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williamrjones1617
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williamrjones1617
Wednesday, Jun 15 2016

@ Yes I just don't do those preptests.

You can also just re-use old preptests, too. I think reusing is really helpful because while I can almost always remember seeing a given question before, I can almost never remember what the answer was, so you still get good practice solving the problems.

@ I guess what I'm asking is do you set some preptests aside to just work on a few sections at a time than BR?

Not sure exactly what you mean by this, but interpreting the "than" as a "then", then the answer is yes.

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williamrjones1617
Sunday, Jun 12 2016

As a fellow full-time worker, I agree with those who suggest only doing one per week. That's what I did and it worked out fine for me. Also, when I tried forcing myself to do a PT during the week, and one on the weekend, I ended up burning out and getting really bad scores. I then took a week off, went back to once a week, and did really well on the real test.

In terms of specifics, what worked best for me was this:*

Monday: timed full LG and LR sections, BR both

Tuesday: timed full RC section, BR + workout/exercise

Wednesday: timed full LG and LR sections, BR both

Thursday: timed full LG section, BR + workout/exercise

Friday: take the day off, it's Friday. You need this.

Saturday: PT, then workout/exercise

Sunday: BR PT, then workout/exercise

*note that this was after I had finished the course and felt confident in all of my underlying skills, and after I had really drilled the crap out LG and felt very confident with it. If LG is a problem area, dedicate a ton of time to it, and you'll get better very quickly and your skills will stick around because the games are all just bad copies of each other.

So, you're essentially getting two PTs per week, plus some extra LG (which can be swapped with another section, obviously), while also maintaining some sanity, which is actually really important for the LSAT. Quality of time spent studying, which is dependent on the quality of one's mental state, is way more important than just taking a ton of PTs. The whole exercise thing is actually essential to LSAT prep, too (and, in my opinion, also for life in general) because it helps you de-stress, and perhaps most importantly, get good sleep.

The weekday sessions can also be used for drilling specific questions types, reviewing basics, or working on timing, e.g., limit section time to 30 minutes, 28 minutes, etc.

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Tuesday, Mar 01 2016

williamrjones1617

Madison, WI (Brogden Psychology Building)

Test Center Facilities:

Test is in a large lecture hall, with the old-school wooden seats and desks that fold down from the seat in front of you. Usable desk area is around 14 (width) by 16 (height). The size of the desk isn't wide enough to fit the whole width of the test booklet when it's open. Answer sheet therefore has to be underneath the test booklet. At first this really irritated me (upon scouting out the location beforehand), but I did a few PT's where I forced myself to keep the answer sheet under the test, and it is really easy to adjust. I do advise practicing that at least once if your test center is here (or anywhere with tiny-ass desks).

Bathroom facilities were easily accessible. No long lines for the guys.

There are water fountains just outside the test room if you don't want to bring your own water bottle. I didn't because I knew there were the fountains.

Noise level was not an issue at all.

I parked in a nearby public ramp (Union South Garage, enter on E Dayton St). It cost about 7 dollars. I don't think there is any free parking nearby. Madison is not great in that regard. Although I imagine most test takers are UW students so they just walk. I would have ridden my bike if it wasn't super cold. There are a bunch of lots nearby the building, but they are heavily populated with very aggressive signage. I did not take any chances.

Left-handedness wouldn't have been an issue, I don't think. If you're left-handed and you can sit in an old-school college lecture hall and be okay, you'll be okay here, too.

One final note: I'm 6' 1" and weigh around 195, and the combination of the height of the seat bottom off the ground and shape of the seat itself caused my legs to fall asleep and go partially numb. Not cool at all. But my test taking posture is insanely tense; I essentially hunch over the booklet with my face like a foot away. Those of you who share my proportions but are able to employ a more relaxed posture will likely not have any issues. This problem did not in any way affect my performance. It was just super uncomfortable. I still can't believe anyone ever thought designing in seats like that was a good idea.

Test Day:

I think there were about 40-50 of us there, but I could be off by +10-20. Either way, there was a long line that almost stretched outside for the check-in process. The wait wasn't long, however, and the checkin and seating process was fairly seamless. Don't be afraid to go use the bathroom or get something to drink if you see everyone lining up. I saw other people do so and they were fine. I wish I had gone to use the bathroom.

Testing started at 9am on the dot, if I remember right.

Proctors:

All UW Madison college students from what I could tell. All were competent and friendly with the exception of the most important one, also known as the person who makes announcements and keeps time. She would just start talking with no concept that the room was loud with people speaking and that she was a small girl sitting behind her laptop way in the front of the lecture hall on what is essentially a stage. This wasn't really a big deal for the announcements/instructions phase; in fact, I found it calmed me down a little bit to sit there and judge her. Wry animosity helps reduce stress for me, I guess. This was, however, an actual issue with the time keeping. This girl would just jump into the next section without even taking a beat, and that includes starting up again after breaks. I know there isn't supposed to be a break or pause or anything, but she would just sort of mutter behind her computer screen "turn to section blah and start working now" without any pause or warning. It made getting into the next section stressful and jarring, notwithstanding the rush to reset the watch. And this is all in reference to how the proctors on the 7Sage app make the announcements; I'm not saying she was bad compared to me taking my time during a practice test. That being said, again, like the chair issue I described above, I don't think this affected my performance at all; it really just bothered me in principle. I find it frustrating and vaguely insulting that something like this could have messed up something so important, where you need every bit of marginal performance gain you can get, and may very well have done so for some of my compatriots on test day. LSAC: please don't let awkward, quiet, apathetic people who hide behind their computer be your main proctor. It's not that hard.

Overall:

I enjoyed myself. It was fun to write an essay by hand; haven't done that in a couple years. I'm glad I never practiced nor looked at the writing prompts for the essay sections -- it really made the LSAT into an exciting experience. And it reminded me of college finals being in the old school lecture hall (I graduated UG in 2013). Aside from the proctor issue (which I imagine is unlikely to repeat itself) and my perhaps rare issue with the seating, the location was fine. Bigger desks would be great, obviously, but if you practice a few times you get used to it no problem (I literally taped the area of the desk onto my table at home and took practice tests in that area - it's as simple as that to practice).

This was February 2016.

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williamrjones1617
Tuesday, Feb 02 2016

I've started bubbling each two page spread, which amounts to each LG and each RC passage, and five our six LR questions. The reason I've adopted this method is primarily because my test is going to be in a crappy lecture hall with crappy little fold-out desks. These crappy little desks don't allow you to keep the test book and answer sheet laid out next to each other; answer sheet has to go underneath the booklet. This obviously imposes an irritating time sink for bubbling. I've found that dividing labor between bubbling and answering questions is therefore the best course of action, and the two-page spread for me is a good tradeoff between bubbling efficiency with the tiny desk and getting answers bubbled as I go along. That being said, after 30 minutes, if I'm not pretty much done with the section and ready to check answers, I revert back to bubbling each question just to make sure I get them all filled in.

All of which is to say that getting an understanding of your test conditions is essential to being able to determine the best way to bubble, in my opinion. I was able to figure out my location, and take a look at it, and then took a few PTs at home, but with the amount of space I'd have taped out on my table. I'd say my test surface is about 16" by 17" (width x length).

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williamrjones1617
Sunday, Dec 13 2015

Exercise is key in my opinion.

Not only does it make you physically tired, but it literally makes you happy (mmm, drugs; I'm actually addicted to it, I think), which makes stress easier to deal with. For example, on the days I grade my practice tests, I always work out. This makes those PT's where you fuck up and bomb a section that you usually nail way easier to handle, because if you're feeling good/happy after working out, it's easier to rationalize the screwup positively, which makes subsequent studying way less of a stressful burden. Alternatively, if you do really well, you can bask in the glow of those endorphins all evening, secure in the knowledge that you are awesome, and then go to bed nice and early.

Eating a healthy and precisely-structured diet enhances the benefits of exercise, too.

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williamrjones1617
Wednesday, Oct 14 2015

Do the lessons first. In my experience the "diagnostic" tests I took were complete wastes of my time and complete wastes of prep tests.

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williamrjones1617
Wednesday, Oct 14 2015

@ Yeah that's what I figured; I was curious because I've come to realize that using that strategy is extremely helpful for me, too. I think that whole no subvocalizing idea is nonsense unless one's only goal is to read words quickly, which is completely pointless.

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williamrjones1617
Tuesday, Oct 13 2015

@ Do you talk to yourself during the test? Like, after every sentence? I have found that I really had to actively practice this process in order to improve on my timing

Are you saying you've had to practice talking to yourself in order to improve your timing, or the opposite?

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williamrjones1617
Friday, Aug 28 2015

I was just essentially forced to stop by a big time deluge at work 80+ hours/week and travel for a similar length of time (the work part only lasted a small portion of the break, I will admit; it required some LSAT-free recovery, though). I had already (very thoroughly) finished the curriculum and had taken 5 practice tests, and I felt weird diving back into LSAT world. I would say ramp back up slowly. My experience has been that while the skills don't disappear, you have to work to dredge them back up. Normal life does not require LSAT-style thinking really ever (even in my line of work in litigation as an economic damages consultant), so don't feel bad if at first your brain is like "what the hell is this nonsensical english in front of me." Given that you haven't finished the curriculum fully, I'd counsel taking your time and reviewing anything you've already done that you're not solid on. Those fundamentals are key (again, because normal existence never requires LSAT-style thinking, so we all naturally suck at it).

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williamrjones1617
Wednesday, Aug 05 2015

If I get a ridiculously good score (with my cheap analog rotating-bezel watch), I think I'll be buying one of these fancy as hell lsat watches to just wear everywhere as a conversation starter in order to give me the opportunity to brag about my ridiculously good score to as many people as possible.

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williamrjones1617
Thursday, Jul 23 2015

Yeah I'd counsel waiting until you're sure you can get a good score, which might imply waiting until next year's cycle to apply. If you're under pressure from other people to get into law school right away (I know a lot of people in this position with respect to grad school generally), you can make some pretty good arguments against such pressure, particularly in the case of law school and the LSAT. Just think of it in terms of ROI. If you invest say another year of your time to studying and defer law school for a year, and are able to get a really good score, you are literally printing future income for yourself in the form of scholarships and (potentially) a high-earning career. On the other hand, if you force yourself to take the test before you're prepared, and aren't able to get into as good a school as you probably can, well you get the picture. I haven't done this analysis, but I doubt there is a realistic case for a discount rate high enough to imply - in purely financial terms - that it's a rational decision to force yourself to apply now and give up those future benefits in order to graduate from law school one year earlier and (I guess? not even sure of the rationale here) receive your post-law school income one year sooner.

The fact that so much weight is put on the LSAT practically begs you to invest heavily in doing well on it.

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williamrjones1617
Tuesday, Jul 14 2015

Hey everyone, if you've sent me a PM asking for this I apologize for not getting back to you. I've just returned from a week-long LSAT hiatus, which included ignoring all 7Sage emails. Check out the link in the comment. Much more efficient way to share.

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williamrjones1617
Friday, Jun 26 2015

A trivial inference is this, for example:

Conditional statement:

A -> B

Trivial inferences:

A -m-> B

A some B

I think that about covers it.

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williamrjones1617
Friday, Jun 26 2015

I asked almost exactly the same question about three months ago, with the exception of not being invested in Power Score at all and having already read 90% of The Trainer.

And I'll just say this: I feel now the way I felt after, say, my first couple years of undergrad; that is, I didn't even know before that there was so much that I didn't know that I now do know. If that doesn't make sense, or comes across as a little too Rumsfeld-ish for you, I'll simplify: 7Sage taught me things about the LSAT that I didn't even know I needed to know. And it provides a framework for you to build up that knowledge (a lot of which is very basic but very foreign to most of us) until that new knowledge becomes second nature; until you become LSAT-literate. And I think that's really the key to this whole thing. LSAT literacy.

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williamrjones1617
Thursday, Jun 25 2015

I tried and epically failed to find the link to the explanation but the best one of all time is definitely this MBT (I think?) LR video about a newspaper's cancellation and refund policies.

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Sunday, Jun 21 2015

williamrjones1617

7Sage Course Levels

I just finished going through the entirety of the core curriculum (ah if only that was all it takes). I have the basic course, and I'm looking for input on the whether upgrading is worth it given that all the tools, so to speak, are provided with the basic version. The price isn't an issue, nor is my cognizance of the potential ROI; just curious what you all think.

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williamrjones1617
Sunday, May 31 2015

Can somebody describe what exactly the LG bundle is/was? I joined after they were forced to remove all of the PDFs so I've never seen any mention of it aside from peoples' comments. Is it just all the games that weren't included in actual lessons for PT's 1-35, or is it something else?

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Monday, May 18 2015

williamrjones1617

Memory Method

I'm a little unclear on a few things. Perhaps you can help me out.

1. Is the idea to do one passage again and again for practice like the LG method? I ask this because it seems like the marginal returns will begin to diminish quite quickly. I suppose I'll be able to answer my question here empirically once I start doing this in earnest myself; but hey, what are these forums for if not to free ride a little bit?

2. If the answer to my first question is no, then why only 6-8 passages? Why not, time permitting, do this with literally every single passage that one doesn't plan take in a PT?

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PrepTests ·
PT111.S1.Q20
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williamrjones1617
Sunday, May 17 2015

I think it makes more sense to approach it like this:

Conclusion: AA → E [if you're almost anyone, you can be an expert]

Premise 1: /GL [no guidelines]

Premise 2: CSP → E [if you can convince someone, you are an expert]

So what we need is AA → CSP [if you're almost anyone, you can convince someone]

The existence of Premise 1 still kind of confuses me. Maybe it isn't even a premise really. Either way, in the context of making the weird argument follow logically, I guess the non-existence of guidelines supports AA → E much better than Premise 2.

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PrepTests ·
PT111.S1.Q15
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williamrjones1617
Saturday, May 09 2015

The distinction of answer choice (E), relative to the others, or to (C), which also talks about a survey, is that it doesn't shed any light on what the financial mag's survey found. The survey found that Americans are more concerned with personal finance than about politics. (E), however, merely tells us that there are other things Americans are concerned about in addition to politics and finances; it does not give us information about Americans' concern with personal finances relative to politics. (C), on the other hand, directly addresses that relative concern between the two things we're interested in: it says people are more concerned about politics than finances. I would hazard a guess that (C) would not strengthen if it just said, for example, that people are really concerned about politics--i.e., removing the relative comparison would make it useless.

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If you're just finishing the first logic lesson, and want to practice memorizing the logical indicators, and translating english into lawgic (or if you just want to practice either of those generally), I made a spreadsheet that does both that I thought I'd share if anyone's interested.

One tab has a list (that can be randomized on command) of all the logical indicators, and a field for you to type in what each introduces. It will tell you if you got it right, and has the option to display the correct answer if you get it wrong (or not). You can then randomize it and keep practicing.

The other tab has a 40 simple sentences to translate into lawgic (they're from pp. 257-258 of the Trainer; I didn't come up with them myself. If that somehow infringes a copyright or something somebody tell me and I won't share it). You input what you think the sentence means, and it will tell you if you get it right (accepts translation and contrapositive of translation*), again with the option to display the correct answer if you get it wrong.

I find it helps to actually write (albeit on the computer) out answers rather than using flashcards, and just repetitively practicing is helpful to drill out the need to think through this stuff. And you can get away with it at work, perhaps, because it's a fancy spreadsheet. I may have made it at work myself. And I have a weird love affair with Excel. So if you have Excel and would like study tool PM and I'll send it to you.

*I'm excessively proud of my Excel formulas to accomplish this, so if you're a fellow Excel nerd, please put me in my place.

EDIT:

Go to this link:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B2s1NBaQLrnIVXNtVGJuQTJ0bFk&usp=sharing#grid

If you want the spreadsheet. The demand for this thing has exceeded my willingness to send individual emails to everyone.

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williamrjones1617
Wednesday, May 06 2015

Edit:

What was your reaction just now? What is something along the lines of "Wtf? Did the dumbass just confuse Avatar with Titanic?"

Should be:

What was your reaction just now? Was it something along the lines of "Wtf? Did the dumbass just confuse Avatar with Titanic?"

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PrepTests ·
PT117.S3.Q24
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williamrjones1617
Sunday, May 03 2015

Something that helped me get this question fairly painlessly and quickly was the vagueness/over-generalization/absurdity of the incorrect answer choices. A and B: basically say that any celestial object with an atmosphere containing lithium is a star of some kind... for real? come on; any planet, any "celestial object" with an atmosphere could have lithium in its atmosphere, and the stimulus in no way excludes that possibility. Ridiculous. DE: to have lithium, you gotta have as much or more mass than the sun or some other type of starish thing (brown dwarf). What is this obsession with suns/stars vis-a-vis lithium? It told us you can ID brown dwarfs because they have lithium for the reasons described, how does that allow use to over-generalize to statements encompassing all celestial objects? And then we get C, which is just if it doesn't have lithium, it can't be a brown dwarf... sounds good, precisely what the second sentence says. Basically all the wrong answers seem to say, generally, is that something has to be a star/brown dwarf of some kind to have lithium in its atmosphere, which is a major leap with respect to the info in the stimulus.

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Saturday, May 02 2015

williamrjones1617

Practice Tests

I started out my prep with the LSAT Trainer, and have done two timed prep tests (one diagnostic and one after a few weeks of study). I just signed up for the 7Sage course, and I am wondering if anyone has any advice on whether I should focus on finishing the 7Sage course entirely before taking any more PTs?

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williamrjones1617
Wednesday, Apr 29 2015

Check out this Oyez site. Has audio that ID's speaker linked up with text transcript, and they do this for each case.

http://www.oyez.org/cases/2010-2019/2014/2014_14_556

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