@nr thanks!!!

@Dagny Taking it a bunch of times is a very minor issue from what I have heard. Your highest score is what affects a school's medians so they really only care about your best score

@austinmatias11375 yeah I find this to be a more intuitive way of thinking about it than the written explanation provides IMHO

I say take it so you have official test experience, because there's really no harm in doing so and it'll prob be a valuable learning experience no matter what

I think there are a couple things I would recommend based off my own experience with a gap between timed and BR performance. First, in terms of the timing I think you might benefit from being more willing to make your best guess and skip when a question isn't clicking for you and come back later. Another thing for LR is try to be regimented with your approach to each question. For me this means I read the question stem, then the stimulus, then try to prephrase possible answers if I can, and then go to the ACs. This forces me to be steady and calm which ultimately turns into speed. It might also be helpful doing some untimed drills to try to build this habit. For your second point with RC, my strategy is to read straight through first and then write low res summaries rather than write them as I go, I find this to be helpful in letting me read for both content detail and structure.

You clearly know the test extremely well at this point if you are BRing in the high 170s, so really try to isolate what you can do to improve timed execution. Ask, "what about this approach in BR can I bring into a timed section?" One strategy that has been helpful for me in that regard is doing untimed sections and recording myself thinking aloud and then listening back to the recording of me getting answers wrong -- this has been really helpful in precisely understanding some of my issues.

I assume you've taken a ton of LSAT questions at this point in your studying, which builds habits. Some of those habits are obviously great, but others can be hurting your performance. I think the LSAT's time constraints force us to rely on muscle memory and habits we form in practice, so it is important to keep note of when your automatic processes don't align with how you successfully approach a question in BR.

This actually kind of exists! I noticed yesterday that if you go to Practice -> Explanations, you can see which questions of a PT you have taken. hopefully that helps

I think it makes sense to just do it in the order provided because you're going to have to read all of it anyway, and passages tend to get more difficult as the section progresses. Something that might help is trying to be more comfortable with uncertainty. When feeling lost or confused, reading the sentence a bunch of times can be less clarifying than just accepting that it was confusing, coming up with some low res summary, and continuing through the passage. I would recommend watching a bunch of J.Y.'s read-throughs of difficult passages bc he does a great job of showing the benefits of not racking your brain over difficult language and knowing when it is ok to rely on broad-stroke understanding

Yeah I agree, but until they add this feature there is an app/website called Toggl for tracking how much time spent on tasks, which u might like

Amazing! Congrats!!!

@EzraG Also I'd add to this one thing I do before taking a practice test to calm my nervous system and promote mental clarity: alternate nostril breathing. It is a yogic breath exercise in which you alternate inhales and exhales through each nostril. I do this for like a minute or two before each half of the test

There could be a lot of reasons why you are feeling drowsy or unfocused during the test, but I also have a lot of issues with energy and concentration so here are a few tips I think could be helpful (besides getting 7-8 hrs of sleep consistently):

1. Caffeine could be a big help, and you can try a beverage with less caffeine if you are sensitive to it. Green tea is really nice because it has a moderate amount of caffeine as well as a compound called L-theanine that reduces the jittery sensation of caffeine and makes it feel more stable. Also, the half-life of caffeine is around 6 hours, so if you take it early enough in the day it shouldn't effect your sleep too much -- ofc this differs person-to-person so do whatever feels best.

2. Try to get at least some regular exercise in each day. You might already be doing this, but like a 30 min walk per day can help regulate your circadian rhythm and help with focus. Exercise has a similar effect on your brain as taking stimulants does.

3. Eat something before testing that is rich in both carbs and protein

4. If you notice yourself losing focus during the exam, pause, take a deep breath, and feel your feet on the ground for a second. Taking a beat to reorient your focus and take note of your mind and body is super helpful.

The LSAT is a test of mental endurance just as much as it is a test of logical reasoning and reading comprehension. Taking direct steps to assist your stamina and mental clarity is crucial to success IMO

What does your studying look like?

@spindlynoodles yeah exactly

@spindlynoodles Ofc! I think writing out my process like this is a great way for me to study too, so it's a win win. Also, I just did

PT140.S2.Q15, which is a great example of a correct LR answer using much less appealing language than the incorrect ones. The language of one incorrect answer was so appealing that I actually saw the flaw in the AC and still chose it lol.

@spindlynoodles To be honest, I have a tougher time elucidating my strategy with LR than with RC. My approach to different question types vary widely, but here are a few things I carry with me into a section:

1. Like RC, I try to predict the answer when the question type is conducive to it.

2. I always sketch out the logic for parallel questions. I have a tough time doing these without mapping the stimulus out.

3. I am willing to sometimes map out the logic of answer choices, not just the stimulus. A lot of the time, the logic in an answer choice is more jumbled or confusingly stated than the logic in the stimulus. Mapping it out can help you identify sneaky contrapositives or incorrect answers (e.g., leading to an impossible conclusion). I would avoid this if I feel like I haven't banked some time on easier questions, because mapping out anything is a time sink.

4. If I feel unsure about a question in any way, I flag it and come back later. Be extremely liberal with flagging. If there is any inkling of distrust of your answer choice, try to formulate why the answer choice is wrong. However I do not change an answer based solely on vibes. This goes back to what I said in another comment about my RC approach and being accepting of ambiguous language. Many wrong ACs look more appealing on the surface than right ACs. I try to only change my AC if I can explicitly say why the answer is wrong. If I am unsure about an answer, but can't formulate what the issue is, I just leave it and move on.

And finally, by far the most important attribute to my improvement, and hopefully continued improvement, in both RC and LR, is extremely rigorous blind review. This means stating exactly why your answer was wrong, and why the correct answer was right -- preferably writing this by hand. I then try to think of a general rule or tip to avoid the same kind of mistake going forward. That step is not always possible, sometimes you literally just misread something and have a brain fart. But these steps are absolutely crucial. I see a lot of ppl on 7Sage talking about not seeing improvement after a lot of studying, and I look at the profile and see like tons of PTs but zero review. I really think that just reinforces bad habits. When I get a question wrong, it means I made an error, either in execution or understanding. Developing an understanding of that error and how to avoid it through Blind Review is by far the best way to not repeat it.

@NixonAnderson I don't have such a simple answer for this, bc I started studying initially a couple years ago and studied for around 4 or 5 months, but then decided not to take the test until after I graduated. I started studying consistently again at the end of June, and scored a 168 on a PT when I started this round of studying

@sagely In terms of reading, I had been writing a brief low-res summary of each paragraph after reading each one, and I switched to jotting those down at the end to keep the flow of my reading more natural and true to how I approach reading in my every day life. I also slowed myself down while reading a good amount. I realized that the extra time I spent reading is pretty much directly proportional to the time saved once I got to the questions.

In terms of approaching the questions, if I am able to, I formulate what I believe the answer is before looking at the ACs. This can be super helpful with RC questions because it makes me much more immune to carefully worded trap answers. I also read every AC before looking back at the passage, unless the question is about a very specific moment in the passage. Trusting my memory as the first line of defense really saves time compared to looking for textual evidence for each AC.

A big struggle for me has been RC inference questions. When I get to one that I am uncertain about, or am deciding between two ACs, a big help has been asking myself, "what would it look like if the author had inferred this?" I know that probably sounds pretty self-evident as a strategy, but forcing myself to formulate what I would have wanted to see in the passage for a given answer to be correct has been helpful in eliminating those more ambiguous or weirdly phrased traps.

The number one thing for RC that has been indispensable for me is not ever eliminating an answer choice purely based on the synonyms it uses for something in the passage. This might be more of an individual problem that doesn't apply to a lot of ppl, but I would eliminate correct answers because they used less directly equivalent wording compared to wrong answers. I would think "well those aren't totally the same thing..." and then choose a wrong answer that looked better on the surface. This would especially happen when I did not have much time or was rushing through a question. I have realized that this is basically never a reason to eliminate an AC. The LSAT will almost never have an answer be incorrect just because phrase X is a little bit different from phrase Y. Obviously there is a degree at which an AC will be wrong due to a false equivalence or part v. whole confusion, but I would get tripped up on synonymous phrases that I would judge to be not equivalent for no good reason. I can try to find a question I've gotten wrong that exhibits this if you'd like, because IDK if I am explaining it super well.

I think the first thing to remember is that you have a long time to study and improve, like around a year, if you're not applying this cycle. The LSAT is a learnable test. I think you will probably see a big jump in performance after a few more weeks of getting to know the question types and basic approaches. I would say focus on doing the 7sage core curriculum and only really start doing sections and drills once you have a solid foundational approach.

I assume ur not studying for the LSAT anymore, but I'm gonna answer this question to help me study. I think that understanding the logic of this question relies on picking apart what the author means by "be consistent with." What the author is implying is that these two conditions can be true at the same time: [either real estate or car sales are not bad] and [economy is healthy]. The author is not stating that the health of either of those industries are sufficient for the economy's health, just that the economy can be healthy while only one of those industries is healthy. There is no conditional relationship here.

C is assuming that the real estate market's health is enough evidence for us to deduce that the economy is likely healthy. But all we know is that the real estate market being healthy (while the car market is at their lowest in years) can occur in a healthy economy, not that it makes a healthy economy more likely. What if, for example, the real estate market is healthy but inflation is at an all-time high, or employment numbers are terrible? We don't know based on this argument if the real estate market's health allows us to draw conclusions about the economy's health. I think this answer is especially appealing because the health of the real estate market does seem like a solid indicator IRL of an economy's overall health, but it is outside the scope of this argument's logic.

D gives us the contrapositive of the only conditional claim in the argument. The author concludes that the economy is doing badly because the real estate and car market is bad: [bad real estate and car market] -> [bad economy]. D gives /[bad economy] -> /[bad real estate and car market].

@ChrisJohnson Consistency in test performance, or I guess what you think attributed to climbing back up to 170+ numbers after seeing them drop off for a bit

Awesome! Any tips on consistency?

@wgresh Many does not mean all, and it doesn't even mean most. Significant also doesn't mean all or most. There can be both many red apples and also a significant number of green apples in one orchard. We also do not know that the pro scientists are not motivated by a love of discovery, just that they are often motivated by economics and fame. Why couldn't they be motivated by something else as well? We know for sure that amateur scientists are only motivated by love of discovery, and that many of them have made significant contributions. Therefore, it logically follows that many significant contributions have been made by people motivated by the love of discovery

Awesome job! What new techniques do you think were most helpful?