davidk6259611

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Saturday, May 28 2022

davidk6259611

Advice from a 3 year journey to 170 and a T-14 acceptance

Hello!

I won’t be offering any tips or tricks on the mechanics of the LSAT as that’s been covered ten times over and I don’t think I can add anything of value that hasn’t been said before. I’d love to lend a few words to everyone on here though because you all have helped me immensely in what has been a very long journey. I’ll try to keep it relatively short. First off, THANK YOU to this community, you have been a beacon in some really frustrating and quite frankly hard times. You’ve provided worthwhile advice and some levity to a really intense and drawn out process.

One thing I’ve learned in retrospect (and from my always poignant and thankfully non law school gf), that I think we all should hear…

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in this process of studying and admissions. In fact, I would venture to say that everyone in this community is an over-achiever in some way. You all care immensely about your future and that’s wonderful and what will ultimately make you all successful in your own ways. With that though comes a huge amount of pressure, whether external or self-imposed. So, if I could offer one final piece of advice, it would be this:

Breathe. Find time, as best you can, to live life outside of the LSAT/admissions bubble. It’s a fantastic place with truly amazing people trying to help one another, but you have to find the time to take your dog for a walk, to go on that date, to call your mom, to watch your favorite movie, to smile at the sunset. The moment that I really started living my life again in conjunction with thoughtful, intentional studying, was the moment that I started performing my best on this test (not that that should be the main motivation for doing it).

So hustle, study hard, put in the time, but it’s equally important to exhale, to think about something else, something silly and inconsequential, to put away that prep book, to allow yourself to ignore the newest medians for a day, to close that reddit tab and remember that there’s more to this world than the LSAT and law school.

Don’t let life happen without you while going through this journey because I promise you, nothing is worth losing yourself, even for a moment. This test and process are truly a give and take, and sometimes the harder you force it, the more it will push back against you too.

I hope this helps even a little bit and thank you all again for providing a great space for the past few years!

Oh, and big shout out to Chris Ngyuen and jmarmaduke for being great tutors and guides, as well as EmmaJean Holley for being a fantastic and lovely writing coach.

-Best,

David

Admissions · Should one wait for CRS fee-waiver from T14 at this point

davidk6259611

Wednesday, Jan 26 2022

Hello lsat2016! I'm in the exact same boat, only registered a week ago thinking I had already done so.

I have no basis for when or how often the T-14s send the application fee waivers and had already applied to them when I realized I wasn't registered :( However, I did reach out to USC Admissions asking politely if they had any fee waivers and they got back to me very quickly. Within a day I had the fee waived. Also ASU recently offered to the pay fee waiver and CAS fee.

Point being, I don't think I'd wait any longer, just reach out directly to the schools (although I'm not sure how effective this is for HYS all depending of course on stats). I've gotten fee waivers for other schools organically via CRS since, but no T-14s -- again though it has only been a week and I already applied so I doubt I'll get anything.

Hope that helps!

Admissions · 2021–2022 Application Requirements

davidk6259611

Monday, Sep 06 2021

I understand the frustration. I think plenty of law schools admit past December, including the T-14 schools. There is just a significant advantage to applying earlier in the cycle. It makes sense logically, there are more spots towards the beginning and thus more of a chance you get admitted, whereas the longer you wait, generally speaking, the better stats you may need to get in as available slots become fewer. With T-14 schools, they have so many quality applicants to choose from, the more advantages, no matter how small, you give yourself the better of course.

With that being said, this cycle may be very unique. As I've read on other forums, it could be the case that law schools wait longer to admit students until they have a better handle on the general stats/averages (GPA, LSAT scores) of their applicant pool -- they would love to maintain their new medians as best they can. Last year really threw off admissions with somewhat inflated LSAT scores (at least in comparison to prior years due to the changes via the flex) and some other factors specific to COVID. This is not to say the advantage to early applying is diminished, but I could see a situation where it takes a lot longer to receive decisions.

Hope that helps! You can definitely still apply past Thanksgiving and have a good shot, so don't worry, just put your best foot forward and worse comes to worse apply next year :)

Admissions · LOR's for Older Students?

davidk6259611

Thursday, Aug 26 2021

I definitely agree with @dimakyure869 here. It all comes down to who can write the best letter for you specifically. I personally take that to mean the professionals I work most closely with, who know me best, and who are consistently judging or assessing my work and capabilities (and who are complimentary of them of course). Hope that helps and the best of luck :)

General · 7Sage Merch?

davidk6259611

Saturday, Aug 07 2021

I'd buy in a heartbeat. The logo or a JY-ism, some 'don't confuse sufficiency with necessity' apparel..

PrepTests ·

PT145.S3.P4.Q20

davidk6259611

Thursday, Aug 05 2021

I think this passage really illustrates how valuable it can be to possess prior knowledge of the topic at hand. If you have some background in history, it really favors your understanding and can lend you a ton of context. Being a history major, I took for granted words like historiography, imperialism, and diaspora. These are by no means exclusive to history, but I ran into them all the time in undergrad. Luckily, I think the questions don't necessarily directly penalize you for not comprehending the nuances of the passage, but if you can grasp the details better and quicker, it certainly is an advantage and you feel much more confident going into the questions. Now to get on all those science passages that are always throwing me for a loop...

PrepTests ·

PT143.S4.Q23

davidk6259611

Friday, Jul 30 2021

This is super helpful, thank you! I chose D under my timed run and then during BR switched to AC A. I wasn't super clear on precisely why A was wrong, but your comment here perfectly and succinctly sums it up. The conclusion is a conditional in and of itself, therefore we don't have to est. the sufficient condition and that's not at all answering the question at hand. OK so we triggered the sufficient, so the proposed conclusion supposedly triggers, but how does that help us justify getting to the conditional conclusion in the first place (which is our task at hand).

LSAT · Should I take the LSAT in October or November?

davidk6259611

Thursday, Jul 29 2021

Hello! The best piece of advice I've heard when it comes to this kind of thing is to take the LSAT when you feel the most prepared. You're never going to feel 100% ready, but the key is to feel comfortable, prepared, and confident. That means different things to different people, but to me it means getting my goal score at least a few time on PTs and even trying to score above my goal score in case I have test day jitters. If that point for you coalesces in October that's awesome, sit for the test in October. If October comes around the corner and your gut or scores are telling you another month would really help, then don't be afraid to push back. I think technically you could take Jan and still apply, although that would be very late in the cycle -- only mention it because Nov./Dec. is still relatively in the thick of everything.

With the flex you can change your test date a few weeks before at no charge, so you could always sign up for October and see how you feel a few weeks out. Moreover, since you're still going to school which is a huge commitment, your test date may depend on some other factors like your midterms/papers/finals schedule.

The general consensus that I've heard from an application standpoint (from tutors, admissions counselors, law school literature, etc.) is that any points you can gain on the LSAT are worth delaying in the cycle, especially if we're talking about October to November. Sure, it's ideal to apply as early in the cycle as possible, but if you can bump that LSAT score up even a point or two, it's my understanding that the score boost will more than compensate for being a few weeks/month later in the application cycle.

I really hope that helps and best of luck whatever you end up doing!

General · 8 Things I Wish I'd Known

davidk6259611

Sunday, Jul 25 2021

I couldn't agree more with every bit of advice on this list. Going on 2+ years of studying for this beast of a test and registered for August. Everything here is spot on from my personal experience and from the tips I've gotten from everyone I've ran in to that has 'succeeded' (whatever that means to you :) ) on the LSAT. Thanks so much for this post!

PrepTests ·

PT17.S4.P3.Q19

davidk6259611

Thursday, Jul 15 2021

I thought 19 was a little trickier than JY let on. It could just be me, but I had to really think about the differences between AC B and E. I ultimately went with B because the author here doesn't really answer most of the questions they posit. It's not really a guide on how to concretely increase effectiveness of the tax as their aren't really any detailed prescriptions. The passage moreso offers food for thought/various considerations, which to me, lent much more favorably to B.

Hopefully this can help if someone else had trouble on 19 as well.

PrepTests ·

PT17.S4.P3.Q16

davidk6259611

Thursday, Jul 15 2021

I totally agree here. No where does it say that this is the level of calculations and tax needed to be outright effective, just here are the commensurate numbers if we're going to have this specific effect (20%). I suppose as others have pointed out, the only saving grace for me is that they don't really go into detail how they got those numbers, they just kind of throw those estimates out there. In contrast, they could've been like, we get to 41% because at that rate there would be enough coal consumers deterred that emissions would go down while not crippling the economy or causing other deleterious consequences that would offset those environmental gains...

Again though, I don't think A is a good AC. I feel like it should be "Indicate in a general sense the size a carbon tax must be in order to produce a certain amount of emission reduction."

PrepTests ·

PT17.S4.P3.Q16

davidk6259611

Thursday, Jul 15 2021

By "The action would reduce emissions globally, and the effect of this would be to reduce the benefit other countries would receive if they reduced emission" (49-51) I don't think the author is trying to express that the positive impact on the environment would be aggregately diminished as JY points out. I mean emissions reductions are emission reductions and would help no matter how small. I understood it more as the author is attempting to say that other countries would be less incentivized to reduce emissions because of the economic advantages gained by refraining and if a whole bunch of other countries are reducing emissions it may seem less of a pressing issue for you as a country to do the same, like sure reducing emission would still help overall, but now that it's not as bad as it was before, it's not imperative that I reduce emissions right away.

Not entirely sure if that's accurate, but I think it clears up the confusion a little bit in that last paragraph.

PrepTests ·

PT23.S4.P2.Q6

davidk6259611

Friday, Jul 09 2021

"You vacillate between answer choices"... damn JY, don't need to call me out like that, little too close to home LOL

PrepTests ·

PT146.S2.Q17

davidk6259611

Sunday, May 16 2021

As others have alluded to, I think the main thing that this question hinges on is "depend" in AC C vs "show" in the stimulus.

In AC C it states that the box office success of the film does not "depend" on its viewers finding it funny, etc., but that's not really supported. The stimulus states that box office success does not "show" what audiences find funny etc. That's an important distinction and ultimately, in my view, what makes C incorrect.

Audience reactions could affect box office success. The financial success of Batman could very well hinge/"depend" on whether or not people found it moving or scary or deep, while simultaneously NOT revealing/"showing" to the film historians what those specific responses were. Sure, the fact that Batman was funny, intriguing, scary may have contributed to its success, but we don't know just based on the numbers alone which one of those responses the audience members had and to what degree(s).

Contrast that with AC D, that is directly supported: The historians also "find that newspaper and magazine reviews fail to provide much insight." Failing to provide much insight on what? Here the stimulus is referring to "typical audience member's response."

PrepTests ·

PT150.S4.P3.Q20

davidk6259611

Friday, May 14 2021

For 20, I didn't push the info together that the study was using the most successful dowsers with the fact that successful dowsers are atypical. That makes a lot more sense in why AC E is correct. Moreover, upon review, E is better than D, but I'm not entirely sure you can say there's zero support for D.

Again this is an inference question and I think D requires too big of a leap, but I do think the passage implies that the dowsers did something comparatively impressive. "On request even located a dry fracture zone": well if geologists and hydrologists could locate the dry fracture zone upon request as well, why even mention that dowsers were able to. If we take that line to be support that the study corroborated some potential abilities of dowsers, then finding dry fracture zones would likely be difficult and something the other study participants couldn't do or had trouble doing, otherwise what's the point of that line. I understand why this is wrong in comparison to E because it requires too much guesswork, we don't know if the non-dowsers were even asked and you should always try to stick to the text, but I thought it was particularly trappy.

PrepTests ·

PT139.S1.Q21

davidk6259611

Wednesday, May 05 2021

I think I would recommend mapping out the lawgic for this kind of question. Typically I have found that MBT questions involve a lot of lawgic and it can help to map it out. For me, it can make the MBT answer far more obvious and therefore faster.

I'd say a good rule of thumb is that if you read the lawgic and can fairly accurately remember them/recall them in your head then no need to map, but if you're like me and can get lost easily with the conditionals, go ahead and map 'em out.

General · 7Sage Podcast Episode #43 - 7Sager Chris - 138 to 173 LSAT

davidk6259611

Monday, Apr 19 2021

Awesome episode! Chris is a wonderful tutor and it was really interesting to hear more of his story :)

PrepTests ·

PT138.S4.Q10

davidk6259611

Wednesday, Apr 07 2021

I could definitely be over thinking this one and I understand why B is not correct -- it is descriptively accurate as JY puts it, but it is not the main gap in the argument.

However, I still struggled here because how do we know if those 20,000 people are unqualified. I guess that's a reasonable assumption to make, that all those people can't have expertise, but it still seemed like an assumption we had to make in order for D to be right. I kept coming back to the flaw being something like the opinions of individuals as represented in the petition signatures is not necessarily an indicator of which solution is better/it may only be an indicator of public opinion. The word expertise in D tripped me up because again, I don't know their level of expertise. What if the petition was from an environmental conference or something?? I'm rambling :), this one was tougher than it seemed, at least to me!

PrepTests ·

PT134.S3.Q15

davidk6259611

Monday, Apr 05 2021

The other issue with A to me (besides the fact that it really only touches the analogy), is that even if we take for granted that it regards the argument, is still does little to weaken anything.

With any type of LR question, especially evaluative type questions like strengthen/weaken, we should always clarify what the conclusion is actually asserting.

Here, the conclusion states that the city has made an investment that is "likely to have a big payoff in several years." That's really not a strong statement in the grand scheme of conclusions you could posit. More to the point, A says that even some cars that receive preventative maintenance can break down (btw remember that "some" could be 1). So, even if we take that leap and assume the AC effects the argument -- which I'm not sure it does here -- it still doesn't really weaken.

If we translate the analogy, the matching text would be something like, "even some cities that hire long-term economic advisors end up going bankrupt", but our conclusion already accounts for that. The conclusion states that it will likely pay off, it doesn't say it will definitely 100% pay off for the city. 'Probably pay off' includes worlds where there is no payoff. Thus, by extension, AC A really isn't breaking any part of the argument structure. Whoopty doo, sometimes it doesn't work. Ok? We never said that it always results in amazing fiscal outcomes, just that it will likely have a positive effect.

PrepTests ·

PT21.S3.Q3

davidk6259611

Tuesday, Mar 23 2021

I often find that when I get an RRE question wrong it's because I didn't take the premises/statements already given to be true. Thankfully I didn't fall for this one, but it exemplifies a trap that's super common to RRE. TAKE THE GIVEN STATEMENTS AS TRUE!

C: So what if a bunch of people moved there... the number of people (including those who are new residents from neighboring towns) whose incomes were low enough to qualify remained unchanged.

D: Ohhh, more people who already qualified before took advantage of the program. We're still taking the statement that the number of people who qualified remained the same to be true, it's just that more people knew about it and could thus join the program.

PrepTests ·

PT154.S1.Q14

davidk6259611

Saturday, Feb 20 2021

Definitely agree! I could be wrong, but I also feel like the difficulty may stem from the fact that this does not seem like a traditional weakening question. To me, we're barely, if at all, grappling with the original premise. Like the ACs seem tangential? I was expecting something like later developments of music often differ from their originals, but can still be classified similarly or it's not uncommon for later variations of the same music genre to differ from their originals in key ways. I think that's too obvious, but something more along those lines dealing with the nitty gritty of the premise and conclusion.

PrepTests ·

PT154.S1.Q18

davidk6259611

Saturday, Feb 20 2021

On my timed pass I actually put A making the mistaken assumption(s) JY points out NOT to make. My reasoning was that if babies do pay extra attention to those phrases, then they must have an effect/help babies learn a language. Certainly, paying extra attention can only help no?

In retrospect and on BR I see how silly this is. I made way too many leaps and also, if anything AC A weakens the argument (which at its very core, NA is a strengthen type question).

I made the obvious assumptions that paying extra attention makes something more learnable/strengthens the babies ability to learn a language. It could have absolutely no effect, it could have a detrimental effect even. What if focusing on the simple phrases distracts a baby from learning other fundamental lessons that come with learning a language??

Regardless, it's certainly not a necessary assumption. We don't need the babies not to pay more attention to those simple phrases in order for the argument to even begin.

Moreover, if we negate it (what if the babies DO pay more attention), the results in the argument still yield. The two groups of babies still learned the language at an equal pace. We're not even touching the essential bridge we need to close the gap (grammatical structure and learning a language). If anything, A is a weaken AC. If babies do pay more attention to the simple phrases, than all the more reason those simple phrases play no role in how they learn because they aren't causing the babies in that group to learn any faster, yet they're devoting more attention to those phrases.

PrepTests ·

PT154.S1.Q22

davidk6259611

Friday, Feb 19 2021

Certainly not a stupid mistake, this is a hard question! On BR I almost chose A as well, but had the epiphany that E hints at (ahhh of course their sales increase when a large competitor goes out of business...honestly you may even expect sales to be higher depending on how large the company was that went out of business/how big of the market share they had!)

I think your analysis is correct above. Even if fuel prices are a contributing factor to that increase in produce prices, produce prices are still increasing. In other words, A only offers a possible explanation to why lettuce is going up, it doesn't sever the relationship between produce prices and an increase in personal gardens. Both could still be true that fuel prices cause price increases in produce and produce price increases cause more interest in personal gardens as evidenced by seed sales. Whereas with E, now we have an entirely alternate explanation as to why there is a supposed increase in personal gardens -- there may not even be more interest because the evidence for that claim (increase in seed sales) is totally undermined. That link is damaged.

Anyways, I don't know if this is totally correct, but it's something else I noticed with A that may help. AC A may even strengthen the argument. To me, if produce prices are increasing at least in part due to fuel costs, wouldn't it motivate people even more to procure a personal garden, thereby avoiding the main cost of produce (fuel/transportation of the produce)? Idk just a thought. Hope this helps!

PrepTests ·

PT153.S4.P1.Q7

davidk6259611

Thursday, Feb 18 2021

In retrospect for #7, I definitely understand how B is supported, but that question is absurd. I love JY's approach here -- it ain't worth the time (remembers low hanging fruit analogy).

I had my doubts but ultimately went for A on timed and BR. I was uneasy because that's somewhat of a logical leap to make, that plants and humans have some diseases in common, but I simultaneously thought, well it's a MSS question so of course we're gonna have to make some sort of leap and the rest seemed even less supported to me. I liked the weakness/broadness of AC A ("some") and I reckoned that since it was mentioned in the passage that certain plants can have medicinal effects/hold clues for medicine research, well it's reasonable to assume that we must share some diseases with at least 1 plant if those plants can fight them off and we can also benefit.

Now, I realize this isn't really supported at all. I'm no apothecary or medicinal horticulture expert, but I'm sure a lot of the disease fighting properties in plants are somewhat happenstance as far as how they work for humans (some plants are poisonous to us, some are ridiculously healthy for us). Avoiding bringing in outside knowledge though, nowhere in the passage can we assume that the disease fighting abilities of plants derive from the fact that plants are reacting against the same disease (maybe it's an evolutionary reaction to predators that makes the plant bitter, but that same element that makes it bitter for whatever reason cures a rash in humans..idk). The water transportation point, as JY points out, is supported, but wow was it such a marginal part of the passage, not sure I would've ever gotten this question right even if I had stared at it for hours...

PrepTests ·

PT148.S1.Q12

davidk6259611

Monday, Jan 25 2021

Answer choice A gave me pause, but I ultimately went with C.

I think there are multiple strikes against A. I actually disagree a little with JY here and think that it may be reasonable to assume that the predators that are being prevented from moving in are moose predators, otherwise what is the AC even talking about. Regardless, it's easier to eliminate A on the basis of the word predator alone, but I think intuitively that's a little harder to realize under timed conditions.

A is wrong for a few other reasons in my eyes. The key to RRE questions is to explain away the phenomenon in as much totality as you can. In other words, the trickiest WRONG answer choices in RRE questions often only explain part of the phenomenon or make you think that it's explaining the entire thing. That's how they trip you up. In this question for example, we're tasked with explaining a few things: 1) why the wolves aren't depressing the population 2) why the moose are growing (as opposed to staying the same). I'm sure there are some other things we could explain as well, but those are the main points here. I've found that RRE usually has 2 main phenomenon we need to explain.

A is so weak and maybe, just maybe in another question could be the right AC, but when compared to C, there's no doubt which is stronger. A says the presence of wolves TENDS to discourage other predators. Well how do we know it discourages the right kind of predators as JY points out, and also how do we know it discourages those predators in this particular situation? Moreover, it discourages them from "moving in." How do we know that matters here? That's basically saying that wolves potentially prevent new predators from being introduced. What about existing predators, moreso how does that explain why the wolves aren't depressing the moose population themselves. And and and, why are the moose still growing? Even if new predators weren't coming it, it's not necessarily explaining why the moose are still thriving with the wolves present.

C does that key thing in a correct RRE answer choice where it gives you a potential explanation of all or most of the phenomenon in question. Here, C answers why 1) the wolves aren't depressing the population -- they are, but they are only killing a fraction of the moose and 2) why the moose are growing -- because the wolves are actually preventing a more harmful situation by essentially eradicating some disease from the population.

Sorry this is so long, but hope it helps to those who didn't understand or key into the 'predator' assumption early on! :)