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haena
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Jun 2025
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LSAT · Taking LSAT at home on monitor and using external camera
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haena
6 hours ago

Hi, I think even if your laptop is closed, you will not be permitted to have it with you (as in removed from your room). You can either have just the laptop or just a desktop computer. I’ve taken it remotely both on laptop and on desktop, and I’ve preferred laptop because I could just lift my laptop and bring it around the room. If you’re using an external webcam make sure that its cord is long enough to show the entire room (four corners and walls), under your desk and under your chair. My webcam was also poor quality and did not focus on my ID and they almost cancelled my exam 😭. You will also need to have a speaker and mic that are on for the entire exam.

Unfortunately the proctors are quite strict and it can add to your anxiety if they are instructing you to move things around or if you don’t anticipate them to say something. 😅 I would caution on the safe side of things just so that you don’t have to worry about it day of, but definitely double check the rules on LSAC website just in case I missed something!

1
LSAT · Advice on LR Translation of a Sentence with Both Unless and Cannot in it? `
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haena
Yesterday

Just adding my own strategy! I think of it like a distributive property in math (which I guess isn’t very helpful here, but can be super helpful for double negatives or and/or conditions!)

I take the phrase with ‘unless’, or the negated sufficient condition.

  • /(many mass extinctions follow major meteor)

Then I take the necessary condition.

  • cannot be causally linked consistently

  • aka, /causally linked consistently

So, altogether:

  • /many mass extinctions follow major meteor —> /causally linked consistently

Contrapositive:

  • causally linked consistently —> many mass extinctions follow major meteor

An important distinction is that in order for us to establish some sort of consistent causal link between major meteors causing mass extinctions, then AT LEAST SOME (or many) mass extinctions MUST follow major meteors. Or in other words, if we want to establish a causal relationship between the two phenomena, we need a specific observable repeated pattern.

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General · LSAT Guidance
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haena
Yesterday

Sounds like it’s still the early stages of studying! I wouldn’t be too concerned with your diagnostic score, it’s very common and definitely possible to raise! Get through the CC (I took notes from CC because I retain better when I write things down!) and do some drills here and there, and then start with some PT sections both timed and untimed.

You may feel more defeated right now because the content is very new and is very overwhelming. There will be times when studying will be discouraging and other times it will be a fun puzzle! You should strive for consistency and doing your best :)

Don’t forget to keep a WAJ journal and to blind review once you start practicing actual questions outside of CC! It helps to read other LSAT texts, explanations from other students, and browsing the internet for alternative interpretations.

I’m wishing you luck on your journey! 🍀

2
LSAT · What if you a key word in an RC passage, I dont know the meaning?
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haena
Yesterday

Unfortunately no, you cannot. I will say that a lot of the more difficult words come up more frequently than you would think! I wrote down every word I came across that I didn’t know on PTs and memorized them on flash cards. It really helped!

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Feature Request · Trap Answers
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haena
4 days ago

You can usually see which ones are 'trap' answers based on the percentage of people who select a specific wrong answer! It's not specifically labeled or anything, but that's how I discerned them.

3
LSAT · Taking the LSAT in 2 hours!
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haena
Wednesday, Jan 07

Good luck!

1
PrepTests ·
PT113.S4.Q20
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haena
Tuesday, Jan 06

This question was not bad after I rewrote a lot of the stimulus:

desire for praise --> motivated by praise

merit praise --> motivated by altruism

------------------------------------------------------

if aid w/ motivation of praise --> /merit praise

  • contrapositive: /motivated by altruism --> /merit praise

Chain to find missing link:

  • aid w/ motivation of praise --> /motivated by altruism --> /merit praise

Missing link:

  • If you aid with the motivation of praise, then you are not motivated by altruism. This is what (A) says, that an action motivated by a desire for praise cannot also be motivated by the desire to help others.

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LSAT · Any advice on first section mental block
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haena
Tuesday, Jan 06

First section is also my worst section (it used to be the last??)! I think a quick but low pressure drill or going through some tough questions that you've already answered can help warm up your brain.

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LSAT · Studying for the LSAT with ADHD — What’s Helped You?
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haena
Monday, Jan 05

I also have a relatively recent diagnosis of ADHD! I chose not to have accommodations, so I may not have the best advice for you if you choose to take that approach! Things will always work differently for each person but here are some tips that worked for me:

  1. Don't feel compelled to follow exact templates of WAJ, exact methods of blind review, etc. As long as you're doing some form of it, I have found that you are rewarded with consistent improvement (over being frustrated/restricted by the templates and giving up entirely).

  2. Don't also feel obligated to review every single video, lesson, explanation if the format it is presented in doesn't work well with you (but without sacrificing important fundamentals). For example, I don't really absorb video explanations very well, so I prefer to just read other people's explanations or 7Sage's explanations.

  3. I slowly trained myself to have a better attention span by picking up hobbies that require patience and reducing my screentime! This made a huge difference for RC and maintaining focus in general throughout the whole PT. It's not perfect, but it's much better than before.

  4. Familiarity and structure is also a huge thing for me, learning to immediately identify question stems and stimulus types will really help. You can also try reading more articles about science, art, history, etc to cast a broader net of familiar terms to help speed up reading.

  5. I couldn't focus studying at home, so I have been going to my local library every day to keep myself accountable. Find a place that works for you!

  6. I'm very burnt out so I am not sure how to overcome it, but I just try to remind myself to stay motivated and work hard towards my goal.

Wishing you luck on your journey :-)

3
PrepTests ·
PT138.S2.Q24
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haena
Monday, Jan 05

@EdwardGz You're on the right track, I think you may have misunderstood (E)'s wording. He takes for granted that because hormones are present whenever you cry, those hormones cause you to cry. This is a correlation-causation flaw. That's why the author says that hormones cause you to cry because it's our body trying to remove significant quantities of hormones during emotional stress.

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General · How to stabilize my score for this week?
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haena
Monday, Jan 05

@AidenHampton Ditto, kind stranger!

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Sunday, Jan 04

haena

🍀 Lucky

How to stabilize my score for this week?

Dear reader! As many of you know (and may fear), the January LSAT date is fast approaching this week. I am feeling unmotivated and anxious about my exam, as I am still averaging a few points from my ideal score (170). I am trying to strike a balance of being realistic with myself, but also wanting to do the very best I can. I know that there is no magic wand that can change my score at this point, but I was hoping someone with similar experience can lend a few tips and tricks for going into this week.

I've been studying every day since September, and I think I am starting to accept that I will not be able to get over the mid-160s hump. I've improved a lot since then, so while I am a little disappointed, I am trying to focus on the positives and appreciate my progress! I do notice the greatest drop in score when I am not feeling confident, and I would ideally just like to score at the higher end of my averages. Does anyone have any advice on how to feel my best going into the test? How to just be stable and perform as usual?

In any case, this can be a space to vent/stress/encourage one another :-) let's all do well for January! Thanks in advance!

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PrepTests ·
PT142.S4.Q20
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haena
Tuesday, Dec 30 2025

@soos I got it wrong the first round, but the biggest indicator for me was "never" in the conclusion. The premises only discuss the current best techniques that are available to these economists, and that is why they cannot currently predict global recessions. The author then makes a very bold argument that they can NEVER predict global recessions and therefore NEVER prevent them.

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PrepTests ·
PT120.S4.Q3
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haena
Saturday, Dec 27 2025

@Louiii77 Hi! I'm not sure if it's too late, but 'observe' has another definition meaning to follow or comply with. So in this question, those who are respectful of the strictures of proper usage, are those who observe the strictures of proper usage. If you do not observe the strictures, then you are less respectful of them. I hope this clarifies some things!

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PrepTests ·
PT152.S2.Q23
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haena
Friday, Dec 26 2025

@skylarrodriguez I got this wrong the first time, but the negation of always is not always. Which is a very big distinction from never.

(B) negated says crows that perceive an individual as threatening don't always respond by shrieking and dive-bombing. Or in other words, they sometimes respond by shrieking and dive-bombing.

This doesn't help our argument because we don't need every single crow every single time to react the same way. As long as some crows have this reaction to threats, then we are good.

Whereas (A) negated says that all crows that shrieked at and dive-bombed were the original trapped crows. This would weaken the author's claim that the original crows were passing on concerns to other crows. Those crows that did shriek/dive also may not necessarily recognize the masked researchers, but just became skittish in general after being trapped the first time.

1
PrepTests ·
PT152.S1.Q20
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haena
Thursday, Dec 25 2025

@Arthurxx I don't think the 'should/should not' is why (D) is wrong.

The politician's argument is that the likelihood of inaccurate assessments that relate to health issues from political pressures is very high. That's why they shouldn't issue scientific assessments at all.

(B) says that

  • issue scientific assessment --> strong reason to believe accuracy

  • Or in other words, if they are to issue scientific assessment, they better have a really strong indication that it'll be accurate. The politician says -- hey, the same political pressures that rendered the environment assessments inaccurate will be present for the health ones; therefore, we shouldn't issue the assessments.

    • /accurate --> /issue assessment

(D) says

  • if resist political pressures --> scientific assessments

  • The thing is, the politician is saying that we shouldn't have scientific assessments, regardless of whether they can resist political pressure. It also doesn't allow us to justify the conclusion that we should NOT have scientific assessments; the contrapositive of (D) does not give us a necessary rule to approve scientific assessment.

I liked (B) the most because it was the only one concerned with accuracy. This is what the politician's argument relies on; if the assessments are accurate, then we would not be able to reasonably conclude that we should not issue scientific assessments at all. It doesn't really matter whether or not the political pressures are present or not because the politician already acknowledges that the assessments are often inaccurate

1
PrepTests ·
PT116.S2.Q7
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haena
Wednesday, Dec 24 2025

@VANESSAHERNANDEZ I used lawgic because there were so many conditional statements with unless, so I always default to at least summarizing the stimulus. But I think you can get away with not doing lawgic here because it's a must be true question. Just treat the stimulus as a set of rules and see which answer choice breaks the rule.

  • We know that the vegetables were grown in soil in which fertilizer had never been applied.

  • So maybe this plot of soil has had rotated crops, or some other preventive measures, maybe the nutrients aren't fully depleted and are only a little depleted.

  • To be able to grow without fertilizer, the soil needs to have at least some nutrients.

This is what (C) is saying, that the soil at least had some remaining nutrients, and it doesn't have to be from a rotated crop plot.

1
PrepTests ·
PT143.S3.Q13
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haena
Monday, Dec 22 2025

The administrator is saying that teaching assistants do not qualify as university employees because they are technically students. So he's justifying refusing to give employee benefits to these students because they're only at the school for their education (pursuing degrees or funding education).

(C) weakens his argument because he's being inconsistent about his definition about teaching assistants. He called them students, and therefore not employees. The faculty consists of university employees, and yet, he wants to replace 10% of the faculty with the TAs without giving them the employee benefits. So are the TAs employees or not? He is not being consistent in his reasoning.

Also, the fact that they are replacing the faculty members with TAs to save money points to the fact that they acknowledge refusing to give TAs benefits as a way to save a substantial amount of money. Otherwise, if they just hired the TAs as university employees, they wouldn't be saving any money because they can't withhold the benefits. They might as well just keep the 10% of faculty that they were thinking of replacing.

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PrepTests ·
PT143.S3.Q9
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haena
Monday, Dec 22 2025

@drlee Just because the fridge is almost empty, it doesn't mean that it's entirely void of any food. It could very much be the case that there is only one jar of mayo in the fridge, but the fridge would still be almost empty.

(E) is more similar because it says:

(P1) Plan to attack -> (troop movements or transfer)

(P2) No indication of (troop movements or transfer)

(MC) Therefore, no plan to attack.

I think (B) would have been correct if it said the fridge was completely empty. Or that there was no food in the fridge.

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LSAT · Pls HELP!
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haena
Sunday, Dec 21 2025

Hi, when you took the LSAT were you averaging around 135 on PTs? Most people recommend that you should be hitting your target score by the time you are registered for the exam.

And although your score hasn't changed, it doesn't necessarily mean that your studying isn't helping at all! It can be really frustrating (I stayed around my diagnostic score for a long time) and feel like nothing is working despite the hours you're putting in, but I firmly believe that as long as you are consistently putting in the work, you will eventually see it in the scores.

Some other tips that currently help me:

  • Reviewing core curriculum over and over again

  • Identify the mistakes that are fixable (misreading something, skimming too fast, not reading every AC) and intentionally avoid those in my practice

  • I've also read other LSAT materials like The Loophole and LSAT Trainer, and they are good resources to supplement your 7sage curriculum

  • Practice diagramming efficiently (translation drills, etc)

You've got a lot of time until June, so it's great that you're addressing this now! The discussion tab here has a lot of really helpful tips and connections to tutors as well that can be beneficial :-)

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LSAT · Reviewing Right + Wrong Answers
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haena
Saturday, Dec 20 2025

I still come across this problem, but I had a tutor who told me how to approach these kinds of situations:

  • There is only one right answer. Ignore any of the other answer choices that are 'good'. Don't humor any answer choices that can maybe fit. There is only one answer, and the LSAT will not reward you for choosing the second best answer.

  • If you are down to two choices and really can't see which one is better, then you likely misread something in the stimulus or the question stem or the answer choices. Every word counts!

These are some tips from The Loophole:

  • Only change your answer if you're absolutely sure that the previous answer was wrong and the new answer is correct.

  • If you're really down on time, go with your first choice/instinct. Flag it, come back to it.

  • Don't be too quick to eliminate (A) and don't be too kind to (E). The author mentions that students often get nervous to see that the answer is first of the chances, and doubt themselves. Or, if they eliminate all the answer choices until (E), they are more likely to try to make (E) work even if it's wrong.

Just a couple tips! May not work always, but these are comforting tools when I am really down on time.

6
PrepTests ·
PT124.S4.P1.Q4
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haena
Saturday, Dec 20 2025

@Joseph Grayson Comfort (C) was the only answer choice that discusses a conflict over generations. Even if the genre was identified -- as you suggest -- by chronicling the history of conflict in Hawaii over the generations, (C) still applies.

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PrepTests ·
PT114.S4.Q11
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haena
Friday, Dec 19 2025

@dedolence I think it's supported from

"the ecosystem... has largely been destroyed"

"could restore biodiversity"

(A) is a bit out of the scope because it talks about 'earlier North American agricultural techniques', which is not mentioned. We have no reason to believe that pesticides, machinery, and government subsidies are not a part of earlier agricultural techniques. In fact, the argument proposes returning the land to an uncultivated state, so technically no agricultural techniques should not be present.

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PrepTests ·
PT114.S4.Q2
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haena
Friday, Dec 19 2025

@Reiii23 I think it's false analogy!

1
PrepTests ·
PT114.S2.Q22
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haena
Friday, Dec 19 2025

Some types of organisms originated through endosymbiosis, the engulfing of one organism by another so that a part of the former becomes a functioning part of the latter.

  • Some organisms originate through engulfing another.

An unusual nucleomorph, a structure that contains DNA and resembles a cell nucleus, has been discovered within a plant known as a chlorarachniophyte.

  • Nucleomorph is in chlorarachniophyte.

Two versions of a particular gene have been found in the DNA of this nucleomorph, and one would expect to find only a single version of this gene if the nucleomorph were not the remains of an engulfed organism's nucleus.

  • Nucleomorph has two versions of gene.

  • if /(remains of engulfed nucleus) --> single version of gene

  • if /(single version of gene) --> remains of engulfed nucleus

Nucleomorphs in chlorachniophyte doesn't have a single version, but two. This points to having remains of engulfed nucleus. Therefore, chlorachniophytes probably emerged from endosymbiosis.

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