Regarding the study schedule, if you've already done the core curriculum, I wouldn't do any more than one PT a week. Do that PT one day and then BR it that day and maybe into the next day and then spend the rest of the week working on things the analytics pick up on you being weaker on.

First off, the "Stim" is the set of facts, i.e., what the social critic is saying; the "Stem" is the "Which of the following" that tells us this question is Main Conclusion.

Second, the first and second sentences of PT116.S3.Q14 aren't opposing each other, and the first sentence isn't the conclusion.

The first sentence is just a statement of fact: these operas reflect attitudes and values held at the time. The second sentence is consistent with that fact: it says that some experts interpret the continued presentation of these operas (laden with their 19th c social views) as damagingly reinforcing stereotypical views of women in contemporary society.

The third sentence is where the implied conclusion is. The author says "ok yeah maybe they do reinforce stereotypes, but very few people have seen these operas." The follow-up conclusion that's just dying to be stated is "so it's hard to say they're having this giant impact on our society."

Easiest way to figure out where the conclusion is in this question is to notice the word "But" at the beginning of the third sentence. That indicates a key change in direction in this Stimulus. Figuring out the unstated conclusion is just seeing the direction is the Stim is going. "OK, so the Author tells us a lot of people haven't seen these operas. How is that meant to attack the claim that they have a big impact on our society?"

Two ways to improve generally:

(1) think of these arguments in your own words as if you were talking to someone totally random. The first two sentences of this Stim are intended to serve as background. If you just jumped in with sentence 3, the random person you're talking to would just be like "HUH?"

(2) Practice, practice, practice. The more drills you do (of MC and other question types), the easier these questions get. The LSAT is filled with patterns. "People say X, BUT actually Y is true" is one of their favorites, and it's the underlying structure of this question.

Depends on the question.

If it's one of those easier "what did the author mean in using this word?" questions, then yeah I usually go in knowing exactly what I'm looking for and skim the other ACs more for peace of mind than anything else. Those 1* and 2* questions are pretty few and far between for most passages, so I'd say they're the exception to the rule. For most questions I'd say the best approach is POE, which obv requires you read each AC.

Because it's such a low number of super easy questions where I think NOT reading every AC is a viable strategy, I don't think you really stand to gain that much time by skipping ACs. I'd say MAYBE 30 seconds to a minute per RC section?

Unfortunately because this wasn't a disclosed test, we won't be able to see the questions.

In terms of how to study moving forward, if you're averaging between 165-170, you know this test. You tested lower than your true average, and you should have confidence going into the next test knowing you'll score closer to your true average. Work on what you need to work on but I wouldn't say you need to make any radical changes in your study plans. YOU CAN DO THIS!!!

Looks like writing's availabe Aug 27th and then projected score release is Sept 25th.

https://www.lsac.org/lsat/lsat-dates-deadlines/september-2024-lsat

I don't know of a hard and fast deadline other than the day scores are released, so I'd do it either before the test or within a week after (give your brain some time to rest, then spend a few hours doing the practice sections on Law Hub and watching the 7sage demo videos).

I'd say PF/PR questions are one of the highest level questions that build as you study them on their own and as you improve in other areas of the test: as you get better at identifying Flaws, Conclusions, Assumptions, etc., your PF/PR will simultaneously improve. It's definitely a question type that takes a lot of practice, so be patient.

I'd also look at how you're drilling them. When I'm taking a section, I usually skip PF/PR and leave them for the end when I have more time to work throught them, so if you're trying to blow through them in the 1 min 20 seconds or so that you're supposed to spend on each question, it might be worth spending a little more time on them.

There's this post from a while back that kinda collectively compiled what you're looking for:

https://classic.7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/259/cheat-sheet-lr-question-types

Here's my master list of Flaws:

One. Use of Evidence Error

a. General Lack of Relevant Evidence: “society is more polarized. But it has always been polarized so therefore it isn’t more polarized now.”

Example Answer: “The author cites irrelevant data.” “It uses inapplicable info . . .” “It fails to give any reason”

b. Internal Contradiction: “Everyone should join our club. After all, it’s an exclusive club.”

Example Answer: “bases a conclusion on claims that are inconsistent with each other” “the author makes irreconcilable presuppositions”

c. Exceptional Case/Overgeneralization: “That store scammed two of my friends, therefore it scams everyone.”

Example Answer: “supports a general claim on the basis of a single example”

d. Errors in Assessing the Force of Evidence

i. Lack of Evidence FOR=Position is False: “White House hasn’t offered any evidence they’ve struck a deal w the Chinese. Therefore, they haven’t”

Example Answer: “treats failure to prove a claim as constituting denial of that claim”

ii. Lack of Evidence AGAINST=Position is True: “No evidence v God=God exists”

Example Answer: “treating the failure to prove a claim to be false as if it is a demonstration of the truth of that claim”

iii. Some Evidence AGAINST=Position is False: “Historians: long Aztec drought. Author: but there was at least 1 year of heavy flooding, so there must not have been a drought.”

Example Answer: “it confuses weakening an argument in support of a given conclusion with proving the conclusion itself to be false”

iv. Some Evidence FOR=Position is True: “Defendant was in the general area when the robbery took place; therefore they’re guilty”

Example Answer: “the argument treats evidence showing mere plausibility as if it proves that the conclusion is in fact true”

e. Unproven v. Untrue

PT64 S3 #14: “Arnot’s argument is FALSE because it relies on a faulty assumption.” Flaw: you can legitimately say “Arnot’s premises fail to prove his conclusion, but that doesn’t mean we know his claim is false. That’s like saying “the FBI’s recent statistics do not prove that national crime levels have gone down under Joe Biden. Therefore, Pete Buttigieg’s claim to the contrary is false.”

Two. Ad Hominem Attack

Example Answer: “it is directed against the proponent of a claim rather than against the claim itself.” “The attack is directed against the person making the argument rather than directing it against the argument itself”

Three. Circular Reasoning

Eg “I must be telling the truth bc I’m not lying

Example Answer: “presupposes what it sets out to prove,” “it assumes what it is attempting to demonstrate”

PT82 S1 #22: Barter Systems

-Most common wrong answer on Flaw Questions

Four. Conditional Reasoning Error

a. Mistaken Negation

b. Mistaken Reversal: mistakes being sufficient to achieve a particular outcome for being required to achieve it”

Confuses NC for SC: “from the assertion that something is necessary to a given goal, the argument concludes that the thing is sufficient for its achievement”

Confuses SC for NC: “confuses a sufficient condition with a required condition”

Tricky one from PT25 LR4 #23 (Flaw): The Prem says AAT→UAPC→CS (appreciate advances in tech, understand architecture of personal computers, computer scientists). The Conc says: CS→AAT, which is an obvious Mistaken Reversal, but this ? is so late in the test that there’s no way the flaw is going to be stated so easily in the AC. The correct AC reads “The argument ignores the fact that some CS may not AAT made in the last decade.”

AAT→CS // Because we know we can’t make the Mistaken Reversal of CS→AAT, we know that there MUST BE SOME CS who AREN’T appreciative of the advances in tech. So we can therefore say “CS←s→ ~AAT”, which is what the AC says in plain English

This is kinda like the answer to the Gecko Lizards and Gnats Question

c. Belief-Plus-Conditional Flaw

d. Knowledge-Plus-Conditional Flaw

e. Intent-Plus-Conditional Flaw

f. Desire-Plus-Conditional Flaw

These are all subsets of the same flaw: we say “James believes/knows/intends/desires X. We also know the Conditional X→Y is true. THEREFORE, James MUST believe/know/intend/desire Y.”

Five. Cause and Effect Error

a. Assuming Cause Based on Sequence: “mistakes a temporal relationship for a causal relationship,” “mistakes the occurrence of one event after another for proof that the second event is the result of the first”

b. Correlation ≠ Causation: “confusing the coincidence of two events with a causal relation between the two”, “assumes a causal relationship where only correlation has been indicated”

c. Failure to Consider Alternate or Third Causes: “fails to exclude an alternative explanation for the observed effect”, “overlooks the possibility that the same thing may causally contribute to both”

d. Failure to Consider Reversed Relationship: “the author mistakes an effect for a cause”

Six. Straw Man

Example Answer: “refutes a distorted version of an opposing position”, “misdescribing the opposing position, thus making it easier to challenge”

Ex: PT12 S1 #18: Erik attacking Frieda’s recommendation to install lightning rods on every building by saying “but faulty wiring and overloaded circuits causes far more fires and damages to equipment than lightning does”!

Seven. Appeal Fallacies

a. Improper Appeal to Authority

Example Answer: “the judgment of experts is applied to a matter in which their expertise is not relevant”, “bases a conclusion solely on the authority of the claimant, without seeking further proof”

b. Appeal to Popular Opinion/Numbers

Example Answer: “popular sentiment is treated as definitive proof of a claim”, “the author makes an appeal to public opinion without requiring an adequate basis for the conclusion of the argument”

c. Appeal to Emotion

Example Answer: “attempts to persuade by making an emotional appeal”

d. Survey Errors

i. Selection Bias: FDR 1936 Literary Digest

ii.Leading Questions: “How soon should the US withdraw from the UN?

iii. Inaccurate Responses: “uses evidence drawn from a sample that may not be representative”, “assumes that every polled individual provided a truthful response”

iv. Misc Experimental Design Issues (eg not having a control group for the “In a sample containing 1,000 peanuts” Q, AC C

v. Errors of Composition and Division / Part to Whole

Comp: Author attributes characteristic of part of the group to the group as a whole or every member

Example Answer: “assuming that because something is true of each of the parts of a whole it is true of the whole itself”, “takes the beliefs of one scientist to represent the beliefs of all scientists

Div: Author attributes a characteristic of the whole to a part of the group

Example Answer: “presumes w/o warrant that what is true of a whole must also be true of each of its parts

Eight. Uncertain Use of a Term or Concept (Most Frequent WRONG Answer)

False Analogy

Example Answer: “treats two very different cases as if they are similar”

Nine. False Dichotomy

Example Answer: “fails to consider that some voters may be neither strong supporters nor strong opponents of the suggested amendment”

Ten. Time Shift/Temporal Error: “the company has always reimbursed me for meals, so they will tomorrow”

Example Answer: “treats a claim about the current state of affairs as if it were a claim about what has been the case for an extended period”, “draws an unwarranted inference from what has been true in the past to what will be true in the future”

Eleven. Relativity Flaw: “James is the tallest boy in the class, so he must be tall [generally]”

Twelve. Sunken Cost Fallacy

Thirteen. Numbers and Percentages Errors

a. Market Share Errors: “the argument confuses an increase in market share with an increase in overall revenue”

b. Assuming Averages Apply to ALL Constituent Parts

PT45 LR1 #11: Stim: “the avg cost of groceries will rise again next month. Consequently, butter and eggs can be expected to cost more next month.” AC: “The avg amount of time spent by people younger than 20 in watching TV has recently risen rapidly. Therefore, the amount of time fourth graders spend watching TV must have risen recently.”

Fourteen. Shelby County Error

“Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”

“Only 1000 CPUs got the virus, so therefore the antivirus companies were just trying to sell us their programs”

Fifteen. “If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It”

Go to AC: if the present is substantially different than the past, then this is flawed. Ex: PT3 S2 #14: Physicians in training

100% this.

Eventually too you'll find yourself thinking back on old RC passages and think to yourself "man that was a cool passage" or it'll come up in convo w friends and you'll realize you're actually genuinely finding the stuff interesting. There are a lot of genuinely boring RC articles out there, but I think for naturally curious people like those who want to go to law school, most of the passages can be interesting, it's just the density and intentionally poor writing that can put you off.

Also prolly best to learn how to find things interesting now bc I'm guessing not every single part of law school and practice is absolutely riveting.

If by "in this", you mean 7sage and studying for the LSAT more generally, then yeah. I don't have a background in formal logic, but based on a quick Google search, it seems you're right about that other symbol.

My guess is that from a pedagogical point of view, students find it more intuitive to cross things out on paper with a ~ or /. From what I can tell, the LSAT really only scratches the surface of what formal logic can do, so it's more efficient to go with symbols that intuitively make sense to everyone rather than teaching them something that's technically correct but could be confusing in the heat of the LSAT.

Yeah for most of us it just takes time. If you've done all of the curriculum, you have a solid foundation, now it's just time to convert that abstract knowledge of question types and approaches into instinct, and that only comes through practice, practice, practice. Also, something I didn't totally understand until later in my studies: quality over quantity. Drilling 50 Weaken questions in a day is great, unless you're not really digging into each question during the drill and on BR.

Keep chugging, you got this!

Couple of suggestions:

Join a study group if you're not already in one, preferably with people in a similar score range. A lot of the improvements on the LSAT come from recognizing (often for the first time in your life) your idiosyncracies in terms of how you approach certain questions or even interpret certain words.

Take breaks! Especially as you get down to the wire in September, overloading your brain is not the solution. Your brain needs time to digest what you're feeding it.

Are you Wrong Answer Journaling? If no, then you should be. If yes, make sure you have a consistent schedule for reviewing that thing.

Give yourself a pat on the back because you've already been GRINDING for a few months.

Depends on how much time you're taking for the curriculum drills: is it shorter or longer than the standard 1 minute and ~20 seconds per question?

Also (not a super concrete response) changing your mindset could help. I found when I was working through the curriculum I took the drills embedded in the curriculum much more seriously than I did my own drills. I don't know if it was to prove to myself that I was actually learning or what, but I noticed it had a sizeable impact on how many I got wrong on my personal drills.

Another personal theory of mine: the "You Try" questions embedded in the curriculum tend to select questions that are (a) similar in reasoning and answer choices to the questions youv'e just seen JY demonstrate in the Lessons and (b) much more traditional/orthodox in how they present that reasoning. That's intentional because the curriculum is designed to help you see patterns, but it isn't perfectly representative of questions in "the wild" (no shade to 7sage tho bc there's tons of nuance to LSAT questions so I wouldn't expect anyone to be able to perfectly prepare students for every single question variant they'll ever see). So part of your lower performance on your personal drills could be down to that.

In terms of moving forward, just keep plugging along. Keep BRing, keep reviewing your Wrong Answer Journal, keep studying WHY you're getting certain questions wrong. Improvement will come if you put in the work. It always does.

If you're talking about Flaw Questions specifically, I think in the vast majority of instances, that abstract AC language you're struggling with is ususally present in the ONLY conditional-related AC of the 5 options. If you read the Stim and can immediately tell "Ah, it's a Conditional Flaw", hunt for that abstract SC-NC switch answer. The questions that actually require you to parse the difference between two similar yet slightly different Conditional Flaw answer choices are extremely few and far between.

Also follow-up to that point: those questions that DO require you to parse are generally harder in difficulty and so usually appear towards the middle and end of the section. So if you see a Conditional Flaw and are worried about the abstract language on a Question #7, for example, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

So do try to get the abstract language down when you're reviewing your PTs, but at the end of the day I wouldn't stress too much over not being able to parse through the particular abstract language when you're in the heat of a test given Conditional Flaw Questions usually only have one Conditional-related Flaw answer choice.

Depends on how much time has passed between your diagnostic and your most recent PT. 1 week? Yeah probably just down to typical variation and still learning the mechanics of the LSAT. Several months after having completed the curriculum? Then there might be some problems.

So, have you completed the curriculum or are you still working through it? How long have you been studying so far? Are you Blind Reviewing? Are you Drilling? Are you Wrong Answer Journaling? BUT, most importantly, are you taking care of your own mental and physical health?

Sorry to pepper you with so many questions, but some more context on what you've been doing so far would help diagnose the issue I think.

I'd say what you're experiencing is totally normal! PTs vary in terms of difficulty, especially given which types of questions you're best at. Three PTs certainly represents a lot of effort, but by the time you're done studying, you'll have ideally taken many more PTs, so fluctuation between only three tests is to be expected by the law of averages.

Also, Idk how far through the curriculum you are, so some of the variation could certainly be down to that. Especially if you're still getting the hang of the approach to certain question types, it can actually be expected to see score decline: it's more important at this point in your studies to take questions slow and methodically analyze them as you've learned than it is to power through on raw intuition like we all did on our diagnostic.

2 pieces of adivce:

(1) PTs vary in difficulty - even if 7sage says "oh this LR section was 3* and this one was 2*", it's all relative to your given ability on certain question types.

(2) It's OK to rest! I am a big believer that more and more studying is not always the answer. If you've been studying hard since early June and are experiencing consistent score decline, it might be time to take a week off to give your brain a break and give it an opportunity to soak up all the information you've been studying.

A few of my own thoughts:

-There's this really helpful study method I found on a forum post that's a few years old (scroll to the top to find what I'm talking abt - I think the hyperlink takes you to a random comment): https://classic.7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/26560/my-guide-to-reading-comprehension-part-1-long-ish-post

-Like adriana said, active reading is key. I've found the highlight function helps me stay engaged. A lot of people use the various highlighting tools to note viewpoints, or main ideas, or tricky details they think will come up later. I more just highlight important ideas as they come up to keep myself engaged rather than to specifically revisit them later on in the passage, but everyone has their own method. More than anything, I think just doing lots and lots of RC sections helps. Every once in a while you're gonna have a section you do poorly on, but over the long haul you can get your accuracy up by just seeing lots of questions and passages - seeing how the question / passage writers like to structure things

-Like spittingnickels said, read challenging material. I've read some challenging material in college, but the LSAT is a very different type of reading. Most of the time in school you're reading for content or argument, whereas the LSAT wants you to pay very special attention to STRUCTURE and PURPOSE. Yes there are a lot of must be true questions in RC like "What does the Author mean by this word?" or "The passage provides sufficient information to answer which of the following questions?" but a lot of the harder RC questions (for me at least) come from understanding the author's thought process beyond the explicit text of the passage: tough inferences, organizational intent, why they put certain sentences where, etc.

--Maybe it's just me, but I've found that reading academic works by specifically British authors has helped. I think it's helped me stay on my toes and not know what's coming next because their diction, sentence structure, and style of writing are just slightly different than American authors.

It's OK! It's a really difficult test and I think we've all felt really helpless and defeated and that we're only smart enough for Thomas Cooley Law School at some point in our study journeys. I wouldn't recommend waiting to master each question type one by one because (a) I think that will cause you to hyperfocus and get rusty when you move on to another question type and (b) though the question types are distinct, they're also all related, so I do think some of the improvement on say Necessary Assumption questions comes through strengthening your grip on Main Conclusion and Sufficient Assumption questions.

I think it's also worth considering what your goals are: if you want to go T14, then you probably do want to be aiming for absolute mastery on each of the question types. If you'd be happy going somewhere top 50, you certainly want to be really good at each question type, but getting those 5* questions that just stump the crap out of you aren't necessarily worth the time investment.

Also one thing I'm a big advocate of is taking time away from this test. A week, two weeks, or any amount of time that lets you take your mind off the LSAT and focus on something you love. Read a book! Go enjoy nature in the last few months of summer! But most importantly, take care of yourself.

If you're scoring in the 170s on BR, you clearly know the material. But being able to recall it in a minute and twenty seconds is another thing. Getting mid 160s / 170s BR is super impressive, especially considering you've only been studying for less than two months. I'd just chalk this up to time. Getting that absolute MASTERY is only going to come with time - more drills, more PTs, etc.

Regarding your stress about competing with people on a 4.33 scale: your LSAC GPA might not reflect this, but adcomms will look at your GPA and your school and be able to say "oh this school doesn't give A+s" - they aren't going to penalize you based on the school you went to. So I wouldn't look at it like you're being compared to someone with a 4.2, they're more looking at what you accomplished given what your school allowed you to do. And I think if your school has as strong an anti-grade inflation reputation as you say, adcomms will take that into account too. Besides, a 3.72 is nothing to be ashamed of! Don't let all those 4.0/180 HYS people keep you down.

Are you attempting the drills in strict LSAT-esque time increments? Eg 1 min 10 sec per question? If so, you might want to dial it back and give yourself some more time while you're still getting a hang of the mechanics of the LSAT. If you don't think timing is the issue, maybe take some time off of MSS and come back to it at a later time.

@ I'd assume they're just applying to schools that start rolling admissions in October, so the odds of getting in are slightly better the earlier you apply. If your schools don't even look at your app until December, I wouldn't sweat taking November rather than October.

Took it last week (taking actual thing on Saturday). Like other people have said - don't stress it. LSAC's trying to make it out like it's going to be a huge part of adcomms' decision-making process, but I'm calling cap on that. It's pretty chill.

I'm not really sure how to think about this either - it's certainly sending my mind through a loop - but thankfully, I've never seen a Most/Some question reach this level of difficulty on the LSAT.

Depends on how you've been studying. If you've mostly done the curriculum and drills to get the material down (which clearly you have if you're scoring in the high 160s), then doing PTs more frequently to build stamina might be the move. If you have been doing PTs pretty consistently, I know people who have made other lifestyle changes to help: dropping TikTok, IG reels, YouTube shorts, etc to help their attention span. Idk what your exact situation is, but those are a couple of ideas just to help you think broadly about what can change.