I've been stuck at 154-160 for the past 2 months, but I'm determined to get out of it. I got a tutor, I've been reading the Loophole, I'm changing some of my strategies, I'm revisiting certain lessons, I took a week off, etc.
It would just be nice to hear from anyone who has gotten out of a plateau. It's possible, right? And what did you do differently to improve your understanding/execution of test questions?
For those of us that that made the mistake of choosing B, would you also consider that as confusing sufficiency for necessity? As an the critics thought that his book had too many autobiographical elements for a novel, so The Wanderers → /should be an autobiography. However, answer choice B is saying The Wanderers → should be an autobiography.
I'm confused because in the module "Purpose of Paragraph and Purpose in Context Questions," it says "Here’s what the correct answer to a Purpose in Context question must meet: Captures the author’s main motivation in writing the phrase or sentence; and Accurately describe something the author does in connection with the phrase or sentence...There are two common traps in tempting wrong answers for Purpose of Paragraph and Purpose in Context questions. Some answers accurately describe something that happens in the part of the passage we’re asked about, but don’t capture the author’s motivation..." Could you clarify?
I understand why (D) better describes the purpose of the study, but one of the criteria for purpose of context questions is that correct answer choices also capture the author’s main motivation in writing the passage. For this passage, part of the author's main point was to argue that more empirical research is needed. Can someone explain how (D) addresses the main point?
##feedback Most of the time I can figure it out/know what you're saying, but sometimes your handwriting in videos makes it difficult to follow what you're saying.
You're not alone. This isn't easy. How you feel is valid. Struggling with this sucks, but it's normal. Each study session, I write down 3 VERY small steps to move forward with my study session. When I finish those 3, I write down 3 more small steps. It's really frustrating, but I'm trying to remind myself that "I don't understand it...yet. I am on my way to understanding and mastering this." I think this test is less about how much we get right, and rather about how much we're willing to keep trying no matter how long it takes. I have a hard time taking breaks, but also I recommend taking a few days off. Taking a few days off doesn't "fix" how I feel always, but sometimes it gives me perspective (this test is really important, but it's not everything). The LSAT is humbling af, but on the other side of being humbled is becoming the smartest, most resilient, empathetic, resourceful, and analytical version of yourself...Everything we need to become great lawyers.
That's valid and you're not alone. While going through this LR section, I've also skimmed through the conditional lessons/my notes again and I have been drilling conditional questions on 7sage every few days because I realized misunderstanding the conditional relationship was 80% of why I was getting sufficient assumption questions wrongs. It has been helping.
I spent forever on this question because my ego refused to get it wrong. Choosing a correct answer choice almost broke my brain lmao.
#feedback I got this right, but I'm still a little confused on when taking the contrapositive is appropriate/inappropriate for PSA questions. I think a separate video on this would be helpful.
Would you recommend for PSA questions to just not do the contrapositive in our process of solving the question?
I don't think you're misunderstanding that part, but I think you have to take it a step further. Yes, all high-speed level, straight stretches of road should have a speed limit of 75 mph, BUT WHY? When the question stem says "justify", that is not just understanding nor restating the passage's conclusion (which is kind of what A is doing, except that A also uses the word "only" and the passage doesn't include nor exclude other types of roads so "only" makes this answer choice irrelevant), but rather explaining WHY they came to that conclusion. And it says in the first sentence of the passage, "A government study indicates that raising speed limits to reflect.....reduces the accident rate".
Even though I'm going slow and parsing out passages, often times I get W, S, E questions wrong because I'm not making the same kinds of assumptions they make to get to that answer choice. Maybe it's also because I just started W,S,E questions like a week ago in the CC, so it's still a little new to me. What has helped you most with making reasonable assumptions? The assumptions explained in the lessons sometimes feel very arbitrary.
If you're struggling with understanding why E is wrong and D is right, don't be alarmed. It took me 45+ minutes (after coming back to this the next day) for me to dissect and understand it. E is a bit convoluted
Ultimately, E is wrong because it's offering a hypothesis that explains the passage, which would resolve the discrepancy (but we're looking for the one that does NOT resolve the discrepancy). It just happens to be an alternative hypothesis. E is saying that beta-carotene just happened to correlate with health outcomes from smoking. E is saying beta-careotene doesn't actually have an impact on health outcomes. Instead, E is saying smokers who ALSO happened to eat low beta-carotene were a bigger group in the study than smokers who also happened to eat high beta-carotene. Either way, smoking is bad for you, but the results being that low-beta carotene correlated with likelihood of cancer and heart disease can actually be attributed to the fact that there was a larger group of smokers in the study who ALSO happened to eat low-beta carotene.
Nahhh you're learning! Learning is humbling, but you're stepping up to the plate and doing it anyways.
In question 2, why is the necessary condition “available”? Shouldn’t it be “new cat is available”? And if we don't know if Nitten is new or not, why is Nitten the subcript (AKA subset) of "available"?
Do you recommend getting the core curriculum foundation lessons down as much as possible before moving on to the lessons on logic and reading comprehension (as well as drills and PTs)? Sometimes I get nervous that I’m spending too much time on one foundation section. At the same time, I feel like it’s important and doesn’t make sense to continue with the core curriculum lessons if I don’t feel confident in a certain part of the foundation lessons. I just want to make sure that, although I'm spending time on foundational things I don't get yet, I'm not seeking perfection at those things either. I'm studying full time and only have 3 months, so I want to make sure I'm not spending too much time on foundations.
In the CC lesson on grammar, "Modifiers can be Modified," why isn't the kernel of the sentence “The cat likes milk”? Why is it "The cat likes to drink milk"? Why is there an extra verb (to drink)?
The full sentence:
The cat that I brought home from the shelter in the middle of the village where a merchant was murdered on the only snowy day last year likes to drink fermented milk from the Swedish cow that we imported from Austria at considerable expense.
Why isn't it "The cat likes milk"? Why is there an extra verb (to drink)?
For context, I just started studying for the LSAT for the first time ever. Do you think following 7sage’s syllabus lessons in order is best, or if there is a specific lesson that I think should be a priority, does it matter if I skip to that section? Just don't want to feel lost and regret not following the syllabus lessons chronologically later on.
I've heard this happen for many people because of burn out. I would take a few days off to reset and then come back to this. I know that's the last thing anyone wants to do with the test date approaching, but sometimes pushing ourselves is actually more counterproductive than taking a step back. And sometimes taking a break is more productive than pushing ourselves. Wishing you all the best!!