Thank you both so much for the help. I think the best thing for me to do is to get both. I think I may go with the Trainer first to get that broader sense, and then go for the Manhattan LR. I think that both are probably must haves and it's not an either/or type of situation. Thanks for your insights!!!

Hey! Hopefully I can assist with understanding this question. I hung up on it the first time that I saw it. I agree that it is convoluted. So as the 7sage curriculum helps us to understand, the word "because" is a good indicator word to identify premises and conclusions. For this passage, the part of the sentence before the "because" is the conclusion. You can write it out like this: (Traditional classroom environment) TCE -> /E (not effective)

So lets move past the "because." "In such an environment..." uses referential phrasing. What environment? The traditional classroom environment. Okay, so... a traditional classroom environment is not a social process. Let's diagram that: (Traditional classroom environment) TCE -> /SP (Not a social process). The rest of that sentence says that only SP can help give students insight (I paraphrase to avoid copying verbatim). Let's diagram the part that says "only," since "only" is a logical indicator. As we have learned, "only" indicates necessary condition. So we have: DSI -> SP (develop students' insights). The last sentence of the passage is PURE FLUFF. It does nothing for the argument here. So let's break down what we have:

P1: TCE -> /SP

P2: DSI -> SP ------- Let's contrapose this to line it up with the first premise. So we flip and negate.

Now:

P1: TCE -> /SP

P2: /SP -> /DSI

Link them:

P: TCE -> /SP -> /DSI (now add the conclusion)

C: TCE -> /E

So what's the missing link here? TCE -> /SP -> /DSI -> /E

The missing link is the /DSI -> /E. So the answer should come out to say that if something doesn't develop student insight, then it is ineffective OR it should say if it is effective, then it develops students' insight.

Answer choice D does this. "Unless" indicates negate sufficient. So negate the first part and make it sufficient, leave the second part alone and as the necessary. You get E -> DSI or contraposed to /DSI -> /E.

I know that this is a long reply, and your main point was learning how to break down convoluted LR stimuli, but I hope that this helps. You just have to find the conclusion, which is helped by using the indicator word like "because." You also have to be able to distinguish that the last sentence is purely fluff. It just describes how teachers act in traditional classrooms. It serves no real purpose. Once you can realize that, you can break it down into formal logic and find the missing link. Let me know if this helps or if you have any more questions.

Some of the advice in here may be misguided. The schools will NOT read your personal statement, why x essays, letters of rec, or anything like that before they get your December score. They review everything all at one time. Submitting your apps before your retake score will not really be of any benefit. Your application will not go complete until that retake score is in, so there really is not benefit in going ahead and submitting.

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. If it takes you a little longer to read the passage but you understand it after reading it, then that's good. If you take much less time on questions because you took your time and really understand the passage, then great.

It's like LG game boards. If you take the time to make the correct game board and all of the inferences, it may take you a little longer than you'd like. However, you can then breeze through the questions. A lot of times, we feel like it is taking us too long while reading a passage or setting up a game because we feel we need to get to the questions. Similarly, a lot of times we underestimate the time we spend on questions. We think that time spent on questions is good and time spent on passage or game board is bad. But if you take the time and understand a passage or a game board really well, the questions are MUCH EASIER to go through and MUCH SMOOTHER. Instead of spending 1:30 on a question because you rushed through, you answer it in 25 seconds.

I sometimes feel this way, but maybe not that extent. Especially when trying and working hard to get down a certain part of the test: LG, certain LR types, etc. Most of the time, it's later in the night that this happens. I worry that I won't be able to improve, etc. etc. I call it a night. Take a break from the test a little. Time away from the test is JUST AS IMPORTANT as studying effectively and efficiently. I find that when I take a break, I come back feeling ready to tackle what ever it is that I need to. Good luck to you all! We can do this!

Stimulus, abstractly: These people deny some thing. Conclusion is that that thing actually makes sense. Why? Because the people denying it were misinformed.

Answer Choice C: Bike engineers don't believe aluminum is as good as Titanium. Conclusion is that aluminum is actually as good as Titanium. Why? The engineers were confused (misinformed).

In every instance of this particular case (political unrest), there is a single result (person/troublemaker).

Answer choice C: In every particular case (everyone having a social insurance number), there is a single result (only one SI number per person).

The way that I answered this question was a little different than just causation/correlation flaw. I identified an assumption that if one thing happens that is generally considered bad, but is accompanied (correlated) with something that is seen as good, then steps should not be taken to correct the bad thing. Answer choice B parallels this in its reasoning.

Example: If it rains, then everything will get wet, and if my bike gets wet, it will get ruined. Therefore, if my bike is ruined, then it will have rained.

This is confusion. The premise is that Rain -> Wet -> Bike ruined. The conclusion is: Bike Ruined -> Rain.

The argument confuses sufficiency and necessity.

Yes - for the most part. It's exactly what it sounds like. Using the stimulus, you want to choose the answer choice that is most strongly supported by the stimulus. What do we call the part of an argument that has all of the support? The conclusion.

Re-read this: http://classic.7sage.com/lesson/how-to-approach-most-strongly-supported-questions/

Should help to clarify what these questions are looking for.

Approximately where in Richmond are you located? I spent the summer there and currently live in the Shen. Valley near Harrisonburg. I have some friends in Richmond who I believe are studying for the LSAT.

This may not be ALL that you are looking for, but I'll take a shot.

For weaken questions, JY has taught us to look for assumptions (what he calls "weaknesses" in the lessons) that the argument may be making. By finding assumptions, we can weaken the argument.

For strengthen, however, we are trying to make the argument a good one. We therefore want to prevent any weaknesses, or, following JY's discussion of assumptions as weaknesses, we want to prevent any assumptions the argument may be making. The strategy for strengthen questions is to thus "BLOCK" any potential assumption from being an assumption.

For example: Take this question from the lessons: http://classic.7sage.com/lesson/cost-effective-intervention-strengthen-question/

Let's break it down.

Premise: A comprehensive research program is needed to verify that therapeutic intervention mitigates factors that may contribute to mental disorders.

Conclusion: In order to cost-effectively help people with mental disorders, we should increase funding for intervention research.

Do you see how the argument jumps from the first premise of needing a research program to verify previous studies to the conclusion of having a cost-effective approach? Nothing in the premise said anything about being cost effective. The author ASSUMED that it would be cost effective. Therefore, a correct answer choice, if true, might just block that assumption by saying something like "mitigating risk factors IS IN FACT cheaper than dealing with the effects of mental disorder down the line." The correct answer choice, in this case "C," does this.

You see, you find where the weakness (assumption) might be and you find the answer choice that, if true, will remove (block) that assumption. The author ASSUMED it would be cheaper to treat risk factors. C states that targeting risk factors IS cheaper than dealing with the effects long-term. Make sense?

A lot of things that I've seen on LSAT forums and such address this sort of thing. More often than not, the suggestion is to meditate regularly. I haven't tried it, but I think I might start. Idk if you're taking the test tomorrow or not, but if not, then you have time to really get in to a regular schedule of meditating.

It's sort of what you described. What it does is allow you to answer questions you didn't get to or answer questions that you were not completely sure on without the pressure of time. This allows you to see where you are at currently, but also allows you to slow down the process and reason through the questions, with the hope that you'll internalize the reasoning and be able to become quicker. Blind review score shows that you can get that many more answers right, but that it is your speed and familiarity with the test that will continue to need work to increase your non-blind review score.