@blairivoyant Another thing that's helped my mindset is watching JY's live takes of full LR sections. Seeing how quickly he moves through questions and flags ones he's unsure about is kinda inspiring and shows what a more efficient approach might look like. I just watched the PT 153 one and it was super helpful.

@blairivoyant sure! For MBT and SA (sometimes this works for an MSS with causal or conditional logic), diagram (either actually or mentally) then think about potential VIABLE conclusions. For example, if your diagram is A-->B-->C-->D, then you know anything that ends in A or /D is not going to be viable (because they are sufficient conditions, not necessary results), so you can quickly eliminate those ACs without even really reading them. Oftentimes this leaves you with only 1-2 ACs left which is way faster to deal with. I hope this helps!

@blairivoyant Another thing that has helped me with anxiety is to force myself to move on from Qs that I'm really unsure about, or I feel like I'm not seeing the trick or key to getting the Q right. I give myself MAX 2-3 minutes to try a question, and even if I don't feel confident in my answer after that, I HAVE to move on. I tell myself I can always come back to hard qs later with fresh eyes. This helps me not spiral and freak out about timing for the rest of the test.

@blairivoyant This was my problem exactly! What really started helping me was trying to push myself to get through the first 15 questions in 15 minutes (while allowing myself to get through in 18 minutes on timed sections without freaking out, bc sometimes they throw some really hard Qs in the first 15). The way I trained myself to do this was making drills of only level 1-3 questions, then first giving myself 18 minutes to finish, then 17, then 16, then 15, until I got to a place where I could get through all 15 in 15 minutes most of the time with >85% accuracy. Sometimes when you do these drills you get like too many easy parallel flaw questions for them to be actually feasible in 15 minutes, but for this most part this helped me be way more confident early on in the section and learn how to pick my ACs and RUN. I hope this helps! Another thing is that I found some level 4-5 questions can be really fast if you know what you're looking for and you PREPHRASE your answers. Bailey's live classes on spotting the gap and Henry's classes on MBT, MSS, and SA questions were both really helpful at allowing me to get faster at some level 4-5 qs. If you want me to go into more detail on the strategies I learned in those classes, lmk and I'd be happy to share.

RC is the section I think I need to improve the most on, but usually the scheduler only gives me 1 RC day a week, so more RC drills/practice. Also, I think a greater diversity of drills that target problem areas (in my case, timing) would be helpful.

Are you struggling with accuracy throughout or just running out of time? What kind of Qs are you getting wrong (level 1-3 or level 4-5), the advice I would give depends on your answer!

What kinds of questions are you getting wrong? Is it a timing problem, or mostly questions of a certain type or level?

@bcb13 and the opposite as well (high GPA, meh LSAT applicants)

1. I took two notoriously difficult pre-med/stem major weed out chemistry classes my freshman year at the advice of my academic advisor, even though these classes were not required for my majors (I am not a stem person) and there were other easier alternatives I could have taken. Though not terrible, the grades for these classes are among the worst on my transcript. Should I explain this situation in my addendum?

2. Is there anything I should be considering as an applicant with basically all non-profit/public interest criminal/civil law experience who wants to pursue PI law given the rollbacks of DEI and other PI programs at institutions these days?

In the same boat! What helped my LR timing a bit was first 15 in 15 drills and drilling level 4-5 questions constantly and trying to attend a lot of Cracking 170 and LR Lightning Round classes. I’m still struggling with RC timing a bunch so open to tips on that!

Not sure if this will help, but I’ve been doing drills of the first 15 Qs of an LR section in 15 minutes. You can create a drill like this by throwing together 15 level 1-3 LR questions, or just doing the first 15 minutes of a section. It’s been helping me a lot. First I tried doing it in 18, 17, 16, etc. I think this helps because for the most part, the first 15 Qs will be the level 1-3s, and it forces me to just pick answers and move on. Good luck!

Hey @J.Y.Ping ! Sorry I should clarify, I think drills from study plans are auto-starting and automatically setting to standard time now, which is causing the issue. I also think it would be great (just in general) if drills auto-set to the total target time anyways, and then folks could switch them to standard time if they wanted. I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to be doing drills at the time that ought to be allowed given the difficulty of the questions. Thanks for responding!

This is super motivating! I have been studying for over a year and am hoping June is my last test as well. Have had some off days this week as well so hopefully things are on the up and up!

Please change it back!! I was wondering why everything was auto-starting 😭

@Relay I think my problem is that I read too slowly at the outset… I spend 4-6 min on just reading the passage alone.

I’m in the same boat. I consistently PT around 165 and then BR in the high 170s. I’ve been trying timing drills for LR which has been helping me finish sections better, but my RC score is always a mess because I can never consistently finish the fourth passage. Would love any tips folks have!

Help! I understand why D is right, but I'm still not satisfied with folks' explanations of why E is wrong.

I don't think its right to say that the argument isn't concerned AT ALL with how much aesthetic fulfillment a person gets out of an artwork (or as E puts it, the "amount of aesthetic fulfillment derivable" from an artwork) because the conclusion says: contemporary artists mistakenly believe their work enables MANY (some) people to feel MORE (a quantifier/qualifier) aesthetically fulfilled than they otherwise would. Would this not map onto E's "affects the amount of aesthetic fulfillment"?

The only explanation for I can think of for why this wouldn't be the case is because the the premise states that existing artworks are capable of "SATISFYING" (meaning, I guess, that there is no room for any additional fulfillment to be derived from any other artwork, once you have seen an artwork that matches your taste) VIRTUALLY ANY (meaning, "almost all") tastes. If you take this interpretation, this means that for say 95% of people, they cannot be further satisfied/or derive further fulfillment by/from contemporary art once they have seen an artwork that satisfied their taste. This would mean that E is incorrect because the argument already creates a binary between satisfaction vs. non-satisfaction with the premise, so that nod to degree of fulfillment that exists in the conclusion is accounted for, so the only thing left that the argument fails to consider is whether people have access to the art that fulfills their taste satisfactorily.

In other words, in the premise the argument already accounts for the fact that once you see the Mona Lisa, you will be aesthetically fulfilled and will never derive any additional satisfaction from any other art ever (which feels insane, but whatever), so the only assumption left isn't about degree of fulfillment but about access to great artworks. Right?

Same problem but I just am running out of time for 3-4 questions per section!

Someone gave the tip on here a while back to start doing drills of like 5-10 Qs or one RC passage on the 7 sage app (and blind review!!) whenever you have a free moment (I do this on the train to work or during my lunch break). I find these shorter bursts of studying to be easier than having to force myself to sit down for 2 hours of studying after/before work. It also helps train my brain to get used to answering questions in potentially distracting environments, which has been helping me power through distractions when I take full PTs. Hope this helps :)

@NatalieManley I made a link to a group here: https://7sage.com/join-group/cht_031nQtqxz8j5gkTm3RDZl2

I made a study group here if folks want to join! https://7sage.com/join-group/cht_031nQtqxz8j5gkTm3RDZl2

I'm also aiming for April and would love some ATL study buddies! We should try and get a group together. I'm on my 3rd LSAT attempt but I wouldn't mind studying with folks newer to the process because I think answering questions you have could be really good for me!

@LeilaniRichardson I also live in Atlanta and would love to join!