I got a harvard invitation interview very early in the cycle (November) with below both median numbers as a non-URM. That happens pretty rarely, especially so early on in the cycle. I don’t think I would have gotten the invite without 7Sage’s help.

@xlvovska162 Believing or not believing is up to you. The said person went to college with me for four years. I know her situation well. There was no exceptional factor, although she did write a GPA addendum, just as anyone with a low GPA would write a GPA addendum.

You are only a junior in college? I’d do anything to get that GPA up to 3.6 during the senior year. And I’m going to disagree with others. Even getting 172 or 173 on the LSAT is going to be very helpful. You’d have much better chance at Columbia, whose median is 172 this year. UChicago cares more about GPA, so raising a couple of points wouldn’t matter much there.

If you raise your LSAT to a 173 or more, you would have a better shot at Harvard as well.

Those two points count. I’d retake, especially since you are only a junior, and you’ve only taken the exam once.

#help

This one is a serious head scratcher. I watched the video twice, and did BR on my own, but I still don’t get why D is an answer.

The problem I have with D is that it only explains why the food at TI is ordinary. But I thought there was more to the discrepancy: why is TI MORE popular despite its ordinary food? Do we really need to explain why the food at TI is ordinary? I thought we needed to explain why TI is still more popular than M.

I don’t think D helps to answer that question at all. I also don’t see how D makes the premise more relevant to the conclusion. Please help me!

While in law school, how easy/difficult is it to stay committed to public interest career? What was the hiring process like for PI, and what are some tips to get funding/grants?

@xlvovska162 I can’t get into too much detail, but this person is an orm (over-represented minority). Humanities major, and background in human rights work (1 year). Wrote killer essays that’s one of the best PS and DS I’ve ever read. Much better than ones in the spivey blog. Another person had 0 percent chance according to LSN and got in to a top 3 school. And this person literally wrote the best PS and DS I’ve read. Small size sample, yes, but essays matter. Strong writers tend to overperform their numbers. (We can argue correlation vs causation here, but you know what I mean).

Spivey’s consultants are former admissions officers, but they are not professional writers. 7Sage consultants all have strong professional writing background. I personally went with 7sage Admissions for two reasons. First, my PS and DS topics are potentially controversial, and I had to tread a fine line. I wanted to balance bringing out my voice while not offending anyone. And 7sage helped me to do just that. I’m very happy with what I have. Another reason is that I wasn’t totally impressed with the sample personal statements in the Spivey blog. They were good essays, but they didn’t feel “special.” I’ve read those “special” essays that moved the mountains (a friend of mine got into Harvard with a 3.3/173 as a non-urm. Another non-urm friend to another Top 3 with similar stats. They did not have extraordinary work experience or achievements. But they had killer essays). So I’ve witnessed that the essays can do a lot and wanted to work with a consultant with a strong writing background. I’m so far happy with that decision.

#help I found this question unnecessarily difficult. I saw two gaps: one between the intermediate conclusion and the conclusion, and another between premise and the intermediate conclusion.

This is how I read it:

Main conclusion: Traditional classroom education is not effective

Intermediate conclusion: Trad. Classroom is not a social process.

Premise: Trad. Classroom interactions are rigid and artificial.

Hence, I didn’t really see the last sentenceas a red herring. I saw it as adding a reason to the intermediate conclusion. Therefore, C seemed to close the gap between the premise and the intermediate conclusion.

Still, I picked D, because it is an SA question. Even if I chose C, it wouldn’t close the gap between the main conclusion and the intermediate conclusion. Only D does.

But my question is: How do we know that the last sentence is red herring, and not relevant to the argument core?

#help I sat for this exam in June, and I remember that this question took me longer than necessary. B sounded right, but also I wasn’t sure where the proof was. Now that I’m looking at this question again— do you think that the wording “strongly supports” in the conclusion can be the support for B? It’s hard to interpret what “strongly supports” means in this context. Is the author implying that the model can be a strong support for a conclusion? Or is the author merely saying that the model predicts a certain number?

Or does the meaning of “strongly support” not matter at all, because the author is obviously making a presentation on the number based on the model?

I sat for the June 2018 LSAT and I had to come back to this question twice. Although I got this Q right, I wasted so much time on this debating between C and D.

This question was tricky for two reasons. First, the premise seems to indicate that this is an argument by dissimilarity. There are more juvenile waterbirds in Shooter’s island than surrounding ones. Why? It almost reads like RRE questions, that gives a reason for the discrepency: Just looking at the premise, we would think that the correct answer would address the reason for this dissimilarity, which is what D does.

However, there’s a more fundamental flaw that is easy to miss. The conclusion is really an implied causation conclusion. It is basically saying that availability of stillwater is the reason for abundance of juvenile birds. But this is easy to miss, because the conclusion does not use explicit causation language.

Because the conclusion is implying a causation, we need an answer that shows that stillwater can in fact be a cause for abundance, which C does. D, on the other hand, does not address the causation at all. So what if the surrounding Islands are “much rougher,” if the stillwater is not the cause for abundance to begin with?

D would only be useful if we establish cause first.

The Law-Full 7Sage Blog

P: lichens and grass, which produce a lot of smoke but less heat than wood fire, were found in Neanderthal fireplaces

C: Neandethals preserved meat by smoking it.

How I found the assumption: The hint is in the conclusion, which is VERY specific. From finding lichens in the fireplace, the author infers the purpose of those lichens: preserving meat. But can we be so sure of the purpose? Maybe the neanderthals had different purposes. Maybe they had no purpose at all.

Assumption: Lichens were used for a very specific purpose.

Looking for: An AC that shows that lichens were used for a different purpose, no purpose at all, or were not used at all.

A: This is the classic “needing more information to evaluate” trap AC. Let’s take A as true. Depending on how we interpret A, it may support the assumption, or even weaken.

1) For example, there was more burned material that produced heat -> does it mean that the Neanderthals, despite having other means of producing heat, purposefully used lichens for meat? Maybe. Maybe not.

2) Or maybe the burned material is what neanderthals actually used, and lichens just coincidentally happened to be there. Maybe. Maybe not.

The problem is that A is so vague that I cannot conclusively evaluate its impact on the assumption.

B: If this is the case, it’s less likely that Neanderthals used the lichens for the specific purpose of preserving meat. They just used whatever that was available to heat themselves, and lichens happened to be available.

#help I got this Q correct, but doesn’t JY in the CC advises against attacking the premise? What makes this Q different? The correct AC directly attacks the truth of the premise.

I think we need to take the 7sage analytics with a grain of salt. it’s absolutely a great method to see how we do on practice exams; however, I also know that first time takers tend to perform a bit differently from the usual practice tests. I have taken the LSAT twice, once disclosed and once undisclosed. When I took the lsat for the first time, I missed questions that I don’t normally miss, and having that disclosed exam copy helped me to identify a weak area that I couldn’t catch by doing the practice exams.

Most people take the LSAT at least twice. June and July are only a month away, and I’m not sure what substantial gains could be made during that time period. If I were in OP’s shoes, I’d either take the June and use the material to really prime myself for the September retake, or just take the September one and November (which is still not late).

Also to note for is that July and September exams are less than two months apart. Having real gains in September retake, with no feedback on July, might be difficult.

I wouldn’t recommend the July exam for the first time takers. Getting the breakdown of scores and having the copy of the exam are so crucial for retake. Given that July is undisclosed, not having that valuable info would stump preparations for retakes later on.

Hi, I’m replying to your post because I can only empathize. I didn’t have cancer, but something serious enough that caused a lot of stress. In the midst of the health issue, I didn’t realize how stressed and tired I was. I was in no shape to study or to take an exam, but I pushed through, which caused more burn out. The exam can wait. The health is always more important. Once you recover amidst the frenzy, you will find studying for the lsat a lot easier and joyful.

Hi! Not sure if your case is the same, but that happened to me when I started to get anxious and doubt myself. In this case, the best option is literally take one step at a time.

For example, if a question says sth like “If C is in X, what must be true?”

Just take a deep breath, TRUST your instinct, and think about what you know about C. Look at the rules. Is any rules relevant? Is it relevant to any inferences you made? If you can make any inference about C, then take another small step. What else do I know?

Just keep taking baby steps and ask what do I know about this? What do I know about that?

Your skills are not going to go away, but they can sometimes get buried when anxious/ burnt out. Consciously asking “what do I know” after each step might help uncover your buried skills. I really hope this helps.

you are doing exactly what you should be doing!! That's awesome.

This question is very tricky, because it gives an illusion that the support is more specific than it is.

Conclusion: Predatory pricing should be accepted.

Support: Because the threat of competition prevent the companies from raising their price to unreasonable levels.

If we examine the relationship btw the premise and the conclusion, we know that the support does not just pertain to predatory pricing only. Rather, the support applies for any practice in general. The assumption here is that any practice that doesn't raise the price to unreasonable levels should be okay. It does not give specific reasons for accepting predatory pricing. Such a support would look like: Predatory pricing should be accepted because it is particularly beneficial to the economy.

The assumption in the stimulus, however, almost sounds like a principle that can be applied universally. If it doesn't apply universally, as E points out, then the support structure crumbles.

yes I remember being very frustrated with this question during the actual exam. I gave this Q 3 passes. I first picked, D, but thought it was a trap answer because I thought the move from the ancient Greek play to ancient Greek society is too much of a stretch. I ended up choosing A.

What makes the assumption in A worse than D?

The only thing I can say is that D is textually supported but A is not. If we look at the nature of the inference itself, we KNOW from the text that the actor read silently. Hence at least the basis for the inference is there in the text. With A, whether the companion was illiterate or not is unclear. We DON'T KNOW that based on the text.

I think the assumption in D is terrible; but the only distinguishing factor between A and D is that the basis for inference is supported textually for D, but not for A.

In the end they are testing whether we can draw inferences that are textually supported. I am still frustrated with this Q, but that's the lesson I took away: when both answers require terrible assumptions, what is supported textually?

A key technique for NA that I found useful: how might the author of the stimulus refute back when the AC is negated? If the author can make a convincing defense, then the conclusion still stands, and the AC is not necessary.

A) Sure, but my conclusion only applies to people who rely on the web to diagnose their medical condition. Whether this group of people is typical or not does not matter.

B) /rely exclusively AND it is not the case that it causes greater harm than good. I can't make a refute to this, because relying on quackery is a part of "not relying exclusively on scientific information."

C) This is a group of people about people who have sufficient knowledge. But My group in the conclusion -- those who rely on the web when attempting to diagnose their medical conditions -- includes those who do not have sufficient knowledge. So my conclusion still stands.

D) scientifically valid -> clearly written. Negated: Scientifically valid and not clearly written. Yes, so what? we already know that quackery is more clearly written than scientific papers. The fact that scientifically valid ones are written clearly has no impact on my conclusion.

E) negated: Will do themselves harm and still not rely on quackery. Yes, but this does not negate that relying on quackery will do them harm. This is a classic confusion on sufficiency and necessity

A key technique for NA that I found useful: how might the author of the stimulus refute back when the AC is negated? If the author can make a defense, then the conclusion still stands, and the AC is not necessary.

A) can't refute much. If it doesn't apply, then what can I say?

B) Sure, objectively speaking, the quality might not be dependent on the tuition. But the parents believe so. Therefore, my conclusion still remains to be true.

C) So what if it doesn't guarantee a larger pool? It might still be our best possible option.

D) Yes, but those explanations matter little. The biggest (and the most important) explanation is the one that I provided.

E) Sure, the tuition increased, but not increased so much to catch up with our competitors' tuition rate.

1. Task: What AC makes the assumption more likely to be true?

2. Argument core:

The conclusion is hard to understand: "The fact that these two birds species diverged from each other about 25 million years ago therefore means that the hepadnavirus is at least 25 million years old." - What does this mean? This means that hepadnavirus was present before the two birds species split.

The fragment of the virus is present in the chromosome in Finch and Junco in the exactly same location -> the virus was present before the two birds species split.

3. What would make the argument stronger? (this helps to identify the assumptions)

- the location of the fragment remains the same for all descendants

- the fact that they the fragment in the same location is not a coincidence

4. What I need in the answer choice

- an answer choice that, if true, would make it more likely that the location of the fragment remains the same for all descendants

- an answer choice that, if true, would make it more likely that the same location is not a mere coincidence .

5. Answer choice evaluations:

A) Trap for two reasons. First, this does not add any new knowledge from the stimulus. We already know that the birds diverged. Second, this is not related to the argument structure. A correct answer would have to address something about the same location of the chromosome.

B) Again, this is irrelevant to the support structure.

C) This makes it more likely that the fact that the two birds have the fragment in the same location is not a mere coincidence. The other alternative that the birds would have fragment in the same location is that they each got it separately from their own ancestors, not the common ancestor. If the insertion occurs in a random spot -> then would be very difficult for the two species of birds to have gotten it separately from their ancestors. This strengthens by 1) making the alternative scenario less likely and 2) making it more likely that the same location isn't by coincidence.

D) Again, doesn't touch on the support structure

E) Same as above.