I haven't posted on here in a while. I think the newer ones are better for you to do, if you necessarily have to choose between the two. I retook PTs 36+ on my second leg of studying, and I got the most out of doing the newest tests. Some students are worried that they aren't getting anything out of tests they have already taken; this is only the case if you are reviewing absolutely perfectly, which almost no one is. When reviewing, you should be absolutely exhausting a test. This means that you should review it until you are nearly certain you would score a perfect on the given PT if taken the next day. In my experience, I have never reviewed this well. However, keeping this goal in mind helped me a) not burn through PTs and b) prevent error replication. This is pertinent to your question because I found that redoing tests was a great way to discover whether I am reviewing things correctly, or if I am making silly excuses for my mistakes and not actually studying my errors, figuring out why and how I made them, and responding those problems. I also found that my redos were fairly predictive of my subsequent actual score of 173.

I hope you find this helpful. I just don't want you to be thrown when you take the actual LSAT, since it is markedly different (not just the comparative RC) than the tests even from the 40s. These are still valuable tests, but less valuable even than redoing 52+, especially if it has been a month or more that you have looked at the newer tests.

To add to the previous post, "is" functions basically as the arrow in a conditional statement.

"John is tall" means the same thing as "if you are John, then you are tall. Or to put it directly into logical notation, "J is T" means "J->T."

Hey, I answered this question on the thank you thread, but you gave a bit more info here. Have you been taking 5 section tests? I ask because a cause could be exhaustion. Since this is happening at the end of a section, perhaps your brain is tired by that time. Doing longer Pts, like 6 or 7 section, could help.

Also, you should try shorter sections, like 32 minutes. That will push you to go faster, and finishing on time really means you are finishing 3 minutes early. Mixing some of these in should give you the confidence to know that are going to finish a 35 minute section on time, so maybe you won't worry about the timing element that seems to be throwing you off.

Lastly, redoing an LR section you struggled with will help you set a faster rhythm. So I'd recommend doing that as well. Good luck!

lsathopeful, I just realized I didn't answer the question about my PT average. So my all time PT average was 170. That included a lot of burning through materials. My 5 most recent PT average, which is typically the indicator of your real score, was actually 173 (I had to double check this because I thought it was higher). That said, If I had taken the test just a week or so prior, my 5 pt average going in would've been 175. I got a lot of great scores 4 or 3 weeks out, and my score actually started dropping off closer to the test. I tried not to let it bother me.

ccj0321,

That's a part of the trainer that I thought was really important. There are a couple of things I did to help with mental discipline. I wrote out the processes I use to solve every single LR question type, and what I do in certain contingencies. This write up helped me solidify a commitment to a process, and I had to mentally justify every aspect of the process to myself. This was important because, since it was MY process, and I had argued with myself over it, and I've made a decision, aberrating from the process was always clearly a bad decision-I had already thought through why my process was best, in all situations. So that helped me believe that my process really was best, which decreased the likelihood of abandoning it in the face of various contingencies, like feeling like I just know the answer, or finding an answer that is really attractive, etc. I'd still stick to the process because I'd been burned before by cutting corners. I hope that makes sense.

Second thing that helped me to avoid careless errors was judging policy debate- the exercise of flowing a debate round forces you to pay attention to every argument, and missing or misunderstanding an argument is really bad. I tracked that my scores actually jumped up after I had been to debate tournaments. That's something that's not really applicable to your situation, I'd imagine.

Third maintaining your diet and exercise-stay healthy. Your brain wanders when you pump flamin hot cheetos in it.

Fourth is to schedule in breaks. leading up to a saturday PT, I'd take a 6 section test on Wednesday, BR, grade it, do some extra sections and drill hard on Thursday and finish the write up for the PT, and I'd really push myself to completely being exhausted. I'd eventually get a headache, and then I knew I'd worked hard enough. In fact, I told myself that the pain was neurogenesis. Then I'd take friday off to sleep in to like 10 or 11 ish and do exercise. I think this pattern helped sort of expand the boundaries of my brain, then gave it rest, and then on saturday, by actually taking a PT, solidify the new brain cells and connections I've developed. But I noticed that forcing yourself to get to the point that you have trouble concentrating anymore(the headache stage) helps you be able to concentrate better in the future, which decreases those careless mistakes you talk about.

Last is to develop a strategy to try to identify the scenario during the test you are taking that you likely misread something. So if all answers seem correct, you likely misread something, and you should start the problem over. Same if they all seem incorrect. The last indicator is if you find yourself frozen or stuck, not knowing what to do next. And I truly mean start over. You have no idea where your mistake was, so you really do need to go back and start the process anew to have the best chance of finding the mistake and not repeating it. Most people just freeze up at this point, which wastes way more time than just starting the problem over.

Hopefully one or more of those coping strategies helps!

lsathopeful, here's the answer to your question on making the most of reviewing:

Blind review by circling the questions you aren't perfectly sure about as you go through the test and returning to them after the test is finished. Focus on the process you use to solve the questions. Categorize your mistakes into at least one of these three groups:

mistakes of understanding-If it's this, you need to brush up on how to approach the question. If you don't understand what necessary assumption questions are asking, for example, then you know that going forward requires you to review that chapter in whatever test prep you use.

mistakes of failing to apply the process of solving the particular question. This happens when you know how to solve, e.g., necessary assumption questions, but you failed to do a part of the process. Maybe you didn't identify the support/premise. Maybe you didn't prephrase an answer. Maybe you didn't eliminate answers first. Maybe you didn't check the answer against the stimulus to confirm. These mistakes often happen due to time pressure, but it is essential that you approach every question methodically if you are to see any increases in your score. How are you to guarantee your work will pay off if you apply your knowledge haphazardly and irregularly? Ensuring adherence to a tried and true process is necessary for improvement. If you find yourself making these mistakes, then slow down and do some drills that involve walking through, step by step, what you are doing. Write out the steps you take for each question type.

other mistakes, such as having misread an answer or the stimulus. These mistakes are the least instructive, but they do happen. They tell you two things; try to be more exacting as you read. Basically, pay attention more. Unfortunately, that's a difficult thing for one to control, which leads to the second thing: you likely are not exercising and maintaining a healthy diet, or you are testing in otherwise non-ideal conditions (conditions referring both to environmental and mental). These mistakes indicate you need to start taking care of yourself.

So that's mainly for LR.

For LG, I think you should redo all the games and questions prior to grading. That's how I blind reviewed for the games.

For RC, Blind review similar to LR-circle questions you aren't sure about, and go back to them prior to grading. After you grade, obviously review and figure out why you got the questions wrong. The only thing I would add is to spend some time leisurely reading through RC sections-both the passages and questions. Try to think about how the passage is structured, and where the questions refer to in the passage. You'll start to develop instincts of what is important when reading new passages because of this. Lastly, RC review should involve specific line references proving correct answers and disproving wrong ones. This is to teach you that everything is in the passage, and that you should be referring back to the passage often while you are taking the test.

I still have a couple tutoring slots open as well if you'd like me to spend some time helping you through these processes. Just PM me you skype name if you are interested.

Yep, retake. You might be okay anyway, but most people increase their scores at least slightly, and scholarships make it worth it. Berkeley comes to mind as a school that would likely accept, but you can run your numbers through LSN.

http://mylsn.info/rfs5xk/

Seems like a lot of coin flips, so you'll probably get in somewhere, but retaking is the best option.

Mine was RC LR RC LG LR.

I also sort of stopped doing the reviews once i started consistently getting into the high 170s. It seemed like bragging. Until my score then dropped down to a 167 on an off day. Anyway.

I was unaware the sage group was so small. I'll echo the sentiment above; I'm also available to chat about the LSAT if anyone needs help.

I you can cross off the answer choices and make notes with a stylus or something for RC and LG, I don't see how it would be much different. The only difference I see is that you'd presumably only be looking at one page at a time, which will matter for RC and the modern LGs.

I'd encourage you to try an exercise: set a timer to count up, start it, turn it away from you so that you cannot see it, and read through every word of an LR section, including all answer choices, with the goal of comprehending everything. Don't choose an answer. Then stop the timer.

If it is really about pure reading speed, that time will be over 35 minutes. However, In my experience and with the three people I've had do this so far, the time was actually well below 35 minutes (I'd expect around 25-30 minutes for most people). These three that I was tutoring were also worried that they were simply too slow at reading, and that was the problem.

I suggest that often this is not a problem of slow reading, but of lacking an efficient process to deal with other time sucking activities. For example, picking between two answer choices, I found, was a really easy way for me to waste minutes on a single question. I'd go back and forth reading the two answer choices without having a clear path forward. I simply hoped that something would pop out at me from the answer choices.

It's easy to blame reading speed, but reading speed is something that is super hard to change. It can be done, but it is much easier to simply develop habits of checking answers against the stimulus instead of against one another and having an internal clock that tells you when it's time to move on from a question.

Last thing is that often people will inactively read the stimulus rather than specifically search for conclusion and support. This slows you down as well.

Good luck! I worry that the method of tracking your reading via your pencil might slow you down and prevent you from connecting aspects of the stimulus that are in physically separate locations. It will probably help you focus, but just be cognizant of missing the forest for the trees when doing this. I'd encourage you to try spreeder as well, if you are really worried that your reading speed is insufficient.

Oh, I want to clarify that I basically do no notation of the passage. Maybe circle or underline the author's opinion. You should do whatever feels natural to you, plus do things that you know will directly help you answer questions. That's why I do what I do--I have justified, to myself, why I do every aspect of it, and it's always because it will help me more efficiently and accurately answer questions.

I've been an advocate for an RC approach that involves something I have referred to as creating a mental map of the passage. My theory for RC is that you have to refer back to the passage if you want to ensure that you are getting the answer correct (otherwise you are going off of your memory, which is obviously open to making mistakes), so the best approach would prepare you to do that efficiently.

I think it is important to have goals that you aim to accomplish through reading the passage--otherwise, you read inactively. The objectives I aim to complete/know are, in addition to generating a mental map of the passage (by which I mean knowing where things are so that I can refer back to them efficiently), the following:

The author's opinion

Opinions of others in the passage

what the passage is basically about and why the passage was written.

Lastly, I have noticed I use my hands a lot in order to add some tactile aspect to the reading. Specifically, I've noticed that the writing often has an idea that is disjointed by another paragraph, and that there is generally lots of referential language. I use my pointer finger and thumb to connect the two related, but physically separated, ideas in the passage. I imagine this is particular to my learning style, but I thought I would throw it out there.

Best of luck!

-Phillip

@ , math!

Reading outside of the RC section (Scientific American, The Economist, and I'd add Foreign Policy magazine) is good, but there is so much actual RC content that I'd focus on the actual RC passages.

I found that RC often seems amorphous and that I lacked direction when tackling a passage. "Just read it and answer the questions" was how I thought about it for a long time. Instead, after wasting a lot of time, I realized that what I really need to do is accomplish only a few tasks:

understand of the content of the passage, generally;

find the main arguments and conclusions in the passage for those main point questions (this includes the author's and other people's who were mentioned in the passage opinions);

Lastly, and most importantly, create a mental map of the passage. Where, physically on the page, is the author's opinion on how ocean floor spreading (for example) happens? Where is the background information? Where is the long and drawn out causal explanation for photosynthesis in the passage? This knowledge is most useful because this is how you prove and disprove answer choices efficiently--by being able to know where you need to go to check an answer choice. Notably, if you use this approach, you can allow yourself to actually essentially not care about whatever complex science thing there is in the passage. Rather, you simply make a mental flag: "okay, this is where it explains, in detail, X." Since you don't know whether a question will be asked about that particularly complex thing, and since even if you spend the time upfront attempting to understand it you may not remember perfectly by the time you get to the pertinent question anyway, it's better to just flag it mentally so you know where to go if there is a question about it.

Lastly, my first language is English, but I have tutored two people who spoke Mandarin as their first language. Since I was at a loss because it seemed that the primary obstacle was reading speed, I looked in to how people learn to read in the first place and read this study that examined "pattern recognition" approaches to reading. I thought it made sense--basically, when you read you should not be reading one word at a time. You should be recognizing a chunk of words and processing them in bulk. I made some basic exercises in which I removed the articles and some other extraneous things from RC passages for these students with the goal of training their brains to better recognize the patterns of groups of words rather than the words themselves (or even worse, recognizing the letters that construct the words that construct sentences). Send me a PM if you are interested in discussing that.

There is a passage on realism in international relations. I'm pretty sure I read it prior to the test. I think it was written by Mearsheimer, maybe Walt.

glad I could help! Best of luck, and don't be afraid to message me if you have any questions.

Misreading questions is the most clear indication that some external causality is impacting your studying and focus. Things we often take for granted or ignore, such as sleeping sufficiently, ensuring we eat good food and are exercising, having not too much or not too little caffeine in our systems (depending on your personal habits) are all things I would examine in your situation. I tracked the amount of sleep I was getting, and it correlated positively with my LSAT PT scores. Another cause you might consider is burn out, but in my experience, the solution to burn out is to eat better, sleep better, exercise better, etc. anyway.

@.hopkins, no problem!

@, I was in your shoes once. The giant folder of LGs I printed off seemed unending, and that's actually when I initially figured out the math on the time I'd need to spend. It does end, and before it ends, it becomes fun because you start perfecting Logic Games. And then you realize they are actually just games. Good luck!

25 minutes... will likely inculcate some inefficient habits in your process. leisurely reading through the passage at such a slow pace will allow you to take more of what I'd call an absorption method rather than actively reading the passage to get an overall understanding of content, central argument(s), and most importantly generate a mental map of where things are in the passage so that you can rapidly refer back to it as you attempt to eliminate answer choices. These are very active habits that you likely will not gain if you allow yourself 25 minutes per passage.

Diagnostic was 158. My 5 recent test average was a 173. my total, lifetime test average was a 170.

there are roughly 75 preptests total, so that's 300 unique logic games total. Assume you do them an average of 3 times each--that's 900. assume it takes 15 minutes each time (it shouldn't take this long, but just to give you a high estimate and factor in some time to watch the LG video), that's 225 hours. That means that if you work on LG for 5 hours per day, it will take you, at most, a month and a half to do every logic game in existence three times. If you work on LG 2.5 hours a week, then you get to the recommended 3 months of study, and you can then spend the other 2.5 hours per day studying LR and RC, for a total work week of 35 hours. Considering big law pushed the hours per week to 60 or 70 regularly, this should be a fairly easy work load.

I think that sounds doable, especially considering how high of an estimate that is. It won't take you 15 minutes per logic game. You won't need to do each game 3 times, and some some games don't necessitate watching the explanation video.

Hi everyone! This is quite an old post, but I wanted to give it a bump since I am back on 7Sage after taking about a 4 month hiatus. I'll be monitoring 7Sage from here on out to answer any questions you all might have.

For those studying for the June test--best of luck!

Honestly, with all of the available info online, consultants only would be worth the money to me if they are doing something really sketchy, such as paying an admissions dean to let in an applicant. What could they possibly know that isn't freely available info online?

Money like that is much better spent on something less vague and more functional than "consulting," whatever in the world that might mean. LSAT textbooks are a way better investment since reading them provides a specific and causally clear inroad toward getting accepted to a better law school. You know that increasing your LSAT score directly impacts your admission. Spending money on consultants not only trades off with money you could be spending on study materials, but also psychologically with the effort and time you are spending toward getting into law school.

If you want to talk to someone and give them money, I would recommend just hiring an LSAT tutor. They almost certainly have gone through the law school application process, and they can help you increase your LSAT score, which will certainly improve your chances of admission.