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Adam

Friday, Jun 26

A blind review implies you aren't always only looking at wrong answers. You can adjust the settings so that it only suggests wrong answers to you but you'd be doing yourself a disservice. If all it takes for you to adjust your answer is being told that you should look at it again, you aren't confident in your process and answer.

During blind review having moments where you go "I was right here and I know that I'm right here" is a good thing. It helps force you to reinforce good habits and rethink bad ones.

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LSAT · Official Lsat Score

Adam

Edited Friday, Jun 26

Try to evaluate why you think you scored a 164 vs what seems to be your norm that's significantly higher. No one can really say what exactly you need to improve but 164 means you answer ~15 graded questions wrong.

Your account shows you scoring relatively consistently in the mid 170s range so try to work out which parts you wavered with on test day and try to iron out those kinks. Maybe it's being quicker on the easier questions where you should be able to grab and go with less hesitation. Maybe it's needing to have a few ingrained habits ready to pull out on certain question types. It can be a lot of different things but you've put in the work already that should enable you to self evaluate to give yourself decent direction to focus on.

There's pretty much no reason to reject the score. It's a good score and a better score will only reflect well on you. Even if it didn't reflect well, schools see that you rejected a score so, even if they focused on all scores, you're leaving them room to assume worse than what you really scored.

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LSAT · Question on Causal Weakeners in LR

Adam

Edited Thursday, Jun 18

Why are you assuming that the stim is taking into account something it isn't explicitly taking into account. Another way to think about it is what would be a necessary assumption for the conclusion? Your assumption is giving them a necessary assumption that they didn't include.

But, yes, in a general sense thinking about lack of causation, reverse causation, or a third thing causing both is a good place to mine. You just weren't seeing how the third here included the correct answer choice. Even a third factor having some impact weakens the conclusion, even if it doesn't destroy it.

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General · Anyone else dislike the new UI?

Adam

Wednesday, Jun 10

@Ripley1979 They've already adjusted the settings to not provide you with an option given that it's what the new format is.

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General · Anyone else dislike the new UI?

Adam

Wednesday, Jun 10

@DistinctZealousHealth Look on the right side with the other tools. I forget what it looks like because I refuse to have to click on an extra button and then click it again to return to the regular cursor.

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Admissions · Is 160+ and top law school possible for September LSAT?

Adam

Friday, Jun 5

What are you considering a top law school? T14? T50?

There's also a lot of information you aren't detailing that can impact your application.

I see that you've listed Duke on your 7sage account as one of the schools you're interested in. If that's the case, 160 isn't going to cut it and you're really aiming closer to 170. You don't have to hit 170 but that's essentially the median score for accepted applicants there.

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LSAT · June 5 LSAT

Adam

Thursday, Jun 4

Do a few drills if you really want to but overall let your mind rest. Get out and walk around or lounge about and watch a show. Do what relaxes you so you can be as fresh as possible for tomorrow.

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General · Is an 8 point increase too ambitious for the August exam?

Adam

Edited Thursday, Jun 4

In my opinion, people who are scoring below the high 150s likely have some key gaps that could lead to major breakthroughs and, with it, score jumps.

Translating accuracy: You're potentially not doing the best job at taking what the stim is saying which prepares you to tackle what the question is going to present you. When you leave the stim, you should have an idea of what's the flaw in argument, what the premises would be adding up to, where the point of disagreements and agreements are, or what could resolve the paradox
1. You don't need to always have a "prephrase" but your reading should automatically have you oriented to think about these things
Translating speed: This goes hand-in-hand with the prior point and is obviously also important. Accurately understanding what the stim says is great but you need to be able to do that in a timely manner. Get more and more comfortable with translation drills and over time this will come naturally if you commit to it
Self-assessment: Do you know your own weaknesses? Where are you consistently falling in the same pitfalls? What are things you can do to prime yourself going into a type of question?
1. 7Sage analytics are a good start for this, letting you focus on specific question or passage types. However, you should also be working on being able to do this both without needing the analytics to tell you which things you can improve on but also so you can deeper understand what is leading you to getting the wrong answer instead of the right one. This is where Wrong Answer Journals are clutch so you can spot not just what question times are tripping you up but also so you can reflect on how you're making a mistake consistently

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LSAT · New feature: AI Coach

Adam

Tuesday, Jun 2

I probably won't utilize this much but I tried playing around with it and it highlighted that I skipped blind review on questions that the blind review didn't suggest I go over again. That would be a reasonable note but I've skipped blind review at most a few times besides when I'm doing the adaptive drill function that doesn't even have blind review.

I think it was even more pointed as it complained about not doing blind review on a recent drill despite me doing a blind review on the suggested questions. I suppose you could say I could blind review every question but if I have it set up to suggest questions for me, there's clearly significantly less benefit of me trying to "blind review" a question I'm being told I got right by nature of it not being flagged for blind review.

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LSAT · 143 Diagnostic to this.

Adam

Friday, May 29

@Abbybee One of the biggest tips I can give beyond doing the thing and making sure you're putting your whole self forward when you study is striving to self evaluate yourself well as you progress and being honest rather than trying to sugar coat things. For many people that is easier to do with a tutor but, even then, it still holds true short of you doing all of your studying with a tutor at your side.

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LSAT · Need advice to get a 165z

Adam

Edited Monday, May 18

Going to second making translation your #1 focus for the near future. Good translation and making sure you are actively thinking as you digest the stim can easily carry you to high 150s. I'm sure 7Sage is more than good enough to set you up to do this but The Loophole has relatively cheap subscription that has translations and prephrases that can help you reflect with as you do drills for all of the practice tests.

The goal isn't to always have the exact same translation as another person or their prephrase (let alone actually always having a prephrase) but instead to get into the habit of not letting the test work you down so that they can easily trick you.

Added: I just glanced at your profile and it's clear that you've done a lot of drilling and putting in the work. Translation drills may feel like taking steps back but it's the foundation that will set you up to help you properly assess what you need to focus on next. You can't know what your real weaknesses when tackling a question type are if your time is getting consumed trying to understand the stim.

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LSAT · I just scored a 154 on PT149.

Adam

Edited Saturday, May 2

I'm sorry but it's incredibly unrealistic to improve an average of 10-15 points in that time frame short of something miraculous. Maybe you'll have a giant break through or you having amazing endurance and time to study but I think you're setting yourself up for disappointment if that's your target.

Getting this many questions wrong and having time issues points to at least a significant problem in your ability to quickly and efficiently translate the stimulus. You likely have other areas you can work on but it's unreasonable to focus on specifics when you need to improve on the fundamentals that you need so you can properly go through the answer choices.

I think committing a few study sessions to just translation drills (reading the stim, translating it into your own words, and then having half an idea of what your prephrase could be). You don't always need a prephrase when you actually take the test and do drills but it's a good practice to improve your ability to respond to what the question is going to be asking. After that, see how that's impacted your ability and decide if you should keep doing translation drills or move onto other aspects.

0

LSAT · Post-Curriculum - feeling discouraged

Adam

Monday, Apr 27

Do you have an idea where you feel like you're consistently coming up short? Part of studying well for the LSAT is being able to self-evaluate where you're coming up short. Taking that one step further, being able to evaluate your biggest limiter currently enables you to prioritize what to tackle first rather than looking at the whole and attempting to do it all at once.

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LSAT · Analytics of "Drill" and "You Try" Questions

Adam

Edited Saturday, Jan 17

Under the settings in your account there's a way to adjust what your target score is. I think it's set by default to 180 but you can adjust it to whatever you want to.

It does take any and all questions completed as part of its analytics. As you you interpret your stats in the future just keep in mind that past performance will drag your stats down a bit relative to your true current range.

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LSAT · Request for Guidance - Next Steps

Adam

Edited Friday, Jan 9

This is my response to someone else who was scoring a bit lower than you but the essence applies to what you're dealing with too, especially if you're doing a proper blind review and hitting mid 160s. If you have a strong grasp of everything, on a blind review without caring about time you should be able to get closer to high 160s if not low 170s. You're theoretically taking each suggested question to look at again at face value with no time limit so the only limiter should be you're understanding of what's going on in the stim and how it interacts with the question or what's going on in the passage and how it interacts with the question.

This sounds like a significant issue with how you're reading and processing the stim and passage. I'd recommend you putting aside trying to do full PTs and focus just on doing drills of translating stims and not even trying to do the question itself so you can improve timing and accuracy in processing the information you are going to need to use to answer a question.

I don't know the easiest way to do this on 7Sage but when I did my first round of studying leading up to my first go at the LSAT in November I did drills just reading through stims, translating them, and coming up with prephrases. A prephrase isn't necessarily going to set you up for the question but it ingrained a habit of me needing to take in the stim, translate it accurately, and have a concept of what the question would be focused on.

Focusing just on translating allows you to focus on honing those skills without tainting questions for future use, better allocate your limited studying time, and get yourself to the next level faster so that you can tackle those questions better than you would have otherwise trying to do it all at once.

This is obviously outside of utilizing 7Sage but I spent a weeks if not a month and change doing these translation drills (there's more basic versions of the drills and more advanced ones). I attribute most of my 160 in November to these drills even though I used old materials on paper, never did the test on computer before test day, and had some obnoxious test day jitters.

For current reference, I'm now consistently hitting mid to high 160s on my PTs and hit mid 170s on one of mine. But I was hitting high 150s low 160s on PTs before I even touched 7sage over the past month and change. Getting a hang of translating accurately, efficiently, and in a timely manner will go an incredibly long way.

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LSAT · Need some suggestions

Adam

Wednesday, Jan 7

As Alexandra said, this sounds like a significant issue with how you're reading and processing the stim and passage. I'd recommend you putting aside trying to do full PTs and focus just on drilling translating stims and not even trying to do the question itself so you can improve timing and accuracy in processing the information you are going to need to use to answer a question.

I don't know the easiest way to do this on 7Sage but when I did my first round of studying leading up to my first go at the LSAT in November I did drills just reading through stims, translating them, and coming up with prephrases. A prephrase isn't necessarily going to set you up for the question but it ingrained a habit of me needing to take in the stim, translate it accurately, and have a concept of what the question would be focused on.

Focusing just on translating allows you to focus on honing those skills without tainting questions for future use, better allocate your limited studying time, and get yourself to the next level faster so that you can tackle those questions better than you would have otherwise trying to do it all at once.

This is obviously outside of utilizing 7Sage but I spent a weeks if not a month and change doing these translation drills (there's more basic versions of the drills and more advanced ones). I attribute most of my 160 in Novemeber to these drills even though I used old materials on paper, never did the test on computer before test day, and had some obnoxious test day jitters.

1

General · How to stabilize my score for this week?

Adam

Edited Monday, Jan 5

It sounds like you already know what the right advice is but I'm also writing this out for myself:

You know you've improved. Acknowledge that and know what the big notes you have for yourself that you need to be carrying into the test.
You aren't going to make big strides in improvement this week. At best, you're just sharpening yourself and trying to help reinforce those things that you need to be extra mindful of come the actual test.
Eat well. Sleep well. Don't overexert yourself - both mind and body. No need to bring extra stress into the test. You do that enough as it is and you don't need to help feed it with silly habits.
The score you're going to get it likely one that many people study much longer and harder for and never achieve. You can get into a great school even if it isn't your dream school.
There's a big ass grind in the future in law school and then beyond. This is just one piece of that journey so no need to get so caught up on this one thing that's only one piece of it.
If you're married to going to T14 then feel free to disregard and get back on the study wheel because I bet you can get there if that's you're true end goal. So, if you want to keep the LSAT grind going, you don't need to stop if you don't want to.

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LSAT · Newer Prep Tests More Difficult?

Adam

Edited Friday, Jan 2

Prep tests are just LSAT tests from the past. 7Sage does note that there a few points where there's been changes made in the LSAT (I think mainly in some LR stylistic decisions beyond obviously removing logic games) so maybe you're being impacted by them a bit. That being said, I only used a few books to build my fundamentals and do drills and then used the old printed PT books which all still had logic games in them (so I just did the 2 LR and 1 RC).

I don't feel like I was thrown any curve balls when I took the LSAT in November and I hit solidly in the range of what my PTs predicted even though they were all older PTs.

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LSAT · Using Old LSAT Material to Study

Adam

Monday, Dec 29, 2025

Old material is still useful in terms of practice. I solely used old material, besides The Loophole and even that pt isn't that recent, studying for when I took it in November. I scored solidly in the band of scores my pt predicted even when taking into account test day jitters.

1

LSAT · Worries

Adam

Edited Saturday, Dec 27, 2025

Hopefully you can connect to one of these:

Count your wins. What have you improved on? Where are you improving? Give yourself some credit even if you aren't where you want to be
Count your enjoyment. Similar but hopefully you've enjoyed at least some of the process. Law school will involve a grind too so which part of the lsat grind has engaged you?
Name what you're working on. What do you know you can do to get better? What do you know that you don't know well enough? This helps give what you need to tackle most more definition so that you know you can do beyond just "study more and study harder"
Anxiety doesn't mean you aren't prepared and still preparing. It just means you care. Don't let you caring about something paralyze you from taking action

I don't know your test day and goals but all of these apply regardless if it's in less than 2 weeks or some time in the future.

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LSAT · How do I stop picking trap answers!!!

Adam

Edited Friday, Dec 26, 2025

It's hard to know what the big things you can improve on without actually seeing you approach questions but here are some things that can possibly make a difference:

Know the stim as you read it. If you didn't process it, go back and read that part now rather than later.
What is your prephrase? What if x loophole? What are the things stacking up towards? What are we disagreeing over? What can resolve the paradox? If I have something in mind, it will both mean I've understood the stim and potentially have the answer already or am adjacent to it
Actively thinking always. Obvious but don't let yourself mentally slow down, and keep trying to think ahead. LSAC's whole game is trying to get you to let them sneak something by you.

This wasn't specifically about trap answers but I feel like these three rules keep me from needing to waffle on trap answers. For that I'm definitely not perfect but it limits the times trap answers can even pull a fast one.

If you are consistently feeling like you don't have time to process your ACs then it probably comes back to how efficiently you are translating the stim in your head and as you're doing that orienting yourself for the answer.

Everyone is different but if I was in your position I feel like drills just translating the stim for speed, accuracy, and having a reasonable prephrase primed would go a long way if you're willing to do a bunch of LR sections. Time is obviously limited but if you are committing 10-15+ hours a week, I doubt you would need more than two days worth of studying to see significant improvements. Then you can get back to running through timed sections or PTs to sharpen more.

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