That's really great. Don't assume it's a fluke, this is something to be proud of! It's hard to retroactively understand exactly why certain mistakes were or weren't made, nobody has that perfect level of introspection, but my advice would be to try and recognize what felt different about the questions themselves during this test, and what felt different during the overall testing experience. Were you less stressed? Did you slow down on the reading passages more than you had previously? Which section of the test did you feel the least confident in before seeing your results? Compare a question you got right on this PT to a similarly structured one you got wrong on the previous. I think by asking yourself questions like this directly after taking a PT, and taking note of your internal responses to them, you can better understand how you improved, as well as which parts to still focus on in your studying.

My short advice as someone not qualified in any way to give advice: generally the sections you feel the weakest about are the sections you should target with more practice. Personally I've found that when I leave a section less-than-confident, regardless of if that section was a -0, that often correlates to a few lucky 50/50 guesses (which should not be happening!!!). Complete confidence in every answer choice is the goal; along with that confidence comes more consistency in score.

@jess.zzz I assume you are talking about AC D. The Question is asking which is the author MOST LIKELY to agree with. The other ACs just seem far more unlikely. The 2nd most chosen answer, B, is anti-supported in the passage, there's no chance the author would agree with it as they directly stated otherwise. D is the only one that has a chance of being supported by the author.

I originally picked C. Now I understand why it was incorrect. It comes down to ONE WORD.

In the Stimulus:

"Traces of carbon 14 have been found throughout certain 1.2-billion-year-old rocks"

Answer Choice C:

"Research suggests that some portions of the 1.2-billion-year-old rocks were at one time submerged in water, though other portions clearly never were."

C conflicts with the use of "throughout" in the Stimulus. "Throughout" in this context is intending to mean that it is generally in every part of the rock, not just in a section or two of it.

To add to this, why can't we see a list of every single priority and our percentage, even if we have practiced them enough for it not to be recommended. Like I just want to see a list and their raw percentages.

@Noor2000 The argument is flawed. That premise is just stating how recovery rates are between two hospitals where the patients have similar illnesses. Whoever made this argument is trying to use that as support for the conclusion that University Hospital can shorten their average stay length to Edgewater Hospital's average stay length. What if University Hospital deals with primarily cancer patients, and Edgewater Hospital only treats people who have really bad colds? The 2nd sentence in the stimulus is just used to support the first in the argument, but it doesn't mean they're stating with a matter of fact that the two Hospitals previously stated fall in that category. They're just trying to imply it. Treat these questions like a politician giving an argument, citing data that doesn't fully apply to the situation, hoping somebody doesn't read too much into it, because then they'll see how the support has a flaw in it.

Example:

School A gives teachers a 2-week Winter Break from School. School B gives teachers a 3-week Winter Break from school. Studies show that Teachers at 2 schools will want the same amount of Winter Break time if both sets of teachers have the same interests. Therefore, School B should shorten their teachers' Winter Break time to 2 weeks.

Wait, but what if the teachers at School B have different interests than the teachers at School A?

@SimonArmendariz Coming back to my comment to say, now I look forward to these questions! A few tips that may be helpful.

1. If it's a flawed argument, identify the flaw (what is the stimulus doing that makes the argument questionable) BEFORE moving to the answer choices. If it's not flawed, make sure the AC you choose also is a valid argument! And vice versa.

2. Don't mix up the Premises and Conclusion, make sure the AC you choose not only has the same flaw/structure of reasoning, but that it doesn't swap which components of the flaw are in the Premise/Conclusion. Cause then the structure isn't the same. I've noticed this being the main reason I've gotten some of the level 5 difficulty questions wrong. I don't notice that one of the ACs just completely swapped what the conclusion was (in context of the form) through just changing a few key words.

3. Don't let the large amount of text make you lose focus. Reread the stimulus and slow down if you have to! You're trying to get a feel for the structure of the argument. If you fully understand the given argument, it is 10x easier to read each AC and then quickly say "Yeah that's not the same".

4. Drill these over and over! I've gotten to a point where I can just kind of feel whether or not the AC is using the same form/flaw, and I only got there through drilling every single Parallel/PF question 7sage has on here. lol.

5. Last point again. You can't expect to be comfortable with these until you are used to what to look for, and you can only get to that point by burning these questions into your brain.

I was averaging around 161-163 when I made this comment. Now I’m ranging from 172-176. Drill baby drill!

@GreyHugli Yes this is great advice! I would also add onto this with what I do. If I'm ever on a question and I reach around the 2 minute mark for that Question, I'll give it my best guess from the AC's I've narrowed it down to, flag it, and move on to the rest of the test. Doing so allows you to then revisit these questions at the end of the section with any leftover time, and often going back to these questions with a fresh mind/take will help you see things you didn't see before. If you don't have leftover time, now you can be grateful you didn't waste your time on that question and take time from the Qs later in the test that you WERE able to answer. That being said, it is a very nice place to be when you can consistently do this strategy, ending each section with around 4-6 minutes of extra time, as that is more than enough to revisit a few harder flagged questions and give them a fresh chance.

@goldilocks OHHHHHHHH. I also thought free installation meant free software that can be self-installed. This is so much more obvious now. Thank you.

@Dylanoc90 Not a tutor, but yes that's a good way of approaching it! In weaken questions, treat the stimulus like a Scientific Experiment. If true, which answer choice would make you question the results the most? Which answer choice would create the biggest flaw in the Experiment? And try to appeal to the existing premises, weakening the connection between that and the conclusion.

@nikki But that's the key! MBTs often do just restate a link between the premises! Don't worry, it feels wrong at first, but I've found MBTs to be somewhat comforting after a while, as there isn't much inference at all that you must do.

@lawshosh

IF

(Resistance to Heat Greater than Semiconductor) + Component comparable in all respects

--THEN-->

Preferable to Semiconductor.

The Contrapositive of this would be:

If NOT Preferred to Semiconductor

--THEN-->

(Resistance to Heat WORSE than Semiconductor) OR (Component NOT comparable.)

Now on the topic of Experimental Vacuum Tubes vs All Vacuum Tubes, the last sentence of the Stimulus clarifies in it's final premise that it is talking about All Vacuum Tubes, which thereby encompasses experimental ones brought up in the first sentence.

@pamelajkok An Extended Drought could cause a Sudden Collapse. The Drought wouldn't stop once the civilization collapsed.

@missmads Not in MSS questions. You'll see this in MSS Disagree/Agree questions as well. Sometimes a question type will say something along the lines of: "Which of the following statements would Author X/Author Y likely disagree on?". Sometimes those statements can be prescriptive, descriptive, and more often than not are not stated directly in the stimulus anywhere. It really ranges depending on the difficulty.

Personally, at this stage I would prioritize Understanding over Timing. If your BR is 169, that means even knowing the Wrong Answer Choice, and with Unlimited Time, there are still certain question types/difficulties that are falling through the cracks. Once you are able to bump up your BR score, which I see as an "Understanding" score, your Timed score will improve as well. Try to figure out what parts of these Questions are making them difficult for you, even without the time constraint. And drill that over and over. But this is super good!

@Marissaaaa Yeah. I feel this question is worded weird. I can't find any part of the stimulus that claims people can't fall in the middle of these two extremes.

@02kimask The reason C is incorrect is because it does not undermine a flaw in the stimulus' reasoning. The Stimulus' conclusion is:

There is a positive correlation between drinking caffeinated drinks and heart disease.

Answer Choice C states:

Drinking caffeinated drinks is MORE strongly correlated with heart disease than smoking.

Not only does C not identify and undermine a flaw in the stimulus', but if anything it supports it!

@callarsen531 I know this comment is old, but to anybody feeling the same, the answer should be taken as true, and if it is true, does it help resolve the inconsistency?

For example:

Stimulus:

"I value individual freedom first and foremost"

"But nobody should be allowed to own a cell phone"

An Answer reconciling it would be:

"Individuals owning cell phones may infringe upon others' individual freedom"

Even though I would probably disagree with that statement, and I would say has many flaws in it, IF it is taken to be true, does it reconcile the seeming inconsistency in the premise? Yes!

From what I know, Law Schools largely care about the Median in terms of your LSAT and GPA, so if you're below median for your GPA, to have a decent shot at a school, no matter your extracurriculars, you're going to want to shoot for above the median for that school's LSAT. If you're below the median for both, it'll be much harder to get into any school. But if you're over the median for at least one of those stats, then they have at least some incentive to admit you, because you won't be ruining both their GPA and LSAT medians, in fact you'll be boosting one of their stats. So it seems for McGeorge you'd wanna shoot for a 156+. Remember they care about which side of the median you fall on, it's median not mean.

@SlippinJimmy2026 Yeah what a strange question/answer. Like you, got it right, but still strange formatting.

Just my personal opinion, but if your goal is a 173+, "consistently" scoring would mean on a bad day you're scoring like 170/171 and on a good day you're scoring 174/175.

Like my goal score is 171/172. So until my worst PTs are consistently, over and over, 169/170 and my best are 174/175, I'm not gonna feel confident enough to take the test again.

Wait.....this is goated.

@lainlvrlauren Lol SAME! Totally makes sense though but never thought about it.

I think Two main points that are really helping me:

1. Don't Instinctually start mapping it out in LAWGIC unless it is a decently long chain of conditionals/causes/sets.

2. Since you should ALWAYS be reading the Question Stem first, if it says the Stimulus is flawed, MAKE SURE YOU IDENTIFY THAT FLAW BEFORE GOING TO THE ANSWER CHOICES.

I am realizing a lot of my confusion before coming to these lessons was from just reading the ACs and trying to feel out a vibe for what SOUNDED similar, and then I'd get confused because there wasn't something specific I was looking for.

For this question, I saw the Question Stem and then my thought process went like this:

"Oh okay what's the flaw here...fuck I really hope I don't have to map this out I hate Lawgic...."

"Oh it's pretty simple, not many words thank God. Okay what's the flaw here....."

reads Stimulus

"Ah she's flawed because she could possibly afford one art piece or two, even if the value of the entire collection is super super out of her budget. So the flaw must be shes assuming the price/value of a part of a set can be determined by the value/price of the entire set"

That then led me to choose C. Because remember, she is determining the value of the Smaller Thing, only by knowing the value of the Bigger Thing. That was her flaw.

Hope this helps somebody! :)