I am a few months shy of 27. Its been stressing me out that I'm going to apply for 2019 and that so far I have done less in my life than I wanted to at this point... But I am trying to put that behind me. So here is to not letting age matter.

Im done with the CC, but I would love to do some drills as well as BR. Can we do some of the harder NA and Flaw types? I am free Tuesday, Friday, at 7pm est and am flexible on weekends. .

Okay- so here is my long and drawn out explanation to myself as i reasoned out this question... I still don't fully understand or think that my explanation is all that good, but I tried to wrap my head around it...

PT 28 S1 Q25

MicKinley mentions that

the drug will have various effects, which will make us aware of who is getting the drug or placebo.

can’t perform the double blind.

Engle says:

you are assuming you know the outcome of the study

therefore you’re wrong that you can’t perform the double blind.

Engle seems to think that McKinley is talking about the outcome of the study, but what if McKinley is talking about something else? A side effect? We need to find an answer tries to bring out this gap in thought.

A, B, E are way off.

C. Presumes that the placebo will produce no effects whatever on the patient’s body. I chose this because he’s thinking that McKinley references that taking the medication will cause something to happen to the people, whereas if they’re on the placebo they might not experience anything and then you’d know which one they’re taking.

D. Refering to the drug’s therapeutic effects rather than any known side effects… I don’t get this at all. How can we even know whether Engle thinks that McKinley is talking about a side effect or the therapeutic effect. Is it because of the word outcome? The outcome is the therapeutic effect and a side effect would not be the outcome… so if you had a drug that was supposed to control your blood pressure, the control of your blood pressure would be the “outcome” or therapeutic effect. Engle thinks that he’s referring to this outcome, as opposed to some side effect such as dizziness, fatigue, etc.

D is the correct answer Engle believes that McKinley is referring to the desired outcome of the trial when he may be considering something else. No where in McKinley's argument does he state that he's talking about an outcome. Engle just takes it for granted.

C is not correct. We know that the drug may have various effects on the patient. We don’t really know anything about what the placebo does or does not do. Since McKinley doesn’t really say much about the placebo, Engle can’t really presume that McKinley thinks something about it.

I had trouble with this flaw question. I chose E and the reason that I did so was because i thought there was a problem in them assuming that accidents automatically caused loss of life. I guess that the usage of "could undoubtedly..." means that not all accidents cause loss of life.

I knew that this was a correlation/causation question and that there was automatically an issue. On second glance I realized that C was the answer by intuition. It was an oh duh... moment. The argument is not about people dying in accidents, but rather that there is a causal link between red cars and accidents. The argument does not take into account that maybe red cars don't cause more accidents, but people who are risky drivers like red cars.

I don't know if that is technically necessary. say... you don't really have basketball skills, but you're 8 feet tall and so you win every game for your team or something.

I think necessary assumptions are weak, more general applications, as illustrated by being alive, dribbling, knowing what a basketball is, etc. When you start to get to absolutes (none or all) it becomes less necessary because there's an instance when it might not be the case that.

Thanks for the input and the article. I'll mix some LR and RC in with the games too.

A spreadsheet is a really good idea. Is the first pass what you learned from watching the video? I'm a little confused as to how that works. if you don't mind sharing, that is.

I'm looking at Feb/June so if I can jump in, I would be grateful!

I would postpone, but not give up. I definitely recommend going back through the CC. It's a pain, but it's really helpful. I went through it completely twice and it's a big help. Now I'm just refering back to it as needed. Also, I don't know how long you've been studying, but taking a break can be a big help. I took a lot of time off because I was panicking and stressing out so bad that all of my PTs were bad. I came back, did the CC again, took my time. Progress can be painfully slow, but don't give up.

What is it that you look for when you're recording yourself? Is it just how long you're spending on each question? I'm not really sure what I'm looking for when I re-watch.

My Understanding of Answer Choice D was that his conclusion that Debbie didn't use slight of hand, a trick deck, or a volunteer automatically meant that something besides those three things had to have caused her magic trick to work. As a result, he doesn't fail to consider that a 4th option was possible.

I guess I failed to recognize that students with intense interest and students who lack all interest isn't a binary cut. So there's a group of students who could possibly have mild interest, and for them, grades might be useful. Answer choice E reflects this and is the correct answer.

For some reason answer choice C sounded good to me. It sound great to just say that grades could be useful for something else. But we don't have any information about nonacademic settings. That's just not relevant.

This is such good advice. It seems counterintuitive, but taking breaks, hanging out with friends, and relaxing can make major differences. I love it.

This is awesome. lG are still where I'm struggling. I'm still missing so many under timed pressures and then going -3 or less in BR. Thanks for the inspiration to keep going!

You can do it! Take your time learning all of the material and don't give up. Like a lot of people already commenting, my diagnostic was a 148. My last timed PT was 163 and I've been BR in the 167 range. So don't give up. It takes time and patience with yourself. Don't beat yourself up. Just stay positive and keep going.

This is pretty much where I am right now and it's mainly thanks to logic games. I find that there is usually one game that I just kind of blank on during the timed exam. Under BR I get -3 to -5 or so. I know I can do it. It's just really frustrating. If you're struggling with LR I would definitely go back through CC. I did this and I just find myself more confident moving about the test. If it's test anxiety, which is what typically happens to me, you can try to mitigate that. There's a webinar about meditating - the practice of which I think is helpful for me because I often get anxious and lose focus on certain passages or just panic on games. Being mindful/ meditation practice can help you notice when your mind starts to drift and you start just reading but are not comprehending what is going on.

I ended up choosing C after sitting and debating with choices B and C for a long time. My understanding of why C i wrong is that it plays more to our sensibilities than it does the actual passage. By that I mean, we have to assume that science is the superior authority. The passage doesn't say, well science is better than your opinion, so therefore you're wrong. It just says we've used scientific data to show this alternate interpretation of the your evidence, which is what B states.

Hey @gregoryalexanderdevine723 Thanks for posting this. I've been studying since January, floundering is more like it, until I found 7sage in April. I wanted to sit the September test, but with a full time job and trying to cram as much as possible, I realized that I wasn't actually learning the curriculum. It was terrifying making the decision to postpone, but after watching @cmelman95659 's webinar and reading your post, I know its the best decision for me.

I was struggling with this too. What I've found to be helpful is to isolate the assumption that the passage makes and then ask, what absolutely must be be true in order for this argument to work. Then as I go through the answer choices I ask myself does this absolutely have to be true. What happens if it isn't true. Does it wreck the argument?

Wow logged in and saw this. I'm from central jersey. Haha.

Congrats!!!

Thanks for the advice and support. I've printed multiple copies of all the games from pt 7-18 for now for drilling practice. It just seems so foreign. I do like Sudoku haha. Too bad it's only a correlation.

Oh wow. I may have gone in cold for the SAT and the GRE, but the LSAT? No way. It's hard to.believe that some of these people who aspire to go to Law school haven't done enough research on how to get there.