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@ said:
Those of you who took the exam, What are your plans for the next couple weeks??
Finish the rest of my applications up. Read Wizard and Glass (Stephen King). Play video games.
I thought the first RC passage was incredibly difficult (African cloths) and in hindsight I should have skipped it right off the bat. I tried to power through it and didn't have a firm grasp of what I was reading at all during it. Really hope I was able to get 50% of those questions right at least. I snapped out of it and thought the rest of my RC section was fair. My LR was also manageable, only had to guess on the last one. Same with LG. Wasted too much time on game 4 and had to guess the last question, but felt fine otherwise.
Overall I think I probably went -15. Hoping that puts me right around a 165, which is right in the range of my PTs (163-168). I was hoping to have an incredible test day experience and break into the 170s, but I really don't think that happened, unless my autopilot for passage 1 in RC was perfect.
@ said:
wow my experience using a Mac was terrible, had so many security issues/downloading issues, could not get the chat box to appear, etc.... took about an hour of communication with tech assistance to final figure it out. completely threw me out of rhythm. FML
I had an annoying Mac experience too. I was on Do Not Disturb mode, had all applications closed. But sure enough, I get a Java pop up in the middle of my LR section asking me if I want to update. I instantly closed it down but it threw me off so bad. I had 10 min left and 6 questions to go, and wasted probably the next 2 minutes freaking out about if this was going to cause me problems. I eventually was able to snap out of it and my proctor confirmed after the exam that it isn't an issue, but the time lost due to mental worrying was frustrating in its own right.
What is the point of Do Not Disturb mode if it still allows certain applications to barge through and disturb? So frustrating.
Was having the same problem. Close all other applications (Spotify and Microsoft Teams are big abusers) and try again. If still above 90%, restart your computer.
Don't worry about it too much. In fact, I would try to shake it out of your system entirely by doing a set of 2 super easy LG or 2 super easy RC passages and then STOP STUDYING. You got this. You put in the work for months. Don't burn yourself out at the end here. You want to have all the energy you need for your exam. Fretting about one low PT score isn't going to help you at all.
PT 88 kicked my ass 3 days ago and I take my exam tomorrow. But it's OK. Those late 80s are tough practice tests; use them to represent the worst case scenario of what you would see on an actual exam, not as a predictor of how you are going to perform.
Oh get out of here with this question. AC (C) is the one I selected and I do not buy the explanation given in the video. The scenario JY described is exactly what I was envisioning. Leo is a painter and did that self painting. But his friend Mike did the battle painting and needed some faces to paint for background characters, and oh look, there's Leo, I'll just paint him. That works great and seems to weaken the argument by providing another explanation. Leo being a painter doesn't preclude him from being a live model. In fact, him having done a self-portrait almost makes him, by definition, a live model. I don't see how AC (C) doesn't work.
Can someone help me with why my diagram for this is incorrect? I drew out a circle representing all of DA's oil paintings. Everything in that circle is HO (highly original). I drew a small corner of that as "PWC" (popular with critics) and another small corner of that as "CA" (critically acclaimed).
From this diagram, I concluded that most of her oil paintings that are not PWC are HO. Well yeah, that's exactly what my diagram is telling me.
What's wrong with my diagram? I follow JY's logic, but don't see why mine is incorrect.
This was an easy "nope not wasting time with this one" stimulus. Read it through once, was confused, decided to not make it a wrong AC and waste 3 minutes on it. Quickly scanned the ACs, E seemed to relate to the key premise of the seven-day cycle, selected E and moved on. Happened to get it right and I'll take it, but this is the kind of question I will gladly skip every time.
AC C seemed too simple for me to select and I psyched myself out. I was thinking that a placebo was way too predictable of an answer, question 19 there must be something else to this that I'm not seeing. I thought B was pointing out a distinction between the "nerve in question" being between the back and leg and "nerve in the patient's leg". Was wasting too much time on this one though so I had to move on. But I should have trusted my instinct that just because an AC is obvious doesn't mean it's wrong.
I had trouble choosing between B and C but it clicked on BR for me. B correctly compares a region with a conventionally colder winter with that same region after a more mild winter. That's the premise that the conclusion is trying to describe. C compares one area of the Rockies with another area of the Rockies. Not at all what we are discussing in the premise.
The pedant in me wants to gripe about the thermal-insulating-isn't-cooling rationale. I am an engineer as well. But to be honest, I really think everyone needs to check their background at the door with this exam, bringing any external knowledge like that into a question is only going to hurt you. The biggest reason why E is wrong is not that thermal-insulating actually does provide some cooling effect yada yada yada, it's because nothing in the answer stem or the stimulus tells you that thermal insulation provides a comparable result or benefit as air-conditioning. You're trying to force an answer choice where there is no reason behind it. We are not told thermal insulating = AC, don't assume they are.
Also, the reason why I had difficulty with this question is because the conclusion is very cleverly disguised. I was just thinking AC -> more houses selling or something vague along those lines. I did not connect AC -> /high ceilings and /thick walls (architectural changes). That was very clever how they tucked that in the first sentence. Once you see that is the false conclusion being drawn, and it is a correlation =/= causation issue, answer choice C pops out instantly: the change to thin walls and low ceilings was happening independent of AC, so how can AC be the cause?
Also, this has to be the craziest curve gradient I've ever seen on a question. So 50% of people who got this write scored between a 124 and a 179? What does that even mean lol
Is a question like 19 even worth doing if you still have Passage 4 on the horizon? I saw that question length and thought no way am I getting suckered into that one right now, skipped it, guessed at the end, got it wrong. I stand by that strategy though. Should you ever really be getting into a question like this unless you have everything else taken care of/you are consistently finishing RC with time to spare?
The amount of text alone, the nature of the analogy question stem, the already kind of confusing difficult science content all made this an easy skip to me. Especially now knowing the reality that the correct AC is E, I would have read through that whole extra passage only to be likely second guessing myself and subconsciously freaking out that I wasted too much time on this one already. I just feel like it's not worth that potential 1 point gain and I think I would skip this question 10 out of 10 times it comes up. Thoughts?
@ said:
I took it once and was interrupted by the proctor for moving my lips while reading a passage. She told me I wasn't allowed to read aloud, which I wasn't. It completely threw me off and made me lose focus. You might ask her/him to go over what not to do during testing and let her/him know that you are hoping to prevent interruptions.
Do you mean to say you were allowed to move your lips while reading a passage? Or is that banned and the proctor was right to say you were not allowed to do so? That's the kind of thing that would really bother me if I was interrupted with and make me want to just argue with the proctor and get annoyed. Is there a list of full rules like that?
Was this a really easy question, or did I just get lucky? I saw answer choice A and thought "well yeah, duh". It seemed way too easy. But none of the others made any sense, so I circled A and moved on.
All given a different medical condition the first test. The second test, all of them test the original diagnosis. Well yeah, obviously all of those 2nd tested are going to be unique to each other..
Only went -2 on this section. Really don't know how I missed this one. It was really giving me trouble during the exam and I ended up circling E and moving on, but in hindsight it's so obvious. A provides an alternative explanation that weakens our hypothesis: it's not that carbonated beverages with caffeine are making their bones brittle, it's the fact that they don't drink as much caffeine.
Wish I could get back into my mindset on why A tripped me up. If anyone was also confused and hesitant to select A please let me know!
This one seemed so much harder to me when I was taking it during timed conditions. Was getting confused trying to map it all out in lawgic, thought it would require me to find 4 right answers, and was overwhelmed by the stimulus. But on review, C is such an easy answer. If a bill concerns fundamental issues of importance, it will not be compromised. So how can most FILB bills pass as a result compromise? They can't. C must be false. Don't even waste time trying to show that the other 4 could be true.
I'm not sure about LSAC reimbursing you for a hotel room, but that would be a great option obviously if it can happen.
I know some boutique hotels offer "private offices" now, which are basically just hotel rooms that you pay a significantly lower rate for to just use during the day. I was considering this before I found a better situation for me, but may be something worth looking into as well.
Ah, I quickly eliminated B because "more crashes" seemed to me to be not analogous to "every labrador". I see now that "more" is part of the necessary condition, not describing the relation between snow and crashes as a snow ‑m→ crashes like my brain quickly jumped to.
Good question, should have got this one right but see how I tripped up.
DId anyone else get beaten down by this LR section? -8, yikes.
#help
I saw "can even pass their concerns" and smelled that the correct AC may have something to do with that, but for some reason I read the conclusion as saying "they definitely recognize threatening people and they may or may not pass those concerns on". I saw how negating A would violate the conclusion if we (correctly) assumed that they must also pass their concerns along, but my brain thought "ah yeah but it only says they can, that means they also may not actually do that at all".
Am I butchering a fundamental english word "can" here in that interpretation? I see how if the conclusion was actually "recognize threatening people and can even speak Spanish while doing so", then speaking Spanish would need to be a damn necessary part of the assumption to justify the conclusion. But for some reason "Can pass their concerns" didn't ring to me that it must be true.
This was one of those questions where I did a quick scan and decided to skip it. Seemed way too wordy and murky, with too many conditionals and opposing premises to sort through with 4 questions left to go. In hindsight, I wish I took a little more time to map it out, because the technique JY used to eliminate B, D, and E is so simple and intuitive.
The email that went out yesterday said "Sign-up will begin at 12 noon Eastern Time, Thursday, January 7." What's going on here?
Hmm, the only one that I got wrong on this passage is question 20. I initially struck out E after reading passage A. It didn't feel like Passage A really was using any quantitative data. I know A is using the results of a qualitative study, and it can reasonably be implied that those results constitute "qualitative data", but that was a tricky one for me as I was specifically looking for a quantitative data point.
This happens to me more often than I care to admit. Not just misreading, but more specifically: not seeing a dangling modifier that changes the question stem (really annoying when there is a wrong answer choice that is attractive if you missed that modifier), missing a NOT or EXCEPT, misunderstanding if the question is about the AP or OP, misreading an LG question as "how many can be in group X" instead of "how many can be in group X at one time" or something.
It's frustrating. I don't have a great solution or else I wouldn't be making these mistakes. The only thing I would recommend is to not dwell on these kind of misses too much. I get pissed at myself for 3 seconds, write "READ THE PROMPT" in my notebook, ensure I would have gotten it right if I read it correctly, and move on. The key thing to remember is to just read the question stem slowly and carefully. Unfortunately, I think the only way to learn to do this is to get burned enough times that it becomes a habit.
@ said:
Those of you who sat for the test already, how are you easing your post test anxiety? I can’t stop thinking about everything I did wrong, what I know I messed up, and calculating possible scenarios to hit my goal score. I need to relax, but it won’t leave my brain!
Any tips to make it to Feb 3?
I took it on Saturday and have had this feeling since. To be honest, it's gotten better over time. I started to remember more of the LR questions that I know I got right. I thought about similar PTs when I completely bombed 2 of the games and still got an acceptable score, and how the one RC passage I struggled with wasn't as bad as those PT games. I started to remember to trust myself and that even on the ones I guessed, I had a proven guessing strategy and sometimes you just do get lucky.
Also, if you haven't done your LSAT writing yet do your writing. Not only because it is needed to get your score back, but I honestly found my LSAT writing to be pretty fun to do and I thought I did really well at it. Not that a good writing sample makes up for a bad score, but it just made me feel good about myself and put the good writing sample, more than the test performance, in my brain front and center.