Struggling with necessary assumptions? Join me on Saturday as I breakdown one of the more difficult LR question types and share with you, my process and mindset that will enable you to successfully fully master one of the pillars of the modern LR section.

Zoom link to be posted shortly.

Hi Folks:

In order to give the May Flex folks one last push to LSAT flex finish line I am hosting a blind review of PT 80, Section 1 (Logical Reasoning)

To get the most out of this session please come prepared, having completed the section but not having marked it.

Meeting will be held on zoom

I hope to see you there!

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84033688826?pwd=Zy9nWHlzZFBaUmJaMnJ2dFVlblpiUT09

PW:965128

Are you struggling with improving your score on the Reading Comprehension section of the LSAT? You're not the only one. Of the three, RC by far is the most difficult section to gain meaningful improvements on. Even worse is the fact that there is a lot of conflicting advice out there on how best to attack the RC section, some of which may actually harm your performance rather then help. I managed to improve my reading comp score on average a full 8 points from my base and I want to share some of the things that I learned along that journey with YOU, my fellow 7 sagers. Join me on Friday as we tackle PT 79, specifically the Eileen Gray and Woodland Clearing passage. I will breakdown the passage and apply my personal methodology for tackling RC passages. Whether you're an LSAT Vet who is just looking to polish off the last few details for the May LSAT or you're just getting started I'm sure you will find something of value in this session.

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MICHAEL CINCO is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

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Time: May 1, 2020 07:00 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

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I'm going to spill some tea for folks, and you may not like it.

If you want to get over 170 on the LSAT you have to be prepared to get 23/23 on the Logic Games section of the LSAT. Mathematically this is an obvious statement, after getting a perfect score on any one section of the LSAT means you get more leeway for error on the other sections of the LSAT for your target score. Assuming a -10 curve, if you perfect Logic Games that means you get to distribute 10 wrong answer choices across the three other sections. It becomes a far more manageable task! But why logic games? Why not focus on RC where there are 27 points, or the LR sections which account for 50% of the test? There's reasons for that.

#1. LG is learnable

LG is the most learnable part of the LSAT. I have seen students at all levels get to a point where they are able to consistently score perfect scores on the LG section. This is because of the nature of the section themselves. Unlike LR where you are at the mercy of the creativity of the LSAC writers and RC which can pull from an almost infinite amount of material across a wide variety of subjects the logic games have stayed fairly consistent through the history of the LSAT. The way games and rules are constructed, the approach to solving them, the patterns that are formed and the way inferences can be generated are actually fairly limited and the way we tackle games from LSATS in 1999 has not really changed from the way we tackle them today.

#2. Performance on LG is consistent (for the most part)

If you master logic games, chances are you will be able to replicate your performance repeatedly. The traits that you need to be able to master games in practice easily transfer to test day because as we discussed in point 1, the build of logic games sections is actually fairly constricted. Granted you can still get hit by the dreaded miscellaneous game but if you have prepared well you should have already encountered and conquered multiple miscellaneous games in your preparation and would be nonplussed by their appearance. Contrast that with RC which varies in difficulty not only by passage type, passage subject but also in the difficulty of the questions that are asked. And in LR where performance is dependant on juggling between being precise and being decisively quick. LG is where you should be able to easily translate your practice performance to the real thing.

#3. LG performance as a morale booster

LG is the one section in the LSAT where your own feelings about how you performed in the section tend to correlate quite nicely with your actual score. The nature of the questions allows you to be fairly confident when you hit the right answer. If you walk away from the LG section having completed every game and question you can be fairly confident that you scored 23/23. That is positive momentum you can take to the rest of the test. By contrast we all know when we under perform in the LG section, we either fail to finish all the questions or we fail to 'get' a game. If we walk away from the LG section knowing we underperformed we may feel even more pressure to do well on the other sections and the impact on performance can be negative. It is thus imperative that we excel at logic games.

So perhaps I convinced you that it may be a good idea to try and master the logic games section. How do we actually do that? Well a tried and true method, that is common across almost everyone I've tutored who has achieved logic game mastery is that they fool proofed the games. For more on that strategy click here https://classic.7sage.com/lesson/fool-proof-guide-to-perfection-on-logic-games/ . Of course I'm not just going to write a big build up for logic games success without giving you a few tips of my own. Read on for those!

Beyond Full Proofing

One of the reasons we full proof games is to improve our ability to recognize inferences. We can do that through strict memorization of how the inferences developed within the given circumstances of our game but that won't necessarily help you out in the future. What we are better off doing is recognizing how those inferences were formed. What did we do to draw them out? Did we concentrate on rules which were inherently powerful in how they affected the game board? Did we focus on spaces which by the nature of the rules was inherently restricted? Did we draw out the possible outcomes rather than focusing on prohibitive ones? If your study of the logic games focuses on patterns of inferences, and why you made them rather than on the inferences themselves your study time will pay far greater dividends down the road.

There are sometimes more than one way to tackle a logic game. Don't be constrained by your initial approach, or even JY's approach. You will learn more from a game if you try to tackle it in multiple ways. A game that may have seemed an obvious choice to split, may prove even easier if you just tackled it by approaching the questions head on and vice versa. Doing this will also help you better prepare for scenarios where perhaps you missed a key inference that would allow a split or perhaps, if you are not comfortable with splitting, would allow you to split a game you wouldn't have necessarily thought to split in the first place. Getting the right answer is not enough, you want to be able to get the right answer using multiple possible approaches.

Your performance on a logic game hinges on your setup. Lots of folks speed through this process because they never really practice it. When they start full proofing, the setups get better because of the prior knowledge one gleans from having seen the game before but the ability to actually properly perform a setup escapes them. You must allow yourself enough time in your setup to do the following:

1. Understand what the game is asking you to do

2. Understand the optimal way of diagramming the game

3. Understand the key game pieces and positions which the game hinges on

4. Understand how the rules interact with each other

5. Understand whether you should be splitting the game or attacking the questions

Ideally as you full proof you will develop your own process as to how to make sure all those things are checked off. A tutor can be really beneficial here as they can provide you their own process for doing just that!

The best test takers are intelligent in how they tackle the questions. Just like the overall approach to games can very, the approach to tackling individual questions can also vary. What you want to do, at all times is question whether your approach is efficient. Ideally you want to do the LEAST amount of work possible to get to the right answer choices. When you are full proofing always ask yourself if you are being efficient. Some things to consider in this space:

1. Why is the LSAC asking this question? Is it to test an inference? If so, have you already made it? That may be the right answer! ( Ask this if you encounter a global MUST BE TRUE QUESTION)

2. Have I done any work on previous questions that can help me answer/eliminate some of the wrong answer choices?

3. Have I properly separated the contenders and non-contenders before I start making diagrams?

4. Is there a way to distinguish contenders from non-contenders that I have overlooked? (I can write an entire separate post on how to do this, but this typically requires some thought on what the question is looking for and what the answer choices are providing in response)

Getting to -0 on Logic Games may seem like a daunting task. Lots of students have achieved it though, and not all of them were Logic Game naturals. For the longest time, Logic Games was my weakest section. I managed to overcome that weakness to score a -0 on Logic Games on my LSAT. You can do this too if you focus on the right things! The information above should help you get started on that journey!

Hi Folks:

Some of you may not know how to properly blind review. What better way to learn than from a seasoned LSAT Sage?

Or perhaps you just want a different perspective on how to tackle LR questions, or want some constructive feedback on your LR process. Whatever the case may be, please feel free to join me as we blind review PT 65 LR Section 1 next Saturday

When:

Saturday March 7th 3PM-5PM Eastern I will be hosting a blind review session for PT 65 LR Section 1 LR

What to do to prepare:

Complete PT 65 Section 1 but DO NOT mark it. Come prepared to talk about the questions you had difficulty with and to walk through your thought process with me.

Platform: Zoom!

Link here: https://zoom.us/j/383280821

A few weeks back I was in a blind review with the man himself, Mr. JY Ping and JY said something which I thought was rather profound. He mentioned that being aggressive on the LSAT is a self-correcting trait, meaning how aggressive you are in answer questions will often times have a direct impact on your LSAT Score. This makes sense because if say you are doing an Argument Part question and you clearly identified the part in question to be the intermediate conclusion, the aggressive response to that question is to immediately look for the answer choice which says intermediate conclusion and move on. A more conservative test taker may take extra time to consider the other answer choices and thus may still get the correct answer choice but may spend an extra 30-60 seconds on the question vs. the aggressive approach. JY mentioned that the conservative approach is harder to correct because you are likely not even to think about the argument part question because you got it correct but that extra 30-60 seconds you spent on it may have had a detrimental impact on your performance on another question. Those who get the highest scores on the LSAT tend to be those who manage their time the best and I would wager that the majority of LSAT takers fall on the conservative side of the scale under normal conditions. I think at this point it may be wise to actually define what being an aggressive LR test taker means. In my mind, being aggressive in answering choices means having the confidence and knowledge to spot the correct answer choice without the need to verify that the other answer choices are wrong. For some questions this is easy to do, for other questions it becomes much tougher and the potential gains from being an aggressive test taker increases. That begs the question, how do we actually become more aggressive during the test? I’ll discuss a number of ideas around that with the rest of this post.

10 in 10, 12 in 12, 15 in 15, 25 in 25

One way to force yourself to be more aggressive is to set time limits for yourself on how quickly you want to go through the LR section. Some set a 10 in 10, 12 in 12, or 15 in 15 target where the aim is to try to answer 10 questions in 10 minutes and so forth. This is a mechanical way of forcing yourself to be aggressive and it works! If you combine it with a good skipping strategy this will enable you to reap points quickly and save it for the more difficult question. My recommendation is that you begin to play around with this idea during PT’s, if you are not already doing so try to hit 10 in 10, 12 in 12 or 15 in 15. You may find that your score initially suffers from doing so but as you get more comfortable with this notion you should see some stabilization and then an increase. You will be uncomfortable pushing your pace at first, but eventually you will find your own equilibrium. What you want to do is to find the optimal level of aggression that is tied to your individual skill set and knowledge. I do not recommend even trying to push the pace until you are at a level of your LSAT journey that you are very comfortable with answering most question types. That being said, it’s all well and good to set goals for yourself to be faster and more aggressive, but what do we actually do to achieve that quickness? I’ve got some ideas.

1. Prephrase/CLIR

Powerscore refers to Prephrases, Loopholes calls it the “CLIR”. In reality these are just fancy names for educated guesses on what the right answer choice could be, based on a close reading of the stimulus. If you have a prephase/CLIR scan through the answer choices quickly to see if it is there, if it is pick it and move on.

2. Glance over the answer choices initially.

After reading the stimulus and formulating your prephrase. You should glance over the answer choices to see if your prephrase is there, or if an answer jumps out at you. Avoid digging deep into any one answer choice until you’ve looked at all of them and quickly assessed which are winners and losers.

3. Ignore confusing answer choices, at least initially

If you run into an answer choice that confuses you, skip over it. Try to see if another answer choice jumps out you rather than trying to dig deeper into trying to decipher what the answer choice means. If you spot another answer choice that jumps out at you as correct, go with that answer choice and move on. Do not spend any intellectual effort until you have to.

4. Aggressively skip:

It should go without saying that being aggressive with the answer choices goes hand in hand with having an aggressive question skipping strategy. You can’t be aggressive if you don’t understand the stimulus so make sure you are diligent in following your exit strategies. Read more on exit strategies here: https://classic.7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/22449/road-to-170-exit-strategy-long-read-on-a-strategy-to-help-you-attain-a-170-score

5. Know what you are looking for.

This should go without saying but you should be at a point where as soon as you’ve read the question stem you should know what the right answer choice should look like. For example if the question stem asks you to find what COULD BE TRUE EXCEPT. Then immediately you know you are looking for something that MUST BE FALSE. Most people in this situation default to a POE and in some cases that is the only viable strategy but that does not mean you should default to it. Always know what you are looking for!

Caveat:

Note that being aggressive on the LR section is something I would reserve for the high-level test takers who have reached a plateau and want to break through it. If you are just getting started on your LSAT journey, focus on the fundamentals. If you are already reaching your target score, do not change anything. This is primarily for folks who are trying to break into the 170’s and 175’s.

Take Away:

The reason we are doing this strategy is because we want to optimize the time it takes us to answer the easier questions on the LSAT. The quicker we do that, the more time we have to throw at the more difficult questions. The downside is that because we are being aggressive in our choices, sometimes it may cost us a point. This becomes a tough optimization activity. This is why I suggest you only do this if you are a high-level LSAT taker and have plateaued, because the potential benefits may only be 1-2 extra points on each LR section but if you are trying to get to 170 or 175, those are exactly the kind of gains you are seeking! You also have to give this methodology a chance, it will force you out of your comfort zone, most people are inherently risk adverse but in life those that risk the most often gain the most. You also have to modulate how aggressive you are relative to your skill level, there is an optimal point for everyone. I recommend you keep pushing yourself until reach a happy medium. Try it out and see if it works for you!