@ said:

I am on such an uphill and downhill swing. My Sections I do consistently 6-7 points better on than my PT's (PT'S avg is 155,while if you combine my sections my average is 162/163) a bit frustrating. Plus I feel like I always rush through PT's, any advice?

hmm...what is your overall strategy on a PT + review?

I'm in the wind-down phase of this marathon; 13 days to go until I take the last of the Flex tests in June!

my hunch was correct and this passage is adapted from an article originally written by Paul Krugman lol https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/books/review/the-pin-factory-mystery.html

@ said:

Hi all! I'm taking the June test in the hopes of getting off 2 waitlists, and I really want a 174. I got a 170 last June, 166 in late August, and my weakness was pretty clearly overconfidence on LG: I'd do well on games at home, but shut down completely on test day when the questions didn't look exactly like I expected. Looking for a few people at a similar level to keep each other accountable these last few weeks and help each other shave off those last stubborn minutes on games!

hey! I'm retaking in June and trying to anchor my LG score -- I've managed to get -0 in almost all of my PTs so far in my prep (average overall a -0.5) and can help with time management (and how to do the stubborn rule sub question! On a good section I can finish all four games in 24-28 minutes)

@ said:

My score in RC very much fluctuates. While I'm still practicing to read actively and note the overall structure/main point/view points/tone etc. before heading into the questions, I often find myself getting tripped up in the answer choices. It's where I spend the most time.

I was wondering if anyone can share their POE strategies for RC? I've seen multiple people say POE is a lifesaver; sometimes they can eliminate answer choices by a specific clause/word. Any insight appreciated - thanks!

POE is a lifesaver on the tougher passages -- especially in the double passages! Some of the double passage questions for example ask you "what do both authors agree with" or "what is one thing that only B would support", and wrong answers fail to describe either one or the other or both passages! Sometimes there are very specific words that turn an answer choice into a wrong one -- but you have to be very good at spotting them and at understanding the overall passage's structural elements, otherwise you'll tend to get trapped more often than not (the test writers have gotten really wily lately, especially starting in the PT70s and 80s lol).

@ said:

Hey @ , that's an interesting strategy - I've never tried it myself though. For me, I usually highlight as I go so that I can easily navigate the passage if I need to come back to it in the questions. Do you feel like your strategy helps you substantially with accuracy, and are you able to (comfortably) finish the section under timed conditions? If so, I don't see why it'd be such a bad thing to invest the time up front like we would in LG :)

yeah I feel like this is highly situational -- probably not a bad time to invest the time up front, but potentially risky with time management strategy if you end up reading more than once and still get nothing. I also highlight as I go!

@ said:

The best advice I've gotten for those types of questions is to look for specific evidence in the passage regarding what the author would think. Before I started doing that, I'd just try to 'put myself in the author's shoes' and imagine what they'd think, but for these questions types, there will be something explicit in the passage that can guide you to the right answer choice.

yeah there's always at least something in the passage that you can refer to in order to infer about what the author believes. It's not always in one specific area though -- you may have to piece together from all different parts of the passage to make the inference!

@ said:

Hello all,

I'm going over weakening questions on CC and just had an idea/thought.

What do you guys think about starting bottom-up when reading the answer choices for the questions? (E-A)

I find a lot of them to be closer to the bottom than to the top so far and it seems to save me a little time.

Thoughts? =o )

I agree with some of the commenters -- it's probably helpful in BR but in timed conditions, your mileage may vary.

@ said:

@ Learning Korean that is awesome!! I want to play Assassins Creed Valhalla, I'm a sucker for the Assassins Creed games.

Ezio stans unite!

my boi Bob Ross

Well, all I have to say is this: I am still getting plenty of sunshine and enjoying myself even while studying for the LSAT. Physical and mental wellbeing are utterly under-valued aspects to doing well on this test lmao.

definitely interested! I'm taking another stab at the LSAT and law school in general next year and will fill out the form

also, group size matters -- if you start to get too big (past about 3-4 people), it will become almost impossible to sustain focused study for long term periods.

if this is Berkeley then they will tell you simply to sit tight and wait

@ said:

@ said:

My order was LG - RC- LR

LG

ordering of student seating (maybe?)

upper and lower floors

break in at a museum

econ course w prerequisites

It was really hard mostly because it was my first section and I was really nervous. Also I kept getting the upper and lower floors mixed up in my mind. Could have been -0 could have been -5 (LMAO).

RC-

Britaain - English Pacifist

Inuit gov't in Canada

Judicial philosophy

Keystone species

Relatively easy. I thought. One question in the keystone passage that i'm still unsure about.

LR-

high sodium diets (still can't figure out the answer RIP)

Chinese dinosaurs

arson/cracked glass

I had the exact same test (i.e. in the same order, too). I thought the last game was deceptively easy.

Is there any chance they disclose this test?

this was my form too! sadly, probably not disclosed, at least not for a long time

yeah I've been told this is a Strengthen "NA" question where the correct answer supplies a necessary assumption and barely strengthens the argument.

@ said:

how was the difficulty compared to the most recent PTS like may 2020?

roughly on-par.

just finished! LG had a minor twist in some parts but still doable for the most part, RC was pretty standard, and LR was trickier than normal but also doable.

interested! I'm scoring on average about -0 to -2 on RC currently

actually I've had to push my timeline for the LSAT back a few months, hopefully that will open up a slot for someone who's still interested in this group!

@ said:

Is it better to spend more time on the questions in RC or passage ? And if so what is a proper distribution of time ?(i.e 4 min on passage 5 min on questions)

This is highly dependent on what works best for you. If it's an easy passage, you should be shooting to finish the set as fast as possible to bank up enough time for harder passages down the road. I personally shoot for finishing an easy passage + questions in under 7 minutes so that I have enough time for the hard passages near the end (I tend to spend about 12 minutes total on the hardest passages+questions).

https://nautil.us/

yeah the comparative passage definitely requires a slightly different approach. Those tend to be slightly easier for me once I am able to figure out the relationship between the two passages, which is in my experience so far with RC sections, usually limited to:

passage A and B disagree over a central topic/explanation of a phenomenon, etc.

passage A outlines a theoretical problem or phenomenon whose characteristics are described using a real world example in passage B (e.g. a historian talks about an academic approach to history and passage B describes a study that proceeds by using the technique described by the historian in passage A)

passage A and B are both aligned in their views but are approaching the issue from different angles (e.g. one is a historian and one is a law professor)

@ said:

try not highlighting! also read slow but realize they are all a similar format! im not great but those two things have helped me the most

I highlight but I am very selective about what I end up highlighting. For example, if the author is proposing a hypothesis, I highlight it and any pieces of evidence they give to support that hypothesis. If I see an opposing VP I also highlight that. If I can spot the main point immediately I also highlight it. The trap of highlighting is that it can lead one to highlight everything instead of honing in on the major, global structural pieces of the argument in the passage.

I don't think schools average the LSAT score...pretty sure the policy changed a while back to "super score" -- i.e. take the highest score. unless there is that one outlier school that still averages scores....