Did you have a question on angiogenesis (prevents obese rodents) on one section and a question on BSL (?)on untreated and treated cows?

Maybe step back from studying for a few days, give yourself time to reset. Racing against the clock doesn't help much with the LSAT, but your mental state can make an enormous difference.

@simsimah1997554 said:

I’d be interested! I’m located in San Bernardino County. Willing to meet at a half way point or whatever is good.

Great! Message me what times your available so I can match up everyone’s schedules. For now it’s looking like virtual is more convenient for people.

@ebelineluna589 said:

It depends to what school you're applying too. I am also re taking the LSAT in November and in my humble opinion, if you get a higher score above the median you will be fine. Also, applying in November is not actually that late. You will still get scholarships and what not. Anyways if you think you can get a higher score than the school's median I would apply ASAP in November.

I’m hoping it won’t take 3 weeks to release scores by the Nov test so I can send it early December. As long as the test has appropriate curveballs (a hard passage in RC or a rough patch of questions in LR) I do believe I can earn a higher score, given that I normally don’t miss more than 2/3 on LG. But @dring80418 is right, a higher score will probably be better than applying earlier with a lower score

Does anyone know when the webinars are uploaded to the 7sage podcast?

Hi! So up until recently, I've been treating NA and SA the same, and the answer is no. We can't negate the SA answer choices to see if it works, because the conclusion has to follow logically from the premises. What's been helpful to me is spotting any new ideas/terms they introduce in a premise without clarifying. How does this idea or term tie back to the argument? What premise would close the gap?

I've used to miss an average of 5/6 on RC, but now its closer to 2/3. I've been told it's helpful to avoid scrutinizing the details of the passage and instead focus on putting each paragraph in context of the whole. Does paragraph one present a problematic situation, paragraph 2 outline the history of the situation, while paragraph 3 proposes a solution? It used to sound counter-intuitive to me. Wouldn't understanding the minutiae of the passage mean I'd answer the questions faster? Maybe. But I didn't answer them more accurately. Working on low resolution summaries and timing also helps.

I usually categorize it the same way I would for 'most' or 'usually'. It allows for instances where, for example, lying is NOT the morally appropriate thing to do. So an answer choice that says something along the lines of, "it is always the case that" would be a red flag. Hope that helps!

Hi Jay, I’m scoring in the low/mid 160s and BRing low 170s. Let me know if you’d be interested in studying together!

@jhaldy10325 said:

I love this question and the answer is “all of the above.”

Question type is the first pattern most people learn. The interaction between the AC’s and the stimulus is a little different for each type which is vitally important, and there are trends which certain question types follow in the type of argumentation you’re going to be looking at. Obviously, the correctness of the credited AC is also driven by what exactly the question is, so this is a really big one.

Beyond that, there are patterns in argument structure which can pop up in just about any question type. These are things like conditional logic, the common flaws, phenomenon/hypothesis, causation, and the big picture support between premise and conclusion. Can’t do well on the LSAT without pattern recognition on these.

And then there’s the detailing stuff which to me is the most interesting dimension of the test. Within the larger structure of the argument, there’s so much linguistic/grammatical stuff they can do to give things precise meaning in a way that has big implications. These can account both for the things many will write off as “careless mistakes” as well as questions that will drive you mad in BR. Complex noun phrases, for example, are an easy way for the test writers to generate a little extra difficulty:

My friend from Mobile with the red hair who’s a big Green Bay Packers fan and is the sous chef at my favorite restaurant where I used to work before I decided to go to law school likes a hot beverage made from the seeds of a certain type of cherry which is native to Ethiopia that became really big in Europe during the early days of The Enlightenment after the plantation system made it widely and cheaply available.

This just says “James likes coffee.”

If you can recognize and isolate the two complex noun phrases, you can handle this pretty easily.

Another important one is what I call “problem of knowledge,” though it includes a lot of other concepts like belief, intention, etc. So if a stimulus says someone knows or believes or intends something, that’s very different from establishing what actually is:

Susan knows the store closes at 8pm.

It’s only 6:30pm.

Therefore, Susan knows the store is still open.

See the problem? Knowledge messed everything up. This example is designed to be obvious, but the LSAT can present this with great subtlety.

There’s a ton of these types of things, and reverse engineering the questions to identify and learn them should be a big part of your BR and analysis.

Thanks for providing such a thorough response! You're absolutely right; that example typifies how the LR questions are structured and it drives me bonkers. It's especially present in Flaw questions, and I do think by isolating the bricks that make up the sentence, I'll have a clearer picture of the simple meaning. LSAC is nothing if not subtle, but I suppose our job is to become human subtlety detectors, huh?