I took a week long break from studying and came back to being unable to highlight in one click like i used to or being able to even parse the answers as fast bcs of how bad the UI is. I'm blaming LSAC forthis.

INITIAL A, CORRECT B ON BR

Here I cut out B bcs I thought the answer had to focus on children. That was the trap, by thinking that only one category could be focused on in order to ensure the answer. I didn’t realize that children could be presented as part of a subset of a larger group in an answer

TAKEAWAYS

- The sufficient assumption to ensure an answer can be presented in other ways than the one you suspect. You do not need to have it conform to anything in particular. Erase your biases when you are looking for what you believe to be the correct answer.

Correct AC can be depicted as a set where the subset of subject belongs to

i dont think the split reading approach is helping me and this is the last time ill use it bc it made me miss this question.

• didnt check back for answers

• overemphasizes passage

• timing slipped me up a bit.

TAKEAWAYS:

• no more split approach

• Always check back against the passage

Why I got q4 wrong

• In a hurry

• Only looked within that paragraph for context and remembered what had just been discussed instaed of totality

TAKEAWAYS

• Look at entire passage for context of something when it’s a purpose of paragraph question

I mentioned this in another thread, but as a foreign degree holder who needed a CAS evaluation, I don't really have a GPA to translate it to. Are there any plans on bringing the CAS evaluations to 7sage?

@PhoebeHopp Thank you for the advice! I think that's what I'll do then

@KatrinaFurman

1. I'll just share what I did. but I actively took notes throughout the curriculum along with the drills that happen alongside it, which is the best part of the curicculum honestly. If I got a question right, I wrote the summary of the lesson down and moved on without watching the video. If I got it wrong, I stayed and tried to understand the logic that made me get it wrong. This helped me move through it faster, especially since I dislike learning by video. I'd really reccommend that and the 7sage cheatsheet for how to approach each question type. https://coda.io/d/7Sage-LSATs-LR-Cheat-Sheet_di5c3yhdxZY/7Sage-LSAT-LR-Cheat-Sheet_sug4mZW-. I look at it before I practice my drills to incorporate the techniques.

1. I don't have a resource on how to do answer journals, I just came up with my own method. Here's an image of an answer I got wrong recently. on the right are the notes I took during BR (but I got it wrong twice), then my understanding of it thru the video + my takeaways from it, and then things i found interesting from the comment section. I try to phrase in my own words what specific issues I had so they actually go through my head.

Here's another image of my wrong and right answer journal from the curriculum, if it helps.

i stand by answer journals bcs if you self study and cant afford a tutor, they are THE best thing you can do to teach yourself. the amount of engagement it takes to understand how you got just one question wrong is enough to make sure you never do it agian

1. i do my preptests in a test like environment but i do drills on the go. however i dont let myself do another drill until i look at the ones i got wrong and understand why. otherwise its like continuing to run races when you keep getting stitches from not learning the right breathing technique, you're never going to progress without understanding that first. make it your goal that once you ID one logical error you make to never do it again

I also recommend keeping a written journal for the most important takeaways, especially if you're someone who enjoys journalling. I keep my journal on me and study from it when I'm out at the park or coffee shop at times.

I hope that helps a little bit!!

the analytics page tells you how your recent PTs measure up against each other. the only way to gauge what you can get is by studying and doing more drills sections and PTs

1. have you finished the core curriculum completely? i had a 12 point jump from the start of the curicculum (154-157ish?) to the end of it (166-169)

2. are you keeping a wrong answer journal? this was the biggest difference for me. im working full time and i have very limited time to study, so focusing only on the kinds of answers i get wrong does the most for me. i take one prep test a week, and spend the rest of the week reviewing the answers i got wrong, and what i takeaway from them. on BR i write down my thought process for the questions marked for BR, then i review that thought process against the explanation.

3. how often do you do drills? i literally do drills whenever i am free and feel mentally clear. on a drive if someones driving me, at work in the bathroom, whenever im scrolling on my phone and realize i feel clear enough to study, in the morning when im having breakfast. then i review those wrong answers too. use the analytics page to see the questions you need to figure out the most.

@madeinkeaven I am a silver QP warrior who prefers the gampeplay to the competitive aspect .. much like how i don't really intend for the t14 just a scholarship hopefully!

i tried cassidy but way too hard for me i cant play a dps for my life.. i just go moira and ramattra, my purple grapes, and sombra if i just want to have fun. i actually played a bit back in 2018 for moira but i didnt have a pc or console of my own, even now i just go to a gaming cafe lol. much better vice than other things for sure!

congrats to the winners!

Please read this if you're upset the answer is not C or B to understand why. This question is not arbitrary!

How I see it is that this question demonstrates that a small assumption can be warranted to weaken an answer, and in that case we have to pick the smallest assumption possible. this means the answer very barely weakens the stim, but it still weakens it - remember we dont have to destroy the argument. the issue is how to pick an appropriate assumption.

B, C, and D all demand a small assumption to make the answer "work"

• for B, it would be the assumption that the artist was an aristocrat or well known enough to be painted inside AND was painted into the painting by someone else. (this was what i assumed when i picked it initially)

• for C it would be that the artist was a live model AND was hired to be painted in that painting.

• for D, it is only that the artist would not have violated etiquette.

B and C require more assumptions in order for them to work! however, D calls the assumption into your question MORE. it almost demands attention to the fact its asking you to make the assumption the artist would not violate etiquette.

THAT is the trap J.Y is warning us about. all these answers are weak, all these answers demand assumptions, but we are being asked which among them MOST weakens the stim. by that metric, D is a perfect answer.

So how do you check this in future questions?

• Take out answers that have no bearing on the stim. Here it's A and E.

• Now look at the answers that COULD affect the stim. What would have to be true for the answer to have that affect on the argument? If you're listing a lot of things that need to be true, the weaker that answer is. Whatever answer requires the least amount of work to weaken the argument is the right one.

• Remind yourself religously that you don't need to destroy the argument, you just need to make it LESS LIKELY. remember that. not destroy, just LESS LIKELY.

I think another part of this is that in current society, etiquette is not as strict as it used to be and the subversion of expectations is considered daring. Let's try an analogy with something more obvious than etiquette, like intelligence and common sense.

STIM: Yesterday the blender in the shared kitchen was full of blood after someone put their hand in it. Dr. Winston was near the blender and got a hand injury that day. Therefore, it is likely that Dr. Winston is the one who injured his hand in the blender.

If the other answers are things like

• "the blender has three modes"

• "most of the blood in the blender was red"

• "its not uncommon in the shared kitchen for people to dare others to do stupid things"

• "the blender had blood in it last week"

then A correct answer like D might read: It would have been extraordinarily stupid for a doctor in particular to put his hand in a blender.

Yeah, maybe Winston really was that stupid? But assuming he's an ordinary person with ordinary common sense is not that big of a stretch. even if the other statements would be true, the assumptions they require are way crazier.

@madeinkeaven yes he's my main i picked up overwatch around the same time i started studying for the lsat so now i just assosciate the two forever. THANK YOU and congrats to you too, good luck with your applications and legal career!! LSAT AS I HAVE

I've never won a giveaway before! This really made my whole week thank you so much everyone at 7sage for this <3 I've reccomended 7sage to three people at the law firm I work at, and one ended up subscribing. It was this kind of stuff I mentiond (aside from my 20 point jump in PTs lol) the community and encouraging atmosphere. I really appreciate it, once again!

I Picked A ON Initial, then D on BR

Here I picked d simply because it seemed like the other answers were all much worse. Perhaps if id genuinely considered the repercussions of D I would not have picked it. The usage of "probably" Made it feel much more vague, which also made me think it was a safer answer. However "probably not" could not disqualify their answer only make it weaker.

--> takeaway: if the negation does not DESTROY THE ANSWER absolutely NEVER pick it, even if the other answers seem worse. Take the time to understand whichever other one seems more ambiguous. Ambiguous is better than.. Outright wrong?

The concept of shorter cycles making up a 7 day cycle did not occur to me. I think this was the fault of not fully understanding the stimulus. I didn’t understand the stim was trying to disqualify natural explanations by saying there are few 7 day ones. I thought simply simplifying down the answer meant I wouldn’t have to understand the complex argument regarding the topic itself, only the logic.

-->takeaway: at higher levels, understanding arguments is a must.

--> takeaway: If you see a number introduced, regard it with suspicion. What does that number mean to you? Why should that number have significance? Does the number mean something else can qualify or take its place? Imagine it like its mathematics. remember concepts like sets.

What I learned from the video

--> TAKEAWAY #1: at this level you HAVE TO break things down piece bypiece. Tell that its phenomenon hyp. Tell that its method is : evidence, hypothesis for evidence, destruction of competing evidence. If you do that youll understand the content better

--> TAKEAWAY #2: don’t assume things are connected, break them apart and understand what they really are.

 Why? I had a critical misunderstanding, as a result of now getting what it  actually said. I believed the last sentence was something resulting from the study rather than a competing hypothesis. As if the study showed that there were natural 7 day cycles but they did not qualify. That stopped me from understanding I was supposed to prove a competing hypothesis could still matter.

@AltanM Thank you so much for your response! Glad to know they're just the same as any other, I suppose the disparity was just due to the fact it was the first section or it perhaps had the kind of questions I was weak at.

@PhoebeHopp Thank you so much for taking the time to respond! Now that I know that for certain I think I will have an easier time just considering what other factors it might have been, like question types or the fact it was the first session as you suggested. I appreciate the response!

@soleluna883 good point! thank you for sharing

i have one question though. so if the claim is: "best understanding is deep empathy = for grasp of motivations" and if taken to be true it results in "no way to achieve understanding" due to the premise "pysychologically impossible to gain grasp of motivations" - how is that not a contradiction? doesnt a statement resulting in something that proves the statement wrong a contradiction? or am i misunderstanding what qualifies as a contradiction?

I did not pick D because I made the same misreading JY brought up: that it said "made safe" instead of "can be presumed safe". i thought D eliminated other methods, but i know now thats not true.

TAKEAWAYS:

• while "only if" statements can be daunting, try to examine what is functioning in that statement - it can still be weak and more easily supported.

• "presume" is different from merely "is" - try to catch where you are imposing meaning onto a sentence.

• try to see the consequences of an only if statement in an MSS quesition to get better.

got q25 wrong on initial, correct on BR. not sure of the reason why i was wrong at first because it makes sense.

TAKEAWAY:

• go back and reread the stim for something that really just requires a look back. its fine to just double ccheck.

got this wrong on initial. picked D, but added to it by thinking it stated "have not offered any SUCCESSFUL alternative hypotheses" without realizing it.

on BR, picked B, which makes sense. i initially though B was too far, but it makes sense and only uses "most" and follows from the presmises given by the writer

TAKEAWAY:

• be careful not to add additoinal information that is not there.

I have genuinely no idea why i was stumped on this one. I initially chose D then switched to A and neither of them make sense now that im back on it.

TAKEAWAY:

• conceding premise does not mean concede implicit presumptions about the premise, such as here, computer experts biased opinions forming the basis of the hospitals highest priotrity.