Hi Aiesha! First of all, let me say congratulations on graduating college AND on having your baby!! I would say... don't get yourself too psyched out. People make this test like it's super hard, and it's really not. It's testing the most basic ability to apply logic in two contexts - in the more straightforward context of bare-bones rules (Logic Games), and also in the more adorned (with language, or fluff as your English teacher might have said) context of parsing the "lawgic" out of text. I'm not sure what your weaker area between the two is, but if it's games - GREAT! That's easy to fix just by sheer repetition (see the Fool Proof method JY teaches, it gives you a consistent practice that works). If you're a bit shabbier in the other sections of the test, then I think one thing you could do is become a reader! Do tons of reading!! Of all kinds! Especially current events articles etc.

Anyway, don't give up, and don't postpone your career goal, either! If this is something you want to do, then you'll do it! It's just a few hours on a single day. Don't let that stand between you and law school. You've already done the hardest part - completed undergrad. You can find the time to prepare... even if it's a 20 minute sesh here and there, on your way to work, etc. Definitely watch JY's videos, too. They're quick, to the point, and very effective.

Good luck!

I would actually advise retaking the old ones (or at least a few) before exhausting all current ones that are still prime material for your simulated testing. I've done this, and I found it especially helpful when I needed to build confidence and overcome testing anxiety.

I think it's fine to reuse the tests if you want to correct timing deficiencies, practice coping with testing anxiety real time, etc. Don't waste new tests if it's these skills that you are trying to work on.

And if these are weak spots, I would say spend some time addressing them before you keep going. You don't have to get perfect, but reusing tests is a good way to get more comfortable using what skills you know you do have rather than freaking out and finding your skills are unavailable b/c you're too stressed.

Also, it just points more to the attitude your approaching the test with that reading is the one suddenly dropping. It requires the most sustained focus, because you've got to follow an entire passage as opposed to a 3-5 sentence blurb. I would say this section is more vulnerable to loss of points due to loss of sustained focus. Negative thoughts (nervousness, anxiety, frustration, worry about time, thinking about your score, etc. etc.) are an indisputable distraction. You can't be 100% focused on what you're doing at the moment (i.e. reading and processing the passage, fully engaged) AND be thinking about something else (like about scoring your test, how much time is left on the clock / are you moving too slow/too fast, should you go back and double check that last question? etc. etc.). Every time these thoughts pop up, just ask yourself if it's relevant. If the answer is no, comfortably shift you focus back to the task at hand.

I can tell you with a lot of confidence that the fact of you being frustrated and nervous is a MAJOR CONTRIBUTING FACTOR to your score irregularity.

I would have a conversation with myself about why I'm assigning so much meaning to this test (not law school admissions meaning, cuz your PT's don't carry that meaning - your PT's are tools for you like a dance studio is a tool to prepare for the stage - what goes on in the studio CANNOT be treated as indicative of what will go on on the stage; it's only indicative of what needs to go on next in the studio).

Answer yourself honestly, and acknowledge how silly it is to take the PT's so seriously. Then dismiss that sentiment and just move on to having fun using your PT's to practice. Try reusing some, to get used to the feeling of the test.

Also, remember to use linguistic triggers to help spot an ACTUAL clearly defined relationship as opposed to language that merely indicates two things tend to be observed together.

As a very general rule of thumb, when I see an absence of formal lawgic language (if/then, must, unless, etc.), the possibility of causation figures into my mind.

Another hint might be some observed phenomenon. i.e., that the seal population in X region has been steadily decreasing over the past ten years, and ten years ago an endangered species of fish was introduced into the same region.

So the test writers could take this sort of question into a whole number of different possible directions. Maybe it will be an RRE question, and they'll add some fact that makes you think this phenomenon is strange (i.e., the seals diet consists only of fish) - and the right answer choice might say something like this endangered species of fish contained a hormone that disturbs the reproductive system of seals, causing them to reproduce at a slower rate.

Or, instead, they could go on to say that the fish species introduced feeds on the same seaweed that composes the seals primary food source - and then conclude that the fish must be the cause of the decreasing seal population (i.e. new equilibrium being established as the environment now includes competition for the same food source).

Now, from there they could go a number of different ways - ask you to weaken/strengthen, ask you to know what would be valuable information to know to evaluate the argument (i.e., it would be helpful to know if the seaweed supply has remained constant or if it was supplemented when the fish were introduced as a preemptive measure)....

The point is, as soon as I read enough to see that I have at least two indicators for causation, my causation radar has gone up. I'm not so committed to it that I'll ignore new information, because they may change gears and introduce some formal if/then relationship. (seems unlikely, tho; but I'm sure it's happened, and a master of the skills this exam tests would be ready for a curveball like that, anyway) Until you get to the stimulus and actually know what they're asking you to do, just pay attention and notice whatever you notice (oh, this kinda sounds like causation, but let me keep reading... / oh, this looks like one of those part/whole issues... or oh, now they're talking in terms of percent but at the beginning, they were talking in terms of total number... maybe they're going to ask me to pick up on that...).

Always finish reading the stem, because you don't want to get fooled by a red herring. They don't necessarily have to test you on every single thing worth noticing about the stem.

Relinquish a need for control and just be a perceptive reader, passively awaiting the signals which will naturally remind you of questions you've looked at that were similar in the past (after enough cause, vs. enough formal lawgic, whether you can articulate the differences very well or not, I believe you'll have a know-it-when-you-see-it familiarity with the distinction). Just, let it happen.

Hope this helps!

You might like to start taking some vitamin supplements if you don't already. Research by Dr. Eric Braverman says vitamin balance in the body makes a world of difference - and I've experienced this myself firsthand. Off the top of my head I would recommend the B vitamins (a B complex, especially be sure to get B12). You should do your own research and see what the consequences of deficiencies in certain vitamins are and what the benefits of higher intake of certain vitamins are. The body is all chemistry.

I think you're being too rigorous in your thinking for this one. Remember, it is a MSS question, not an inference. But if it were an inference type, then I could see where you're coming from, because the art critic only establishes anything about how the painting likely looked shortly after his death. But that doesn't allow us to draw a valid conclusion on what it looked like before that time, i.e. while Veronese was still alive.

Okay, I fell for E on this one. I TOTALLY understand that (E) is wrong because it has the major flaw of making inferences into state of mind without any support from the Stimulus.

Normally, I would catch this kind of thing. But I think the language makes this question a tricky and interesting one. The curator's argument concludes that the decision to restore the cloak from red to green is justified. He supports this conclusion with the sub-conclusion that an artist other than Veronese tampered with Veronese's painting after its completion. Okay. So, that's all he says. An artist other than Veronese tampered with Veronese's painting after its completion.

Here's where I think I got tricked into thinking this was an argument about restoring the work to the artist's originally intended color (green cloak), even though there was no language that goes to mental state. First of all, it's about restoring a work of art. For anyone who's ever taken any art history courses in college, this is already a tempting place to bring outside assumptions. Generally, restoring a work of art is a decision that turns on the intention we believe the artist originally had.

I think LSAC really plays on this a lot by using the phrase "tampered with." It has a negative connotation. Art restoration workers aren't said to "tamper with" the art they restore. Other artists than the original producer of the work are said to "tamper" - because they added to the piece without consideration of the original artists intention.

Then, in the art critic's remark, you have the referential phrasing of change. Here's where I think this argument gets interesting in it's own right, and would have made for a really good weaking question type. The "change" refers to an alteration FROM the version being copied shortly after Veronese died. NOT from the original version. So, the art critic's response is actually quite weak as it dose not actually address the curator's premise - that an artist other than Veronese tampered with Veronese's painting after its completion. The art critic's response does nothing more than suggest that one particular artist (the one who made the copy) is unlikely to have made such a change. Even so, it is a change from the painting's status shortly after Veronese's death. This leaves a lot of room for the curator's conclusion to still hold. Okay, so maybe this artist didn't make the change. But maybe an artist employed by a wealthy patron who had his eye on the painting and purchased it from Veronese's estate upon his death made the change, because this patron always wanted the cloak to be red!

The fact that the copyist was unlikely to have made the change shortly after Veronese's death doesn't exclude the possibility that no other artist could have gotten to the painting even immediately after Veronese's death and changed it.

So, (C) is the right answer because it only tells us that the proposed restoration will fail to restore Veronese's painting to the condition at the time of V's death. However, it doesn't help at all really with the premise the curator gave that if an artist other than Veronese changed the color of the cloak, then restoring it to green is justified.

Long winded comment, but at least that is what made this one tricky for me. I missed the weakness in the art critic's response, and then I read intention into the argument, and ended up getting turned on by the word intend in (E).

(A) is wrong on the face of it because there was no mention of the quality of the copy.

(B) is wrong because there was no support for anything about technologically sophisticated equipment or even about methods of restoration.

(C) is right because the art critic is essentially saying that the painting was red shortly after Veronese's death.

(D) is wrong because we have no support to say anything about the value of an artist's work.

(E) is wrong because the art critic offered ZERO language about mental states at all.

I think using a stop watch and writing down how long it took you will be a more informative approach.

The stimulus demonstrates that it is not necessarily true that one should always purchase technologically advanced educational tools. It does so by providing two instances where less expensive AND equally effective tools were available. This presents the reader with a cost-benefit analysis: the benefits of the tools are the same (in the first example, the low-tech group performed "no worse" than the high-tech group, and in the second example, the high-tech group did "no worse" than the low-tech group. So these two together suggest that there is no difference in how effective either high- or low-tech educational tools are.

The only difference, then, is in the cost. The high-tech tools, we are told, are more expensive than the low-tech options. So in terms of a cost-benefit analysis, the implication is that we have at least two situations where the low-tech option is preferable to the high-tech option. Therefore, one should not always buy high-tech educational tools.

When should one not buy high-tech educational tools? Well, the two cases provided in the stimulus both had an equally effective, less expensive option. So when that option is available, one should not buy expensive high-tech tools.

You mean bodyweight squats as in with weight on the bar over your shoulders or you mean just your bodyweight?

I did analyze them, but it's been long enough since I've taken them that I'm not merely memorizing. Considering I've already reviewed, I should get a perfect score on a test I've seen, studied, and understood. However, today I actually got a few wrong - same ones I got wrong before. The two that I still got wrong seem to suggest I have to revisit these.

Hi, I'm in the range you're looking for. I just saw the Study Buddies feature myself, and I was looking to see if anyone else already posted looking for someone. :-D If I'm in luck, you are taking the December administration... *fingers crossed*

Please let me know! I'd love to study buddy!

I think you should review them however best works for you first (read your own notes in your own handwriting, rewatch the videos, read the pdf, whatever) until you feel you understand each of them. Think about how they relate to each other, think about what you would need to change to make them invalid, think about how you would explain why it's true to someone else (both by analogy and just conceptually). Then, try to write out your own valid arguments and then write similar ones that are invalid for some reason. Spend the time trying to work it out, even the ones where you're not sure. When you're satisfied with your own original examples, go back and try to draw them out in lawgic. This helped me a lot.

All children should be given the opportunity to participate /= all children should be made to participate.

Polanski gives reasons not to make children participate, but Brewer never took this position. Brewer only held that all children should have the opportunity.

The judge overturned the conviction on the technicality that the basis for that conviction was evidence he deems inadmissible. The "therefore" at the end of the Stimulus calls our attention to this fact (the conclusion - always first thing to ID in dealing with an SA or PSA). So what facts were provided by the judge's reasoning to support this conclusion?

Well, the cause for the chase was the suspect's flight. The suspect's flight, however, does not create a reasonable suspicion of a criminal act (RSCA). Evidence collected during an illegal chase is inadmissible.

What's new here is that a the beginning of the judge's reasoning, we were talking about the chase. Then, all of a sudden, we are talking about an illegal chase. Well, how did we get from talking about our chase to an illegal chase? That's were the assumption lies. The only way this argument holds up is if the information the judge gives about our chase and the information he gives about the legality of a chase somehow connect to qualify our chase as illegal. Finding this connection allows us to apply the rule that "evidence collected during an illegal chase is inadmissible." The connection is between RSCA and CL. Since the judge didn't explicitly make that connection, we have to find the answer choice that does. The assumption is that the absence of RSCA in this case (/RSCA) implies the chase was not legal (/CL): /RSCA --> /CL. We need to lead into /CL because evidence collected during a /CL implies inadmissible: /CL --> /A. The connection between /RSCA and /CL allows us to arrive at the judge's conclusion (inadmissible /A) validly.

Yes, if you look back at what Lin said, you'll see that she actually doesn't even give her opinion on what the company's degree of leverage SHOULD be in general. So they could possibly agree on that point for all we know.

I had the same problem! Thanks for the tip!

Some types of organisms originated through this process of one organism engulfing another (called endosymbiosis). There is a nucleus-like structure in a plant, and because that structure has two versions of the gene, it must be the remains of an engulfed organism's nucleus. Like the passage indicated at the very beginning, the process of one organism engulfing another is called endosymbiosis. So, the plant containing this nucleus like structure must be a product of endosymbiosis.