LSAC won't be willing to change anything, and the JC has no control over it. You could include an addendum, but if you do it should be very very short, like 1 or 2 sentences (adcoms don't want to have to read even more).

IMO:

LG have gotten harder mechanically, but far easier in terms of figuring out what is going on. For example, Hanna game (PT 2, Game ?) was one of the hardest games to map out, but ludicrously easy to solve. And PT 76 game 3 was easy to figure out what was going on, but hard to solve. Of course it's more standardized, so you don't have any more like the bus games (I think PT 36?) or mauve dinosaurs (PT 57?), but it's definitely harder. Also, I think they have been transitioning slightly more back towards the games being harder to map out (see PT 75, game 4).

RC, I think, was pretty easy-ish from PT 1-55 or so. Around there it suddenly got much harder. Recently, especially since PT 67 or so I think it has gotten easier. Shorter passages, fewer trick answers, and fewer inferences that are totally WTF. I thought that the Oct test was actually pretty simple RC-wise. Not much harder than I'd expect on an SAT.

LR I don't think has changed very much. I think it has gradually gotten more abstract and less literal, but other than that, I think it is pretty similar to PT 1. I guess the only way that it has changed a lot is that especially in recent tests it has de-emphasized formal logic, leaving that to the LG section.

@sarahfatima:

Much easier solution. Buy a $10 casio, reset to X:25 between every section. It can even do the break! Reset it to X:45 :)

6

I don't think that would work, although I am open to other discussion. It might still be the best choice, but I don't think the argument neglects the possibility of disagreement. It only neglects the possibility of agreement. The last sentence (degree to which .. .emotional impact ... difference wildly) directly addresses the possibility that people disagree over this -- wildly even!

@joannewu9287:

Love to share, and I may disappoint, haha, because I don't really know. In a class I instruct someone asked me this question the other day and I've been having trouble creating a coherent answer.

More I have a list of tips:

1) I really really make sure I get the passage. In the same way that I can tell if I didn't get a LR passage, and need to reread it, I can feel that in RC. If I don't get a paragraph I reread. I can always zoom through the questions and probably have a decent idea of the answer choice anyway, so I don't mind wasting 5+ minutes per passage.

2) Once the passage is locked into my mind, I attack the questions similarly to how I attack LR. I eliminate the wrong stuff mercilessly, but also realize that RC is subtler. It doesn't repeat as much and on almost every question there are at least 2 that are somewhat plausible, which is very different from LR, where on most questions only 1 is even plausible at all. I tend to not refer back to the passage because of my upfront work, although I will. If I do, I read roughly 3 lines ahead/behind. Typically the answer matters more on the _context_ of where you referred than what it actually said.

Example:

On a question that asks what "decent idea" meant in my tip 1 above (most strongly supported) a correct answer is far more likely to be about rereading than about what "decent idea" means. The LSAT tries to be subtle, in that way, but it's easy to see through

3) Realize that a lot of the test can be about intuition. At least 2 points of my improvement were entirely due to pattern recognition. In the same way that sometimes LR answers "feel" weird, sometimes RC answers aren't the type of answer that LSAC has given in the past. Stuck between 2 answer choices, I will almost always choose that one that feels more LSAT-y to me.

(This certainly works on LR, and even on LG!!! On the Oct test I missed a full rule in the third game! I still got all of the questions right because I could feel that the game relied mostly on two letters and I had a halfway decent idea of the dynamics between those letters without the rule I needed, and I had an idea of the type of answers that LSAC goes for, so I guessed correctly five times. I remember thinking on one question "it just doesn't feel right that this game board would be tested on this question, but the rules allow it, right?" Of course, I also dreaded my score for a full month once I realized I had ^$^#*@# MISSED A RULE)

4) For studying: read more stuff. I read dense stuff for several months to get my mind into the correct frame. This was stuff like The Economist, The Origin of Species, various scientific papers, philosophy etc. I just put it on my phone and read at the bus stop, and tried to analyze it.

Honestly, other than that, I've got no real advice. RC is hard. Took me a very long time to improve.

@569

Mine wasn't affordable at all. The person whom I hired is not an Ivy League grad, but is a brandname, so was above-average in terms of cost. I have no one else to compare them to, but I think that what they charged is reasonable in the context of law school. And honestly, this person was no fake. They knew what they were doing, their advice was not generic in the least, and I do believe that:

1) Using last year's essays this year, I would have been rejected at one or more of my match schools

2) Using the essays I wrote with my consultant, I will be accepted at one or more reach schools and get into every match school.

Only negative: The secondary proofreaders that my consultant used were somewhat unreliable.

^^^ Read Pacifico's answer. My consultant made my applications vastly superior this year to what they were last year. I was terrified that I'd get a great LSAT score and it would be my essays that sunk me. If I don't get into one of my reach schools, I can tell you for sure that it was not my essays this time.

My general theory on why I hired mine (who was totally $%&#@#^ expensive) was that at this point in my life, I want no regrets about why I do. And if I didn't hire a consultant and then didn't get into my reach schools, I would have at least one regret for the rest of my life.

And mine provided full service (including optional and scholarship essays), cost me a bundle, and I found out about them from some LSAT-related media that I consume. PM for more details.

I think depends on your ability per section and goals. Assuming you are taking in December:

If you are getting more than -5 on LG, definitely focus that for a week at least, but still drill other stuff. LG is easy to improve in and can cause the most dramatic shift in your score, especially this close to the test. If you do make a huge improvement here, don't do what I did and then put it down. Keep drilling at least a game or two every day, preferably a whole section per day.

(Incidentally, once you learn it, it is easy to relearn. I literally relearned my LG the week before my October test)

I'd say the same thing about LR, if and only if there are specific question types that you are missing. For example, do you understand the difference between a sufficient and necessary assumption and could you quickly improve just by learning that better?

Don't ever focus RC. It's just too hard to improve. RC has to be improved slowly just by reading more stuff in general.

Keep in mind that you can always update the adcom later with an addendum if you would like to write one about your LSAT. Personally I delayed sending in my apps until I had my LSAT score because I knew I would have to write an addendum (took test 3 times) but of course that was after October, not December. Working with a consultant it took me a couple weeks post-score to finish everything off -- I had already written my PS, DS, and a couple other things. Just submitted last two apps yesterday.

@rossholley902

These are both sufficient assumption questions. In the first question, D does satisfy the assumption. But in 63.01.10, answer choice (D) does not satisfy the assumption.

The argument is: she did something -> caused damage -> therefore should pay if she knew.

The _entire_ conclusion is the last sentence, and since no support is provided for it, we cannot reasonably assume that it is correct that she _should_ pay if she knew that the damage would be caused.

Therefore, "D" did not fill a gap at all. D says that she knew, so _if_ the conclusion had been that she should pay, then D would fill a gap. But the conclusion doesn't say that. It says IF she knew then she should pay. The difference is that the conclusion is not actually drawn about what she should do.

What fills the gap is answer choice (A). A says exactly what we were looking for -- if one knew then one should pay. It's kind of like a principle question -- right now we have a situation and we are drawing a conclusion about how we should act in that situation, based not on a formal logic argument but on a principle that ca be broadly applied to draw conclusions.

@974 No, several people did research on the topic and found evidence that that is the case. Glad you think it's hilarious though.

#statusquoFTW

Would you be willing to share this research? I have done some googling around and have not found anything that says the test is racially discriminatory -- only that asian/white people score higher.

@myso597

Whatever you eat, I would suggest making it the same thing that you do during your PT. For me, that meant a PB&J sandwich. I even was taking the test in my parents' area (my city is too loud to get reliable sleep) and they buy different kind of bread from what I use, so I brought two slices of my bread with me there. It's definitely correlation, not causation, but the tests where I didn't eat the same thing as during my PT I got a substantially lower score, haha.

@974

I think that you may find the most recent RC to be a bit easier. Might want to check, just to see if you are getting a true estimate with the tests you're on currently. For me is was fairly consistent prior to the 50's or so, then got super duper hard, and then got easier after about #67 or so.

@bondo007man235:

I actually think that's one of the best ways to do these. Is it flawed? Eliminate everything that isn't. Not flawed? Eliminate everything that is. You can even count sentences: ie in the stimulus the flaw was in the third sentence, so it should be here too.

@artwork94693: glad to help!

@markariangeorge725: Glad to hear! No problem! Sorry I didn't get back sooner -- just finishing off my apps :)

@as5324392

I have a theory for people who can't go quickly on LR. I think that people give too much respect to the answer choices.

Just for perspective on my technique, on the October test I got 3 LR sections. I finished the three sections with 5, 10, and 15 minutes remaining (not counting the time I used to go back and recheck what I had circled). I had -1/-2 on the two real sections. Can't match the time to number wrong, but that's pretty typical for my preptests.

Anyway, I think that people who don't move that fast give too much respect to the answer choices. I suspect that as you go through the answer choices, you may be trying to make them work instead of realizing that they are almost certainly (80% chance) totally wrong.

Here's how I approach it. First I read the argument as many times as I need to until I feel it click in my head. This may be 2, 3, or even 4 times. If I get to that many times, I will probably take a break and meditate for 10 seconds. Typically it's 2 times and roughly 20 seconds here.

Then I approach the answer choices, and I totally rip through them. I will read as little as I need to to eliminate it mercilessly. I semi-frequently eliminate all 5 choices (maybe 5 times/test) but will eliminate it for any reason. Typically first pass is 5-10 seconds/answer and second pass, if necessary (typically not) is 20 seconds/answer, as I have to compare them.

For example:

Argument: A controlled experiment found blah blah blah stone is good for trees blah blah

Question: Most Strongly supported

Answers:

a) Many experiments say blah blah blah

b) bushes like nice dirt

I eliminate answer (a) on the first pass the instant that I read "many experiments" because the passage said "_a_ experiment." Doesn't matter what the rest of the answer choice says so I don't bother reading it. I eliminate answer choice (b) as soon as I read the word "bushes" simply because a bush may not be a tree. If nothing else works for me I can come back, but otherwise it's imperfect.

Then I circle whatever is remaining as long as it works in my head.

So I think you may need to give less respect to the answer choices and, mostly importantly of all, ensure that you 100% understand the argument prior to touching the answers. Otherwise you could easily be spending 30 seconds/answer comparing it to an argument that may not be fully embedded in your head.

For the record, this is completely different from how I approach RC (typically only have 2-3 minutes left) and LG (typically have 1 minutes left).

I never really did this myself, but it might be a good idea to use the BR tool on the analytics thing. You could bubble in only the answers that you did in time and then on the BR part answer the questions the way you would have if you had had time. You could also adjust your original score in your head adding (number of questions not answered/5) to your raw score in order to mitigate the inherent variability of guessing.

57.2.2 is a question that covers long-distance runners, not the taxi driver question. The taxi question is 57.2.23

Here goes:

A: Could be true, no reason to assume yes or no.

C: We know nothing about whether they set their schedules. The argument doesn't mention that, nor does it mention balancing that against a lower hourly wage.

D: The argument doesn't mention standard of living. In fact, the argument supports this because if they have a daily target, then it could easily be the case that they do work long hours in order to meet that daily target.

E: We have nothing to compare this to.

B) Anyway, you already describe why B is correct. I think the assumption that you are missing here is that the income goal is constant. So the taxi driver is going to want to make $100 every day, not $100 on a slow day and $150 on a busy day. Therefore, they will work fewer hours on a busy day, thereby providing evidence against answer choice B. Incidentally, this is not an MBF question, which is why this works. This is a weaken question more accurately, so we don't have to totally disprove the answer choice. We only have to be able to provide evidence against it.

Also, regarding that B needs assumptions similar to C-E, the assumptions that you need for B are much weaker. In B you only have to assume that the driver doesn't do something that the question did not mention them doing. In fact, assuming that they did do it would require an assumption on its own. C-E don't require assumptions to be rendered irrelevant.

C is irrelevant immediately.

E is also irrelevant immediately.

I can see how A and D require the assumption that they take into account their standard of living, but even if you didn't make that assumption, this passage still wouldn't provide evidence against that argument. It would be wholly irrelevant to the argument.

I guess that's where your mistake was -- you might have somewhat misunderstood the nature of MBF question versus a Weaken/evidence against question.

I came into the LSAT with a very strong formal logic background. I have a BS in compsci, with a focus in theory (AI, discrete math, etc) so I have a somewhat unusual perspective on the test. But I think the logic is pretty simple on the LSAT. It's just the applications and the reading that is difficult.

All the LSAT logic that you need is contained in only a few rules. If you full understand these, then you should have no trouble at all (provided you understand the question/passage) Here's what you should know:

1) Implies: A->B (written with an arrow) means IF A is true THEN B is true ELSE the logical statement is itself false

The above has a logically equivalent truth table to the statement NOT A OR B. This is because a->b is a true statement any time that B is true or any time that a is not true. (consider it, A->B is only a false statement when A is true and B is not true. The same is true of NOT A OR B because both conditions (NOT A, B) are FALSE in this case.

Whew. That's how you have to read implies.

2) Contrapositive is tested extensively. The contrapositive is the law that says A->B (=) NOT B -> NOT A That is, if A->B is a logically TRUE statement, then NOT B -> NOT A must be a logically TRUE statement. Else you could have A TRUE and B FALSE in the former statement.

3) Transitive. This is pretty simple and also tested extensively. A->B and B->C means that A->C. You can also put together the transitive with the contrapositive to say that IF A->B AND B->C THEN NOT C -> NOT A

So, I honestly think that this covers 90% of the logic tested on the test. Not 100% sure that this is what you were asking for, but if you have this down, it should cover mapping for everything. In order to translate it do what you do anyway (identify premise, conclusion) and then translate them into A, B, C etc and draw conclusions.

Incidentally, the powerscore blog says that formal logic has been seriously de-emphasized on the LR section. I think I can vouch for that, given that I don't recall much formal logic on any of my three tests (Feb, June, Oct)

@tutordavidlevine115:

Here's the reading list that I used when trying to improve my RC. I read everything actively, searching for breaks in the argument. It was actually super helpful. I mostly was focused on refamiliarizing myself with super dense stuff, after being out of school for a semester (grad school):

Free stuff:

Origin of Species (there's a lot here to argue with -- breaks in logic etc -- but I'm not saying that I disagree with it)

Academic, dense journal articles (see Google scholar or something, choose some at random)

Found a free medical textbook. Can't remember what it was.

Check your library stuff:

The Economist (this is just written in a super LSAT-y way)

Various biographies that are written for a scholarly audience

I just downloaded all of this onto my phone and read for an hour every day on the bus or whenever I could. I honestly believe that it helped a ton in the beginning. I stopped doing it eventually after my only improvement was coming from understanding the test more, not from understanding the passage more.

I wouldn't report it, but I'm also no law school admissions expert. Just seems to me like it would be a stupid blemish on your application. Here's how it's asked on my Columbia app, which I happen to be working on right now. I mean, you were arrested, but so I guess it would count, but how could they possibly know, especially since it's in another country? And would you even have the ability to get the records of the arrest, assuming that other schools ask for that?

Have you ever, either as an adult or a juvenile, been cited, arrested, charged with, indicted, convicted or tried for, or pleaded guilty to, the commission of any felony or misdemeanor or the violation of any law, except minor parking violations, or been the subject of any juvenile delinquency or youthful offender proceeding? This should include matters that may have been expunged from the records or subject to a diversionary program. Please note that you should have available and be prepared to submit or exhibit copies of police and court records regarding any matter you disclose in reply to this question. If you answered "Yes," you must attach a detailed, complete, and truthful explanation, including a statement of the charge(s), the disposition thereof and the underlying facts. Please answer honestly, irrespective of any advice you may have received to the contrary.