Are you striving to be elite?

This was definitely one of the questions where eliminating the choices was so much easier than trying to understand why the correct choice was correct with limited time.

@ said:

First of all, congratulations to you! You are in a fantastic position.

If I was you, I would consider what sort of work I want to do, and which market I would like to practice it in. For example, if you are dead set on doing biglaw in NYC, Berkeley might not be your best choice. Alternatively, if you want to live in California, a full ride doesn't sound too bad!

Best of luck to you.

I think if Kitana's goal is to do biglaw and in NYC, Berkeley's probably fine. I'm from NYC and a lot of people I know left the city to go to all kinds of schools UC Irvine, Berkeley, Georgetown, WashU, BU, BC, you name it, and were able to get summer associateships in NYC and offers to come back after graduation fine. But I'm not sure if this was because they had ties in NYC and/or went really hard during the application process (i.e., applying direcly to firms even when they didn't do oci at their schools).

However, I feel like Kitana might be hinting at something different. Usually when people say something like that --- "Career goal wise Harvard Law is better for me" --- and their aim is at HYS, they usually wanna do something that is unusual or might not as easily available for those at other T14 schools...

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@-1 I will try it for a few prep tests and see what happens! Thank you.

@ I did start taking more time during blind review. The only explanation videos I do not watch are those answers I was 100% confident in and I got them right. It seems like I need to spend more time on untimed tests and get myself more familiar with both the right answer choices and the wrong answer choices.

Thanks guys, I will try to implement what you have suggested!

Sorry if that was confusing. I did a lot of untimed tests first before starting to time my pts. And my untimed scores went up gradually. First untimed test was 151 I think and then last was 165. I felt confident enough then to start timing myself and it was horrible lol. And now, BR scores are just another thing on its own. In retrospect, I don't regret using about 10 pts untimed, but I regret thinking it would have been somewhat the same when I eventually transitioned to timed pts. It wasn't. There were just a few habits that I had to get rid of from when I was doing untimed pts. But those 10 untimed pts really helped me to understand the concepts really well. Good luck!

I feel like J.Y. uses a big dagger and twist it inside my heart when he says I didn't read the answer choice C very closely. "what kind of businesses??" lol

Megan, it's really a crapshoot for everybody with these very competitive schools. But I think 149 is low, and maybe people do get into HLS with that score, but I think it would be a mistake to think of yourself as the exception and not the rule.

I have an almost perfect GPA and was PT'ing in the 150s range and highest was 160. I was adamant that I would apply to law school this cycle but decided that, like most people, 3.5 months with the LSAT Trainer only was not enough for me. It took me a couple of weeks to fully digest this decision. But once I actually did, I was happy that I allowed myself more time and set myself up as best as I could as an applicant.

I'm not undermining the importance of the LSAT Trainer because it did help me to go from 140-something (diagnostic) to 150s-160 in 3.5 months. But I now know that the LSAT Trainer wasn't enough for me personally. My partner did not take a diagnostic but studied for the LSAT in about 2.5 months with the Kaplan book (a resented book by many) and got 174. My supervisor took a diagnostic test and got 168 or 169, studied for half a month, took the real test, and got a 172. I made a fool of myself thinking that I was like these people, and boy did I make a mistake. Most people aren't like this, and many on here took months and years to study to get to the 170s range.

If you are trying for any of these competitive T-14 schools, take your time with the test but be consistent with your study schedule. Don't sign up for the test unless you're ready (PT-ing in the range you're happy with). It took me a bit to make peace with this decision and figure out some logistics in terms of work and other things. I hope you'll be kind to yourself and make a sound decision!

Also, ACs A and E just like picked such specific points between 80 and 86 (80 and 86)...

I recommend really digging into the blind reviews, if not entirely untimed tests. Maybe even going through every explanation on the preptests. I think it would be really beneficial to understand the concepts first like in knowing how to read and understanding the, say, LR stimuli and why wrong answers are wrong and rights are rights before introducing timed conditions.

I don't want to mislead because i do think time is a significant portion of the test. Myself, I scored 160 (highest) after 4 months of studying, but before that my scores were consistently in the 150s (I had it all 151, 152... 159) under timed conditions. But, my BR has never been lower than 165; i got 169 once. This is after going through the book the LSAT Trainer. 7sage is now my second "prepcourse," but it is encouraging to me because I do know, then, that I spent my time relatively okay by trying to understand the concepts first before timing the preptests.

A: nope, consistent with the stimulus. the author could have only met 1%, or less than that, of the population -> most people can still be neither wise nor intelligent

B: nope, still consistent with the stimulus.

C: plausible, leaving this for now.

D: huh? leaving this for now.

E: nope, more consistent than ever.

Okay, so C and D... I mean I really can't figure out what D really means under pressure (non-native English speaker), but C is/can be consistent with or does not contradict the stimulus at all. Choosing D.

i mean i chose D with some big hesitation and now i see that if it were not jansen's then, without C limiting the ppl who have been to jansen's, this answer choice is of no help. But like choosing C would require us to assume another thing that the prints were not jansen's? Can someone please talk to me like I'm 5.

#help (Added by Admin)

Looking at this as a marathon instead of a sprint, so if you're also thinking the same!

lmaoo, i was left with A and E and I couldn't really make sense of E under timed condition and my feeble mind was forced to have A strengthened the argument -- um well, they live at the base of trees so they could readily climb trees and glide lmaoo

following up. were you able to get a biglaw summer associateship for your 2l summer?

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@ how long did it take you to close the gap?

Hey, I haven't really been able to close the gap just yet. I talked to some folks, and they pretty much just told me to PT crazily. I feel like there must be other ways to supplement/enhance reading skills. But I guess there isn't really any other way around it. Just read, I guess.

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@ said:

Congratulations man! I'm currently working on speed on my LG (consistently -0 in BR) and LR (-3 in BR). But I can't seem to wrap my head around RC. Even with unlimited time in BR, my best was still -9. Do you have any recs for how to improve on RC? Like did you read any nytimes or wapo articles or whatever to improve your comprehension skills? (Native Vietnamese speaker here; moved to US at age 16, now 26 yo.) Thanks a lot in advance!

I read economist during LSAT preparation and I basically dig deep into the passages in BR and even after BR (knowing which questions I got wrong) before listening to JY's explanation videos. I personally believe that although trying to figure out what passages mean and why answers are wrong can be tedious and time-consuming, but the processing of figuring out yourself gives you much more improvement than simply getting the explanation from JY. I think deeper understanding and getting used to some LSAT tricks are important.

Thank you for this! Heard people read economist to improve probably 10 times at this point. Will subscribe to it!

Congratulations man! I'm currently working on speed on my LG (consistently -0 in BR) and LR (-3 in BR). But I can't seem to wrap my head around RC. Even with unlimited time in BR, my best was still -9. Do you have any recs for how to improve on RC? Like did you read any nytimes or wapo articles or whatever to improve your comprehension skills? (Native Vietnamese speaker here; moved to US at age 16, now 26 yo.) Thanks a lot in advance!

I took about 10 timed tests up until a couple of months ago, and my timed scores were in the 150s (studied with the LSAT trainer for 3 months by Mike Kim). I recently started the core curriculum and am on weakening/strengthening questions. DM if you would want to talk more about the logistics etc.

Commenting to get this thread on top. I often wonder how other non-native english speakers have done it as well. Mine journey has been kind of similar with high BR scores while kind of significantly lower in my timed ones.

Not sure if this is helpful at all, but if you can afford it, I would say to go take a long walk in the woods, take lots of deep breaths, and take another year off and do 7sage. Law school will still be there when you are ready :)! We have this saying in my home country that this is "one step backward for 10 steps forward." Whatever you decide to do, good luck!