A. 161 is a good starter score. B)

B. I watched an interview about this with an admissions officer. She basically said that yes, schools use your highest score, but they can see your other scores. However, they only really consider those other scores when someone has extremely abnormal numbers. For example, if somebody gets five low 150's in a row, then jumps 20 points to a 170 on their final try... Admissions might get suspicious and think "This person cheated" or "This person got insanely lucky." On the other hand, showing slow and steady improvement in your scores is to be really common. When admissions see that you got 161, then a 167, then a 170, they just think, "yep, this person studied really hard and improved their score" (which is what most prospective students do).

This is what I would do if you want to apply this cycle (just my opinion, take it or leave it).

Take the LSAT in November, and get your apps ready as if you will be submitting in November. Register for the January LSAT just in case. If you get a 165 in November, great! Submit all your apps by late November and celebrate being done nice and early.

If you DONT get the 165, then in November, only submit to schools where you are within range of the LSAT median. You can look up the LSAT medians of your desired schools on websites like LSD.law. Hold off on your reach schools and re-take the LSAT in January, hopefully you get a much better score in Jan, and you can apply to the reach schools.

I know people say "oh dont apply mid cycle" but if your LSAT is too low, schools will outright reject you, no matter how early you apply. Its better to apply with a decent LSAT mid cycle than apply in November with a low LSAT score.

No hard deadline but you should do it within the week if you want your score on the 27th like everyone else.

I've been scoring high 160's and low 170's on my practice tests for the last month. (I have an LSAT today, hoping I do as well on the actual thing). What helped me so far was actively trying to solve the questions I got wrong on my own. After I do a drill, I review what questions I got wrong, and without looking at the right answer, go back over and try to solve it on my own. I spend between 5-10 minutes trying to figure out a single question sometimes. Then, when I have confidently solved it, I go to the explanation video.

ALSO another thing that has helped me is looking at analytics, looking at what my 'worst' questions are, and then going to the advanced drill builder and making a drill with 10 varying difficulty questions of that type. If you are scoring in the mid 160s, you are already pretty good at this test. You don't need to be reviewing basic stuff, you need to be reviewing your weaknesses. Good luck!

They allowed me two pieces of blank computer paper when i took my online test. They just asked me to pick it up and show them both sides.

The question is asking us which answer does NOT resolve the discrepancy.

If we were trying to RESOLVE the discrepancy, we would look for answers that tackled the differences between the two studies.

Study 1 - 24 years, small-scale, Beta-carotene prevented cancer, got results

Study 2 - 12 years, large-scale, Beta-carotene didn't prevent cancer, no results.

Answer E can basically be translated as

"The first study found that:

People who ate alot of Beta-carotene smoked less

+

People who did NOT eat alot of Beta-carotene smoked more"

E is telling us there was a correlation in Study 1 that wasn't mentioned in the original question. The correlation is that people who eat more Beta-caotene ALSO smoke less... which caused them to have less cancer, which threw off the study, which explains the discrepancy between study 1 and 2.

IF there is a correlation between eating more beta-carotene and smoking less, (Maybe its beacuse people who eat alot of beta-carotene are vert health concious and take their vitamins everyday and they rarely smoke because they know smoking has side effects), it explains the difference in the cancer rates and the results.

It resolves a discrepancy between the studies, which is what the question asks us NOT to do.

So we throw out E.

Hope this made sense when I typed it all out. It did in my head.

You are 100% correct about the script thing. However, as someone who actually worked in traditional shakespearian theater for years, Its an easy mistake to make. I had the same response as OP. I've spent so many years printing off copies of scripts for shakespearian actors that its literally ingrained into my head that the actor always has a copy (or multiple copies) of the script lying around. Maybe I struggled to put it in the proper historical context because its 1 am and im tired, but honestly this was a weird question where it was probably MORE difficult for thespians lol.

I worked in traditional shakespearian theater and this actually messed me up lol. I get the logic presented in the video and what the writers were trying to lead us to... but IRL, normally shakespearian actors are given a copy of a script when working on a play (and they tend to keep their copies, trust me)! I understand now that we are talking about the 17th century, when a script would be a rare resource... But after years of seeing shakespearian actors take home their scripts IRL, it just seemed normal to me that OF COURSE an actor would have a script. It seemed like a very reasonable and "safe" assumption to me because of my personal bias.

Help!

Why is it that profits increase leads to a decrease in congestion? Why is it linked into the chain as if profits increasing directly causes cogestion to decrease? Shouldn't the decrease in congestion just be an additional necessary condition that is required to have profits increase (in addition to the cost of living going down)?

nvm i found the reply in the comments. I was confusing a causal relationship with a conditional one. I didn't consider that if profits have increased, then we can definetely know that congestion has decreased, so we can chain it onto the end.

Yea Wong's argument doesn't really make sense at all. This is one of those questions where you have to understand that the logic of the argument matters less than who believes what. This is a disagree question; they aren't asking us to evaluate the stronger argument, they're just asking us to point out where the two people differ in opinion. If you can understand what they are arguing over, then it doesn't matter who is correct or who makes more sense.

Subsets/ super sets, basics of assumptions, sufficient/necessary assumptions, modifiers, referentials, and types of questions were probably the most helpful for me. However, like everyone else, I do suggest trying to cover as much material as possible anyways. When i started I was just watching in x1.7 speed and having it on in the background because I was also in a time crunch. It was not very efficient at all. This material is designed to slowly build upon itself over the course of several months.

Context doesn't give or recieve support, but can still be related to the argument. Idk if this will be helpful, but I'm gonna try to write a question that reads similar to the LSAT and then break it down.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

"The topic of how phenonmenon 'X', occurs is a very divisive topic. In the past, everybody believed 'Y' lead to 'X'. Recently, however, a study by famous experts came out which suggested 'Z' leads to 'Q'. So obviously, everyone should accept that 'Z' leads to 'X' as well.

What's the assumption made in the argument?"

a) That the study is reliable because it was made by famous experts

b) 'Z' leads to 'X'

c) 'Q' leads to 'X'

d) 'Y' could never lead to 'X'

---------------------------------------------------------------------

There's a ton of information to unpack, but really the only sentences you needed to read to answer the question were the last two sentences.

The first two sentences ended up being only context. Knowing that the cause of 'X' is a divisive topic helped us understand the situation, but it had nothing to do with the logic chain. Arguably, the fact that the study was a recent study by famous experts is also context, as without that info, our answer wouldn't change.

The premise here is that 'Z' leads to 'Q'. The author gives this as support for why they believe the conclusion - that 'Z' leads to 'X'.

The correct answer is c, because 'Q' leads to 'X' is the missing link (assumption) in the logic chain.

I hoped this was helpful and wasn't confusing. It was definetely a nice exercise to write out my own question.

High school me foolishly threw out my essay writing notes after I passed AP World.

High school me never thought the DBQ outline from AP World History would be useful again, but I was wrong.

Thank you for writing this out!

(Disclaimer, this is just my opinion)

I think either person is fine. I tend to use first person since the questions explicitly ask us to give personal experiences. First person comes across as more personable and opinionated. Third person comes across as more professional and academic (which works for some people)!

I wouldn't try to avoid the author entirely. Doing so will give yourself an extra hurdle that will stress you out and eat away at your time.

correct!

This is where it all started to go wrong for me lol. In all seriousness, the whole necessary vs sufficient and subset vs superset thing is what catches me out the most, probably because its never this simply outlined in the actual questions.

I'm in the exact same boat as you guys. I'd love to join even if its just to get encouragement from other people.

Same, I am planning to take my first LSAT in April. currently PT-ing in high 150s low 160s. Best was a 163. I've been studying about a month and a half (started late I know). I'm wondering if I should just cancel because my end goal is a 170.

My original thought was to take LSAT in April at the beginning of my studying without caring much about the score. Schools are SUPPOSED to use only your best score, after all. Then, I planned to retake the exam in August for my "real" test date where I will hopefully do my best and get that 170. My thought process was that by August, I will have been studying for 7.5 months, hopefully be PT-ing consistently at 170, and I will have taken the LSAT once before . This will hopefully put me in the best place to get a good score.

If I do badly in August (or even if I just think I can do better) I can have September be my "back-up."

However, EVERYONE says "don't sign up for the test until youre hitting your goal scores" so i'm starting to second guess my master plan. Personally, I see myself doing alot better on the exam if I have taken it at least one time prior in a "real" setting (aka on a testing day/ in-person test center with high stress). But considering my current scores are still so much lower than my goals, does that mean I should just postpone it to June?

Even if I get a 170, will schools still look at my lower scores? Or is it not that much of a big deal to take the LSAT in April and probably get a 160 if I still get that juicy 170 in August? Am I just wasting attempts? aoigholaigo;iagp;jop;ajig its so stressful I wish there was just one correct answer.