@jordankennedy480 said:

@mgzero2730 said:

Yes, but I don't think in those tests. Think more like 62+ being far harder than anything 1-60.

They have shifted from basically wanting simple "deductive" reasoning to shifting to "inductive" reasoning. The level of inferences have shifted on the spectrum from basically absolutes to maybe or strongly inferred.

For the sake of this conversation, lets assume there is truth in 62+ being harder / different than (60. Am I better served redoing sections in the 62+ range that I have already seen (6 months to a year in the past) or fresh sections in the 30-57 range? Asking for a friend... :)(/p)

So, you're best off by doing neither if this is part of the issue for your score variance. You are best off by learning how to play with logic and the English words. Tests help you do this, but they won't check your mastery every time. The old tests have less of this so obviously you will get far less practice in those than in the newer ones and even less checks on it. The old ones are good for solidifying your BASIC logical statements. Before you go into the test center for a real score, it's best to review stuff from the purple or the pink/reddish book. They are most like the newer tests. Given that they are the newer released tests it makes sense.

If you have 7sage's course, you're best off reviewing your vocabulary synonyms in logical force and making sure you can do the chain with a blindfold on and at maximum speed. If your logic is strong and to the point you know you would NEVER not make an inference you could make then you are solid. I could do that and had issues with this still. The wording and such has changed. So make sure your answers are always within scope given what was in the stimulus. It can never be too strong or too weak. It MUST be pertinent to the evidence. If it leaves something up for thought it's not the right answer ever. If something COULD support or wreck something, make sure there isn't something better than is stronger than could do the same such as more than likely. Could(more like than not. When I worked on pacing for the test I worked in the old tests. I think that was stupid. I should have worked only in pacing on the new tests because if this is an issue the old tests will say you are amazing like it told me when I would do LR with 10 mins left and 0 wrong. The new tests came and brought me down hard. I got so frustrated in my score fluctuations. For anyone aiming to score above 170+ it is imperative you have this down. If you are having other LR variance that isn't on the logic strength, I don't know what it is. I mean MBT, conclusion, etc are straight forward and thus why they do less of those than ever if you have noticed. They have shifted from those to MSS. They seldom give a shit about a conclusion now. That is because with MSS they can play find the flag in various spots and keep their curve about the same despite all the prep courses.(/p)

Now, should you just keep redoing new tests? No. There is good practice in old tests. Do you want to make sure you mastered it to the expectations of the new tests? Yes. They require a bigger level of mastery. I'm not sure if it's because of courses like 7Sage, Manhattan, etc. The LSAT doesn't want their curve changing much. They still want a logic test, but they want to make answers more slippery and less blatant to mechanistic approaches. Can they do that? Not if you're very good. Logic forces the same type of deductions possible. They can just make it harder for it to pop out at you with wording.

This was for variance in LR/RC that some people have asked. This is NOT pertinent really to games. Games are basically all deductive reasoning and why I crushed them really quickly but struggled to improve my RC and LR sections for a long time despite doing the core, despite doing PTs, etc. I was using my prowess of my deductive reasoning as a crutch and it was failing because you should be using inductive reasoning heavily for LR and RC. I mean J.Y. talks about when knowing how to move on after picking an answer choice for games but I never remembered him seeing him do it for RC/LR although I hope he has in the updated lessons they have done. There is a point when if you want those juicy 170+ scores you have to know when you pick that point up and run with it like it was a free million bucks and don't look back. This will also help with pacing so you have that minute and a half or so for the challenging questions.So, recap, first focus on your ability to manipulate logic and focus on making inferences from the bottom to the top and asking if that is the best/strongest answer out of the 5. This will make your MSS more accurate and other questions where they want a strong inductive reasoning.

I am not saying that there can't be other issues with score variance. Maybe you can't get parallel questions down. Those are deductive basically. Maybe you can't get main point questions down in RC so you get variance. There could be variance for many issues, but for large variance this was my issue and it makes sense because they have increased the inductive reasoning expectations and wants in the newer tests. This is an analysis of why I believe the newer tests are more challenging and why there can be huge score variance for someone that seems to understand the test well.

This should probably also not be your priority to fix. This is basically an anecdotal analysis of why I was seeing huge variance in score and why I found the newer tests more challenging. At that point I was scoring past 165+ though. I didn't want to lie to people and tell them they are going crazy when they think the newer tests are harder or that score variance can't be fixed. There were two of these threads on the main page so I thought I'd chime in. When you're in the lower ranges you focus on the basics. Master the basics in the curriculum first. Don't try to figure out how to do great steals in basketball without learning how to dribble. No point if you can steal a ball but can't dribble it three feet in front of you. How can you even come close to scoring if you get called on when you move two feet?

As someone who has come close to them all I think it's stupid. Do a total of 30-40. Make sure you carefully review and analyze. Make sure it's a good mix of tests. End of story. More tests don't help if you practice bad form. If I didn't practice shit form for 35 or so tests I would have been just as good.

@leahbeuk911 said:

How do we make the adjustment for lr? To inductive

By understanding the strength of the statement you read and not going too far or too low. With it you're always aiming for the bullseye in answers to match the evidence given to you in the stimulus. Older tests didn't test you on subtleties of words while the newer LSATs will always do this. Even on flaws. Gives you great sound answer choices and almost word for word answer choices but differentiate one answer to another by the strength of the adjective.

When it rains the dog will almost be certain to bark. It rained on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Therefore the dog barked on all three days. WOAH, hold that shit up. That's BAD inductive reasoning. The dog is more likely than not to have barked on each of the three days is the correct inductive reasoning. This is the LSAT now.

The LSAT likes to use words now like generally, tends to be the case, is correlated with, etc instead of anything absolute which you can push conclusions fast through deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is inductive reasoning but at a stronger level basically. When I say they shifted to inductive, I mean they heavily shifted to nuisances of making the point just more slippery. They shifted to specific scenarios and try to get you to generalize what you can conclude, but if you generalize too much or too little you lose. You need to generalize only the correct amount. In RC they will even throw inferences by compatibility in logic which is something the OLD tests did NOT screw with. What inference can you make? Well, IT CAN BE the case that X occurred is something they will go with since they allowed the possibility in the text but didn't lead you to conclude such. In the old tests they will test you mainly on what is on the text. The new RC pushes you to make even very weak inferences by compatibility now more than ever.

The LSAT loves this instead of when it rains the dog barks. It rains every Tuesday and Friday. Therefore the dog barks at least on Tuesday. This would be deductive. It now throws great details about how big and red the dog's house is. When you get anxious or lose focus the newer tests WILL make your butthole hurt. Old tests? Nah, bro, take 10 min naps, it's cool.

By knowing how they have changed you can change your approach to the questions to cut back on that time again so you can carefully raise your accuracy. ;)

@dtutt317306 said:

Should I cancel my score from today though?

That's up to you. A canceled or a not canceled score counts as a take. There is unlimited takes now. Honestly, I don't see much of a point. An improvement in score always looks better and unless you show up drunk to the next test and fall asleep I don't see why you would go down instead of up when you said your PTs felt better and you plan to study. It might even be better than you think as the curve for the 150s will likely be generous. Even the 170 has a -12 prediction which is pretty average.

I think you can probably go from 145 to 155 because at 145 I don't think you even have the basics mastered. Not trying to be insulting, but I think if you honestly get all the basics of the core curriculum here down and do some practice you can hit 155 without too much trouble.

How dedicated to the study do you plan to be? If you did 3 hrs 5x a week I'm pretty sure come September you would hit that 155.

Score you think you got today? Score you're aiming for?

You can probably go from 160 to 165 by September but I doubt you will go 155 to 170 by September.

The downside is I'm pretty sure November doesn't let you apply ED to any school.

@samanthaashley92715 said:

My best guess is that there was a bias-related issue that slipped through the past experimental sections. For example, they realized that 60% of ESL test takers got it wrong while only 10% of those with English as their first language got it wrong.

I doubt it. This test is heavily biased against ESL. I don't see why they would start to care about that for one question.

This might be late but I talked about this when another person asked me on difference between older and newer tests.

See here: https://classic.7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/16973/are-the-older-lr-sections-easier

I figured this out after struggling myself with that extreme variation you are mentioning. I didn't understand why until I saw how much better I was at "deductive" and how much less confident I was on "inductive". You might be suffering something similar as this shift is quite prevalent in LR and RC.

Someone else already mentioned it but I figured more vouching for this idea can't hurt.

This difference for me crippled my score in the high 170s to high 160s. I would say that is a VERY REAL difference. I even once posted about how frustrated I was just like you with this since most people have tight scores. I was seeing 10+ pt difference.

@leahbeuk911 said:

For everyone saying that op shouldn’t take it ... they already paid for the test . They might as well sit it because they can’t get a refund. If the score is the issue they can always cancel it afterwords. But again this will go back to the op. Whatever you choose you know yourself best.

Before the new policy though the score would count towards the 3 allowed. I don't think canceled scores look favorable, especially if one exists on record. If they have none most admissions say one cancellation is not a big deal to them.

I'm not sure how favorable or unfavorable this looks.

No. Black and white is good.

Yes, but I don't think in those tests. Think more like 62+ being far harder than anything 1-60.

They have shifted from basically wanting simple "deductive" reasoning to shifting to "inductive" reasoning. The level of inferences have shifted on the spectrum from basically absolutes to maybe or strongly inferred.

@mgzero2730 said:

A lot of this seems like good advice, but I don't think any of it should be as restricted to any one score level. In general, I think the same things that get someone to a 160 get you to a 170 or a 180.

I agree. It wasn't really meant to give people a strict guideline by numbers on how to improve. It was mainly to highlight my journey and hope people would take some of my hard lessons as things to be on the look out for while they studied and avoid those mistakes as well as to perhaps incorporate some of my lessons as things they could change to help themselves. Things like being dismissive of questions they got wrong because it seemed silly on the second look which actually turns out to be very bad although it might seem like an okay thing to do. Something to ponder if they are making those kinds of errors. It's really a reflection on my journey. I titled it as such because I did not want it to be strict advice. I could have titled it How to Get a 170+ instead if I was aiming at a rigid guideline chart. It has advice that I could definitely see as useful because I wanted to share back with the people here on my lessons, but it's in no way a guideline nor do I think it's exclusive by the numbers/steps. I think you can definitely benefit from blind review in 170, 165, etc. although I only stress it at one point,which I still think it probably is the most important point to do it in, I did not say you could not benefit from it later. Perhaps I made it too stylistic.

@tacolliercollier239 said:

@jenniferepeltier312 said:

Robbery had man women, siren

Yes. Last game

Was actually 3 for me if I recall right. How many of these tests do they make?

@roystanator440 said:

@14888 said:

@gregoryalexanderdevine723 said:

@14888 said:

@gregoryalexanderdevine723 said:

You really should be retaking the LSAT because your LSAT is a bit on the low side for those schools. Each of those schools have LSAT 25%tiles around the 155 range. So, even if you get in, you'd be paying sticker for these schools ($250k+) and attending these schools at sticker, or even close to it, is an objectively bad financial decision. At the average interest rate, you would end up paying over $1500 a month for the next 25 years. All that to say, don't sell yourself short.

You should sit out a cycle and prep until you can hit at least a 155 on the LSAT. It's likely only a matter of learning some solid strategies for games and LR question types. Take again in June/July/September and then apply early next cycle, and I know if you can hit a 150 that you're capable of a 155. If you can get a 160+ you would be looking a full rides to these schools. That means if you study another 500 hours to hit a 160, you'd be potentially earning $500 per hour. That's an opportunity few ever have in their lives!

My main concern is that I already have 3 LSAT scores on my report and of course 150 is my highest. If I take in June I am afraid it won't look good on my application that I have 4 LSAT scores. Although they look at the highest score those scores are still visible.

Listen, it probably doesn't help having 3 other lower LSAT scores on your record. But no matter what, a 160 with 3 scores in the 140s/150s is infinitely better than just the 3 scores in the 140s/150s. Moreover, I think it's pretty solid now to assume law schools really only care about your highest score. So don't worry about the scores already on your record.

If you're sitting on a 150, you need to retake.

Noted! Thanks for the advice.

Yes @gregoryalexanderdevine723 is right. I do have 5 scores one file, one being the highest out of all of them. So far I have been performing as well my highest score would suggest in my cycle.

Did you apply to any T13-15 schools? I thought a third score would be bad for me, but if they don't care I might as well retake this test and even try next cycle if I'm unhappy with this cycle's results.

Not trying to hijack this thread but I think this information would be relevant to a lot of us.

As for the OP I think Alex's advice is sound. I think he covered it well why you should attempt for a higher score.

JY creates worlds but merely in summation he is saying this stimulus is a hypothetical with a subset conditional.

Notice how A is not a hypothetical answer but instead comes to the conclusion that we do actually do this in our world when it's absurd to say we do.

That is why A is wrong. E engages the hypothetical correctly while other hypothetical answers C/D do not. Honestly if he just said the question presents a hypothetical and answer A does not address this hypothetical scenario but instead concludes about reality I would immediately have seen the flaw where I just picked A after glancing at the answers without being careful to this "trick" but when I read E it immediately jumps at you. I guess that is what I get for rushing some questions. I like to keep my approach to the test simple. I found his explanation obviously correct but I felt it was too convoluted so maybe somebody sees this simplicity like I did.

It depends. Any other answer is wrong. What's your goal, what's your starting point, and what's your quality of study like? Without answers to these we can all guess how much it will take but likely produce no good answer. I started in low 150s on my first cold test. After about roughly 200hrs I have been stuck in mid 160s. I have also seen people start at 170+ so as the above says, it depends.

@pcainti665 said:

How much time do you guys allocate to reading the passage? I usually get through in ~3 min but spend too much time re-reading certain parts on inference/more abstract questions.

I do 2 to 2.5 mins.I reference a lot on certain subject passage types I dislike and less on passages I like. I also usually allocate an extra min on those I dislike. Find your weakness but if I was you I'd trade either more time to read and reference less or vice versa. Referencing a lot and not being quick is not very ideal in my opinion.

I agree. I got so much BS advice from all types of prep companies. I've actually scored -2 on an official test in the reading section with almost no marking. I just mark two things and know roughly where things are in the passage if need be. So my advice is structure, view points, and tone. The shitty part is I got bent sideways and anally penetrated on the games section of that test so that score was not ideal. People tell me how improving in the logic games is easiest and how easy it is to improve that score. I went from a -10 avg in RC to a -2 in RC avg in 5 tests. I cannot say the same for the games or the LR section either but at least the LR goes up faster. Logic games are slowest for me.