get started. I thought it would be a good idea, in November, to enrol for the February 2016 sitting. After I signed up, I set out to find the right study materials. I asked a friend who'd just started their first year at Queens, and he recommended 7sage! So, it's November 2015 and I'm signed up for the February 2016 LSAT without a clue what I was doing. DO NOT DO THIS, wow, time and time again people on the forum say this and I wish I had listened, do NOT sign up until you are ready. In hindsight this was a ridiculous amount of pressure to put on myself, I hadn't even finished the curriculum when people sat the Feb '16 test...
A little bit of context, I had moved into my Aunt & Uncle's house with my two cousins in high school, because I knew it was a good environment for learning. Both of my cousins are extremely hard working, excelling academically and athletically. This provided the structure I lacked in University, where I finished with a 2.9 GPA. I found full time work in the construction industry, 7am-3:30pm, roughly 20km from my home, it was physical labour, for a good hourly. When the weather was good, I would cycle to and from work. I studied after work and on weekends, either after a long bus journey or bike ride. It is important to note that I was in a long-distance relationship at the time, so I was often travelling to or hosting my partner on weekends.
Anyhow, first things first, right? I learned about arguments and grammar. My English and Philosophy background helped, but it was eye opening, I was surprised by how much I learned from these sections. Then, it was time for my diagnostic! I ploughed through it, LG -13, LR1 -8, LR2 -11, RC -8, for a150/159 BR after to figuring out the LG section and changing some correct answers for LR and RC.
Because of my GPA, I knew I needed a good score, my initial aim was 90-94th percentile.
One thing I did not do at first was purchase any prep tests... I didn't think I would need them, and I had zero disposable income after paying for the 7sage Ultimate+, the LSAT administration, and maintaining my romantic relationship. I made cue cards as I worked through the syllabus, reviewing them every morning on the bus.
Once I hit the problem sets I spent SO MUCH TIME taking screen shots, rebuilding the worksheets into word documents, and printing them out. I got this down to a science, but still, it was a ridiculous endeavour that I did throughout the entire curriculum; doing it was mentally exhausting.
As I worked through the sets, there were times I blind reviewed really well, but never like any of @"Accounts Playable"'s posts... I highly recommend using hi posts as the blueprint for your BR.
There were times I wanted to quit, I relied heavily on my partner, my family, and this forum to keep me going while battling through the urge to pack it in after a long day of work and the 40km of cycling or the 2 1/2 hours of public transit. That being said, I did fall off... I had a massive addiction to Clash of Clans and Boom Beach, there were a couple weeks where I didn't study at all after work. My diet also took a nose dive, safe to say this was my all-time low. I'm pretty sure this happened from mid December through the beginning of January.
I essentially paid for the test again to push my sitting back to June 2016. But the universe delivered a gift when I dropped my iPhone in a heroic toilet that killed the phone and my CoC and Boom Beach addictions with it! That might be the greatest thing outside of my control that happened during my journey.
My grind through the core curriculum was completed April 5th, 2016. It was a great milestone, I remember my partner tearing up with joy, it was a long process, watching that green circle fill ever so slowly.
After that point I ordered every PT ever published, and patiently awaited the begging on my final phase of prep.
It is important to note that by late April/early May I started doing the guided meditations, cut alcohol out completely (aside from a sherry on my late Nana's birthday, and a shot at my Uncle's wedding), was doing approximately 90mins of cardio 5 days a week, and followed the "Dolce Diet" as best I could.
I developed what routines that I could, did what worked for me, and focused on not stressing about the things I couldn't do. I would often visualize test day, I was talking to people about the LSAT at every possible opportunity, and I kept telling myself and everyone who would listen that I was confident I would score in the 170s, confident in my preparation, and I would succeed.
Part of my routine was a list of positive affirmations, I would say theses to myself every day after my morning meditation. I also discovered "bulletproof coffee" and after the fall/winter where I consumed like 5-8 double doubles a day... cutting down to 32oz of bulletproof coffee was a huge change, but I think it paid dividends for my sleep quality and energy levels.
My first prep test was actually PT 35, not realizing I had "seen" the questions before until afterwards when I realized the syllabus called for 36. I wound up completing 12 PTs before my sitting in June, including the diagnostic. I also watched every webinar that I could find time for, though I must admit, I rarely watched them work through the questions at the end. I took what I needed from the explanations, updated my cue cards, and focused applying those principles during my PTs and especially during my BR.
I did not have the luxury of writing at 1pm during the week, so I tried to do that on the weekends as best I could. That being said, it did not always work out. The only thing I really could control was how strict I was while taking the PT, I added an extra section from the curriculum PTs, and dropped my pencil when the proctor said so.. There was no way I was going to be tagged for a violation during my sitting.
I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2014, and didn't apply for any accommodations because I was told by my learning strategist that the test would involve "draconian measures" to prevent cheating, and I wouldn't be given accommodations because I didn't have them for exams during my undergrad. So it was 5x35mins for me, to be honest I never wrote a single timed writing sample before my sitting, but I reviewed JY's pointers and made sure to review it close to June 6th. I made sure to force myself to BR every PT as best I could, by the end of the whole process, I think I had filled out 2 whole notebooks between the curriculum and the PTs. Sometimes it would take me a week to complete a review, sometimes less.
3 weeks out from my test, my partner decided to end our relationship, she had her reasons, but the next 3 weeks were a blur. I know that I ate the same breakfast, drank the same amount of coffee, would do the 24 min guided meditation before and after work, and was riding my bike like a madman to and from work. I probably averaged 6.5 hours of sleep a night, with my alarm going off at 4:15-4:30, I tried to be in bed between 9-10pm every night.
I did score a 173 on PT 65, the week before my test... so I felt quite confident and encouraged, especially after briefly participating in the June pep rally. Hearing JY and Nicole's advice and feeling the love from everyone in that webinar was amazing.
When I wrote PTs on the weekend, I recorded the time and amount of my water and food intake, along with my bathroom breaks. There was only one PT where I had to run to my bathroom toward the end of S3.
For my last three Weekend PTs, I tried emulating my bike ride to the testing centre, I ate the same meals, I wore the same clothing I planned to wear on test day. I became obsessed with these details.
The day of, I did everything the same as I'd done on my dry run on Saturday the 4th. I woke up, same coffee, breakfast, I warmed up, I biked the 14km to the campus; after completing my undergrad there, I had no issues accessing the room. After arriving I stretched, meditate, I sauna'd a bit in order to ensure any excess water was gone, that wasn't part of the routine but it helped, showered, ate my same meal, sat down and wrote out my game plan for each section, writing out how many minutes I wanted to allot to each RC passage, I think it was a 7,7,9,10, listened to my Eminem pump up playlist, and walked over to the testing area. The game planning wasn't part of my routine either, and in hindsight, I should have warmed up then on top of the game planning, since it had been hours after warming up at home when I finally started by test around 130pm.
After arriving in the registration area, I was relaxed, sat off in a corner by myself, ignoring everyone, waiting for the proctors to take us over the the testing area. I didn't say a word to a single person other than a proctor.
Once I opened that booklet, I went into auto pilot, except S3... It was the second LG section, after opening with LG, I knew that it could be the experimental section AND I SLOWED DOWN once the first two games were ridiculously easy sequencing games... I also knew the first section had rules very similarly worded to the game from PT 76 that I'd warmed up with that morning. THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA, DO NOT DO THIS!! I didn't even finish the section in time, guessing the final 3 questions. That is awful, considering I knew I had to go -0 on LG in order to score 170+...
I was extremely lucky to walk away with a 169 (LG -1, LR -3, RC -6, LR -2), if my gamble on that experimental section had gone badly, I could be sitting here telling you about how I'm sitting down again for a re-write, but, I'm not. I had scored bang on my average, despite the break up, despite the 6 years of my life where I was a brutal student and at times never thought I'd pursue academics or even finish the degree. I had a construction job to fall back on, I had grown complacent, at one point using ADHD meds without any of the proper studying habits in place to make proper use of them... but persistence paid off, I didn't give up, and 7sage never gave up on me.
My aim for writing the LSAT was to show law schools that I was capable of working that hard and achieving such a good score, I intend to argue that my ADHD diagnosis late into my undergrad was a big turning point for me, and turning that around couldn't have happened over night, but it has, and I am more than ready to pursue my dream of a legal career.
Thanks to you, 7sage, I will do that with confidence.
Sorry for the length!
Looking back, I would have put way more work into RC, and worked on trusting my gut more... I had changed an answer in the first LR section from the correct one to an incorrect one, and with that my 170 became a 169! Those short cuts with the webinars and BR early on might have made the difference, but in the long run, I never reached @"Nicole Hopkins"'s benchmark of 15 PTs for a 170+... maybe with 4 or 5 more... who knows.
Cheers everyone, thanks for reading, best of luck moving forward! I will lurk around here for a bit but, I'm training for my first sprint distance triathlon in 6 weeks and might be busy sleeping more than ever before!
@476 Anyone have input on this?
I feel like there's been a lot of input throughout the forum, just have to sift through the threads to find it!
@jy-ping thank you! I will, hopefully @thecubicleescapee957 is going to as well!
If you're willing the spend the money... enroll here.
Otherwise, maybe @nicole is a good place to get some tutoring, she's awesome!
169... I'm happy that I hit my avg and it's still wayyy better than I thought I'd do after the diagnostic... 19 points to be precise. But c'mon, (-1) LG and after I saw a question in LR1 that I'd had correct and changed... couldn't look at my other 10 errors, probably mostly RC.
Right now I need to go to sleep, part of me feels like I can comfortably move onto applications now... but part of me wanted that damn 173 so badly I just might have to write a PT every Saturday and prep for December...
congrats @brittanycourville573! You deserve it, so many explanations that I read of yours were crucial to cementing my understanding of the question at hand!
Don't worry @thecubicleescapee957 we still scored in the 96th... that's not SO bad... RIGHT?! please... tell me it's not terrible... because it feels lackluster
Wow, that is great! Thank you
I don't plan on needing this, but if it turns out that I do, I'll certainly make use of it!
Looking back on my prep, BR was something I didn't truly get into a good rhythm for until my last 6/11 PTs. That being said, this'll be great for newcomers and vets alike!
@974 I started really letting the analytics guide my prep from there to shore up any weaknesses.
This helped me, so I would recommend it as well
Thank you David! Super informative, cannot wait for the next one... I've been re-tooling my personal statement during the entire meeting, so many good prompts to build off of !