Hey guys!

So I have been struggling with RC, however I was wondering if you guys read the passage first or make notes while reading? I don't know why but I find a hard time trying to read and write at the same time. I would say I am a pretty fast reader and always have been.. but I find it hard to understand the passages when I stop to make notes. Should I make notes after reading the entire passage first or after every paragraph? What has worked for you guys?

RC I would say is my worst section, but I believe I can improve the most on this section since I can usually understand the material pretty well regardless of what the passage is discussing.

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Hi,

Amongst all sections, LG is probably my weakest. It takes me way too much time.

Which is a better way to go through the CC ( I started with LG about a week ago)

Doing the questions and PS's of each question type and fool proofing until you get everything before moving on the next question type. ( I find, my inferences are usually correct but i take up too much time and end up getting questions wrong once i realise how much time has gone by- Watching Jy's explanations help, but my techniques are mostly the same)

Doing the Questions and PS's of all question types in the CC, watching the explanations simultaneously and fool proofing everything together in the end.

I'd love as much advise as i can get on how to go about LR since some questions are taking me upto 20 min and it's really stressing me out.

I am 32 and have a associates in Automation/Robotics. I am currently going back to school for my Electrical Engineering degree, and i am planning on then going through to Law School. I know this is as far from one and other than one can get but it is something that i have been thinking about for a while but have not had the financial means to do so. I am about 24 months out from my degree and i would like to start LSAT prep. I haven't taken a diagnostic test but have looked at a few questions in LG and LR, i might have been able to answer 30% or so, which worried me, because i see everyone else with 145-155 diagnostics scores and i feel i would be far from that. It's crazy to me to read everyone testing in the high 150's/160's.... its a bit intimidating. I haven't taken a class in 10 years or so and the questions really pointed out how many cobwebs are in my head (At least i hope they are cobwebs, and not that i am just not cut out for the LSAT.) I'm sure this forum gets this a lot, but i am simply wondering what you guys think i should do as far as prep?

So about a month out from the September test and I'm feeling....okay. There is one kind of questions that really bothers me though. Flaw. People always tell me that "in repetition you'll eventually get them" and that they repeat. Well I'm like 20 PT's in at least and they still look pretty foreign to me. It's specifically the flaw questions with abstract answer choices.

"Presents only evidence whose relevancy to the issue raised by the opponents has not been established."

Presents stuff that is not relevant?

Okay but the amount of time it takes me to translate each AC out, and then to figure out what is going on, is far to great. Even then I still choose wrong a great deal of the time.

One method that has not worked for me is the Trainer. That book is very vague. 1+2 =/=3 doesn't help me, my mind doesn't see it as such.

How do you handle flaw questions?

Hey, guys! I would like any advice you guys can give on splitting boards. I seem to always spend too much time trying to split and it's not really needed or I don't spend enough time trying to split and I could've saved time. I tend to always end up brute forcing too much or using previous game boards from previous questions to answer questions but I know that's not always going to work for me. LG is my best section so I've kinda dismissed it but I'm not always -0 so I'm looking for pointers. Can you guys provide any hints on when to split and what to split on (meaning a specific rule like a not both rule or something)?

I'm aiming to take the test between December and June 2018 so won't be applying until end of next year most likely. I have a few work trips coming up next month to cities where schools I am interested in are located. Is it too early to do a school visit since I'll be in town? I was once told not to visit a school until you've completed your LSAT and you're ready to apply. Is this a rule or am I just overthinking? I'd love to visit any school I'm interested in in order to make an informed decision and many are in cities that are far from where I live. If I have an opportunity for a free trip from my company, I'd like to take advantage of it.

Here's a funny story that illustrates a ridiculous usage of correlation (or really, coincidence in this case) proves causation:

http://www.india.com/buzz/this-indian-is-responsible-for-jeff-bezos-slip-in-worlds-richest-person-list-amazon-users-hilarious-post-is-the-best-thing-you-will-see-today-2361411/

From a fun video!

See if you can summarize the content from the video, low/high res, RC style. Try to use the words "phenomenon" and "hypothesis".

Titus is LSAT confidence level goals

After next week this study group is going private.

PT 77 RC on Tuesday August 15th at 6pm EST

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The That's So Ravenclaw study group is for 12 people who are committed to studying and improving their test performance for the September 2017 LSAT. Workshops and intensives to eliminate weaknesses will also be made available to the study group. Tuesday at 7pm is our additional study time to meet to go over other questions we didn't get to on Sunday. Comment below if you would like me to tag you for our meetings. This group will be going private after next week.

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Hi All,

I've seen many explanations regarding this infamous Han purple question--none of which have addressed my specific confusion:

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-74-section-1-question-17/

I chose the correct answer A during my timed take, but hesitantly changed it to E during BR. I'm still confused and I'd love for someone to read my reasoning and give me some guidance as to where I am going wrong.

CTX: How the ancient Chinese of the Qin and Han dynasties synthesized Han purple has confused scientists.

P1: A common type of white glass and Han purple were produced with the same chemical ingredients.

P2: Both were produced by similar processes involving high heat and lead.

C: Han purple was probably discovered by accident during glass production.

One thing I noticed was the how the premises give us similarities regarding how white glass and Han purple were produced, but then the conclusion randomly brings up how Han purple was discovered. My thoughts were that the correct answer will probably have something to do with this. Either that, or the wrong answers would exploit this subtle distinction.

Another thing I noticed was that, except for the contextual information about Han purple confusing scientists, every piece of information that was given in the stimulus equally applies to both the white glass and Han purple. All we know is that they both have the same properties--we don't know if one was better than the other or that one was more prevalent. So the conclusion could also very well be that "White glass was probably discovered by accident during Han purple production." We have the same exact support for that conclusion as we do the conclusion we are given. So I figured the correct answer choice could assist with this by creating some sort of supporting distinction.

A- I originally chose this because I did not initially notice the produced/discovered distinction in the stimulus. Upon BR, I noticed it and figured that A was wrong because where Han purple was produced does not seem play into how it was discovered. Something can be discovered intentionally in the middle of a forest (anywhere really), but then the following production of that thing can be in a factory once it had been improved and commercialized. To me, production and discovery are two clearly distinctive events. Also, this just contributes to the similarities between white glass and Han purple. There is no distinguishing effects of this answer choice, so, like I pointed above, the conclusion could still just as reasonable be: "White glass was probably discovered by accident during Han purple production."

(B, C, and D were easy for me to eliminate. For anyone interested in seeing my reasoning for these answer choices, feel free to ask!).

E- I never loved E, especially since it ambiguously used the term "more" without telling us how much more (1% more or 80% more?). I also didn't love that E qualifies the artifacts as "surviving artifacts." I initially figured that, the fact that white glass was more prevalent in surviving artifacts could be because 1) it was more easily preserved or 2) it was more commonly used. Then I realized that if it was more commonly used, this answer choice could be introducing the possibility that white glass was used longer than Han purple was. I thought that that was what they were trying to get us to see? That white glass was produced and discovered first and that is why there is more of it than Han purple? If that was the case, then I guess it supports the conclusion. It weakly supports it, but it presents us with a new possibility that would render the conclusion more likely. Also, this does point out the supporting distinction between white glass and Han purple that would lead us to the conclusion we are given rather than the alternative conclusion: "White glass was probably discovered by accident during Han purple production."

Between A and E, I do not like either of them. I really struggled between both of these answers, but I finally concluded that A requires us to assume that discovery and the following production process are the same event. To me, that's equivalent to saying that the birth of a child and the child's following life events are the same event. They just are not. E also wasn't a great answer. I recognize the steps and assumptions needed to choose E. But given the remaining 4, I figured (and still consider) it to be the best option because it at least slightly introduced a possibility for the conclusion to be true.

Help! Thanks in advance!

Has anyone taken a non-disclosed test? I am realizing that when I take it on Monday, it'll be a different test. Does anyone have any experience with these tests? Are they notoriously harder?

Hi,

Since I started practicing, I always made sure to use POE for each and every question. The reason behind this is, according to The LSAT Trainer, it is a necessary step for all high scorers. But I feel it's costing me valuable time. My question is, do you do POE for every LR question? or once you are confident with an answer you move on? especially for the first 10-15 questions?

Thanks,

-deleted-

I know these seem fairly straight forward. But its my weakest question type. Any tips, or approaches?

Hi All,

I've made an observation regarding Main Point questions on some of the most recent RC passages (70s primarily). I was reading a post on the Manhattan Prep LSAT forum, where another poster verified my suspicion. I want to share my observation with you below in the hope that it will help someone approach Main Point questions in the future.

Historically, the LSAT writers have favored answer choices that encompass the main point of the passage and whatever subsidiary point was made in the passage. The correct answer choices have been broad, inclusive statements and certain incorrect answer choices were incorrect because they were “too narrow” or did not encompass one of the subsidiary points while another answer choice did. In recent tests, however, the LSAT writers have started to exploit our conditioning to this type of strategy. They will add a broad answer choice with unwarranted strong language (subtle strong language, like “most” or “prominent”) or with incorrect time frames (like “recently” or “historically”) that encompasses both the main point and the subsidiary point. They are trying to utilize the fact that we have been conditioned to look for “more complete” answer choices and hope that we will overlook the subtle characteristics that ultimately make the answer choice incorrect. The correct answer choice ends up being something more direct, narrow, and only concerned with the author’s overall takeaway rather than any “exceptions” or “sub-points” he/she gets into. (See PT73.S1.Q16- answer choice D & PT74.S3.Q9- answer choice E for examples)

With one month until the September test, I know keeping this in mind will help me be more aware of these types of strategies the LSAT writers have been utilizing. Has anyone else noticed this as well?

I'm curious as to why there seems to be such a clearly delineated set of camps on the LSAT.

There is team LG - Who think LG are the best thing on earth. This is where we can consistently go -0 in 28min and feel confident in our answers. We pray we get LG as our experimental section because we love them so much. LR makes us cringe a bit, we might be okay at it, but we sure could use some improvement.

Then there is team LR - LR just comes naturally to them. Typically going -2 or less a section they blow through LR. Finishing early with time to review. They love everything about LR, no question type really throws them for a loop and they always feel confident in their answers. LG make them cringe a bit, they can get through the games but never with confidence and miss a fair chunk of points here.

I've been around these forms, Reddit and a couple of others and it seems people typically fall into one of these two camps. Very envious of the other.

I am team LG - the games come naturally to me, I love them and they are easy. LR on the other hand....how do you people do it?!

Which team are you?

Why do you think this is?

Hi everyone,

I just moved on to the CC section for LG and i'm wondering how everyone keeps what they just learned from LR fresh? I feel like i'm going to lose what I just learned if I don't practice. Any advice?

Hello, everyone!

I wanted to hear opinions and gather data on weighing the costs and benefits of applying to law school after fall semester (early December at my university) with a higher GPA compared to applying much earlier in the application cycle (Late September/Early October) with one's existing GPA.

For context, I'm currently in the 75th percentile for LSAT, and between the 25th and 75th percentiles for GPA at most of the schools to which I'm applying. If all goes well, my GPA will rise by .03 after Autumn semester grades are applied to cumulatives. Obviously .03 wouldn't matter much if I was already well above or well below the inner GPA quartiles, but being inside of it, how does the potential GPA boost stack up against the drawbacks from a later application?

I've seen those statistics that try to equate additional units of GPA with additional chance of admission, but my hunch is that those are more correlative and based on averages whereas incremental GPA increases aren't nearly as distinguishing as other soft factors.

Does it vary by program? Would T6 schools treat it differently than T14 or T50 or T100?

I'd love to hear input for all contexts of the question :) Thanks!

I've gotten to the point where I'm just drilling and taking PrepTests now. Ambitiously I've tried to do 1 per day, but I've quickly realized this has diminishing returns. After the 3rd or 4th consecutive day of taking PrepTests, my scores begin to drop significantly (like a difference of minus 4-5 questions on proceeding PrepTests).

I can tell when my mind is burnt out too - I may have to read a stimulus multiple times and it often feels like I'm just intuitively picking answers instead of reasoning through them. I'll often miss questions because of a silly reading error. After a day or two of rest, my score is back up to where it was initially.

My question is, does this phenomena ever end? Have any of you been able to take a PrepTest every day with no diminishing returns? And if so, what strategies did you employ?

For those of us 7sagers that have done countless PT's and drilling packets, I think it would be safe to say that we all can round about guess what difficulty a question would be---from 1-5 (how it is shown in the analytics). Because of this, I recently started guessing, on each blind review question I did, what the question difficulty might be. I have really found this to be a valuable tool to see what exactly my confidence is in a particular question compared to the community's results in the analytics. At least for myself, I found that my own perception and biases of how difficult the question was tends to skew the 1-5 difficulty guess. Where the questions I got right and I am confident in are usually lower then the actual analytic difficulty. On the other hand, on the questions I got wrong, my guess tends to be even or of a higher difficulty then the actual analytic difficulty. The most helpful part of this process is finding out the questions I got right both in timed and in BR, but I still rated the question higher then the analytics. These questions are ones that would slip though the cracks as the analytics are unable to capture this.

Using the 1-5 metric difficulty guess has started exposing question types that, although I got it right both times, I need to work on more to drop my perceived difficulty. It shows were I am quick and confident, but it also shows where I am lacking this.

I am not sure if this would be useful at all for anyone, but I wanted to share a little something to the community that I learn a lot from. Thank you!

P.S. - I do know there is a 'circle the question' confidence method, but I redo every question in blind review over again so this didn't work for me.

I usually can only study a max of 2 hours at at time. Even then by 1.5 hours my brain is really burnt out and I have to push through the last half hour. I'd really like to see if I can start doing 4 hour sets but that seems unlikely. Even with my 2 hour sets, I still have to take a 2-3 minute break and declutter my brain every 30 minutes or so. Does anyone do really long sets straight through? If so, how do you do it without brain burnout?

With the recent uptick of unconventional LG games on PTs, I was wondering if anyone has a unique approach to minimizing the chances of striking out on a game. Obviously the best we can do is familiarize ourselves with these unique games, but in some cases I'm just genuinely lost.

One thing I was thinking of doing is browsing through the games at the very beginning of the section, spotting the unique game (if there is one) and at least read it and play with setting it up and then come back to it later. Kind of like skipping on LR. Sometimes priming yourself for something and then coming back to it helps you figure out what to do.

I have been studying since May rigorously and have gone through the whole LG Bible as well as done PTs and have been working through 7Sage's curriculum as well. LG is just not clicking. I keep trying, but it seems every game besides a simple sequencing game (which I still may have -1or -2) I am simply not making the inferences either correctly or quickly enough. Let's just say I never get LG, though I'll keep trying, what's the worst case scenario here? Pick one game on the LSAT, hope I get them all, then just...what...guess on the rest? Do as many inferences as possible and...what...guess on the rest? Pulling my hair out over here. JY's videos make so much sense and I'll think, hey, it's finally happening for me. Then I'll look at a game, work through it, think - that wasn't too bad, bu then I'll get -4 and it took me 15 minutes. Any advice??

Hey, guys! Can you help me make sense of my reasoning for selecting this answer choice, if that makes sense?! Lol

Ok so I chose D but I get why B is correct. I still don't know for certain that I wouldn't have the same thoughts that lead me to choose D, if presented again.

D) draws conclusion about a specific belief (more ppl believe elected officials should resign if indicted than believe that they should resign if convicted. I -> R and C - > R) based on responses to inquiries (I -> R and R - > C) about two diff specific beliefs. So basically, I said the conclusion was based on I - R and C - > R and not based on I -> R and R - > C. I said this equaled two different specific beliefs.

Does this make sense to anyone?? Or, am I just doing too much? Was I just totally off here? Hopefully I wrote this up correctly and you guys understand what I mean here. TIA

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-22-section-2-question-25/