Okay, so the topic has seemed to seemed to shifted from what I had intended. Let me clarify that I was simply trying to create a post to "give back" in a sense to a community that I found helped me so much. By giving back I was trying to show two things. First, that there is at least some form of a relationship between the LSAT and law school (whether or not that's performance was irrelevant to what I was saying). Two that you can, in at least some sense, think of the LSAT to be more of a training for what you attempting to embark on for the next 3 years, rather than studying for some test. My logic was if I could display there is a connection, and you shift your mindset towards training for LAW SCHOOL rather than training for the LSAT you might be able to motivate yourself or see the test differently.

Not quite sure how it got out of hand, but to address @christinadavidesko205.davidesko's point about LSAT as an indicator of performance.. I have to say you are missing a fundamental point. First, you are talking about connection between paralegals, the LSAT, and being a lawyer as a profession! Law school =/= Lawyer. That's almost like saying hey look I got an A in entrepreneurship class, I would definitely be great at running a startup. I mean in a sense law school prepares you for law as a profession, but good grades in law school don't guarantee you will be a good lawyer.

Now that we have made the distinction between law school and law as a profession, its important to recognize that I said LSAT has some connection to LAW SCHOOL. I have no clue if it has a connection being a lawyer, I am not a lawyer, and have never worked in the legal field.

Finally, to the point that everyone keeps talking about... LSAT as an indicator of success and whether or not it should be weighted more or less equally than GPA, let me say this. Look, law schools do look FAR beyond your LSAT score, it really is a subjective approach. They look at your LSAT as a starting point, but then dig deeper into your GPA, EC's, personal statement, work history, and everything else. If you are a single mother who only got a 160, but you were working full time and taking care of a child, they are not going to say you didn't hit 165 so your out.

But why is the LSAT the starting point? Well some have already stated the reason.. its fair ACROSS the board. It's not that there isn't a better way to evaluate applications, because there could be. It's the fact that it is a tool that works economically and administratively for assessing applications. When you are a law school admission advisor and you have THOUSANDS of applications coming from HUNDREDS of schools, and SEVERAL disciplines... how on earth can you say anything is EQUAL across the boards besides the LSAT score? Everyone has a different applications, different EC's, different family situations, different professors (some may mark harder than others- this is no secret!), different times they took courses (ex: summer courses shorter than reg. courses-> means less time to prepare). So, overall I would say using the LSAT makes sense since it is the same test across the nation that everyone has the right to take and study for to prove themselves.

Look the real point here is why are you all arguing over whether the LSAT is a good indicator or a fair measure to get accepted. Like I said law schools look beyond your LSAT score and take MANY things into considerations. And lastly, it is what they do! So accept it! Study hard! Arguing with 7sagers over whether its fair is not going to make it anymore likely for them to accept that you aren't good at test taking, they simply do not care. They do not have time to sift through all the applications and get a full detail on who you are as a person, theres not enough time or money to do this properly.

The good news is that you know how they evaluate! So just kick the LSAT's A** and you will be fine :)

Edit: I should also state that I also struggled with the LSAT (look at my comments/discussions when I was studying if you don't believe me). I understand it is difficult for some (incl. myself), but that is an obstacle, NOT a barrier!

I agree with Nilesh, in that your main focus should not be timing. I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea to take a few timed sections and then give them a solid BR, but for the most part you should be focusing on drills, specific drills (by category). I was in a very similar situation to you (academically & LSAT). While I am rewriting since I was not 100% satisfied with my first score, I can say that I was able to score in the mid 160's and was consistently BR'ing in the high 160's-low 170's. The main issue for me was RC (getting roughly -10), so unless I was nearly flawless in the other sections, my RC would consistently bring me down.

Personally what worked for me, was focusing on LG & LR. First of all, LR has two sections guaranteed and studying for LR can aid with RC. I think that improvement in RC, while possible, is very difficult compared to LR/LG, so I suggest going for the "low hanging coconuts". Get yourself to a point where you can get -2 MAX on LG, preferrably -0, THIS IS NOT UNREALISTIC.

Second thing, you need to be able to get to a point where you get around -2 - -4 per LR section untimed before you can even really consider timing. I say that -2 - -4 because there are questions in each section that are made to separate people in the 160's from those in the 170's. But basically you should be able to get near perfect in LR untimed.

Third thing, FIND your comfort zone... more specifically for LR, but for me I would always have trouble with MSS in the mid section, but did much better on parallel questions. Most people suggest skipping parallels since they are time consuming, but I don't know why but they worked for me.. Point is, there is no one size fits all method and it is important for you to pinpoint these minor details that can aid you in developing a personal strategy.

The last thing I want to say is that if you are sitting there thinking about what you SHOULD do but instead are doing something else, you are likely only hurting yourself. I always knew I should be drilling more RC, but never did. Let me tell you, it reflected in my score and now I need to drill RC before i rewrite. I need to take my own advice, but the point is, don't avoid the difficult hurdles and become attracted only to your strength areas. Dive into the void and minimize the amount of weaknesses you have with LSAT and I promise you will see improvements. If you don't understand something the Manhattan forums have LSAT explanations, Graham Blake has some explanations, or just ask others around you. Even though they may not be studying for the LSAT, for the most part anyone can help you uncover things yu did not consider within a question. It takes time, but you can do it.

Good luck, hope this helps.

I suck at reading comp as well. But I can personally say that you are 100% Capable of getting your desired score if you dominate the games, get around 80% correct on LR and just slightly bump up that RC score to around -10.

I agree that doing a bunch of timed tests/sections will help you out but just make sure your not doing these to increase speed while sacrificing accuracy. I can give you some advice on LR/LG, but as far as RC goes im fairly weak in that area as well.

For LR if you want to reach your potential you NEED to get comfortable with moving VERY FAST on the easier questions. It's simply not enough to look at a BR score and say you understand the questions, you need to get used of moving through "easier" questions faster to give yourself more time to work through the harder questions. Typical way to adjust for this is doing the first 10 in roughly 10 minutes. HOWEVER, don't get caught off guard if it ends up taking you 11-12 minutes for the first 10 at times because sometimes there are a few tougher questions in the first 10. The idea is a bench mark not a set in stone goal.

The other thing for LR is to really consider skipping a question or two later on the section. Remember that ALL the questions are worth 1 point. Don't waste your time on a question that you MAY get wrong, when you can give yourself an extra minute or two to help you have a BETTER chance of getting some of teh medium/easy questions correct.

For LG:

The key is that if a question says which of the following CBT and you check A and its true, then circle it and move. YOu need to get comfortable with your diagram and rules so you are confident in your answers to keep moving. This will save you TONS of times and as I said before if yur comfortable with the rules then you shouldnt sacrifice accuracy either.

These are just some things that worked for me... find what works for you and you're golden.

From my personal experience I find that approaching LG's in such a mechanical way can hinder performance in some ways. For example, you say your redoing the games until you get perfect under timed conditions. There are two issues with this, if your not giving yourself enough time in between repeats, your essentially just memorizing and not really learning the nature of "pushing out inferences". Second issue is that just hammering out games definitely helps, but it ends up getting you in the mindset that there is a one size fits all approach to games. Don't over complicate it and don't freeze because you see something and say WTF, take a step back and analyze and figure out what it is there really asking of you. This shows a TRUE understanding, which is what you need. Half the time the "harder" games are really just easy games tossed at you in a different way. But if you have a true understanding then it wont matter what way they throw a rule at you, you just get it. I don't know how to explain this that well, but I hope it helps.

@lucykelly459 just defined what no excuses means... whole 'nother level... atta boy!

Jayswims, if taking 30 mins to an hour each day or 4 times per week is what makes or breaks your score then you have a bigger issue on your hands (not trying to be rude). Plus, taking the time to clear your mind actually HELPS with the LSAT. Beating your head off the desk for 8-10hours a day does you no good, you NEED that time to take a step back and move around. I picked up running from the LSAT, its a slow process like Drackedary says it doesnt happen overnight. It takes 21 days to build a new habit, and while its hard to find time, its something you just kind of do. Once you hit the pavement (or whatever exercise) you get lost in it and just do it.

Raphaela:

(1) Forcing people to help others is morally wrong

(2) Therefore, no government has the right to redistribute resources via taxation

(3)Anyone who wants to help can do so voluntarily

Edward:

(1) Governments do have THAT right (referential phrasing to the right to redistribute resources via taxation).

Raph is saying governments don't have the right because XYZ, and Edward is saying wait no they do have that right because XYZ.

So they disagree on what governments have the right to do.

(B) any governments that permit emigration have the right to redistribute resources via taxation ( THIS IS EXACTLY what Edward said to counter Raphaela's statement that they don't have the right) Hence that is why it is the disagreement.

(D) This one is wrong because the scope of the disagreement is on whether governments have the right to redistribute not on whether taxation forces people to help others. Edward may agree with this, but still thinks government has the right we dont know his position.

Premise: Attacks [on persons characters] do not confront of the argument

Conclusion: Attacks on an opponents character SHOULD be avoided in political debates.

So we need to find an answer that justifies the argument that if something [attacking a persons character] does not confront the argument, then it should be avoided.

A, B, & D are easily eliminated they have nothing to do with the argument.

E is the tricky one, which I fell for the first time I did it thinking it was the contrapositive to the argument. However, we need to find something that justifies that if something doesn't confront the argument then it should be avoided. Again, the rules of the LSAT are to take what is given AS TRUE, so if we know that attacking a persons character DOES NOT confront the argument, then who cares if it's RELEVANT... It is relevant, but from the stimulus we know it is something is relevant and it still doesn't attack the argument and thus it should still be avoided.

The other thing with E is that we are trying to justify why something should avoided, and by telling us why it shouldn't be avoided just leads us into another argument... which is not what we are looking for. We are looking for something that stops this argument in its tracks.

So (C) is correct because it is saying debating techniques that do not confront every argument should be avoided. Remember what our job is for this question, that is to identify a principle that JUSTIFIES the reasoning. We don't care about anything else,

things that don't confront every (including the argument in question) should be avoided

well since we know we have to assume what is being given to us is true, if this were true would it not justify what was said in the argument? Yea it would

Going back to E one last time, does saying that questions of character should be raised if relevant justify why we said it should be avoided? No it doesnt.

This one is really just understanding the trap they threw at you, which is not get hung up on what you think is right and sticking to the fundamentals. Hope this helps.

What I don't understand is, is it not MANDATORY to submit your app by the deadline (November 1)...

heh people will tell you all kinds of things. I don't see the harm is running your score through the LSAT analytics, but DO NOT CHECK how many you got wrong per section. But I know for me, I am the kind of person that just HAS TO KNOW, so I would run the score just to see, but not check out the specifics. I don't think thats harmful at all, only thing is that it can harm your ego if you ended up having a bad test which happens sometimes.

I had a similar issue happen to me during the September exam. I think what happens is that on the practice tests you are a little more "risky". I know it may not seem like it, since you probably are just as anxious on PT's about maximizing score as you are the real thing. But for me, during PT's if I was doing LG and I had a question that said which one CBT? If I tried out A and it worked, I would circle it and move on. I remember this exact situation happening in Game 3 (I believe, haven't looked since i want to use it as a PT), but I had a CBT question, tested A and it worked, but for some reason I felt the need to check BCDE, only to find out A was correct. This ended up costing me time, and I am sure it happened on more than one question.

So I recommend just trying to get VERY COMFORTABLE with the games. Another thing I blatantly remember is the first game from Sep 2014, I was in the room doing game #1 and I was thinking OMG this game is EXACTLY like the tiara game from like 30's or 40's, but I wasn't as comfortable as i'd like to be with that type of medium difficulty not so often recurring game and ended up wasting a few more minutes than I should have.

Both these situations drill back to just being comfortable with whatever they throw at you and getting your time down pat. Another thing that I always overlooked until actually writing the test was the importance of doing the easier games faster. This can be a HUGE help for getting through those moments on difficult games where your mind goes blank for a second.

I think another thing you could do to rule out all the answers saying it is the conclusion is from the "in general", this indicates that it will be a premise...

I just want to say that I think there are a lot of great responses in this thread, specifically the LG comparison. I have heard the comparison before, but it did not really sink until this thread. I feel like many (including myself) try to power through the passage worried about the 2 minute time limit, which can be harmful. It's harmful for two reasons:

1) Like Gracelover stated, and I face the same issue. If you are reading to FAST then you comprehend nothing.

2) If you didn't take the time up front to understand it, now your wasting EVEN MORE time on the questions, because you flew through it.

I haven't had a chance to work through this yet, but reading this post made me realize this. Take the time up front, if it takes you 3-4 minutes but you can hammer through the questions super fast (like in LG), then it doesn't matter.

There are some videos from PT 70 (I believe) that show videos of JY doing RC in real time. While you can't see the the passage, you can see how he works and it really opened my eyes. He constantly refers back to previous paragraphs, so for instance he might be in paragraph 3, but you'll see him jump up to paragraph 1. Whereas, I usually just barrel through beginning to end, I might slow down to comprehend a sentence, but I usually don't like back once I move on past a paragraph.

haha I check 7sage daily! Congrats Miriam!

@harrismegan369, haha well thank you but going to school is not even nearly as intense as your schedule, I wish I could stick to mine is 75% of the time I might be in a better position than I am now.

@harrismegan369, do you actually STICK to that schedule? I have a schedule where I get up at 5am, get to school before class at 7am and study 730-845am, before 9am classes which take up most of my day (MBA program). When I go home I go for a run and focus on my other work for my program and then usually go hard on the LSAT on the weekend (at least 1 day). However, I don't always stick to that morning routine. So kudos to you, thats ambitious, tell us your secrets.

The LSAT has changed over years, but I don't think it has gotten anymore difficult. The thing to consider is that for awhile LG was more mechanical, but recently (last 3-4 PT's) that has changed, where they seemed to have moved towards "older" style, more abstract games.

RC has the obvious change of comparative passages, so you must take that into consideration. Some people might have more difficulty with comparative reading, which could result in them stating that RC has gotten harder. However, the consensus is that RC has become more difficult. So for someone like me, who is horrible at RC, then overall the LSAT has become more difficult. But for someone who is strong in RC they may believe it has gotten easier.

It's a matter of your strengths and weaknesses. Some tests toss in a difficult RC section and compensate with easier LG/LR sections. So if your weak in RC you may find that test to be more difficult. However, if you are strong in RC and mediocre in LR/LG you may find the test was manageable.

What I am trying to say is that while there are some obvious changes to the test since its inception. It's not a matter of it becoming more difficult, rather it just seems to have changed which can either hinder your performance if the changes are to a section you were already weak in, or enhance your performance if it's to a section you were strong in.

I agree with LSATisland. I think the PT's will still be good for learning, but they may not be 100% on how you will score. You might not want to take the score to heart and become overconfident (which I have done in the past doing similar studying with old PT's). If you become overconfident this will harm you in your later studies. Use the PT's as a way to learn the material, not as an ego boost.

@jhan15726 I feel ya! I also do not know how I did on the September LSAT. I am currently in my MBA so I have a lot of work now as well, no longer have the luxury of studying hours on end. The good news is you already know the basics. So you don't need as much time, just focus on the fundamentals with drills/PT's/BR, you may need to brush up on some lessons, but I doubt you need to retake an entire course which will save you time!

Doesn't really get much better than this.

I am in a similar boat myself. I blew through most of my material leading up to Sept LSAT. I didn't have a bubbling error, but I do think that the nerves got to me and may have affected my performance. I am anticipating a rewrite before scores are released, and will likely rewrite regardless. I believe I can do better a second time around. But, again what do retakers do when they have slim to none fresh PT's? I have about 4 fresh PT's. Also curious Allison what your study schedule looks like for the rewrite, such as are you going to be going over the basics again?