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alizabethbronsdon600

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PrepTests ·

PT123.S1.P2.Q13

alizabethbronsdon600

Thursday, Jan 25 2018

More of a comment than a question, but did anyone else feel like 13 was a bit of a crap shoot?

I haven't been able to make peace with the word "success" in answer choice E. The critics weigh in on his skill and how well-suited they believe his techniques are to the themes in his poetry, but they say nothing about the success of his poetry. Maybe, at best, they say whether his poetry had success in suiting the themes... (similar to the last part of AC B), but jeesh, that feels weak.

I could eliminate C based on "most notable" and I can see why eliminating A based on his "artistic development" makes sense, although I ultimately chose that answer choice over E because critics' opinions on "the success of his poetry" seemed even more off-base than talking about his artistic development.

LSAT · Feb Test Logic Games

alizabethbronsdon600

Sunday, Feb 11 2018

@ said:

LG is usually my best section (it was my worst until I foolproofed like crazy) and I found this LG to be particularly difficult.

Not because of any crazy rules or hard inferences, but because of how odd the rules were. I can see how Feb's LG was easy/normal for those who can apply their knowledge easily, but difficult for those who are accustomed to regurgitating known game boards/inferences/rules.

I am the latter (I rely on getting by LG through recognition and familiarity) and I had a really hard time with diagramming the games. Like the robbery game, I had no idea how to diagram the sounds. Same with the econ game and the prerequisite thing. I ended up getting so nervous with the unfamiliarity that I choked and bombed the entire section.

I struggled with this too, especially in the economics game, which I barely diagrammed at all because of time-crunch panic mode. Not sure how much it matters to you at this point, but I just went with subscripts and the noises weren't too much trouble, especially since they were mostly interchangeable. It still took me way longer than I'd have liked to get through that game.

LSAT · Feb Test Logic Games

alizabethbronsdon600

Sunday, Feb 11 2018

@ said:

The Prerequisite thing really messed with me I think because I was being literal with the word instead of just treating it as a category. Was I the only one getting thrown off by that? Very possible because I was obviously in rattled "test mode".

Totally thrown off by that.

LSAT · Feb Test Logic Games

alizabethbronsdon600

Sunday, Feb 11 2018

I'm afraid to let myself predict either way at this point. I made a decision in December to take the LSAT so I know my fundamentals aren't completely solid, but I put in a ton of work and thanks to 7Sage, went in feeling confident and focused on working quickly and not getting rattled. It went well overall and I really didn't feel like any one section was a total disaster, but I've been burned by overconfidence in LR enough to keep my high hopes in check.

I had two RC sections and felt one was significantly easier than the other, but it was probably more of a focus issue on my part than any particularly tough passage. However, to comment on the logic games conversation... I am super disappointed.

I have made so much progress and really wanted to crush it! I also felt the first three games were fairly straightforward but I either didn't feel like I needed to or wasn't able to solve for all game boards up front on any of them, which is usually what I try to do. It was my first section and maybe it was nerves or the brute-force nature of the way I solved the first few games, but I lost a bunch of time somewhere in the middle and skipped two questions from the third game. Then I read the last one (prereqs) and froze on the setup. It seemed like I was going to run out of time on it (there were so many rules so maybe it wasn't going to be as bad as it looked but I was confused), so with 7 or so minutes to go I went back through and made sure I got the two questions I had skipped in game 3 and pretty much just bubbled Bs for game 4. I don't know where all the time went.

Ugh, I wish it wasn't an undisclosed test!!! It's going to kill me not to know after so much blind reviewing!

Admissions · PS Philosophy or Hit the softball or not

alizabethbronsdon600

Friday, Mar 09 2018

Which can be the better story? I've read that the best personal statements are well-written, fun to read, and say something about you that admissions staff may not know or easily could have overlooked from the rest of your application. I think you could keep both ideas on the table and try to fill in some details to each storyline before you make your decision.

As someone who has spent a few obsessive years in the Ironman triathlon world, I both love and hate talking about it. (Your joke was amazing, btw.) Triathlon is a great sport... you make incredible connections while training with others for such a huge undertaking, and you learn so much from both success and failure on race day and every step along the way. Training for an Ironman means you must be a dedicated, hard-working, goal-oriented person... and putting in the time and accomplishing a goal is addicting and wonderful. Sharing that with youth as a coach... all good stuff. Buuuuuut, 25 years of active duty military experience? I can't imagine there aren't some captivating life lessons in there.

Happy to read rough drafts if you need help deciding. Good luck!

General · Losing Motivation :'( And need some general advice please :)

alizabethbronsdon600

Thursday, Feb 08 2018

Right around 30 minutes into that video w/Glen, JY says everything I needed to hear today. Thanks for posting this!

LSAT · Kaplan vs 7sage logical indicators approach

alizabethbronsdon600

Friday, Dec 08 2017

So, I do think the 7sage method will ultimately work best. I realized the Kaplan method only works that way I described when the unless is positioned in the middle of the sentence. That means there are actually two rules for one word -- jeesh.

Once I committed to studying the groups and learning the 7sage translations in and out, it works every time. I have to prioritize the group 3 indicators over group 4 when they are both present, but that is an easy trick to keep it all straight in my mind.

Sure, it bothers me that I cannot intuitively understand the reason that the translation works every time, but at least I can trust myself to translate it correctly, quickly, which I think is key to getting through the LSAT.

Also, I tried to delete this discussion but I don't think I can. Oh well, maybe it will help someone else.

LSAT

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Friday, Dec 08 2017

alizabethbronsdon600

Kaplan vs 7sage logical indicators approach

I started this LSAT journey with a quick pass through of the Kaplan logical reasoning approach and, honestly, there were still some pretty gaping holes in my comfort with logical reasoning translation. At first, I felt like the 7sage approach helped a lot... it is much more mechanical and requires memorization of those four groups and the translation strategy. This worked well for me while going through the initial lessons, but now that it's all mixed together, I am realizing that it's just not intuitive for me to translate the group 3 and 4 words so mechanically.

For example, I find it much easier to treat UNLESS as a logical indicator for the necessary term. Then, I simply replace the word "unless" with my arrow and negate the sufficient term (this was the part I often forgot while doing the Kaplan practice problems). However, Kaplan's way definitely made things easier when the sentence also contains a negative, so a group 4 word. In that case, it means what it is... that term is just a negative term. I don't have to flip things or rearrange the sentence to translate it.

My question is, if I treat "unless" and "without" in the way that Kaplan explained it to me, do I need to ignore the whole entire 7sage translation system? Or, I guess to say that differently, I am specifically wondering about translating in groups 3 and 4. Has anyone else found these two approaches conflicting or am I just looking at it the wrong way?

LSAT · Joint Degree Programs Anyone?

alizabethbronsdon600

Wednesday, Feb 07 2018

I'm considering a joint J.D. and environmental justice M.S. program. Like @ said, I think both programs could be helpful if "you are on the fence of practicing law or working in consulting or a diff field but want to leverage a law degree I think that’s when the joint degree is more useful... or you are just interested in a broader education to understand the full picture in a particular niche service you wish to practice in."

Another reason to consider the joint degree program is that you can always change your mind in a year or two if you don't think you'll get what you need from either. Most of the M.S. programs I have looked into accept the LSAT in place of the GRE. (Too bad I took the GRE first.) This particular program, however, doesn't allow credits to count for the joint degree until you are accepted and enrolled in both schools. Then, you take two years of law school only classes before starting your M.S. So, while I am more drawn to the non profit world too, and the M.S. program is well-suited for that, if I don't apply to law school now, then I can't complete the duel degree later if I decide I'd like to be an attorney... At least not without a significant additional cost of both time and money. To me, it's worth a few bucks and some extra work now for that kind of flexibility later.

I see a lot of admin bios where the person has a law degree and/or worked as an attorney before entering the non profit world. So, I don't think it will hurt you, especially if you give yourself exposure to these types of organizations while in school and design your electives/free time around them.

I'd reach out to the schools and programs you're interested in and get recommendations straight from the source. There are surely students and professors with experience in making the most of your graduate school experience.

Good luck!

LSAT · Official February 2018 LSAT Waiting Thread

alizabethbronsdon600

Wednesday, Mar 07 2018

@ said:

Thank you all! I got a 161 on the Feb test, and I was getting around 163 on my PTs. I'd like to get a 170... so I think sept test is my best bet. I'm just wondering if the starter 7sage course is sufficient, or if I should bump it up to Premium.

I didn't think I had enough time to really benefit from the premium or ultimate courses so I went with the starter and finished every last piece of it in the two months I had, studying about 20 hours a week. My advice would be to upgrade because not only is there going to be more material for you to work with, but the starter level only includes the "easiest" rated practice sets, which are super easy. So, the question sets at the end of each section are almost worthless once you really get into it, and especially if you're already scoring in the 160s.

Bottom line, I don't think you'll have enough higher level material to feel comfortable with the 170-level questions unless you upgrade. You will have access to the question bank and all the questions you've paid for from your starter bundle PTs, but that's about it for drilling. And compiling those question bank questions into good drilling sets takes time (I took screenshots and made printable pdfs)... plus, you've already seen them during the actual PT, so it's not ideal. And, they're all early PTs. I couldn't bring myself to buy a book with a bunch of later PTs because I didn't think it would be valuable without JY's video explanations. You really do start to hear his voice in your head and I think it's absolutely worth going down the 7Sage road to see what you can do with a few more months.

You could always buy the starter now and see how it goes, but honestly, I felt like the starter course is really aimed at someone who is totally new to the material and/or doesn't have much time before they plan to take the test. My score went up 5 points from my diagnostic in two months and the starter CC, but my highest PT was +12 and I was averaging at 7+, so I am a bit disappointed. However, I know that I didn't give myself enough time or invest enough $$ into 7Sage to take on the higher level questions that I needed to break into that +12 realm consistently.

It's a good course... way better than anything else I looked into. Good luck!

Admissions · LSAT Percentile needed for a realistic chance of admissions

alizabethbronsdon600

Wednesday, Mar 07 2018

@ said:

However rather than rely on a rule of thumb, you should look at actual data. You can use mylsn to see how many people with similar statistics to you got in to various law schools. You can just try different LSAT scores. This is the link to the one for a 3.84 and a 170, but try other LSAT scores.

http://mylsn.info/n3jgkb/

How do you get it to list more than 51 schools? Good to know for sure that Yale won't take me.

LSAT · Official February 2018 LSAT Waiting Thread

alizabethbronsdon600

Wednesday, Mar 07 2018

I'm bummed. It's not horrible, but not what I had hoped for. I felt prepared and confident during the test... maybe I just guessed wrong. Stupid undisclosed test.