Inference questions are usually harder and rely a lot more on your understanding of the passage. For this question type it's important to reflect on the word choice of the author to key you in on their stance. There is usually a general stance that may be emphasized on a particular paragraph I would try to hone in on the degree of the authors opinion. That should at least help you eliminate contenders quite easily. Good luck!

Diligently blind reviewing is HUGE. LR is an interesting section because the stimulus/ans types repeat a lot so I recommend looking for patterns in the stimulus and answer choices. Another important resource for me was Ellen Cassidy's book called "Loophole". The book provides an easier way to think about LR and helped me improve.

Random side note: If you get the chance, I'm very curious about your approach to newer RC. I've gotten -6 on old RC passages but these newer ones are really hurting my score. Did you notice this shift? What helped you?

Good luck!

Hi @ Thank you so much for your descriptive and detailed explanation! Sorry I took a while to reply. I disconnected for a minute and am back to studying. To answer your question, I don't write anything down anymore because I'm trying to get through all 4 passages. I do however, try to get a good understanding of the passage before going down to the questions. I connect the paragraphs as I'm reading them, asking myself, "how does paragraph 2 relate to 1?" and so on.

I noticed my difficulty is with harder passages where the answer choices are not so obvious and they have a very tempting wrong answer choice. For example, the correct answer is obscure and supported by a very specific part of the text and the wrong answer choice uses words from the text and is superficially sound, but has one word that knocks it out (similar to what you mentioned). I feel like this is going to come down to confirming my answer choices on harder RC passages and having quicker and more accurate reference points. Newer RC is a beast for sure, so I'll keep practicing. Thank you for your time!

Anything available? I'd be flexible with time. Thanks!

Is it safe to say C is wrong because C says "always produces" and in the stimulus we are told that this was the case for all people in this specific group in this specific study but not in all the cases ever? I feel like it's not descriptively accurate

@ Interested!

@ Hey there, I'm literally on the same boat as you with matching numbers and goals. I noticed what helped me even get into the mid 150's was breaking sections down and asking myself, where can I speed up? This usually led me to identifying repeating patterns that I could easily ID later, allowing me to choose an answer more quickly.

If you're interested, we could create a study group. I strongly believe that talking through the problems would help correct errors in reasoning that we may gloss over. Let me know if you're interested.

^^ Agreed. Loophole by Ellen Cassidy is a game changer for many. It's a little long but easy to get through. I'd say you should have a strong understanding of the basics (conditional rsn, questions types, etc) before reading the Loophole because she helps strengthen your understanding of LR, she doesn't necessarily teach LR. Easy to find on Amazon and I highly recommend. Good luck!

A lot of us here have been through that and this is my perspective on the matter, to be taken with a grain of salt. Short answer is that there is no easy way to improve timing. You have to drill and diligently blind review to get a score increase. Even if you "know the LSAT material" you need to be able to be fluent enough to where it doesn't hurt your brain to answer a question and you can immediately think of a prephrase.

-Beginning to score in the 150's means that you are grasping LSAT fundamentals which is great. At this point I recommend reinforcing those fundamentals (esp if you still get scores in the 140's).

-Then, try to improve further by diversifying your material. For example, try doing different types of timed games, passages, and LR questions. This could be bringing down your score if you always expect a linear game for instance and then get an exam that doesn't have one.

-After that, focus on time. Try to find patterns and ways that the exam questions repeat, you will find that the exam is very consistent in many ways.

Again, drilling, diligently blind reviewing, finding patterns, and practicing timing has been the key in getting me out the low 150's. Also 100% recommend The Loophole by Ellen Cassidy for LR. Best of luck!

Agreed. I also recommend keeping in mind their relationship for ex. passage A suggests a method and passage B agrees/disagrees. Also, keep in mind who the author might be for each passage for example if the author in passage A gives evidence that they are a professor and in passage B there's evidence that the author is a critic. I've seen those questions repeat

Hi just wondering if this group still exists. I'm looking to improve my LR score from an avg -7 to -12 to a consistent -5

Hi there, I'd love to join the study group. I think talking through problems will be super helpful. Please let me know how to access the next study session. Looking forward to it!

Hi there, super excited to join the LR session on the 17th. Will the link to that be updated on this feed? Thanks in advance!

#Help!! Hi,

This question really confused me, I think in part because I did not understand the stimulus.

G: Label mistaken. Label contains AA that are chem synthesized by the company.

S: Label not mistaken. AA also are found occurring naturally.

Upon reading this I thought that there are two versions of AA, one version that is synthesized and one that occurs naturally. So, just because the company chemically synthesizes one version, doesn't mean they use it in all their products. This made B and C tempting.

I eliminated B because I figured that answer still allowed for the cookie to have unnatural ingredients/chem syn. AA.

To eliminate C, you would have to assume that the label was created before switching to chem syn. ingredients AND that the product was packaged AFTER the switch. How can we make this assumption?

E was eliminated because the chemically synthesized version does not occur naturally so who cares if the naturally occurring version does? It has not been established whether Gilbert is eating the natural or chemically synthesized version of AA.

I know my train of thought is wrong but can someone clarify please?? Thanks!

Interested! Please add me.

Hi there

I definitely recommend the Loophole book. It's not a challenging read but the practice and further improvement may take time. I don't think it would hurt to get it. If need be you can take the August exam as registration is free to transfer by the deadline. Good luck!

Hey @.rsn that makes sense. I have read Loophole but I haven't applied it so much to RC. I'll definitely re-read that part of Loophole. I sometimes catch my mistake on BR but then again I've confidently changed a right ans to a wrong ans. So there's some practice that still needs to go on. I feel like for those answers going back to a strong reference is key because if you go based off memory alone, it's easier to fall into traps. Thanks for the reply!

80's were hard for me as well. If you would be absolutely devastated by a 165-ish score, I would hold off and try to familiarize yourself with the shift in wording. However, maybe try taking May 2020 before deciding for sure. Good luck!