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Hi, a passing-by person who would really appreciate it if you could elaborate the tactic you've mentioned! I've been advised to do something similar, and am trying to embark on this process.

"The tactic that seemed to push me into 175+ territory involved taking super slow practice tests to solidify some solid test-taking habits."

=> could you share what your super slow practice tests looked like, and some of the solid test-taking habits that you've acquired?

Congrats on the amazing improvement! such an inspiration!

Before going into taking PTs, I was worried about this too. But for LG (which I get around -1~-2), I just wanted to leave a note that it actually rarely takes more than 1 sheet of paper if you're very organized.

Try folding a blank paper in half, and do each questions only using half a paper (4 games, so that would be only one blank paper, front and back. Mark G1-G4 in the very top corner). This would require you to be (1) extremely neat in the way you write, (2) only write necessary things. It is tough, but once you get the hang of it, you'll find that it's much easier to make inferences (because it's just so neat and simple to read and see), and easier to go back to certain marked questions.

And that leaves you 4 empty sheet of papers to work on LR, should you need to diagram/take notes. In case of 2 LG sections, still gives you three extra (and for LR, I think one page would be more than enough for one section, given we don't have time to draw out all the questions).

I would just make a list of all the games that I should be retaking, have it taped to your desk/wall somewhere easily accessible, and whenever I sit down to do the studying, I would make a problem set out of them for a quick warm up. Naturally, through repetition, you'll be able to work on them quite extensively!

@ Thank you Raphael! I've been having some icky feelings about weakening/strengthening and PSA precisely - good to know I'm on the right track in correcting these before jumping in!

I'm in no place to give actual advice as I'm still in my CC but I did try other study materials before coming to 7sage (basically, it's my second round of dealing with RC for learning + also have experience with extensive reading for tests other than LSAT.)

I haven't dealt with RC for quite some time as I was going through LR and LG, but one thing I noticed when coming back to it was that it became much easier. I thought about the difference and it pointed to vocabulary & grammar.

By this time I'm assuming you are aware of multiple RC strategies and tried them too. Low resolution summary method by JY is a must, but on top of that, try to supplement your vocabulary bank. Also keeping a note of hard, hefty sentences that you struggled with during your test (be that from LR or RC) and returning to them repeatedly to analyze and understand grammatical structure helped a lot for me.

Don't be discouraged, you're so close!

I took the August LSAT and I was about to get out of the room once the 10minute break started, but the proctor urgently stopped me. He said I had to read the chat before exiting the room, which contained mid-break rules.

I would just double check with the proctor before heading out, just to be sure!

I got a question wrong because I went for a 'too strong one', so I actually disregarded answer choice A thinking it's too strong.

#help any tips on finding the balance of not falling for too strong answers, yet choosing the right strong answer (i.e. ones that have 'must' statements)? - or according to the explanation, knowing when the answer choice could be both SA and NA?

Anyone else thought answer choice (B)'s wording was a bit off from the stimulus?

I crossed it off on my first try because it asserted 'unable to repair' without the word/nuance of 'probably'. Later in BR I compromised thinking it did in fact add in 'without external help'.

I guess it just really comes down to which part of the stimulus you have chosen as the conclusion.

If you chose the conclusion as 'we should only pay attention to intrinsic properties', you will have to look for an answer choice that includes the conclusion (just like the usual SA question process), which will lead you to (C). I got (C) through this thinking process, but also was really confused and reluctant to do so, but didn't have much choice under time pressure.

The argument presents so many phrases, substituting conceptual meanings of ext and int properties (which also can be an assumption to be filled and you're like huh.. even writing it down). And I just simply didn't have time to go over to the stimulus to change my choice of conclusion and re-diagram the whole thing.

If you chose the 'What is aesthetically relevant, therefore, is not what a painting symbolizes, but what it directly presents to experience', you will more likely to end up in (A). But this would've been easy only if you were to just focus on symbolization, just like how JY did in his explanation.

I'm not entirely happy with the explanation because to some degree, it derives from knowing the answer choice and making it fit somehow to it. But, it does the work - (A) cannot be denied as it does the job of making the "argument"(whatever the stimulus was going for) valid.

I guess sometimes, you just need to carve out a substantial amount of your 'principles of solving SA questions (this is how you spot P and C, you need to do this, make sure of this, it has to be in this way...)', and be practical about an answer choice (well, it works). Given that the curve lies on 168, that's what high scorers have chosen too.

Thanks, will definitely have the above points into consideration!

I came over to 7sage upon completing another study material (LSAT prep book), and personally for me, I was glad I studied LG in a bit more categorized-way beforehand.

While JY's simplified approach to LG as a whole combined with fool-proofing helped me get much faster, I think when starting to learn the basics of LG, it might be helpful to review a material that dissects categories of LG and provide you with various tailored game board set ups or approaches. So that you have more approach options to choose from - take the ones that work and let go of the excessive/ineffective methods after combining with strategies at 7sage.

@ could I also get the link please? thank you :)

I was having a similar problem and really wanted to perfect my LR. In order to solve this, I recently changed my wrong answer journal format and it helped me with the down-to-twos. I kind of came up with my own methods to cope with the situation when I'm down-to-two.

Like many others, this doesn't mean you're comparing between the two answers. There will always be one right answer, and it won't pop out by comparing it against another attractive one. This is more of a method to really say a firm no to the wrong tricky answer that was fighting for your attention - makes you read answer choices very literally and critically.

On a google sheet, divide sheets into Q types (Strengthen/Weaken, Flaw, NA, SA/MBT, etc) and write down in each column,

(1) argument (not the stimulus itself, your organization of the argument)

(2) gap/flaw in reasoning (Strengthen/Weaken, Flaw) or chain of inference (MBT, Inference Qs, SA), paradox (evaluate, resolve)

(3) right answer (in full sentence)

(4) why they are right AND why it's tough for you to notice: this is not relevant to the stimulus in that 'oh i just misread the stimulus'. it's more about the answer choices themselves - how they are phrased, how they went extra/irrelevant/omitted/changed subject/requires assumption/subtle wordings.

(5) wrong answer (in full sentence): not all other fours, but just the one that was left for down-to-twos

(6) why it's wrong + why it's hard/attractive: again, not just about the stimulus, but more of answer choices themselves.

(7) tips to overcome / common trap used

I also applied a hashtag system to see if I tend to have a pattern in wrong answers. I might find a certain type of question, common trap, argument strategy challenging OR I might find that I always fall for a specific type of answer choice. You can use it for any type of the above (1)~(7) cell. Some of mine were #changingsubject #detailsinwording #requiresassumption #causationcorrelation #addinginfo #misspointatissue #keywordinconclusion. Because it's written on a google sheet format, it's really easy to search for these keywords and see if the questions or answer choices have anything in similar.

I also use it to keep my 'identifying argument' skill sharp. I would just read the organized argument and prephrase what's wrong/missing and check. This way I'm not losing much energy by going through a whole question.

Bumping this post up because I watched Legally Blonde yesterday, and my LSAT is tomorrow. My boyfriend who saw me through the whole process reacted to Elle's 179 like: what?! :worried:

Any additional suggestions on the movies, since it has been 5 years past? :smiley:

Hard to say - depends on whether you finished 7sage CC or not.

If you've finished CC and what you need is more of a refinement for specific Q types, maybe. But if not, given that your goal is to increase 5+ points safely, it might end up putting too much pressure on yourself leading up to the LSAT date.

If test-setting is what's causing the problem, I know it's a scary thing to waste PT and generally not recommended to study so much right before the exam, IF you are going to do some drilling I would actually put them into actual PT-setting (grab them from PT85+, practice on law hub or standard test version, meditate before the section starts, even intentionally making yourself anxious and starting the section from that very state, etc).

Something that helped me was doing a blind review on a test-setting (35mins timed) and see how you perform. If you're able to get through faster and more accurately in your natural relaxed pace, it could be a good reassurance to yourself that with a relaxed mindset, you will in fact have enough time or focus to crack the game properly.

I'm currently doing this for my LR because my score recently dropped due to psychological factors mainly. I'm taking August LSAT too.

Best of luck!

would love to join, PTing around 168 currently (BR 172-175)

making the very best out of the week of LSAT

: how to be focused (to get that last minute improvement) and how to stay in good shape on the very week of test (not freaking out, not being distracted because of worrying or low confidence, or bunch of what ifs); or actual things we can do to ensure the above would be very helpful!