https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-52-section-1-question-25/

From a common sense stand point, the necessary assumption makes sense.

So because blah blah is injurious to democracy, then legislators should not do something. Why should the legislators not do something? Because it is injurious to democracy.

So if the legislator does do that “something,” then it is blah blah injurious to democracy.

But what is the correct way to diagram using logic?

A -> -B.

B -> -A? (But this can’t be right, because “-A” would mean that blah blah is not injurious to democracy…

Hello 7sagers,

I'm asking for thoughtful comments/advice on my personal situation. This is causing me tons of anxiety and I haven't been able to study these days and I need to study, like really really need to. Any thoughtful comments are appreciated :)

I am 100% confident in my decision to attend law school. This means so much to me. I will be filling out the part of the application where it asks if you have some factor which warrants special consideration. I really don't want to fill this out but I have no choice since my gpa is poor and I have no stand-out academic, or any, achievements.

A brief description of my situation:

I've had poor health compared to my peers for as long as I could remember. I just got a proper diagnoses and started treatment less than a year ago. My condition is "serious" but controllable. To elaborate, it causes many uncomfortable and embarrassing symptoms (but they should improve :) and I have to follow a strict diet but I can otherwise live a "normal" life. I've also gone through very poor mental health because my symptoms are embarrassing and I was bullied most of my school years. I also had a facial dis figuration for a few years and unfortunately, that led to abuse from family members on top of being bullied at school.

My poor mental health and fatigue (symptom of my medical condition) made getting through university very difficult. Although my gpa is bad, I am proud of it - more so than I would be if I hadn't gone through that (referential phrasing :) and had a 4.0 gpa.

I'm Canadian and will be applying in Canada. I'm concerned this information could harm my application more than it could help. My thinking is, after all, a school should MUCH prefer a healthy applicant with good numbers, over me ("unhealthy" with mediocre numbers). In fact, I doubt if they give "special consideration" at all because they place so much value on good numbers (as they should). I'm also concerned they will doubt my ability to finish law school, and then, doubt my ability to be a lawyer...am I being silly? Although I haven't had a panic attack in a few years, I am having mini ones just with the thought of having to write this, not to mention the personal statement.

If you have a brilliant idea about how I can write a good personal statement, please share. Obviously, I need to write about my situation because this has been my life. I just started thinking of how to write it in my head and stopped because...the facts alone sound like a sob story! I don't want my personal statement to sound like a sob story. I'm especially anxious because I'm not a great writer to begin with.

If anyone can provide some insight on the validity of my concerns, I would be grateful. If anyone is in a similar situation, maybe we can help each other out?

- sora

Hey, so I'm a big fan of using caffeine to study with the LSAT (specifically caffeine pills). Will I be allowed to bring those into the test with me, or would they be confiscated? I've heard different answers.

For those in undergrad currently (with exams starting next week or the week after most likely) -

Are you planning on taking a week off from PTs and other LSAT studying to focus on finals? I'm torn, I have a few days off between different exams, so I think I might take one during the week. Curious to know how others are delegating their time...

In a rush to get registered before the last few spots filled, I submitted a sub-par photo to LSAC, assuming I could change that photo after registration. I see no option to change it, however. I'll try calling them tomorrow when they open back up, but I was hoping maybe one of you may know.

Thanks,

Mikey

Hey Sages! Have any of you thought about making a podcast of all of the webinars? Or just a 7sage podcast elaborating on LSAT study techniques? I think it would be great hit! Just a random thought.

So I'm visiting my parents and my brother and sister-in-law are here as well with my two year old nephew. I decided to try some Games this morning figuring that the many distractions that accompany a two year old at breakfast would be good practice. I was wrong. You don't necessarily want to be in a zen like vacuum of tranquility and solitude, but a vortex of activity, crying, and poop is not good practice. Lesson learned.

For anyone who is trying to get to where I am, I'm happy to provide any insights. For anyone far beyond where I am, I'm reaching out for help.

I've been tackling the LSAT for a few months now and am somewhat stuck. I started the test doing very badly: -6 on LR, -5 on RC, and missing one game on LG. Now, I'm at -2 or -4 on LR, -3 on RC, and -1 on LG (usually due to stupid reading mistakes). My question is: how to move from a ~170 to a 180 score?

In my case, I know I haven't maxed out yet, since I can occasionally score a 180 during BR. But I always seem to miss a couple during first attempts no matter what. Right now, I'm not confident at all about scoring a 175+ on test day (which is my goal, given my unfortunately terrible college GPA).

I welcome anyone with any insights about how you raised your scores (even by a bit), and happy to provide insights from my end if anyone would like them. Thanks!

Okay, BR-group people, don't get at me for this one (though I won't blame you if you do)... but I missed this question in my personal blind review, which was before the 4/23 BR group and didn't catch it until afterwards. I initially selected "A" but changed my answer to "D" during my blind review.

My issue with "A" was that I didn't see the astronomer concluding "there is evidence against [the hypothesis that life evolved extraterrestrially]" but that the hypothesis could be regarded as false simply because proponents of it only had evidence against another hypothesis and no evidence to support their own hypothesis. Is this in itself the "evidence"? In the final half of "A," what is the word "evidence" in "that there is evidence against that hypothesis" referring to exactly?

Thanks in advance!

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-70-section-1-question-09/

I tried this game for the second time after a five months period, I got all questions right just under the target time but I spent nearly two minutes looking at the conditional rules to find some kind of deep inference which was a huge waste of time. Is it ever a good idea to look for deep inference when there are already like lots of conditional rules. I am not really sure when to stop and hit the questions. Do you have any rule of thumb that could help?

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-22-section-3-game-4/

I was wondering if anyone could help me out here. Always had trouble understanding this concept.

1. Say I am negating [A and B]. I know this turns to [/A or /B]. Does this or mean that BOTH A and B are out? I know it means either A is out, or B is out but can both possibly be out?

2. Conversely, if I was negating [/A and /B], I know this becomes A or B. Does this or mean that BOTH A and B could possibly be in? I know it means either A is in, or B is in, but can both possibly be in?

Not entirely sure when the "inclusive" or applies or not. Thanks a lot guys!

Quick question:

I took LSAT 76 in October 2015, do I have access to pdfs of those sections through the lsac website? I did cancel my score, but I know I have since seen pdfs of the sections on the lsac site.

Was I imagining this? Where can I find it?

Thanks!

Hi Everyone.

My access to 7Sage expires in two weeks, so I have the choice of either extending my access for Ultimate or upgrading and then extending after the next month.

My question I guess is for the Ultimate+ people. Is it very beneficial to use Ultimate+ over Ultimate? I gather that I get more explanations from JY/Jonathan and more of the PT breakdowns.

I just got through the Weaken/Strengthen lessons, drilled questions from PT 1-38 from Cambridge, and tomorrow/this weekend will be doing an intensive review of the questions I got wrong and put in my LR notebook. This is my plan for the rest of the question types before I hopefully start PTing in June.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance.

Hi guys,

I have been studying the LSAT for over a year (will be 2 years in June), and I have been taking prep-tests very often ( nearly one a day). I haven't had much burn-out during my study-sessions, however sometimes I find it difficult to de-stress before going to sleep. Sometimes, I would be anxious or concerned if I'm on the right track and stressing about the exam before my sleep has affected my sleep-schedule. I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, 3 or 4 am, which would consequently make me feel sleepy and drained during the rest of the day. Do you guys have any rituals to de-stress?

To be precise, a lot of my anxiety comes from the fact that I seen nearly every exam besides PT 77 and I'm concerned about how to make gains from the 160 fresh PT score I got in the recent PT 70s exam back in January, coming from a diagnostic of a 140. In most of my other exams, which were retakes, I would go for minus an average around minus 4 to minus 7 but on the PT 70s I would get minus 12 to 15 on the recent LR. I'm getting a little better in noticing patterns in LG, thanks to the FoolProof method as well as getting better in RC, having scored minus 6 on a fresh prep-test. I did consider doing some drilling for LR, but it wasn't a particular question type so much as it was the way the newer exams that were written that gave me issues. Should I just re-do the PT 70s exam? I haven't BR-ed them because I was urged against so by a tutor I once had before I signed up with 7sage.

Hi guys,

Was hoping to get some feedback on effective ways to get into the right frame of mind prior to attempting PT's. I wrote PT 37 and scored 10 points below what I usually average. This was quite a huge hit to the confidence. That being said, I woke up early, had breakfast, and just jumped into the test cold. I can't say I ever had a "warm-up" prior to my other PT's, but I did write them later on in the day and found it easier to get into the tests. What are your Pre-PT rituals? I'd love some advice on this.

So I was watching a thing on Netflix about algorithms and, all of a sudden, the guy starts explaining what I think I recognize as the weird game from PT 77. I checked it out, and sure enough: It’s a really simplified version of the Gale-Shapley algorithm which won a Nobel Prize in 2012. I don’t know anything about algorithms, but I wonder if there are other well known algorithms that could appear in the games. I think some basic, common algorithms would make for a really interesting and potentially somewhat relevant study. Certainly a familiarity with the Gale-Shapley algorithm would have made 77 G3 a breeze. It’s probably a bit far reaching to include in LSAT study proper, but I think it would be an interesting side project that could develop some relevant skills and teach exactly the kind of abstract thinking which is so important on Games and especially when weird games pop up.

So anybody know any cool algorithms they think would be worth checking out?

JY is recommending reading the LR question stem first and figure out what question type it is before moving on the the stimulus, which I fully agree and find useful.

However, there are some question stems referring to a specific part of the stimulus and it probably won't make sense if you read it first. (here is an example where JY recommends returning to the questions stem later: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-25-section-4-question-05).

So, my question is, what to do with an LR question stem that has a lot of contextual information? Do I just stop thinking about it if I found the question stem containing too many contextual information? Or do I try to figure out a bit what is going on, who the question stem is referring to, etc. and carry the question stem when reading the stimulus? For example, in the example above, should I just skim the question stem and return to it later after reading the stimulus, or should I try to figure out that I am going to support Zimbabwe's argument and then read the stimulus?

Context: I've been studying for about 10 months; have done all of the tests except for the 7 most recent ones, and have started to retake many tests I've already done. I've found on retakes I can score in the 174-176 range, and learn quite a bit from seeing the patterns in the test. For the last stretch of my study period I was going to do two retakes a week(think tests from the 2003-2006 range) and one fresh test a week from the most recently released ones (2012-2015) to gauge my progress.

However, I had an epiphany; screw gauging my progress!

I've been stuck in the 166-171 range for 6 months. I know what I'm going to get on a fresh test. So, perhaps it would be worthwhile for me to take these fresh recently released tests twice instead of just once. Granted, the scores closest to my test date will probably be inflated, but I feel like that this is a better learning opportunity versus just seeing those problems on one take and a blind review.

With that said, I'd be taking a test for the first time, and then retaking aprox. 3 weeks later. Maybe that's too soon, or maybe it doesn't matter?

n case I wasn't clear, this is what I mean as an example:

Example of a week in scenario 1:

Retake Oct. 2003, BR it

Take Oct. 2013 for the first time, BR it

Retake Oct. 2006, BR it

Example of a week in scenario 2:

Take Oct. 2013, BR it

Take Dec. 2013, BR it

Take June 2014, BR it

Then, three weeks later, retake those same tests and BR them again

So, the last 7-9 tests I will have taken before the official exam will all be retakes. While this may not give me an accurate assessment of where I stand, it may be a better learning experience (seeing the most recent problems four times in total instead of just twice), and maybe the inflated score will be good for my confidence, and be more beneficial in the long run than scoring a 169 or a 170 just days before the test.

My intuition is telling me to try this out, as regardless I will be doing mostly retakes in the next few weeks.

What are your thoughts?

Hey Everyone,

As we all know, June is right around the corner (46 days away but who's counting, amirght?).

I have PTs 63-69 and 71-77 left. 77 is my only non retake, but my other takes on the others were 6 months ago so in my opinion they're basically fresh.

I just finished undergrad classes yesterday and have until May 16th (when I start my job) to go hard on the LSAT life. I feel like that's a good timeline to start tapering down anyway to avoid burnout. I want to do 2 PTs per week with awesome BR, but maybe 3 PTs per week in the first 2 weeks of May since LSAT is my only responsibility.

I feel like I should take the mid-late 70s sooner than later so I can fully understand those newest tests, but I just noticed the group BRs are going to hit those tests mid May. Should I take the mid-late 70s now in my PT schedule, or wait to do it with group BR? Should I only PT the 70s, but just do timed sections with my remaining 60s?

I have LSAT ultimate so unfortunately don't have access to all of the explanations for the newest tests.

Any input about my PT plan or how to effectively use this last bit of time would be really helpful!

A very special BR group this Saturday. PT70. Because, well ...

Saturday, April 23th at 8PM ET: PT70

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Please click the link and comment if you plan on participating.

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Hey everyone,

So I am mainly drilling sections PT 1-35 for the next couple months before PT stage. I drilled a LR section from PT 1 and found it to be really weird. The question stems are different and I felt overall, that the passages are written differently. I definitely underperformed on it compared to 1996 and beyond. I know the logic is the same but am I wasting my time focusing on 1-16?

Sorry if this question has been asked before. Thanks!

Weaken/Strengthen

Friday 4/22 at 9pm ET

What if I told you I had one weird trick to completely fix your understanding of Weaken/Strengthen questions? Well, I'd be lying. But I do want to share with you my personal approach to these questions, which involves considering the methods of reasoning most commonly employed on these question types (being correlation/causation, argument by analogy, and phenomenon/hypothesis). The good news is that for the lion's share of these questions, determining the method of reasoning gives you a leg up in selecting the correct answer choice. The BETTER news is that I'm going to teach you how I do this.

To join the webinar, please do the following:

Weaken/Strengthen with Nicole

Fri, Apr 22, 2016 8:00 PM - 9:30 PM CDT

Please join my meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone.

https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/218139909

You can also dial in using your phone.

United States +1 (872) 240-3212

Access Code: 218-139-909

Note on all webinars: Only the live webinars are free and open to the public. No recordings will be made publicly available, but we do make webinar recordings available to 7sage's students as part of the paid course. So if you want to get some great webinar content for free, be sure to attend the live version. Furthermore, any recording or broadcasting of webinars is strictly prohibited (Periscope, screencapture, etc.) and constitutes a violation of LSAC's copyright. Copyright infringement is not a good way to start a legal career.

This is both a general question and a question directed to any person who is reading this (how do you drill?)

Let's say I miss a few weaken questions on my latest PT, is there a certain amount of weaken questions that I should drill? say, 10 or 15?

Hey Guys!

I haven't purchased a 7sage course yet and I don't even know if I need a course. Ive taken the test twice already and I think what I struggle most on is knowing how to use my time leading up for the test, ex drilling more, PTing more etc. Does 7sage help with that? My past test scores have been extremely low after much studying, I haven't passed a 150 therefore I decided to request accommodations for my disability.

Recently I was granted testing accommodations and will now receive 54min per section! It is the third time I will take the test therefore I can not mess this up. Should I practice as if I have 35 min per section? Where do I find strategies for people who are taking the test with extended time? If someone in a similar situation has done something remarkable to improve their score please let me know!

Any advice would help.

Thank you!

When doing games, I like to attempt to solve as many probabilities as possible before going on to the questions. In short, spend time upfront in order to save time when answering questions.

However, after doing four or more boards, I begin to realize that there are too many probabilities to solve in order to complete the game in a good time.

My question is, are there any clues to look out for to help me not attempt to solve all probabilities?

How can you tell that it is not better to try to solve everything up front????