Assuming you have no base-line concepts, I think Powerscore may be easier as a starting point. It is creatively straight forward and has good foundational skills to work on.

7sage on the other hand has, in my opinion, more in-depth explanations that can go over your head if you don't have some concept of what you are looking for. I say try both and see what flows better for you.

Get out of your own head. You are in the zone of "I did everything and it doesn't work." That is a dangerous place to be, because you can psychologically impede your progress. There is no reason to worry.

You went over the material and memorized the content - that's a win!

Now you need to foolproof. No need to do 10 times a game, but 4 at least and utilize the video explanations.

At this stage, you want to do the game, review the explanations when you have trouble, re-do right away replicating the inferences/techniques from the video, re-do next day, and re-do a week later or as needed, until I can come kick you out of bed middle of the night and you can solve it under time.

Think of the prep in 3 stages.

You don't know how to do it - you are watching explanations to ingrain the correct methodology in your brain.

You got the process down - now you are watching for the missed inferences and shortcuts that JY is giving you - the "high-level" techniques.

You are solving the game and looking for shortcuts and high-level approaches that the explanations are missing. Now you are a master of the subject matter.

This will be a grind, but it will inevitably result in -0, depending on how much work you put into it (and if that's your goal).

Depends on where you are in your studies. If you have not prepped before, I would recommend going in order. If this is not your first time with you could pick and choose based on your needs.

Either way, the estimated study times are just a guideline. It includes 12h for each prep test taken and review. In the beginning it may take you longer, in a few months it will be much less. Also, a big factor is how quickly you are retaining the concepts - some you may breeze through and some you may need to repeat multiple times.

Lastly, it depends on the speed you watch videos at. For me, 2x works best, so if it works for you, why not?

First, don't worry. If you convince yourself you can't make it - you won't. As a matter of fact, undermining your own confidence by worrying can result in 10 point score swings compared to what your actual skill set can produce.

Second, pretty much everyone here has made the mistake of careless studying at one point or another. So, again, nothing to worry about.

Third - foolproof all the way - forget everything you think you know about games and do the Pacifico method (you can find it in the forums). In short: Do a game, score it, review the video and pay special attention to the methodology and shortcuts. Do the same game again right away and try to apply what you saw. Next, do it the next day and re-watch as needed. Lastly do it a week later to see what you remember.

Then drill, drill, drill.

Not sure what you are scoring, but my guess is anywhere from -10 to -15 if you say you are prone to breaking down. By the time November comes around, there is no reason why you can't be -0/-1. LG is extremely learnable section.

Now, I would recommend you think of your practice as a 3-stage process with the implementation of 3 different strategies.

Stage 1: This is when you are still all over the place. Watch the videos to learn how to do the games in a good way. JY does an excellent job.

Stage 2: This applies when you have good foundational skills and you have built up confidence, so you are finishing the section consistently. Watch the videos to see what shortcuts you have missed, i.e. watch out for what JY refers to as high-level approaches. For example: scan the answer choices and strategically define why you are starting by testing answer choices D.

Stage 3: This happens when you feel solid and well-versed in the games. Watch videos critically - why did JY not follow his own shortcut this time; JY did this question with this method, but if you just apply the rules it works out faster. Now you are trying to beat JY at his own game and find faster and better ways than him to get to the correct answer. This is a mastery level skill that you will be able to do at that -0/-1 range.

All the best with your practice. Go out there and kill it!

@

In an SA Q we need something that guarantees the conclusion follows 100%.

The structure is:

Thriving Population -> Beneficial Conditions

/Thriving Population @ WPond

Clearly A->B, Thus /B, so we need /A i.e. /Beneficial Conditions

The extra bit tells us the water a WPond is acidic. So Acidic = /Beneficial Conditions.

What do we know about the water at SPond? Nothing except that it is not acidic. C wants us to make the jump and assume that it is more beneficial. But is it alkaline? Is it PH neutral? Do turtles need either one of those environments and don't tolerate the other? Is there leaking toxic chemical waste from an underground storage well? Is a local farmer dumping excess pesticides secretly?

There could be a million reasons why SPond is not more beneficial for turtles and there is no way to trigger that contrapositive that we want.

Hope this helps;.

Hi Jess.

You mention provincial registrations so if you are in Canada and applying to Canadian schools I have no idea whatsoever.

If you are in the US:

Not sure what schools you are targeting but the 7Sage admissions primer and Miriam and Kristi's podcast (they are the assistant deans of admissions at Yale and Harvard respectively) have some great tips.

For the resume, as a non-traditional candidate with a ton of experience the best advice I have seen is to leave only the "biggest hits" on your resume. The app will ask for work experience, so they will have everything there. Focus the resume around the jobs that are most meaningful to you and you want to present yourself with.

Now depending if you have publications or awards that may be something you want to include as well. With your tenure and accomplishments you may be closer to that 2-page side.

Another caveat, if you have been mostly working at the same company, you may want to really focus around what you are highlighting for each title. Either way, they say the admissions team will read 2 bullets and may glance at a 3rd, so brevity is key.

Hope this helps.

I have been in that situation so here are my 2c:

I would tread lightly. Most top schools like that you waive your right to see a recommendation, because it increases the likelihood of candor. Adcoms will get to know your writing style through your personal statement, diversity and other addenda. If your boss adds a couple of frills, it remains highly likely that the style of the essay is too close to your other writing. That is a suspicion that you do not want to invite.

I had a boss that I was close with do the same and I just explained that I am giving up access and I just cannot be involved and he respected that.

Sweet! @ do we have an ETA for them to load into 7sage?

@ said:

@ said:

@ said:

Did anyone else who had the 2 LG sections feel like one was insanely difficult and one was super easy? I ran out of time and ended up bubbling in at random on the difficult one which almost never happens to me. The super easy LG had a simple sequencing question and some mixed grouping. Hopefully the hard LG was experimental? LR and RC were much easier than usual.

I had a 2 LG sections like that as well and reacted to them the same way you did... praying the harder was experiemental

I had 1 LG that I found super easy. The games were about experienced employees and managers, 6 classes, parade floats, and buying books

So we also have multiple real LG sections. Neither one of mine had the games you are describing.

@ said:

I hate it when my diagrams don't match JY's and I'm left wondering whether I even did them correctly.

Don't do that. JY always says to do the games the way it is intuitive to you. So, use his methods to learn, but your goal is to find the shortcuts, when he misses them in a video.

You want to solve it faster and easier than what he did in the video.

LR-LG-RC-LG.

LR felt on the easy side.

LG with the musicians game actually didn't click with me for some reason, though I could remember similar games from PTs, so made for an intense finish. That was weird, since I usually have at least 5 min to spare.

RC was average, but with at least one question on each passage that was more abstract and needed more careful consideration.

The last LG was way easier, so l would guess experimental.

Tech was ok, even though for some reason the button to move to the next question wouldn't respond sometimes. At one point ProctorU claimed my camera wasn't working, but the proctor stopped the test, fixed it in about 1 min and let me right back in, which was good.

Definitely A _ _ B.

A _ B is one space apart. The Space apart concept always refers to the number of units b/n the 2 items in question.

I see the poll is leaning towards A _ B. That would work if the verbiage said: B is located 2 spaces to the right of A.

Go at it! (and keep the tables, chairs, and ladders to a minimum).

You can only guess. To figure out which one it is, you need to discuss with other ppl and compare. For example: You had 2 LR and Jonny had 1. The matching one would be the real one. Caveat: I think back in June maybe they had 2 real LR with multiple questions that were the same subject matter but completely different. Doesn't seem to happen often, but LSAC can do that.

Either way, treat every section as if it's real.

My pleasure.

5. I think the underlying concept is that the zebras don't have standard-issue savanna camouflage. The implication is that in packs they camo i.e. blend together and that confuses the lions. We have to assume here the camo works.

For B: the paradox is that zebras lack camo but survive. Knowing that they ignore lions that are NOT hunting does little to explain that, because it doesn't address the lack of camo. It would be an alternative survival mechanism, but not that one related to what we are looking for.

15 C has the clear correlation chain. D is definitely much weaker, but also doesn't mention risks. It actually forces us to take the biz executive concept and our real-world knowledge/perceptions of what type of person occupies that position and assume away: adventurous, risk-taking etc.

17: I think either way you think of "assemble" you are fine.

20: I think I had the hardest time eliminating that during the timed run, but conceptually that answer supports the notion that repressors excel in social situations. Imagine that one friend that blurts out stuff when they get frustrated and everyone around them rolls their eyes. So the one that controls emotions better and doesn't blurt stuff out doesn't get sidelined as often as the sensitizer.

Great advice so far. I would just add that you didn't specify the category of flaw you are struggling with so I would assume both.

Either way, if you confuse yourself while analyzing ACs, you most likely have some gaps in internalizing the concepts. Knowing the material means that if someone comes to your house at 3am, pours a bucket of ice water on you, and throws you out of the bed you can still solve the question correctly.

Classic Flaws - those require memorization. Make flashcards with examples that you come up with yourself. That requires spending sufficient time grappling with the nature of each flaw to be able to come up with a legitimate version. Just this process will get you at a new level of comfort with the concepts. After that you can practice as much as you need. You should be able to clearly pre-phrase each flaw during practice.

Descriptive Flaws - this one trips people up a lot because there is no clear definitions to use. Find the loophole, figure out the gap, whatever people call it. This actually boils down to this: remember how many times (probably hundreds or thousands) you talked to a family member or a friend, they said something and your gut reaction was "are you nuts? what about X?" This is literally all there is to it. We worry about these because we get conditioned that the test is sneaky, but I am confident most (if not all) of us have this gut reaction everyday. If you make sure you are translating the stimulus effectively and confidently grasping what is being said, you should be able to trust that gut feeling and articulate the disconnect in the argument. Then just go find it in the ACs.

5: E is the only answer choice that accounts for a benefit to the zebras from having the stripes. The stimulus clearly states that the stripes allow the lions to see zebras clearly. With E we directly address that by affirming that all the lions see is a blur of white and black stripes. No other ACs address the paradox at all.

15: We want to strengthen the conclusion that siblings of 1st born are more adventurous than the 1st born themselves. Our evidence is that:

a: the siblings have higher cognitive plasticity i.e. more flexible thinking

b: being open to new ideas is correlated with being adventurous in other ways

So: cognitive plasticity correlates w/ openness to new ideas correlates w/ being more adventurous.

C: adds support directly by establishing formally the correlation b/n plasticity and risk-taking. We just need to make a reasonable assumption that adventure entails risk-taking.

17: remember the NA negated destroys the arg.

E: if Mars IS a practical source for materials transportation cost is moot period.

B: is tempting because if cost IS expected to decrease, then .... nothing. Will it decrease? Will the decrease be significant enough to make the economics work? I mean, if costs 100M to launch a satellite and we can save 100k by using a a less expensive material in some system, it still costs a leg and an arm.

20: the paradox is why the ppl that repress emotion do better in social and academic settings and feel better about themselves, as compared to the ppl that are more in-touch with their emotions. All the answer choices provide a possible reason, except for D. Some psychologists have a hypothesis i.e. there is one person somewhere that claims something - that doesn't help much. Also, even if we accept that the desire to excel socially and academically helps "repressors" excel at repressing emotions, it still does nothing to explain why they excel in the academic/social contexts more than the "sensitizers."

Here C is tempting, because at first glance it seems to do nothing, but it actually links to the self-esteem aspect.

I picked D and then changed it to A.

There is 0 evidence that heirloom varieties can help maximize specific crop yields and that's why the crop geneticists are paying attention now.

The geneticists tended to focus on imported agri techniques, which focus on maximizing yield for econ reasons. (last 2 sentences of paragraph 1). That is why they ignored heirlooms. To be precise, they are recognizing the value in "the store of agricultural knowledge associated with the cultivation of these varieties." It's the "agricultural researchers, development experts, and policy makers" that are looking at the heirloom genetic variety to help with the crisis. Further down in the text small farmers are choosing the commercial varieties over heirlooms too, so again, nothing that points to any heirloom variety being able to maximize any crop yields.

Those last 2 sentences also directly support A. The overall tone of the Au implies a negative attitude towards their focus on yield maximization, hence the judgemental "been too willing."

D actually has a very specific problem: the word "discharge."

Discharging debt means you don't have to pay it.

Traditional bankruptcy means liquidation and creditors getting back certain % of their investment. The modern law focuses on restructuring, so the company can continue to function as well as have a plan for satisfying obligations.

Here we need to make a "reasonable assumption" - satisfying debt means to completely cover it. Why would the Au agree that restructuring would lead to more debt getting written off, if the whole purpose of the process is to increase the likelihood that the debt is actually paid? We can go as far as to say that D goes against the premises that we were operating under.

With E we have another "reasonable assumption." In modern day economics credit is the lifeline of business. Higher cost of credit increases the financial burden on the business that is taking it. Since liquidation does not involve gaining access to new credit per se, it is reasonable to assume that the added cost does not apply.

I am not a fan of LSAC's "reasonable assumptions" idea at all, but with time and practice your intuition definitely starts picking up on that distinction.

There is no straight answer to this without a more expansive picture of who you are and what your story is, but:

If you can make a compelling case about why GPA wasn't great and how it won't be a problem in law school - absolutely do it.

For the LSAT - tough love here, but the cure to all ailments in this area is...a higher score. I don't know what school you are targeting, where you are based on medians etc. However, the LSAT is one of the MOST important aspects of your application. You may have some sort of extenuating circumstance here too that may be worth bringing up. Still, it will look much better if you had one or more bad scores and the circumstance is no longer in play, so you can show a decent score increase. Whether your target score for your school is 150 or 180 - everything you need is here on this website - the core curriculum, the forums, the explanations and comments, the study groups, the proven tutors and the ones that would tutor for free to develop their own skill. There are ways to fix that - take advantage of every avenue available to you.

Hope you succeed!

Mindset is at least as important as the practice itself. The more you grind at this test, the more prone you are to thinking it's this big mountain you have to climb because the test makers exploit every opportunity to take you down a few notches.

Why do we let them?

The reality is that if you are practicing, you are learning, and improving, but your progress is obfuscated by those dirty tricks. Nonetheless, the progress is there! You are better at lawgic, at flaws, at identifying the method of reasoning, at making inferences in LG, and even at finding the structure in RC. You are better than you were when you started. You are better than you were last week!

Caveat: I presume you are grinding seriously and not just trying to wish a high score into existence.

My PT average went up 10 points and I started hitting the low 170s literally the day after I realized I had been grinding for months and there was no reason for me to worry about being stuck at the 160 average for sometime. At that point it was only a matter of continuing to close the remaining gaps.

This one hinges on distilling the meaning of 2 separate concepts:

2nd paragraph middle+end - to patent an algorithm it has to represent the design of a process that is specific - not a general law of nature i.e. it is a specific iteration of a broad principle, not the rule itself.

3rd paragraph middle - copyright applies only in regard to a specific expression of principles i.e. again a specific iteration, no the rule itself

So:

patent - cannot be a broad, generic principle

copyright - has to be a specific iteration of a principle

Scientific principles are by nature broad and generic, so they would be too broad to patent or copyright.

More detail paraphrase of the text:

End of 2nd paragraph - algorithms representing generic principles don't qualify for patent protection. Encoding of an algorithm is like designing a process, so it can be patented, unless it represents a law of nature or a logical axiom i.e. it has to be unique and narrow and not the broad, general rule.

middle of 3rd paragraph - "copyright protects only the particular way in which the underlying ideas (principles/algorithms) are expressed" + earlier programs are specific expressions of ideas (algorithms), so copyright applies better - so only the specific application of the broad principle.

Who cares if K's argument is adequate? Au believes it's not. Au assumes that K did something bad anyway, so he deserves the criticism and completely dodges the question of bias. It's easier to say K's arg is bad, rather than find proper evidence.

This question is a bit convoluted, so it's a good candidate for process of elimination approach.

Here is how I intuitively understood the ACs on first run:

A: circular reasoning? no where to be found. eliminate.

B: Huh? Maybe.

C: So K's arg is bad because he is biased? That's a sneaky trap. Just because he has political views that someone disagrees with, you can't jump to bias. Eliminate.

D: Unrepresentative sample of political opinions - utter nonsense. Eliminate.

E: People being unaware of disagreements - irrelevant. Eliminate.

Even if you need to do a second or third read of the stimulus to grasp the nuances and understand why B is correct, a cursory read is enough to eliminate the others. Maybe C can give you pause, but you can resolve that relatively quickly.

I agree this is a tough one to deal with, but I actually think JY nailed it - it's the emphasis.

What you want in a main point Q is for the correct answer to be all-encompassing (as much as possible) of everything that the passage contains - both in focus and content.

The discussion of the physical limitations of chip production in the 1st half of the 1st paragraph sets the stage to draw a parallel with the chemical processes used to build structures inside a cell, in order to show us that a process that overcomes the problem exists already. Author also tells us that DNA is a major focus of research, but there might be an overlooked alternative - peptides. This takes about 20 lines, but now we spend about 40 lines discussing a specific example of a scientific study on peptides and their interaction with semiconductors.

Notice that we don't mention speed and efficiency of chips or their size after that first paragraph, so I would say those are practically irrelevant to the majority of the passage.

We are focused on a very narrow group of interrelated concepts - does this peptide bind to this semiconductor, how to find/grow more, and how to gain control over the building process.

Now, the implication of this is, obviously, that this can help overcome the issue with making smaller chips to get more speed an efficiency, but still we don't really go back to that specific application for the majority of the text.

So with C - we are hitting exactly that point - the specific peptide research that might help and we acknowledge the computer chip issue that spawned the discussion in the first place.

With B we are:

taking about the chips themselves - something that was only addressed in the first few lines, so it was definitely not the main focus of the passage.

saying "depend on various research projects, including" the peptide one - for this to satisfy the needs of a correct main point answer choice, the whole passage would have to present multiple research projects and frame the peptide one as at least one of the promising ones. The only other projects are addressed in a few words that mention that DNA seems to be the major focus of researchers. Totally not the main focus.

B is a very crafty answer choice. I think it baits in 2 ways:

If you realize that there is such a solid separation between the topic of chips and the topic of peptides and semiconductors, it will bait you to pick it because it addresses both topics in the order that they appeared in the text. You see chips and the light bulb goes off: "this is what they were talking about in the beginning before all this peptide mess."

I actually think it's meant to bait anyone with a computer/tech background to make a jump. If you are familiar with Moore's law (the idea that every 2 years the number of transistors on a chip doubles, which requires smaller and smaller transistors) and if you know that the tech has been down to 7 nanometers for a few years and Intel had major struggles with production at that size, while trying to go down to 5, it is extremely easy to apply your background knowledge and assume that the most important part is the advance in speed and efficiency, because you know we have been way past 25nm for a long time. This one is easy for anyone who hasn't mastered turning off the internal monologue while reading yet.

Hope this helps.

I mean...without knowing who we are talking about and getting their background, assessing their current skills, thought process, and current methodology you might as well throw a dart and hope for the best. Numeric scores don't tell the whole story. You need a well-rounded assessment.

If this is a question more along the lines of "I am here, where should I invest my time" the answer above still applies and as a general rule you should never railroad yourself into one section at the expense of another.

I see it as a viable strategy when you can't handle timing and you are targeting a 150-160 score.

If you have higher goals, run from this like the plague. There is no shortcut for taking the time to put in the work and develop the skills. It may take you week, months, years.

Every "trick" is just a crutch - you are better off standing on your own feet.