does anyone else have a mon-fri 9-5? How do you balance studying and working? Especially for the PT's, how do you find a time to get a direct LSAT model 4 hour duration to do one when you're always working? Any advice is appreciated.

From our LSAT Blog: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat-final-stretch-encouraging-quotes/

For this final installment of LSAT Final Stretch leading up to the June exam, we've asked some of our Mentors and Sages for any final words of encouragement for those of you taking the exam (or looking forward to future administrations).

Mentor Sam: "You got this!" "You're almost there!" "Last minute advice: Stay focused and do your best. You've come this far, and you're only a few steps away from the finish line.”

Mentor Nilesh, Georgetown University Law Center '18: “I know it can seem impossible... but never give up hope. Logic Games only clicked definitively for me in the last week after a year and a half of prep and even more so in the last 4 days...keep working...and do not give up!”

Mentor Josh: “The LSAT doesn't happen in a testing room on test day. It happens the months and years before test day. It happens during core curriculum as we slog through the information and slowly achieve mastery. It happens during drilling as we reinforce and solidify that mastery. It happens during PTs and JY videos and fool proofing games; and during the times when we inevitably get knocked down, when a bad PT shakes us, when we realize we have further to go than we thought; and it happens when we get back up and keep fighting. So what is test day? It is not the LSAT. You have already conquered the LSAT. Test day is simply the dropping of your score in the mail. Y'all got this.”

Mentor Alejandro: “Trust your instincts. Find serenity in the fact that you studied your hardest up until this point. Oh and don't be afraid to skip!”

Mentor Brittany: “Good luck on the test everyone!! We did all the hard work already!!! Let's go crush this thing!!!”

Sage Allison, Harvard Law School '19: “You've already put in so many hours on this test. In a real sense, the hard work is behind you. June 6th is your opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of the LSAT, and regardless of your nerves, you are equipped. You can do this!”

Let me be the final person to say ... YOU GOT THIS

Any 7Sager taking the September 2016 LSAT in London? I'll be flying to London just to take the LSAT (studying abroad in the fall) but I have little knowledge about the area. Would love some advice!

I'm doing some new prep tests these days, and they're shockingly more difficult than the old ones we use to practice on here in 7sage, this is extremely annoying to me. prep tests 60 and up are much more harder to a depressing level, my score in the old prep test are much more higher than in the new ones! i'm wondering if the other 7sage packages are making the the new prep tests exclusive. if this is the case then i'm doomed.

Tomorrow morning is the big day for a lot of you guys out there! I plan on taking the September 24 LSAT and was curious to know about the thought processes going through your mind on the day before such as your plans for tonight, tomorrow morning before the exam and if their is anything you're really glad you did or anything you regret about your studying leading up to the exam. Thanks for reading!

Are there any benefits of taking the LSAT in the US? More precisely, I'm considering either New York or Vancouver. I'll be taking the September 2016 test. Would the Canadian LSAT differ from the American one? thanks

I'm just wondering where people have seen the most success. I'm at about a 168 and looking to score 170+. I've been trying to get through the whole curriculum, but many parts of it seem way to broken down (with concepts I already understand), and i'm wondering if going through them is really a good use of my time. In general, do people pick and choose which parts of the curriculum they want to focus on, or just power through all of it? Thanks!!

I am traveling by train from out of town to my test center, so I will have a backpack with me. Do most test centers have storage lockers/rooms for students with a backpack? I will have my phone and some person items in my backpack.

I realized my lsat picture also includes my chest. (like more than the tops of my shoulders.)

Should I be very concerned? :( Freaking out!

Hey you.

You taking the LSAT on Saturday?

Come back here. You're taking it, aren't you?

Ok. Lots of folks around here are, too.

How ya feelin'?

I know that feel.

Here's how it's gonna go.

1) LG's gonna throw a thing at you that you're like—wait, what? OH. Please. That's nothing. LOL. Really LG, nice try on that twist there. Nice try.

This is you when LG tries to throw a twist:

2) RC's gonna have some weird subject matter. But we don't change the way we read based on subject matter, do we? No. We don't. We know all RC is the same damn cookie cutter business and that we're always reading for reasoning structure.

We know RC is all like this:

So you are gonna devour RC like this:

You're gonna get about ankle-deep in a couple of time sink questions. YOU WILL NOT give in to timesink temptations. You will remember that no one RC question is worth more than a minute of our time.

But you're gonna see that you're in the mud and you're gonna get the hell outta there and skip-skip-skip away. When in doubt ...

3) LR's might feel kinda weird at first. Time warp-y. Trippy. You might feel like a couple of the first few questions are hard (and they might actually be hard questions).

At first with LR you might feel like this:

But then you're gonna summon the Huntress.

Oh shit.

She's HERE.

I think you know what this means for LR. LR's gonna get taken down hard. Like, 25-in-25 hard. Sitting around with nothing to DO for 3 minutes hard.

Once the Huntress is summoned, she is on the hunt. Here is what the Huntress does with her prey.

Are you the Huntress?

I SAID ARE YOU THE HUNTRESS.

YES YOU ARE.

NOW GO CRUSH THIS TEST.

I'm so lost on this question. It asks which statement would most appropriately continue the discussion at the end of the passage. I ruled out A, because of tone, and selected E. However, apparently A is the right answer. Is anyone able to explain why? I knew the question was a little sketchy, and circled it for my blind review, but I still couldn't find the right answer. Thanks friends!

Get excited.

Looks like the BR Group is kicking into high gear this week with three meetings as we have our last Sunday meeting and switch to our regular schedule on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Be there or be square, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Here’s the schedule this week:

BR GROUPS

Sunday, June 5th at 8PM ET: PT 66

Click here to join this conversation: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/219480381

Wednesday, June 8th at 8PM ET: PT 72

Click here to join this conversation: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/219480381

Saturday, June 11th at 8PM ET: PT77

Click here to join this conversation: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/219480381

You can also dial in to the BR call by using your phone.

United States +1 (571) 317-3112

Access Code: 219-480-381

And if you’d like to see the full schedule, here it is: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=7sage.com_ft05lsm54j4ec1s6kj1d1bbpv0%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/Chicago

Note:

Hi guys,

For those of you that have taken the LSAT before - were you able to get into the test center facility before the actual signup? I'm talking about getting there maybe 20 minutes early to scope out/use the restrooms and so on.

I'm going to be taking at Suffolk Law in Boston, and on normal days the access to the building is badge based, and the security guard said I couldn't go in and take a look at the rooms or general facilities (I'm amazed some people are able to take PT's in their testing room, this guy was serious about no can't do).

Thanks!

Hi friends,

I appear to be in a bit of a dilemma. I'm registered to write the Sept. LSAT and have been practicing steadily for about two weeks. I'm scoring consistently around 168, which I realize is fine, but I just can't seem to break through that plateau. My struggles will either always be in logic games or reading comp, but sometimes I get 100% on reading comp so it really just doesn't make sense. My gpa is low enough that if I want a chance to get into a decent school, a 170 would really be an asset. Does anyone have any advice on how to break through and gain 4-5 points before the exam?

Thank you!

Taylor

For LR clearly. When you see a question involves heavy Lawgic say MBT MBF Parallel reasoning etc.. Do you start mapping the lawgic right away or read it first then read it again and Map it out?

In the course of blind reviewing LR questions, I gained a few simple insights that I thought might help some people. In the interests of facilitating improvement on LR, maybe this can get people to chime in on some of their methods.

First of all, I've seen it said many times, but I now think that the advice to write out by hand every question you're reviewing can't be overstated enough. I found that by writing out and explaining exactly what I read in the stimulus along with writing out reasons for why each answer choice is either right or wrong, I was able to expose so many gaps in my understanding and tacit assumptions that would have completely gone unnoticed had I just scribbled a quick diagram or something to that effect while reviewing. By writing things out, even if by playing around with things, paraphrasing, or putting an idea in a different light, I was able to express everything I knew, which led me to identify everything I didn't know. (I think the old adage of knowing what you know and knowing what you don't know applies well here). Writing it out also doesn't have to be formal or strict, but as long as you are able to hold your ideas accountable by enumerating them, you'll have a good point from which to improve yourself.

Second, make sure that you eliminate answer choices independently to fully understand what's wrong with them. I think a tendency of reviewing without writing things out is that we're more liable to blithely skim from one choice to the next, not holding ourselves wholly accountable and not giving each answer choice a fair hearing. You can't understand why something is wrong if you can't eliminate it for its own sake. If you spell out your reasoning for each choice before either choosing it or eliminating it, you'll better understand why you chose it or not.

Third, make sure to read the stimulus naturally first, with some light marks if necessary, and then come back and diagram. Keep in mind I recommend doing this during review, not necessarily timed PTs. I found that If I'm too ready to write something out, I might miss making some connection and seeing the larger point. Get a grasp of the idea or structure of the stimulus before you assign a specific methodology or approach. Maybe this is more applicable to harder stimuli as opposed to easier ones with a quick and simple setup and with time you'll be so good that you know exactly where things are going as you're reading and your diagramming is right at the heels of your thoughts, but I think it will take some time to gain that level of intuition.

Fourth, be sincere with yourself. Don't censor your thoughts too much in the course of writing down your reasoning and be intimately aware of the initial impressions you have after reading something. Those initial impressions may reveal something about your intuition, and if you want to improve your intuition, you should first expose them by writing them out. Improvement is made easier when you know exactly what you have to improve on, and this starts by being honest about yourself and your reasoning behind choosing an answer choice.

Finally, do not move on until you feel absolutely certain about an answer choice. I think the temptation of watching the explanation for the question by JY is just an excuse for you not doing your job properly. The videos should be a complement to what you already learned yourself by pouring in all that time reviewing the question.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-53-section-1-question-09/

I could really use some help on this one.

First, here's a quick breakdown of the stimulus:

P: Nesting female leatherbacks have declined by more than 2/3.

P: Any species whose population declines by more than 2/3 is in danger of extinction.

C: Leatherback turtles are in danger of extinction.

Even though I quickly realized the gap between nesting females and the entire population of leatherbacks, I still don't see how answer A passes the negation rule (that the correct answer choice to all necessary assumption questions must pass).

A says: "The decline in the population of nesting female leatherbacks is proportional to the decline in the leatherback population as a whole."

When I negate answer choice A, I read it as "the decline in the population of nesting female leatherbacks IS NOT proportional to the decline in the leatherback population as a whole." While I see how this can be problematic for the conclusion, it doesn't necessarily make it false. Let's assume that the decline being referred to in the stimulus in the nesting female subpopulation is 70% (greater than 2/3). If we are applying the negation of A, then decline in the entire population of leatherbacks is NOT PROPORTIONAL to the 70% decline in nesting females. However, it still can be true that the entire population of leatherback turtles is declining by more than 2/3 (they're declining by 85%). So the conclusion can still be true that leatherbacks as a whole are in danger of extinction.

So while A would be the perfect sufficient assumption answer choice, it doesn't seem like it's playing by the LSAT's rules for necessary assumption questions.

Recognizing this problem, during blind review I chose answer choice D, because I assumed that "nesting" meant not living in captivity. So by negating D, it reads "Not very few leatherback turtles exist in captivity." And since "few" = "some, but not most," in plain English, D translates to: either none or most (>50%) of the turtleback population lives in captivity. So if most of these turtles do in fact live in captivity (let's just assume 51% of them do), then a 2/3 decline in the nesting females can constitute only a maximum overall decline of ~34% in the entire population of leatherbacks, which is obviously less than 2/3, and means we cannot make the conclusion that they're in danger of extinction. So isn't this assumption the necessary one?

Please help. My brain hurts...

Okay! Here is my dilemma, I have registered for the Testmasters course, but now I am having second thoughts and thinking about getting a refund and signing up for 7sage instead. The community have been so helpful so far, and I've heard such good things that I I'm considering changing, can someone who maybe have an experience with the live course vs. 7sage or anyone at all tell me why they find 7sage to be more beneficial. Please! I need to know by tomorrow so I can cancel and update my account.

From our blog post here (just in case you haven't seen it yet!): https://classic.7sage.com/lsat-final-stretch-withdraw-cancel-or-conquer/

When to Withdraw

If you’re confident that you have not reached your LSAT potential or still have major milestones to overcome in your LSAT journey, then withdraw from the test.

Never, ever, ever waste a take. Many of us here who have LSAT success stories needed all three of our takes to get to the triumphant chapter. Assume that you will likely be in the same situation.

To put things in more concrete terms: take the average of your last 3 PT scores. If this score is more than 3 points below your minimum goal score, you should think about withdrawing.

If you’re seriously ill, have had recent personal drama (not related to the LSAT), or have major life changes going on (particularly that are out of your control), also consider that you might be better off withdrawing. We have heard many stories of folks who decided to take the test instead of respecting the realities of personal upheaval. Few of those stories had happy endings, and most of those folks wished they’d taken a step back from the LSAT at that time.

Do not take the test "just to see how it goes." Do not take the test "just to get experience." Only take the LSAT when you are good and ready.

When to Cancel Your Score

Fact: Everyone feels awful after they take the test. Expect that you will too. The worst thing for you to do is to obsess over all of the questions you weren’t sure about or how you could have diagrammed that game more effectively. And don't discuss the test with anyone else—both to preserve the integrity of the administration per LSAC's guidelines, and to preserve your sanity. It’s over, and you did your best.

It’s important to say that up front, because feeling icky after that test is not a reasonable grounds for cancelling your score.

There are three conditions that warrant score cancellation, and only three.

—You are certain you had a bubbling error from which you were not able to recover. For instance, realizing that you started bubbling at #2 and were therefore one off for every answer in that section. If you are certain that this happened, then you should cancel your score.

—You had a medical emergency during the test, such as: an asthma attack, seizure, blackout, full-blown panic attack, etc. This list of conditions sounds extreme, because you should only cancel your score if something truly extreme happened.

—You had to leave the testing room for any reason and were not done with the section. If this happened for any reason, then this may be an serious enough condition for you to cancel you score.

Again, please note that feeling bad about how you did is not grounds to cancel your score.

How to Know You’re Ready

A combination of these three conditions is necessary for you to go forth and conquer this upcoming LSAT:

—Your PT average is within 3 points of your goal score

—You’ve done due diligence in your prep and have not neglected any major difficulty

—You do not meet any of the criteria noted in the “withdraw” section above

You may not feel perfectly ready. Almost no one does! But if you’ve done your part and your performance indicates readiness, then let us be the first to say: YOU GOT THIS.

Hello, would anyone care to explain to me how D is the correct answer in this question, when in my opinion, it is so logically wrong? Thank you!

In addition to BR and other studies, how many timed prep-tests should I take per week? I'll be taking the September 24 LSAT.

I got a text message confirming that I've been billed several hours ago. Yet the site still tells me to "upgrade." What??

Just wondering (i.e., hoping) if anyone got a higher score on the actual exam than on their PT's?

Hi guys,

I just got the Superprep II in the mail today and it accompanied a paper listing the few errors that are throughout the book. Anyone with this book that did not receive the paper containing the errors? Let me know I'll post an image or something.

Trying to decide whether I should take PT 77 before Monday. This would be my last PT. I've been scoring lower on these 70s tests, and I really don't wanna score low a few days before the real thing.

On the other hand, the 70s tests are different than the 60s and 50s IMO.And the test I'll be taking Monday will likely be most similar to the past 5 exams. Taking this test also has some other advantages: will help to see how I deal with the curveball game, newer LR and RC, etc. What do you all think?