"If you get an 180 on the LSAT, your chances of getting into T3 do NOT increase".

The only times I diagram on LR questions are SA and MBT problems that have an outrageous amount of conditional language and pieces to work with. I was taught that diagramming on LR sections are like training wheels. If you're just starting out or if you're unfamiliar and uncomfortable trying to mentally solve it, then diagram. Eventually you'll get to a point where you can mentally juggle the pieces in a given stimulus and use your intuition to find the correct answer choice. But the crucial thing is that you don't want to let diagramming become a permanent crutch. Diagram if you don't understand it, but if you feel like you can take on a problem without putting anything on paper, do it.

@satomnagano814

I agree in that there is no magic way to get faster, but the purpose of drilling is two-fold in that it'll raise your accuracy, but that it can help increase speed as well. The key to LSAT problem solving I think is that the better your intuition and internal deduction-making skills are, then the better you'll be at tackling problems quickly and efficiently. Mike Kim says in the LSAT Trainer that mental muscle memory plays a large role in problem solving. When approaching a problem, you may not be able to "get it" the first time, or the second time or even the tenth time around. But every time you try and solve it AKA drilling, you're exercising your mind's ability to apply logical thinking, and that's what really hones your intuition. Your intuition will help you find quicker and better ways to connect premises or make deductions, and it's these mental shortcuts that your mind develops during drills that ultimately contribute to faster times. Repetition might seem dull and mind-numbing, and even pointless at times because you're not understanding the problem, or because it takes forever to reach the correct answer. But every time you drill a difficult problem, you'll find yourself trying new methods, and eventually something will click and you'll find that you were able to solve said problem faster than the first time around.

The concept behind BR is in the same vein as drilling where you force yourself to really pick apart a problem and figure out what the problem is asking, how to approach it, why the correct answer choice is the correct one and why the other ones are incorrect. BR will develop your familiarity in handling problems, so once you get to the point where you're comfortable in figuring out what you methods you need to employ and the reasoning behind them, then you will most certainly see gains in the areas where you're having trouble.

I'm sorry you didn't get the score you wanted in December. A 3.96 is a phenomenal GPA and if you got a higher LSAT score, then you'd definitely be in the running to get into Cal or Stanford. The good news for you is that LSAT is a very learnable test and if you take the time to not only learn the material but be able to understand it and apply it forward and backward with ease, then you would definitely see gains. Whether it was nerves that got you on test day or not, your score range indicates that your foundational skills could still use some work before you can confidently attain a score that is competitive for your choice schools. The LSAT is composed of material that compounds off each other, and if your fundamental skills in logic are shaky, then many of the problems you encounter on the test will be more difficult to analyze and solve rapidly than it would be if you understood the material completely. If you can go through your study materials and understand it 100%, as well as try new strategies, you can be certain that you'll see familiar problem solving methods in a new way that will help you improve your understanding of the LSAT, and subsequently your score. If you feel like you want to retake it in February, or even better wait a year and re-take the LSAT in June or October, then you will definitely be in a better place to get a score that you want.

In blind review, I did write out a quasi-conditional chain for the process described in the question. So it looked like this:

Ingesting sugar → insulin production → breaks down sugar + rids bloodstream of amino acids (Except tryptophan) → tryptophan enters brain → rise in serotonin levels in brain

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Conclusion: Sugar can help one feel relaxed and anxiety free.

In necessary assumption questions, you can get to the correct answer choice either by Bridging or Shielding. In this question, since there is a clear disconnect in the conclusion where it says that sugars are a factor in feeling relaxed when there is no mention of "feeling relaxed" in the premise, it'd be more prudent to apply the bridging method.

As seen in the written-out chain, you have to bridge the premise to the conclusion by saying that something down the chain needs to connect with feeling relaxed and anxiety free, something that answer choice (D) provides by saying that raising serotonin levels leads to feeling relaxed and anxiety free, thus linking the premise to the conclusion to form a coherent argument.

Personally, I see this more of a sufficient assumption question but you still need the answer choice in order for the argument to work, so you can then negate answer choice (D) by saying, "Increasing the level of serotonin in the brain does NOT promote relaxation and freedom from anxiety", then you've completely wrecked your argument because the conclusion no longer follows from the chain that the premise writes out. Hope that helps.

Here's what I got.

Harsh punishment → Decreases tendency to feel shame → More transgressions

The argument says that imposing harsher punishments would lead to more transgressions. But the conclusion says that harsher punishments would lead to ignoring the welfare of others. So we need to establish some link between harsh punishments and the welfare of others to prove the conclusion true.

C) gives us that link by saying that some actions that involve ignoring the welfare are transgressions. If we negate that, then we'll get "No actions that involve ignoring the welfare of others are transgressions", which will destroy the argument and leave the missing link without the connecting piece. Hope that helps.