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alisonjnoon69
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PrepTests ·
PT140.S2.Q20
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alisonjnoon69
Wednesday, Jul 29 2020

(A) flows most logically but just as importantly for me it reflects a goal/tone of the field we're talking about. Anthropologists care about human nature at a moment in time -- whatever moment they're studying. Anthropologists generally do not care about how outside cultures or data would look at a society, they care about why a society was the way it was. Anthro majors, please forgive me, but this general if imperfect context helped me feel more confident in clicking (A)

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alisonjnoon69
Wednesday, Oct 21 2020

Awesome! Love to hear it! Thank you for sharing

PrepTests ·
PT141.S2.Q19
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alisonjnoon69
Wednesday, Sep 16 2020

my LSAT mantra:

the best choice is often imperfect

just pick the least imperfect of the bunch

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alisonjnoon69
Thursday, Aug 13 2020

Ear plugs could totally save me from my neighbor whose lawn-mowing hobby is utter randomness. And three cheers for Team Pen. This is huge. Thank you for sharing

PrepTests ·
PT152.S1.Q22
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alisonjnoon69
Saturday, Sep 12 2020

TIL what nerve sheath is! It's called myelin and it does a lot more than guide nerve growth https://www.britannica.com/science/myelin

On a less fun note, I chose (B) in a PT because "sheath begins to disintegrate after three months unless there is living nerve tissue within in" and didn't we just learn that we can, indeed, put new nerve tissue in it? After about three months, say, the motor nerve continues trying to grow, stepping perhaps a little more hesitantly through what JY called the "tube" of its sheath because that tube is starting to crumble, but the presence of the new nerve could slow that disintegration, right? Wrong. The prompt says "the growing cells require the original nerve sheath to guide them" -- not a slightly disintegrated nerve sheath. After three months, the sheath would not be in its original state, so nerves would not be guided there, so they would not grow there, so they would not be present to prevent further disintegration.

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alisonjnoon69
Sunday, Aug 09 2020

Why not let us compare the standard and Flex scores?

PrepTests ·
PT140.S4.P3.Q15
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alisonjnoon69
Saturday, Aug 08 2020

takeaway: You only need one reason to eliminate an answer choice

^Seems so obvious, but in the moment it's really not for my slow ass over here deeply considering each answer choice before moving on to the next. Question #15 would have been easier for me if I could absorb this lesson.

Speaking of #15, JY invites us to elaborate on (E). I agree that the "explanatory" inference probably refers to how motivation and intense training could explain the "differences between good and outstanding performance." But I would add that motivation and intense training could also explain child prodigies, raised in the first paragraph where "certain psychologists" claimed "most outstanding musicians are discovered by the age of six" as evidence of the old hypothesis.

PrepTests ·
PT140.S4.P3.Q14
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alisonjnoon69
Saturday, Aug 08 2020

takeaway: "some/certain people say..." and "people once believed/previously held/have long thought..." appearing in the first paragraph are good indicators of the alternative hypothesis Reading Comprehension passage structure (below) and signal you to skim that paragraph. The rest of the passage will be far more important.

OLD HYPO (don't sink time here)

COMPETING FACTS

ALT HYPO

RESOLUTION

^1st paragraph typically least important

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alisonjnoon69
Thursday, Oct 08 2020

@ It's super helpful but such a time suck for me. I get so carried away sometimes it's like the whole passage is color-coded, so right now I'm trying to limit myself to highlighting one or two words per paragraph. Basically I highlight a high-resolution word instead of writing it down. I feel like I'm slightly less confident when I get to the questions but I save so much time that I can actually attempt all 4 passages, so for me it's progress. What's your highlight strategy?

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alisonjnoon69
Sunday, Nov 08 2020

@ @ echoing others, will there be a recording posted?

Also, I listened to your episodes of the 7Sage podcast on Spotify and found them very helpful - thank you for doing those! I think you both mentioned a "skipping webinar," which I have not been able to find on the website. Do you know where I can find that?

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alisonjnoon69
Monday, Sep 07 2020

40 hours of LSAT per week is going to burn you out right in time for your brain to be mush the first week of October! Don't do that!

I'm not sure whether it is in your best interest to take the October test. I will say it sounds like it would be good to put in roughly 25 hours per week and set a goal score for November. Don't stop studying until you're satisfied with your score -- i.e. get ready to apply with your Oct/Nov score, but be prepared to take the January or February exams if your cycle is not going well or you know you could do better.

If this is your first application cycle, consider that rushing in with a bad LSAT score (whatever that means for you) could very well result in reapplying next cycle, speaking from experience. I wish someone had told me to slow down and do it right the first time.

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alisonjnoon69
Monday, Sep 07 2020

After I read the first sentence of an RC passage I literally say in my head “oh interesting.” I’ve done it so many times now that it’s like an inside joke with myself, so it also perks me up. It’s kooky but it works.

When I feel myself waning in LR, I scooch to the edge of my seat, sometimes close my eyes for one-one thousand and go back in with guns blazing. Sometimes I give the author of the prompt a goofy voice in my head as I’m reading their position. Again, kooky but works for me. One other thing: I think losing focus on an LR question is a totally valid reason to skip it and return at the end.

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alisonjnoon69
Wednesday, Oct 07 2020

@ Good luck! You’ll do well, just keep that feeling alive ✨

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alisonjnoon69
Wednesday, Oct 07 2020

@ Thank you for your positivity! Totally agree. For me, concentration has required practice just like the core concepts. Let's go crush some RC!

PrepTests ·
PT155.S2.Q15
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alisonjnoon69
Saturday, Nov 07 2020

"I know what's waiting for me in the answers and it's NOT pretty" lol

PrepTests ·
PT155.S2.Q24
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alisonjnoon69
Friday, Nov 06 2020

ugh clauses. ugh reading

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alisonjnoon69
Friday, Nov 06 2020

Yup. I haven't been sleeping this week, sometimes by choice sometimes not. Really starting to worry about being overly tired on test day

PrepTests ·
PT140.S1.Q20
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alisonjnoon69
Wednesday, Aug 05 2020

My best friend is a sheep farmer and only sells wool so I guess I was doomed to miss the "all" in (C)

PrepTests ·
PT140.S1.Q14
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alisonjnoon69
Wednesday, Aug 05 2020

This question taught me there is a limit to how much we should question what the test writers give us.

C did not seem "infinite" to me because humans have not been around very long, let alone since the beginning of time, so there could not actually be infinite precedents. But C explicitly says "without end" and I should not have rebutted that. Then again, I didn't like any of the answer choices, and I should have known from the outset that the one "most similar" would not be perfect.

Sharing this for my personal growth and in case it benefits a single person. I went -5 on RC for the first time (usually -9 to -11) and immediately took note of what I did differently. Looking at it on paper, it's all so obvious, but it's stuff that apparently I had to learn the hard way.

Highlight less

I must be losing 1-3 questions' worth of time switching between colors, highlighting, and sometimes even erasing. Stahhhp!

Worry less

Don't freak out and reread anything for the sake of committing it to memory or catching every little detail. The test writers have word minimums. Like someone said in one of the 7Sage podcasts, lots of RC passage material will go over your head, that's what it's supposed to do - the game, then, is fighting the instinct to fully understand every single thing that's handed to you. Every sentence cannot be the most important sentence. Unhighlighted space or unremarkable information should be expected and embraced, not fretted over. Read actively and move tf on.

Concentrate... but really

Nothing in the world exists except this sentence.

Rush rush rush

Shed the mindset that the first passage will get you into the groove.

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alisonjnoon69
Tuesday, Aug 04 2020

Congratulations! Thank you for posting, it's really helpful. When you say you "took the week of July 4th off, and starting doing drills," do you mean you took that week off of PTs but still did drills? Or you took a week off, then picked up with drills? I'm trying to map out one or two breaks or easy weeks leading up to my test date and wondering what might work best

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alisonjnoon69
Tuesday, Aug 04 2020

@ XD your username!!! good luck this month

PrepTests ·
PT140.S1.Q12
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alisonjnoon69
Tuesday, Aug 04 2020

the devil wrote this question

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alisonjnoon69
Sunday, Aug 02 2020

Congratulations! Thank you for sharing. Once you identified your weaknesses, how long did it take you to improve on them? And how? Did you go back to Core Curriculum / revisit general background on those question stems, rewatch JY work through examples on video, or just do & review as many of those questions as possible in Problem Sets?

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alisonjnoon69
Sunday, Aug 02 2020

No one knows. LSAC has been completely silent and opaque on how the Flex is scored, in true LSAC form. There are lower-score Flex anecdotes as well as higher-score Flex anecdotes. It sucks, but all scoring discussion is merely speculative.

PrepTests ·
PT147.S2.P3.Q19
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alisonjnoon69
Thursday, Oct 01 2020

#19 looks like I am among the few who miss this question... Is A correct in facts, but incorrect in emphasis? Can someone please #help me understand why not A?

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