Hi guys!

Just a quick question regarding typing out your thought process for LR. I recently developed the habit of typing out my thought process and explanations for each answer choice after grading a PT to try to understand where I'm making mistakes. However, should I be doing this only after blind reviewing and grading the PT? Or should I begin the typing process when I blind review?

Many thanks!

I already sent out an email to Daniel (one of the sages) about my planned schedule and wanted to receive feedback from other sages if they had the time to chime in.

So, I've already gone through the phase of learning the fundamentals, and right now I'm trying to tackle each section individually before entering the PT and BR phase.

So, in terms of LG, I'm in the process of foolproofing the LG Bundle from PT1-35 and right now I'm at PT 14 and I can already see my LG skills improving. I definitely do each game more than 5 times in total to make sure I have all the rules and inferences down.

For LR, I'm taking Daniel's advice and basically going to focus on Flaw, Strengthen, and Weaken questions (7sage analytics pointed out these three areas as my main weaknesses) and starting tomorrow do 10 questions of each of those areas untimed and really break down the argument, get to the root of the argument, and try to anticipate the answers, and write out an explanation for why I think the correct answer choice is correct and why the other four are incorrect. And then I would check the answers and if I got a question incorrect, I can review it, cut it out and keep looking at it from time to time. The next day I would do the same with a different set of flaw, weaken, strengthen 10 questions each from the Cambridge packet.

For RC, I'm trying to read a lot of difficult prose out loud each day for about an hour because it forces me to focus on difficult material, builds up my overall endurance, and increases my familiarity with different concepts. Also, I try to go through one or two RC passages a day and make sure I understand reasoning structure, any distinctions or evaluative statements/opinions.

I'm only planning on taking a preptest only after I've done the LG foolproofing method. Do you guys have any further suggestions? Much appreciated and thank you Josh, Daniel, David, and Nadar for the awesome webinar!

P.S. I really want to join in on the BR call but I won't be in the PT phase until next month. Should I wait?

Thank you guys!

So I am about to print my ticket for the February 4 2017 test-does it have to be color since my photo is on it? or can i take a black and white? Just wondering, thanks!

Admin edit: No titles in caps, please! Don't yell at me! :'(

Hello 7sagers in LA,

I have either entirely or mostly blank (with writing has a note next to them) copies of some LSAT books. And because 7Sage has been so good to me, I'm giving them away to some of my unused material to you for free.

I'll give away one book of your choice first comment, first serve. You just have to pick it up from me at some point.

Here's what I have:

The 2015 LSAT Trainer (first 40% has writing in it) TAKEN

Official LSAT Preptest 73

Official LSAT Preptest 74

10 New Actual, Official LSAT Preptests 52-61 (One of the games sections has writing in it) TAKEN

The Next 10 Actual, Official LSAT Preptests 29-38

10 More Actual, Official LSAT Preptests 19-28 TAKEN

10 Actual, Official LSAT Preptests (7,9-16,18) TAKEN

If there aren't enough Angelinos, I'll let folks claim multiple books.

Good luck studying,

Benjamin

Hey All, Im studying for the JUNE 2017 Lsat and I work in the city during the week but live in Yonkers. If anyone is from westchester county itd be great to meet in a coffee shop or bookstore. Anyways Message me :))))

Hey everyone, just wanted to get clarification on something. I find myself, when confronted with a MBT or SA question, immediately translating to logic. It is hard for me to find the correct answer choice otherwise. However, it does seem to eat up some time. Is there a better strategy to approach these questions? I would be very comfortable with the questions if it wasn't for the timing element, due to the formulaic nature of their structures.

Hey everyone,

I'm having trouble clearly identifying the assumptions in logical reasoning questions. I understand the difference between necessary vs. sufficient assumptions, overlooked possibilities & mismatched concepts. But, during my timed practices, the assumption is not clicking in my head. Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated. Maybe even a new way of approaching the stimulus?

I took a cold diagnostic last month the day before Christmas eve and ended up with a 146. But after going through a whole curriculum with the online Testmasters course for about one month, I took another PT(21) just to see what my weaknesses and strengths were and got a 161 (BR 167). The breakdown was -8 LG -4 LR1 -7 LR2 -6 RC. I was generally happy with the improvement, albeit some of the logical reasoning questions were ones I've already seen before. I don't want to lose hope because initially I thought I was incapable of pursuing this task of defeating this ridiculously difficult standardized test. But I'm determined to try my best so I've signed up to take the real test in June. If my scores are not up to the range where I want it to be (preferably +170) then I'm willing to postpone. Some things I already know I have to work on are LG by doing the fool proof method from PT1-35 (recommended by 7sagers) which I'm currently in the process of doing. For LR, I'm not sure whether I should refer back to the fundamentals or simply hard core review the ones I've missed. All the questions I've missed are from #15 and onwards. Also timing is an issue for me for some reason. For RC, I definitely had time left to spare and I was sure about all my answers, but they turned out to be wrong unfortunately. I won't take another PT until I've fully gone through every single question I've missed as well as the ones I was unsure about and also I'm done with the LG fool proof method which will take me another 2 weeks I think. Any advice from any of the 7sagers will be much appreciated! I've been perusing through the discussion forums and everyone seems so friendly and almost all the advice I've seen are top-notch! Long story short, I'm happy to be part of this community!

P.S. I would also be willing to join in BR calls in the future if that's helpful as well.

Basically, for each LG game that I get wrong or am off on time, I redo once and figure it out with a slight overkill on time. The second time, I get them right and am 2 minutes under time. Same with the third pass.

I stop after the third pass. I know we are supposed to print ten copies, but is there a minimum amount we can drill if we pick it up on a second retry for instance? Would you do one more? Go up to 5?

This professor is a good guy, and I like him a lot. He was kind enough to send back a draft. Can I pm one of you guys to get your opinion on the quality?

The purpose for me pursuing law school is to ultimately work in public interest. I hope to get into policy making/changing.. especially education law and disability law. With that said.. I would love to make it to a T14 school.. Georgetown would be a dream come true.. or Cornell.

My husband is applying to veterinary school the same time I am applying to law school.. This limits my choices of T14 schools. I honestly just want to get into a decent school with scholarships that will allow me to work in public policy.

Considering what my goal with a law degree is, is it reasonable to NOT attend a T14 and still accomplish my goals?

I've been doing too much lurking on the TLS forum.

It seems games can be mastered with practice,

is it the case with LR as well? Or perfecting LR just not a realistic expectation?

Hello,

I have a question, in my PS I discussed I have been interested in law for a long time, but I studied a totally different subject in grad school. There are several reasons and I did not study it for giving up law school, but should I explain that in addendum? Or do I look like I am making an excuse?

Thanks.

I haven't seen any kind of limit on length for these. Do you guys think that will be okay? I know personal statements are supposed to be 2-3 pages double spaced, so this will still be about half of the size.

Hello,

Is anyone aware of LSAC having an infrequent tendency to introduce a question stem in double negatives?

Example: Instead of stating, "Which one of the following, if true, would weaken the argument?" They otherwise state, "Each of the following, if true, does not weaken the argument EXCEPT?"

Thank you.

Hey all!

I've been hiding away doing applications. I hope everyone did well on the December test and if you didn't, Feb is around the corner and I know you all will kick ass.

So this hasn't actually come up until today but one school I'm applying to asks for an explanation if your second LSAT score is five points or above your last one. I improved by five points and wasn't sure how I should approach the explanation.

Three main reasons for why I increased:

So I'm not sure if I should explain all of this or if it makes me look like a slacker. I don't want the school to think I can't handle stress or change.

Any thoughts?

Thanks and love this site!

I saw something in a comment somewhere about logic game sets of similar questions to do, and I saw on one explanation JY had "if you struggled with this type of question, here's a bunch more". Are there multiple of these lists/ do these lists exist?

Alright so, I have already posted about having regrets, but now we are getting to crunch time. I am hovering around that magical 160- 165 PT range ( 161, 163, 163, 164, 164, 164, 165) which puts me right where I want to be for 94% of Texas schools. If I score like this on test day, I will most likely get into UH, Baylor, SMU, St. Mary's, while missing out on UT Austin. So here's what I can do:

Accept a (most likely) good sized scholarship from St. Mary's. They are not a great school, but have good influence in San Antonio. That is where I want to practice post graduation.

Possibly accept smaller money to go to UH, Baylor, or SMU. Be 2-4 hours away from my wife and dogs since they will be in the San Antonio area. So I will have to commute every weekend to see them. The drive is not that long, but it does stink to be away from the ones you love.

Most of my improvement has come in the last month. I shot up from a 153 to my current range, and I am beginning to see some improvement that could make jumps elsewhere possible. Do I forego this year, study for September, and go for the big Kahuna at UT?

Which option would you choose?

OK, so my battle with RC and been brutal, long, and very emotionally draining. I originally was going like -16, now I'm going -5ish. In RC I have seen the biggest gains. I have done really well and learning to "see the forest" before I examine the trees. As @"J.Y. Ping" put in a RC webinar, you have to be able to understand the passage at the 10x level, the 5x level, and the 1x level, 10 being the forest, 5 being individual paragraphs, and 1 being the individual trees.

Questions related to the 10x and 5x level are starting to become very easy to me, even for some of those level 5 passages. What still to this day trips me up are those 1x level questions where you have to understand certain parts of the passage at the 1x level. Out of the 5ish questions I usually miss, almost all of them are 1x, fine detail level questions. When I BR and grade my PTs I always see the right answer and I'm like, "Ahh! Damnit. It says it right there in that one tiny sentence! How did I miss/forget that part?"

My question to all of the RC gurus out there is how did you learn to remember things in the passage at the 1x level under timed constraints? For me, I almost always have to return to the passage, and I usually just don't have enough time to make it happen, so I circle the question and skip. The questions I miss are generally due to not remembering a specific detail from the passage, and not having quite enough time to return to the passage. When I come back to these questions, I usually just POE because I am at my last 2-3 minutes of the section. It's so frustrating because I am so close to going -0 on some sections, and the questions I miss are really not that hard, it's just remembering the fine detail.

As always, thank you for the feedback!

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-76-section-2-question-24/

We are looking for a necessary assumption.

The conditional for the first sentence is: write in order to give pleasure  /impart truth. However, the conclusion of the argument is that this conditional is not true. They say that if this conditional was true, then you could take any popular book on the shelf and the conditional would be: popular  gave people pleasure  /impart truth. To do this, you would have to assume that if a book gives people pleasure, then it would have to have been written in order to give people pleasure. Just insert the original conditional in right in front of the “/impart truth” part of the equation.

This was counter-intuitive for me because I was immediately looking for a bridge to the conclusion of the stimulus, which is that those who write in order to give pleasure CAN impart truth to their readers. This one is tricky because it is asking you to look for the NA in a part of the stimulus that you’re not used to looking for it.

[Admin edit: Replaced with link to question. Please don't post copyrighted material, thanks!]

73.4.20 https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-73-section-4-question-20/

This is a phenomenon-hypothesis Strengthening question, so we are looking for an answer choice that strengthens the hypothesis or an answer choice that prevents an outside factor from weakening the hypothesis.

The passage is basically saying that the process goes like this: When nerve cells are damaged after a stroke, glutamate can leak from them and can kill other nerve cells. We are left to reasonably presume that this is included in the definition of continuing nerve cell deterioration. Therefore glutamate is present in blood of those whose nerve cells continue to deteriorate after a stroke.

Answer choices (it came down to C and D):

A – incorrect because saying that any neurotransmitter that leaks from damaged nerve cells will damage other nerve cells does not strengthen the relationship we want. It doesn’t give us any more reason to think that glutamate in particular is impacting surrounding nerve cells.

B – incorrect because it’s irrelevant

C – This was very hard to eliminate, but it is incorrect for a couple of reasons. 1) Knowing that it is the only one that leaks from damaged nerve cells doesn’t necessarily impact the relationship. If it does, we have to stretch it with a bit assuming in order to do so (for instance, you have to assume that it actually DOES leak from those nerve cells). 2) It doesn’t rule out the possibility that glutamate could come from five billion other locations in the body. It therefore definitely does not strengthen the statement that glutamate from damaged nerve cells is a cause of brain damage. Just because it is the only neurotransmitter that leaks from oxygen-starved or damaged nerve cells does not mean that it only leaks from those nerve cells. In fact, it leaves the door wide open to think that it could leak from a long list of other places, and we know from the stimulus that we don’t care about those other places. We just want to know if leakage from oxygen-starved or damaged nerve cells causes brain damage, and this answer choice doesn’t give us enough security and clarity for us to be able to do that.

D – This is the correct answer, because it specifies that glutamate can ONLY come from damaged or oxygen-starved nerve cells. This enables us to say (or at least makes it possible for us to say) that glutamate very well could cause brain damage/long-term nerve cell deterioration, since the way it can get into the blood stream in the first place is from oxygen-starved or damaged nerve cells.

E – incorrect because 1) we don’t need to know anything else about nerve cells to conclude that glutamate causes brain damage, and 2) it doesn’t matter that they can leak glutamate and still survive intact. This has no impact on the relationship we are trying to strengthen, since if they were destroyed, it wouldn’t do us any harm or any good.

[Admin edit: replaced with link to question. Please don't post full questions, thanks!]

Hey there, has anyone on here seen of, or complied a list of the more difficult RC sections in LSAT history? Wanted to try and tackle them all before sleighing the beast in two weeks.

Are their any more premise or conclusion indicator(s) words that have been found that we can add to the list?

And even words indicating a switch in the argument?

Hi community,

I cannot remember all my dorm housing policy violations that I breached in college

because I threw away the papers and the college email is now terminated.

So I contacted the student life office and asked them to release all the records.

They only had one alcohol violation. Honestly I cannot remember if there is anything more.

Im not so concerned about law school app as to the Bar C&F. What if Bar C&F

find out something that I don't remember despite my effort to research and disclose?

Maybe some records are expunged despite receiving written warning, but I cannot remember? (- this is what Im most concerned about.(/p)

I want to disclose everything but I cannot find records. This is really getting frustrating.

I have a half page C and F and 1 page (double spaced for both) diversity statement ready to go. Anyone have a couple of minutes to take a read through and give me their opinion?