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sagarpatel41651

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sagarpatel41651

Sunday, Aug 12 2018

@ Graduated UG in '15 and worked on the LSAT on and off so I want to say 2.5 years. I wanted BL + a school where the debt would justify the return. I already work in the bulge bracket so starting out w/ a 80k salary after law school wasn't economical for me. Also, 170 was 5 points below my PT average so I would advise you to have a PT average higher than your target.

General · 120 to 170

sagarpatel41651

Sunday, Aug 12 2018

@ Well, I never really excelled at standardized tests nor did I read much when I was younger. Even though I was born here, I lived in India and eventually had some difficultly speaking English. Throughout middle school, I was enrolled in ESL.

Now, the LSAT was truly difficult for me because the passages were dense and convoluted, LR all the answers seemed so appealing, and LG I had no idea how to setup, diagram, and make inferences up-front. I starting drilling for 2 months strictly LG where I would spend more time up with a diagram that had positions and letters. I started to link up rules, seek out that inference that plays a significant role in the game, and finally circle floaters. From there I would decided if I wanted to brute force and I decided based on the possible number game boards to questions. If game boards were less than questions, I would do all possible worlds. It was really important that I keep the limiting factor in the back of mind. When working through the answer choices, I would check them against the rules. Usually for the harder questions, I would come down two appealing choices and go back to them at the end of the game.

LR: Initially, all the answers seemed so appealing and I would answer the question based on my gut. After going through the CC once, I was going -19+ in LR. I decided to redo the CC at a glacial pace. I doubled the time CC time and went through each lesson slowly until I got a full grasp of it. I started to drill LR with the question stem being my guide. I would isolate the context, premises, and conclusion for each question with the exception of resolve/reconcile stems. Over time, I hit -12 in LR and started to drill by question type. For MSS, I thought of a soft mbt question stem where the information in the stimulus would dish out a conclusion. Flaw/Descriptive weakening only to two criteria - 1. descriptively accurate and 2. is it the flaw. I got a good grasp on all the flaws from LSAT trainer. Often times, I would need to cross out the wrong answers to get to the right or I could anticipate the answer after reading the stimulus. RR - Sami, helped me on this where I spend more time understanding the discrepancy or what's at odds to get the right choice. Before, I would just read the stimulus and jump into the answers - that's a no no. For SA, I spent a lot of time understanding quantifiers and conditional logic. I would always draw out the conditionals but I started to do the linking in my head and these become freebies after a while. I just focused on linking the premises to the conclusion where the premise(s) were the only factors that would link to the conclusion. All looking for words that were consistent - if the conclusion had a word like more than half, then you should be looking for similar words in the answer choices like most or majority. After I started to hit -6/7 in LR, Josh helped work a strategy where I learned to move on from questions and come back after. This was crucial for me because I would just sometimes drain a significant amount of my remaining time into one question and still end up getting it wrong. Even after Josh had told me initially to stop doing that, I only started after a few sessions. I couldn't really let go of a question until I finished which led to me sometimes not finishing a section or focus my time more efficiently on questions that I could get right.

RC: This was so so difficult. In the beginning, my approach was to spend all my time on two passages and try to complete the 3/4 if I had time. For one, my goal was a T2 school and 3/4 were usually the more difficult passages. Passages tended to be dense and convoluted and I was dying of boredom. I would focus on the details of the passage rather than the author's position, linking the paragraphs together, and viewpoints of others. Tutoring helped me with the latter. Went from -15 from -4/-5. This will always be my worse section.

Wrote this quick so hope I kind of answered your question. In short, I just become more familiar with the test and employed strategies that my tutors and others advised. After December of last year, I didn't study for the LSAT until June 2018, just over a month before the July administration. It helps not making the LSAT your life.

General · 120 to 170

sagarpatel41651

Sunday, Aug 12 2018

@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Thank you guys! Really means a lot!

@ LOL - I've met some people who were devastated over their 173. Lives ruined.

@ Hey, glad you remember me! just wanted you to make a favorable decision. think that falls within the scope of a bribe lol. hope all is well =]

@ Yeah, man! Coming back to questions with a second round did wonders for me! There's much more clarity and the right answer becomes so apparent. Sometimes on my second round I think to myself how I even missed the question on the first lol. Thanks bud =]

@ thanks =]

General · 120 to 170

sagarpatel41651

Friday, Aug 10 2018

@ Could have been a little better =] @ TY! I've been waiting to make this post for over 2 years!

General

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Friday, Aug 10 2018

sagarpatel41651

120 to 170

While I'm a bit disappointed in my score as it's lower than my recent PT average, I'm grateful for all the support communities like 7sage, TLS, and Reddit provide to those who are just mediocre or below average. Sure, if your diagnostic is in 150-160 range it's relatively easier to hit 170+ than someone like myself. You may get discouraged over and over again feeling like you've hit a plateau or you're not smart enough. Trust me, my first real LSAT score was a 147 and that was after a year of studying. This post is for those that feel like they're losers. Failure is a better teacher than success will ever be!

Also, just want to give a big shout out to my tutors @Sami and @"Cant Get Right". Not sure if you guys use 7sage anymore or remember me since I stopped tutoring 6 months back but both of your approaches/strategies are the reason I was able to even hit 170. Josh with his tiered time management approach and Sami for teaching me how to read for reasoning structure. And yes, I actually tried on the diagnostic but still ended up with a 120 lol.

Thank you! Keep moving forward!