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Noah Centineo: It matters not what you’ve done, but what you do with what you’ve done for others.
PT Questions
jerryjessica2003956
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jerryjessica2003956
Tuesday, Jan 14 2020
Biggest thing that helped me: read dense academic materials about topics you do poorly in.
jerryjessica2003956
Tuesday, Jan 14 2020
You negate by adding a "not."
I find it most useful to just recite out loud a comeback in a sassy manner. You'll probably intuitively be able to figure out where to place the negation. It's a relatively natural process. At least for me...
So, the statement is "Every snowman is white." The negation would be. "Um, no, that's not true. Not every snowman is white. Some of them are yellow."
And it works for everything else, too.
"If you teach a man to fish, you will feed him for a lifetime."
"Girl, no, stop playing with me. Tina taught my uncle how to fish, and she stopped feeding him as soon as they got divorced. So, if you teach a man to fish, he still might not be getting any dinner."
jerryjessica2003956
Tuesday, Jan 14 2020
You should still apply if you're willing to spend the money. Your graduate GPA won't really matter, so you'll be at or below the GPA "floor" for most schools. However, if you have a good addendum, and you have an LSAT score that's above the school's 75th percentile (I'd say somewhere like 173+), I think the possibility is there.
I just wouldn't focus too much on the T14, since they'd still be considered a reach. But definitely apply anyways if one of the schools has always been a dream.
jerryjessica2003956
Friday, Dec 27 2019
I took the PTs in random order, so I tend to agree that the tests' difficulty hasn't changed overall. Some tests are easier than others, but I never noticed a trend of, "Oh, every time I take a test in the 80s, my score is much lower than the tests I took in the 50s."
My scores are not noticeably better for earlier tests, and my scores are not noticeably worse for later tests. Some older tests are more difficult than newer tests and vice versa.
jerryjessica2003956
Monday, Dec 23 2019
Have you finished reading all those books, or are you still working on them? When I first started, I focused just on the basics and would spend every day just reading from the texts. It took me around 2 to 3 weeks to finish one book. But pretty much, by the time I had finished Kaplan, LSAT Trainer, and the PowerScore Trilogy, I had naturally increased my score from the 150s to the 160s. If it's taken you 6 months to read 4 texts, maybe your schedule needs to be tightened.
Also, I would focus on just one of the books at a time, so that you can really understand how the logic works from one perspective to the next. Really try to adopt the methods used in one book, and then once you go onto a new one, try to adopt that book's methodology. Then you can cherry pick the strategies that make the most sense for you.
You can also try Khan Academy for some drills. They repeat a lot, but that can be helpful for retaining skills.
jerryjessica2003956
Monday, Dec 23 2019
I think you should postpone. If you added a poll, I think most others would agree... There's not much time for you to get acclimated to timing, in my opinion, if the difference is so stark.
jerryjessica2003956
Sunday, Dec 22 2019
Well, if you consider a range of +/– 5 to be stable, then I guess that's stabilized... But when I was scoring in the 160s, my scores were a lot more stable, as in predictable. I kind of thought that trend would continue as my score went up, but the minimums and maximums just grew larger.
If this were a graph, the kurtosis (the frequency of me hitting my average score) was significantly higher when I was scoring in the 160s than when I reached the 170s. So, based on my experience, I'd say, depending on where you are in your studies, you might experience a stabilization at first, which is then followed by a destabilization as your score increases.
But, honestly, as someone who studied statistics, I never really cared about my extremes. It's important to establish a range of what you can expect to score. However, I didn't use my highest score or lowest score as a gauge for my improvement/decline. Instead, I just focused on getting a large data sample, so that I could make an accurate prediction with a representative mean. My final score ended up falling within my expectations, which meant I reached my goal score.
If someone is always scoring the exact same on their PTs, that would seem to be a good thing, but I wouldn't be too surprised if their actual score ended up being a lot different than their PT score. A data set like that would be really non-normal.
jerryjessica2003956
Sunday, Dec 22 2019
At the higher end, my scores had a variance that was quite large. ~10 points.
I actually think it's good to see variance, since it gives you a more realistic range of what you can expect to score. My scores resemble a stock market more than a straight line, but I think that's what you should expect to see once your sample becomes large enough.
My drops were unsettling at first, but then I realized that it's much better to see a drop at the PT stage, rather than have your outlier score appear during the actual test date.
jerryjessica2003956
Sunday, Dec 22 2019
For me, I would say it depends on how quickly you are covering new materials. I started solidly hitting the high 160s after I had finished reading 3 different series on the LSAT and built up my foundation through learning the different perspectives of other people.
jerryjessica2003956
Saturday, Dec 21 2019
I think it’ll just be understood as natural variance. I wouldn’t write an addendum unless it were something compelling, otherwise I hear that admissions officers don’t like reading “filler” paperwork.
jerryjessica2003956
Saturday, Dec 21 2019
Questions I got wrong
Questions I flagged
Questions where I only got the right answer on blind review
Questions where I changed to the wrong answer on blind review
Those were the only questions whose videos I watched. Watching videos for right answers wouldn’t hurt though. I just felt it wouldn’t be the most productive use of my studying time.
jerryjessica2003956
Saturday, Dec 21 2019
If you’ve been able to hit 155 before, then I think it’s pretty likely. The time frame is short, but there’s not much information about why you got a 145 in the first place. If it’s because of anxiety, or was just a one-off thing, then I’d say you have reasonable expectations.
If you’ve never managed to go above a 155 as of yet, I think your chances are... slim. In which case, you should work on the basics and then take more PTs. I’d also hold off on a January retake, since I’d want to be more realistic with maximizing my potential.
jerryjessica2003956
Monday, Dec 02 2019
Statistically, if you apply to 20 schools with a 5% to 15% chance of acceptance, you have between a 64% to 96% chance of getting into at least one of them. That's assuming randomness, of course.
So, I'd say the platitude, "There's always the possibility." (Well, duh...)
But I think you also have to consider how much effort you want to put in to the whole process, and what you expect to gain from a legal education. If you don't get into the school you were aiming for, are you still going to pursue law? Also, if you already have an MBA, I don't know how useful a JD will be, unless you're looking to change careers.
jerryjessica2003956
Tuesday, Nov 26 2019
Mine was LG, LR, RC, RC, LR
LG was okay. I thought the last game was reminiscent of the city game with climate, friendliness, and location.
LR 1 was simple enough. I got through all the questions with plenty of time to spare. The question about rat obesity and cancer appears here, I think. I think this also had a question about armored and unarmored fish living in lakes and seas.
RC 1 was hard. Film festivals, UN water treaties, abalone peptides’ application to microchip development, and comparative about Wharf hypothesis.
RC 2 was so much easier. I was hoping it’d be the real one, but alas, no. The Jazz Workshop and Mingus (which also mentions Duke Ellington in passing, whom I’m beginning to realize the LSAC is obsessed with), comparative passage about antibiotics regulation, law regarding sales of stolen artwork, and how Popper’s theory of scientific falsifiability connects to linguistics.
LR 2 was harder. The questions I remember being stumped by were about dire wolves in tar pits, an unusual question about the long-standing tradition of heckling comedians, and one about how tailors use manufactured patterns. Also, the question about a university’s night students from two campuses appears here, but I didn’t think that one was too bad.
jerryjessica2003956
Monday, Nov 25 2019
I interpreted E the wrong way. I thought it meant, "Showing that something that would be impossible is actually true if a particular thesis is correct." I thought that was indicating that the argument showed that something impossible is actually correct. That made no sense to me at all. How can something impossible be true? That just seemed hard to wrap my head around, so I didn't pick it in the end.
Actually it's saying, "Showing that something is actually true, which would otherwise be impossible if a particular thesis were correct." Ah, that makes a lot more sense.
It's funny how a slight change in sentence structure can cause so much confusion.
jerryjessica2003956
Saturday, Nov 23 2019
Tricky, indeed. Okay, so Roehmer's column has always been polarizing, but the situation is even worse now, because she's started impugning the motives of her adversaries, which just further alienates everyone even more. She's not going to change anybody's mind with her personality attacks.
The commentator then says, "You know what? I bet this isn't even a problem that Roehmer ever considers. Her column is just an attempt to appeal to readers, so she doesn't even care that her column has a polarizing effect. She'll happily continue to divide the nation, so long as she keeps those readership numbers."
So, the commentator begins by saying that impugning people's motives is an ineffective argumentative strategy, since it's not going to convert anyone to the other side or help people with opposing viewpoints find middle ground. But then later on, the very same commentator impugns Roehmer's motives in order to build his own argument that she doesn't care about her column's polarizing effect.
That's why E is the right answer. If his argument says that impugning motives is a bad tactic, because it won't help resolve an issue, then he can't use that very same tactic for himself when he's arguing. That would be hypocritical. Usually, hypocrisy isn't a problem. But here it is, because the commentator establishes as a premise that impugning people's motives is a bad argumentative style, so if he himself is then trying to make a good argument, he can't use the very same argumentative style that he acknowledges is ineffective.
jerryjessica2003956
Saturday, Nov 23 2019
I started to purposely seek out reading materials and watching videos related to the passages that I know I do badly on: philosophy and art history. Coincidentally, or maybe not, my RC score has improved since then. I'm more familiar with how art historians and philosophers communicate their ideas.
jerryjessica2003956
Friday, Nov 15 2019
Mine actually increased by 0.01 but my school's GPA is also on a 4.0 scale. So not very different.
jerryjessica2003956
Tuesday, Nov 12 2019
I'd say there's still some other options for you to consider.
Uber. Or rent a car for a day. Or get someone else to rent a car for you. Or borrow someone else's car.
jerryjessica2003956
Saturday, Nov 09 2019
I focused on the wrong part of the argument. I thought the most important part was about how you don't have an infection unless you're physically run down. To me, this was talking about a matter of degrees leading to an absolute diagnosis. So, maybe you feel kind of bad today, but you're not infected, because you're still up and active. Tomorrow, you're feeling more under the weather, but you're still not run down, so you're still not considered infected. A week later, you're so sick that you can't do anything but lay in bed. Okay, now you can officially be called infected.
That's how I chose E. Because getting an absolute hypertensive diagnosis requires a matter of accumulating instances of high blood pressure. It has to reach a certain level of chronicity and severity.
Sigh. I didn't even register that having bacteria in the throat was another necessary assumption. For some reason, I thought this argument was saying that maybe everyone has Streptococcus bacteria in their throat, but only people who are run down are infected. Actually, the key is "no other evidence."
jerryjessica2003956
Saturday, Nov 09 2019
I chose A, because I knew it was true. So I figured that the flaw is that you're never supposed to draw a conclusion based just on hearsay. Maybe he overheard incorrectly, after all. I didn't necessarily like my AC, since I'd never seen hearsay as the answer before, but I figured it might be considered a type of fallacious logical jump to draw a conclusion from gossip without proper context.
I didn't like C, because when I see "equivocal" I take that to mean "purposefully deceiving" with an obvious malicious connotation, instead of just a neutral term such as "ambiguous." I didn't think anyone here was deliberately trying to mislead Mr. Nance, so I eliminated the answer choice.
This PT had a lot of answers based around equivocation, which I certainly am not used to. Usually, equivocation is the wrong answer. But now I know that the LSAT uses the term "equivocation" in a much more benign fashion.
jerryjessica2003956
Thursday, Nov 07 2019
I chose D... I felt that Barbara's argument was sarcastic, functioning like a rhetorical question.
So Rhett is saying, "I'm entitled to free rides from Otto."
And Barbara is saying, "You're not entitled to the unused warm air in my house."
Writing it out, though, I feel like this is kind of a misrepresentation of Rhett. Rhett doesn't believe he's entitled to free rides. He just says he shouldn't be expected to pay for them. (Which I took the wrong way.) If Otto is offering Rhett a ride to work, and it doesn't cost Otto anything extra for carpooling, then Rhett shouldn't have to pay. Rhett might be perfectly fine if Otto decides to stop offering rides. But for the rides that Otto does offer, Rhett thinks they should be offered for free, and not with a hidden fee attached.
Barbara disagrees. Which in this case, means that she's siding with Otto. So, Rhett should be expected to help pay for fuel. If unused warm air could be pumped from Barbara's house to Rhett's house, then Barbara would say that he should contribute to her overall heating expenses. "Entitled" in her argument isn't referring to the idea that Rhett has a universal right to be handed everyone's underutilized surpluses, it's referring to resources being offered to him without the expectation of a price tag.
Barbara's beef is that Rhett was presumptuous in thinking he was never expected to pay anything back to Otto. It's basically a critique on freeloading. Rhett thinks it's fine. Barbara thinks it's a problem.
jerryjessica2003956
Thursday, Nov 07 2019
For 21, I chose E.
I focused too much on the "limitations count for little if judges feel free to believe one thing and say another." In E, the doctor believes there will be no significant risk for side effects, but he still has to tell the patient what those side effects would be. I thought this was pretty close.
Anyways, when JY talked about the first half of the sentence, that "candor is essential," I felt blindsided. I totally forgot about that part. I definitely had tunnel vision going into this question.
Short answer. "Any" law school? Yes, there's always a chance. It just depends on how much money you want to spend on applications.
Advice that most everyone will be telling you? You need to raise that LSAT score... Like, 140 is way below the floor for "reputable" schools. If you consider yourself a man of average logical capabilities, you should definitely be able to reach at least 150. Your GPA would suggest that it's well within the realm of possibility.