I work 40+ hours a week and am a brand new dad so I feel the struggle you and others have shared!

I don't really have anything to offer that hasn't already been said so I'll just share my study schedule. That way, you can cherrypick what works for you. Hope it helps you or anyone else on the struggle bus.

I completed the CC before I adjusted my study plan. Before I adopted the approach below, I averaged 160 on my PTs. 2 weeks after I adjusted my approach, I saw an improvement to an average of mid to high 160s with blind reviews of low 170s. I haven't peaked yet (hopefully!) and am pretty excited to see how I progress in the next few weeks. Taking the test on Monday so I suppose we'll find out if this worked for me.

As others have, I used the Analytics tool to identify my Top 5 highest question type priorities after every PT. I picked 5 because that was the most I found I could focus on every week in my current life stage. My worst section was consistently LR (average -7) so I focused a lot of time towards LR. Once I identified my worst question types in LR, I drilled the question types with sets of 6x questions, increasing the difficulty of the questions as I progressed. I practice LG every day because like others, I found that my LG brain muscles are alarmingly prone to atrophy if I don't use them frequently.

My Top 5 Shortfalls (in the past 3 weeks)

RRE

Flaw/Descriptive weakening

NA

SA/PSA

MBF

My Study Schedule

Saturday (~6 hours)

PT, Blind Review

Sunday (0 hours)

Complete rest, do absolutely nothing related to the LSAT

Monday: Review, Identify, LG (3--5 hours)

Review explanations for missed questions from PT (2-3 hours)

ID Top 5 question type shortfalls/priorities using past 2 most recent PTs

1x LG problem sets + blind proof (1-2 hours)

Tuesday: LG, Shortfalls 1, 2 (4-6 hours)

2x LG sections + blind proof (2-3 hours)

Review shortfall question type lessons (15 min)

5-6x Problem Sets of 6-8x questions Shortfalls 1, 2 + Blind Review. (2-3 hours)

Wednesday: LG and Shortfalls 3-4 (4-6 hours)

2x LG sections + blind proof (2-3 hours)

5-6x Problem Sets of 6-8x questions Shortfalls 3, 4 + Blind Review (2-3 hours)

Thursday: LG, Shortfall 5, RC (4-5 hours)

2x LG sections + blind proof (2-3 hours)

5-6x Problem sets Shortfall 5 + Blind Review (1-2 hours)

1x RC + blind review (1 hour)

Friday: LG, Mixed Shortfalls (3-4 hours)

2x LG sections + blind proof (2-3 hours)

4-5x Problem sets Shortfalls 1-5 mixed + Blind Review (1 hour)

davidkim3927@.com. PST.

Seems like there might be enough of us in the PST zone to break off and create our own study group if anyone is into that sort of thing too

Conclusion: Privatization of national park would probably BENEFIT park visitors.

Why: Privatization of telecomm industry BENEFITED consumers (argument by analogy).

How? Allowing competition to improve service and drop prices.

Assumption: Privatization --> Competition --> Improve Service and Force down Prices --> Benefit consumer

A. Politically expedient - irrelevant to premise and argument.

B. Unemployment and economic instability - decision to privatize parks don't depend on these factors in the argument.

C. People's awareness - not a factor in the decision

D. Still would benefit consumers (even if it's by a smaller amount than in the telecomm industry)

E. Correct. Attacks the assumption. Competition was the only reason to privatize parks in the first place (ie, Privatize --> Competition --> Benefits park attenders/consumers)

Lesson for me: not everything has to be translated to lawgic. Simple as identifying transition words, subject, and predicate.

Conclusion: We should try it (the new marketing campaign).

Premise: It (the marketing campaign) is one chance to save the product.

...Yikes. Right away, I'm looking for any good reason NOT to do the marketing campaign.

A: Almost sounds like a reason to go for the marketing campaign (hail Mary!)

B: Contextual, doesn't add anything to the argument

C: Conditional statement that assumes ZERO success on the marketing campaign. Premises don't trigger this sufficient condition.

D: That's a good reason not to do a new marketing campaign on a new product!

E: Good to know! But how does this weaken or strengthen the conclusion without some big assumptions?

Earlier estimates: Stars are some DISTANCE (d) from earth --> stars are 1 billion years OLDER (AGE).

P: Stars are FURTHER away than DISTANCE d from earth.

P: FURTHER away than DISTANCE d --> BRIGHTER

A: FURTHER away than DISTANCE d -> resolves conflict with AGE.

We need an assumption that links everything together like so: FURTHER away than DISTANCE d --> BRIGHTER --> something with AGE (conflict in earlier estimate)

Where was age in the premises? Need to connect AGE of stars with BRIGHTNESS

A: Refers to age but doesn't connect age with brightness.

B: Age of universe and brightness of star - close but nope. I need age of STAR and brightness of STAR.

C: Brightness of STAR + Younger (Age). Sounds weird at first but it works. It links the brightness of star with its age. If a star is further away, and it is brighter, it makes sense that a YOUNGER star is BRIGHTER.

D: Good to know! But it still connects brightness with only distance. It doesn't resolve the conflict between age and brightness.

E: New telescopes - that's cool! But not relevant to the argument.

I understood the question only after applying the hell out of grammar rules (subject, predicate). Lots of boxes and parentheses.

Mostly wrote the following to explain the question to myself but hope it helps others too.

Opposition party: Refund $600M of taxes to taxpayers. Reason- taxpayers will spend the money which will stimulate the economy!

Main Point/Argument: Opposition party is wrong. There will NOT be a net increase because one of only two things will happen.

Why/Premise:

- Budget must be balanced.

- Refund will create shortfall in budget.

- Only things will happen for the budget to stay balanced:

- Option 1: Tax everyone to make up for shortfall (so they're back to 0..). Province workers keep jobs/projects.

- Option 2: Dismiss province workers (less projects for them to work on). They'll get their tax refund too (except they'll be back to 0 because they aren't working and getting paid...)

A) strengthens argument. If people don't spend in the province, this defeats the purpose of the tax (won't stimulate the economy).

B) doesn't strengthen or weaken the relationship between the premises and argument.

C) angry taxpayers doesn't affect the support relationship between MP and the premises.

D) doesn't strengthen or weaken. It sounds like an alternate plan but it's basically Option 1 restated.

E) WEAKENS. Save money in other areas and avoid both (bad) options. It also attacks the support relationship by offering a third alternative (main point argued that there were only two possibilities)

Interested if there's still room. Otherwise we'll just make a new one?