started at a 155, 2 months in hit 165. final score after 3.5 months of studying was 172. would recommend you start repeating logic games until you can do well on them before doing any more PTs.

I think you're doing a little too much scrutinizing for assumptions. Again, this question stem does not ask you to look for assumptions or flaws in the argument, so you don't necessarily want to have that front of mind when interpreting this question.

So your objection is kind of beside the point, but let's entertain it because maybe it'll help you understand LR better anyway. Do a check: would this be coherent if I interpreted it in the way I am assuming? What sense would this passage make if plankton were a highly evolved species? Let's translate it to a different topic and simplify to explain the problem with this:

"Many people assume that only dogs have paws, however many other animals actually have paws. For example, cats have pads on the bottom of their feet. These allow them to walk and jump all day. This is beneficial to the cat. So in fact, cats have paws."

In this example, would your takeaway be "How do I know that a cat isn't a type of dog"? Obviously not. We know cats aren't dogs. But this is basically what this question is asking you to do with plankton. You read plankton, and the stimulus gives you two hints at what it is trying to say about plankton. Hint #1: you know what plankton are from real life. You know they are simple organisms. Hint #2, this is the big one: Plankton are explicitly placed in the argument as a COUNTEREXAMPLE to the "some people believe" statement. If it wasn't a counterexample, what would this argument even be saying? It would contradict itself. It would be this: "Many people assume that only dogs have paws, however, many other animals have paws. For example, dogs have paws." No one structures an argument like this, and neither does LSAC.

Hopefully, that illuminates it. If it doesn't, just remember, this is just one question with a little bit of ambiguity, and the ambiguity doesn't have much to do with getting the right answer in this case. Call it a wash and move on.

The argument makes the assumption, or perhaps implicitly states, that plankton are not a highly evolved species. Either way, this question, unlike many LR questions, really has nothing to do with identifying the assumptions in the stimulus, so I wouldn't really worry about it here. For this kind of question, you don't need to question the stimulus, but merely describe what it is trying to do.

If LR is your best section, you might be getting PT results that are approximately 1-3 higher than what you would expect to get on 3 section LSAT if all sections were weighted equally. There's no way to know how LSAC weights each section of the 3 graded sections, of course, but I'm going in assuming that LG/RC/LR are given equal weight to see where I'm at. You can take a regular PT and then use the page below to check what your results on your PTs would look like with equal weighting on each section: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat-flex-score-converter/

For me, this made me realize that I actually started from a benchmark of 155, not 157. It pushed me even further to focus up on only logic games since it was by far my worst section.

@agc438203 I'm a bit skeptical about the usefulness of separating the section into these categories you describe while doing timed runs. You're probably not going to find a neat fit for a lot of it and I worry that you're gonna end up spending time and mental bandwidth categorizing rather than piecing together the section as a whole.

PTs are old tests, and every test used to have 2 LR. Even if RC is your toughest section, remember that the experimental section is not scored. While it will challenge your stamina, it won't mean you have to be scored on 2 RC sections.

@jm3302 It refers to the practice of creating multiple gameboards that represent all possible variations of a particular rule. If you don't get yet, don't worry, it will be explained well in the Core Curriculum.

reread the question stems when you're unsure about the answer

Maybe, but for me the big things I'm looking at in terms of stamina is eating solid meals beforehand, getting quality sleep and exercising daily. Also, training for stamina is fine, but generally speaking if you're extremely competent with question types at your best mentally then you'll still be able to crush them when your brain is starting to tire out.

the trick for me is remembering that every mistake is a lesson. every mistake you make now that you take the time to understand and correct is an immunization against getting an answer wrong like that in the future. and sometimes you get sick when you build immunity, but as long as you vaccinate yourself the right way (blind reviewing, understanding every question and mistake on a conceptual level and not just a particular level) you will start to see results.