@futurelawstudent IMO a better LSAT score in November > a worse LSAT score earlier, especially if you are below both medians for some schools. A small bump might be especially significant if it gets you to the LSAT median or above

I think we'd need more context to answer this. Are you above or below the LSAT median for your schools of interest? What about your GPA?

Hi! I Googled a bunch of prompts, and I practiced both outlining and writing the essays. I then practiced under testing conditions using the three prompts on the LawHub website. I took it after the exam (spent around 1.5 weeks preparing for it), and got my score on the score release date.

I believe what you saw on Reddit is true—seems like you just need one writing sample on file to get your score for subsequent exams.

@EEC_517 of course :) you got this!

I'm interpreting it as one page each. If someone were addressing all four addenda options, for example, it wouldn't make sense for all four to be one page combined.

I can't speak on the LSAT packages, but I can tell you that in my experience, a weeklong break didn't make me any worse at questions. If you notice a dip in your score, it's more likely just normal score fluctuations (aka a coincidence). I've also come to realize that if I don't schedule in breaks sometimes, my brain and body will force me to take one anyway, typically at the most inconvenient time.

Good luck!

The week before the exam, my priority was making sure that I felt confident and healthy!

I mostly focused on lifestyle factors—waking up at the same time I would on the day of the exam, eating the same breakfast and snacks everyday, consistently not drinking caffeine (it tends to make me more anxious, but you do what works for you), exercising, and spending time with friends (to remind me that the exam isn't everything). I also wore a mask when I was in crowds indoors because I didn't want to get sick.

A few days before, I packed everything that I planned on taking for test day (snacks, foam earplugs, water in a clear bottle, hair tie, ID, jacket, printed test confirmation number and Prometric address). I visited the testing center at around my testing time to get a sense of the conditions, asked a few questions I was anxious about, and made sure all of my items were allowed.

I also studied a little—mostly went through takeaways from my wrong answer journal and ran through some practice questions. I made sure to end my studying on a good note. The day before and day of, I practiced a few easy questions rather than reiterating questions that tripped me up in the past. At that point, confidence was more important to me than cramming.

Good luck on your exam! Try to be proud of your hard work, and remember that (1) the LSAT can be retaken and (2) a test does not define you. :)

#feedback It would be helpful to know when each article is written so we can evaluate its relevance to the current cycle. Thanks :)

Are you referring to the diversity statement? If your optional essay answers the prompt, is written well, adds rather than repeats info, helps the admissions officer get to know you in a positive light, and doesn’t bring up any red flags (controversial info) then I personally don’t anticipate any drawbacks.

I’m not familiar with Ontario law schools, but it seems to make the most sense to add a paragraph at the end. That way, you can talk about yourself and your motivations and end with how that specific school will allow you to carry out your goals.

@wendyzgod Yes

@JeyrelitzaClemente From what I've seen, most schools (especially the more selective ones) prefer at least one academic LOR for recent grads. That may have more predictive validity as to what type of student and community member you'll be once in law school. But, once you've been out of school for a few years, it makes sense to have a professional one as well. I've been out of school four years, so I'm trying to get both academic and professional recs since I've kept in touch with some profs. And of course, if it's been a really long time since college, I'd assume that schools would understand if you only had professional recs.

Also, I think the type of work that you do matters. If your supervisor can speak to qualities that law schools care about, like writing, analytical thinking, problem-solving, etc, that would help. But if they can't, then IMO it makes an academic letter more important.

But please take my opinion with a grain of salt—I'm just trying to figure it out along with everyone here :)

@JeyrelitzaClemente If you have old coursework from a class you did well in, you could still potentially ask that professor.

I'm a little confused about these instructions: "Whatever the case, your position should be supported with logical arguments and detailed, persuasive examples."

While essay 1 is persuasive, it doesn't seem to use specific, detailed examples. Is that an issue?

"The major figures in the muralist movement, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, and José Clemente Orozco, all based their work on a common premise: that art should incorporate images and familiar ideas as it commented upon the historic period in which it was created. In the process, they assimilated into their work the customs, myths, geography, and history of the local communities that constitute the basis of Mexican national culture."

The explanation for (D) says that it's not clear muralism involved elements from everyday life, but doesn't the text above describe the use of elements from everyday life? (I don't think it's seen as the most important aspect though)

@RoseDenahWeitzman These are contributions Planck made in the past before developing his hypothesis. While the passage does state that these contributions exist, it doesn't say WHAT those contributions are, so (D) does not work

If X falls within the scope of a set of rules, it means the rules are NOT silent on it because it is within their domain. It does not mean that X follows the rules—it could very well violate them!

(E): The only group that falls into the "controlling 50% or more" category is older adults. So, the sufficient condition of the principle is triggered, leading to the conclusion that we're looking for.

The author draws their conclusion based on the premise that it’s generally accepted that Shakespeare knew little or no Greek. But why would that mean he came to know Euripides' play through a Latin translation? Are there other translations besides Greek and Latin? (B) rules out an alternate hypothesis (or at least, far decreases the chances of it being true). It suggests that Shakespeare didn’t use the English translation because The Winter’s Tale resembles the original Alcestis more closely. This makes it more likely that he used the Latin one instead.

Ruling out English rather than, say, Chinese particularly helps because it’s generally known that Shakespeare wrote in English, so it would make sense to question if the translation he used was also in English, a language accessible to him.

Choosing (D) over (B):

It's crucial to identify the conclusion. (I typically highlight it when I'm going through the stimulus to stay focused on what's important.) What is the critic trying to argue for? The only claim that is supported by evidence is "This discrepancy should come as no surprise", so that is the conclusion.

A principle that "most helps to justify" someone's reasoning should lead to the conclusion. (B) does not, but (D) does. You can think of this is as a Strengthen question. Based on the premise, which principal helps strengthen the argument the most? (B) doesn't make the conclusion more likely to be true at all—the conclusion is about the discrepancy in food quality, and (B) doesn't relate to that. However, (D) does.

Note: Make sure you're accomplishing the task that the question stem is defining. It's not MSS, or "The author would most likely agree with...". We need an answer that strengthens the support structure between the premise and conclusion.

"Significantly" really threw me off, but thinking about who is making the argument helped. This is a safety expert, not a statistician zooming into the minute details, making the argument that conversing on a cell phone while driving is more dangerous than driving with a passenger in the vehicle. As a safety expert, this person is making a practical point that conversing on a cell phone while driving is not advisable compared to just having a passenger in the car, not a technical point that it's a tiny bit more dangerous than driving with someone. The safety expert's goal is probably to increase safety in a meaningful way, not argue the difference between a risk level of 25% vs 26%.

Imagine that you drive for Uber and your boss brings a safety expert in, who gives this argument. If a member of the audience retorts, "Actually, speaking to a driver during a difficult driving situation does not significantly increase the risk of an accident, unless the speaker is providing helpful warnings", then that expert's argument is wrecked.

(I'm trying to convince myself as well lol... I only got this answer right through POE!)

I eliminated (C) because

• A practice that is "not uncommon" isn't necessarily super common. Maybe it just happens 50% of the time. That wouldn't be uncommon

• We already know that the artist created his own self-portrait. He could not have been his own live model during that self-portrait, since he was the one doing the painting. So, even if we assume that live model = the exact person depicted in the painting, we know that the artist in question doesn't always use these live models for his paintings. So, it wouldn't be out of left field for him to paint the battle scene without these exact live models. (D) doesn't do much to the argument

@Jackielynn I typed my explanation above.

@LawSchoolHopeful You're right that we don't know if there are multiple causes (perhaps both human activity and a non-seven day cycle contribute to the phenomenon). However, if a non-seven day cycle were identified as the cause, there'd be no reason to think that human activity were the cause. It would destroy the support structure of the argument. We don't need to prove that a conclusion is false in order to destroy the support structure (it could still be true, but not based on this line of reasoning).

Necessary assumptions, by definition, must be NECESSARY to the argument—in other words, if negated, they should not just weaken but destroy the argument.

Why I selected (E):

Phenomenon: Weekends are cloudier than weekdays

Purported cause: Human activity

Reason: The few seven-day cycles that occur naturally are too insignificant to cause the phenomenon

Essentially, the author comes to the conclusion that X is the cause of a phenomenon because another potential cause, Y, is eliminated. But what if there's a third cause, Z? This argument assumes that there are only two potential causes, so eliminating one option means that the other is the cause.

(E) points out this necessary assumption in a complicated way.

The stimulus already ruled out seven-day cycles as the cause of the phenomenon. But what if other natural causes that aren't seven-day cycles caused it? This would wreck the argument—if it were true, we wouldn't be able to point the finger at human activity. So, the author must assume that it's false.

This is basically what (E) is saying: If the phenomenon is caused by something in nature, then that natural cause has a seven-day cycle. The contrapositive is helpful here: If there's no natural cause with a seven-day cycle, then the phenomenon is not caused by something in nature. We know that there's no natural cause with a seven-day cycle because the few seven-day cycles that occur naturally are too insignificant to cause the phenomenon. So, that premise triggers the contrapositive of (E), allowing us to conclude that the phenomenon is not caused by something in nature (to use the wording of (E), there is no weather pattern with a natural cause that has a seven-day cycle). This is a necessary assumption in the argument.

For people struggling with the explanation for passage (A), here's an alternate one that helped me:

"When, in the second paragraph, author A says that "duties of truth telling are not justified merely when they produce good outcomes", he implies that the truth doesn't always result in a good outcome, and thus implies further that sometimes better outcomes could be achieved by a lack of candor than with truthfulness. So, A indicates that a lack of candor might have a good outcome, but despite that there are moral considerations that override the benefit of those outcomes." (Adam Tyson, PowerScore)