Hello all! I was hoping I could get assistance with the order in which I should study for the LSAT! I am taking the exam in September but I thought it's better to study earlier since it's my first time taking the exam! I have been studying logic games for 30 minutes a day for a week now. I was wondering if that's a good amount or the right thing to study first. Should I start with logic games then reasoning then comprehension or is there a better order? I am going to try and do an hour a day for the remainder of the time I have before the exam I just want some good tips starting out so I am best prepaired! Thanks so much!

Hoping someone has some advice on this for me. When JY goes over strengthen/weaken questions on LR, he identifies the conclusion and looks for an answer choice that either provides more support for or weakens support that the premises provide for the conclusion. I've been trying to practice answering questions in under 1 minute/20 seconds, and to do this I feel that I can use this approach pretty successfully in general. In general, should I try to come up with an assumption of the argument before I approach the questions? Or would having an assumption in my mind potentially distract me from thoroughly examining the answer choices?

Appreciate any suggestions!

Jeff

The statements provide the most support for holding that Sandra would disagree with Taylor about which one of the following statements?

Answer: D) Some sciences can yield mathematically precise results that are not inherently suspect.

Okay, so I answered this incorrectly on the diagnostic, and watched the video explaining what the correct answer choice was. I'm still a bit confused. This type of question is a disagreement question, which means that the right answer choice has to be a statement that one of the two speakers agrees with and the other disagrees with. In this passage, Taylor and Sandra are arguing about whether or not all mathematically precise claims should be subject to skepticism. Taylor clearly holds that all mathematically precise claims are suspect, while Sandra believes that some scientific disciplines can obtain precise results which are not suspect.

D clearly aligns with Sandra's argument, but I am confused by the wording of this question. It says the statements above provide the most support for holding that Sandra would disagree with Taylor about one of the following statements. Doesn't that mean we are looking for a statement that Taylor believes in and Sandra disagrees with?

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-june-2007-section-2-question-16/

I have an issue with the negation of this answer choice, if someone can help me--I would be most appreciative:

Most of the trade goods that came into western Mexico centuries ago were transported by boat.

Lsathacks says the negation is this:

Merely half of all trade that came into Western Mexico came by boat.

But, I think the negation should be this:

Between 0-50% of the trade goods that came into western Mexico centuries ago were not transported by boat.

Am I wrong in this thinking? Please help out!!

Anyone willing to review and provide feedback to my personal statement?

Is there generally a drop in the score of the actual test when compared to the prep tests? By how many points is this drop?

Hello all! I was hoping I could get assistance with the order in which I should study for the LSAT! I am taking the exam in September but I thought it's better to study earlier since it's my first time taking the exam! I have been studying logic games for 30 minutes a day for a week now. I was wondering if that's a good amount or the right thing to study first. Should I start with logic games then reasoning then comprehension or is there a better order? I am going to try and do an hour a day for the remainder of the time I have before the exam I just want some good tips starting out so I am best prepaired! Thanks so much!

Hi everyone, we're putting in performance enhancements for the site today!

Unfortunately, this will take a while, and the discussion forum will be acting strange and/or offline until it is done. I expect the total downtime to be 3 hours or less, and the update will be starting very soon.

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Hi Guys,

I don't really know how to address overconfidence errors. So far, I have been taking my PT's and BRing just the questions I circled, and then BRing the rest of the section. However, it has come to my attention that it is more important to BR the questions that you circled first and then address overconfidence errors.

My question is this: what do you do to address the overconfidence errors? Do you look at your test booklet and see the question you circled and try to see what your reasoning was? What if you don't remember it? I took a PT on Friday and am now reviewing the test bc I was busy yesterday. Do you just try to reason why the one you chose is wrong and all the other answer choices? Or do you look at the answer and then rationalize why that is correct and the others are incorrect.

I'm really confused about the process for the overconfidence errors and would be most appreciative of any insights or help someone can provide me.

Hey guys! If you're taking the Feb. LSAT and your account is inconveniently set to expire a few days before the test date, just email me (dillon@7sage.com) and I'll extend your account for free through the Feb. test. (Make sure you include your 7Sage email!)

I can guarantee you that my inbox will fill up with these, so give me time to reply to them all. If your account expires by the time I get to your email, don't worry, I'll reactivate it for you. :)

For those of you who are expiring after, good luck on the LSAT! We here at 7Sage are rooting for you.

So, I've done this question many many times. And I've never felt great about it. Can some run it down for me?

Specifically, answer choice A.

Here's what A looks like:

A:

Writer has right ---> Author granted writer the right

I believe A is incorrect because "Writer has right" should not be in the sufficient condition.

Rather, to be correct, A should look like this:

Author granted writer the right ---> Writer has right

Is this accurate?

(if you want to add anything else helpful, it'd be greatly appreciated).

For the next couple of weeks, we're moving to Monday. Yay?

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Hope to hear you there!

Monday, January 23, 2016 at 12:00PM ET: PT78

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The Full Schedule for Feb Test Takers

12pm EST, Monday, January 23, 2016 - PT 78 (please note the date change from 1/19)

12pm EST, Thursday, January 26, 2016 - PT 79 (please note the date change from 1/25)

12pm EST, Wednesday, February 1, 2016 - PT 80

Google Calendar: Coming soon! Not gonna happen! :)

Note:

I am working towards a faster pace for the test questions but have tremendous difficulty lowering the time spent. I can score close to perfect on the logic games with an additional 20 minutes and LR & RC roughly the same. I am not certain how to overcome this with multiple factors of working full time and being a single mom of 2. I am scheduled to take the Feb 2017 LSAT and feel unprepared for the time factor. What is the most efficient way to decrease time? And should I schedule to take the LSAT in June 2017 given the issues above? Thank you for your help:)

Hello, I have a question about the letters.

1. Should we show our PS DS or any essays to the prof?

2. I have a couple of letters and wonder what steps to take after LSAC received the letters...I thought we can choose letters, but no? If we submit them, will all of them be sent to all schools?

3. When they say at least 2 letters, but accept 3, how many do you submit? I heard 3 is better, but also heard if the contnt is the same (almost) you should not bother Adcom to read the additional one.

4. I'm meeting another professor. She is quiet busy but I hope I can get a letter from her asap...how can I be polite but still ask her to write a letter as soon as she can?

Thank you for your help.

Even though this question is old, it has several lessons built into it. I was able to parse this question out mainly because of the lessons on 7Sage. The first lesson I see with this question is the importance of being attuned to the grammar of the LSAT. The stimulus begins with “since.” This should reference back to the core curriculum grammar lessons: “since” generally introduces something that we will be using to build towards a conclusion. In other words, we are hurled by the first word of this argument into a premise. We also have an additional premise that is introduced by the word “and.” We then have a comma and the conclusion is given to us in conditional language. I sometimes feel on LR that what I am given in a stimulus is like joining a conversation mid-talk and I am expected to piece together the information into the way the authors want us to. This is a perfect example of that phenomena in my estimation.

The second lesson in this question is the heavy use of conditional language. You have to know your conditional indicators in order to map this question correctly. What we end up getting when we map this question is:

P 1:If you support the new tax plan——>no chance of being elected.

P 2:If you truly understand economics——>Not support the new plan.

C:If you have a chance of being elected——>truly understand economics

The third lesson from this question is the idea that questions are often related in the task they set out for us, a deep understanding of this sits at the bottom of the case for reading the stimulus before the question stem: if you can tell what is wrong from the stimulus this thinking goes, the question stem shouldn't have to be read first (I am not a proponent of this view.) When I lined those conditionals up, out of habit I wanted to find the sufficient assumption. Well it turns out that if we look at this question through a sufficient assumption lens, we can actually garner quite a bit. Lets take the contrapositive of that first statement:

P 1: If you have a chance of being elected——>Not support new tax plan

P 2:If you truly understand economics——>Not support the new plan.

C:If you have a chance of being elected——>truly understand economics

So insofar as the premises supporting the conclusion this isn’t a valid argument. But why? Above there is simply no way to get from the premises to the conclusion. The forth lesson dawned on me when I was BR’ing this question: This is where the flaw really is: as currently stated, the premises do not support the conclusion. Familiar terms are used in the premises and conclusion as a way to distract us, but the conclusion might as well be something about football or motorcycle maintenance. There is simply no support for the given conclusion from the given premises. The relationships between the elements do not support the given conclusion.

This is when we take a look at the fifth lesson embedded in this question and that is to take a close look at the question stem. This isn’t actually asking what the flaw is in the way we are all used to. Instead, this question is asking us for something that the argument ignores the possibility of. More specifically, that the argument ignores the possibility that “some people who _____” The fifth lesson here is how to deny a conditional relationship. So if I were to give you the conditional relationship: All cats are mammals, you would deny that by saying “some things that are cats and not mammals.” The existence of a thing that is both a cat and not a mammal is enough to deny the sufficiency of something being a cat triggering the necessary condition of being a mammal. With this knowledge in mind lets take a closer look at what we are given in the stimulus.

chance of elected———>Not support new tax plan

+

Understands economics——>Not support new tax plan

Conclusion:

Chance elected——>Truly understands economics

How could we make this valid? We could say that Not support new tax plan——>Understands economics!

99 times out of 100, if we have gotten this far and we are stuck, it was actually our translation of the logic where we have gone wrong. Meaning if this was a sufficient assumption question, I would bet that I had translated something wrong. But, we didn’t. The only other possibility is something very peculiar: it appears that our author has given us: Understands economics———>Not support new tax plan, but has interpreted this statement in logic to mean: Not support new tax plan———>Understand economics! If we (wrongly) interpret the second condition as Not support new tax plan———>Understand economics, we have a simple A——>B——>C argument.

This is an incredibly difficult step to take. I am open for correction here, but the idea that we are given a conditional statement, that we translate correctly, but have to take a leap in judgement to conclude that the author might have interpreted that conditional statement wrong is hard enough. Finding where the author’s translation went wrong and then negating that translation to point out the flaw makes this, for my money, the hardest flaw question of all time. The author's assumption here is actually a mistranslation of the logic to: Not support new tax plan———>Understand economics The denial of this is (D)

I look forward to a correspondence with members of this community about this question. Has anyone come across something like this elsewhere? Would it behove us to classify this flaw under the umbrella of sufficient/necessary flaws more generally? Thank you!

David

**Admin note: edited title**

Sorry if this is redundant due to being asked and answered elsewhere. Direction there would be good if so, but I can't find an answer with a few searches.

I just upgraded my membership. Previously, I had used the question bank + filtering to drill questions marked as high priority from my PT + blind review. Now that I have access to new questions, I would like to filter again for those question (yes, I still suck at some of them) but not see all the ones that were available in my lower level subscription. That is to say, I only want to see the "new" ones that are available given my new upgraded membership. Is there a trick or way to do this? I guess it won't kill me to redo old questions if not. . .

Many thanks.

I am just curious to know for logic games, people who are scoring well in that section, once you find what you believe to be the answer choice. do you move on to the next question? or are you also verifying the the other answers as well just to make sure the answer you chose is correct?

I like James Clear.

He's one of those people who's constantly trying to improve himself. I get his emails once per week, and they always challenge me to ask myself, "Could I be doing this better?"

This is his guide to Deliberate Practice (I've also provided a link because many of the ideas he writes about are hyperlinked to sources.) I think there's a lot here that could be applicable to LSAT. Take a read a let me know what you think. Maybe you have some specific ideas of how to deliberately practice the LSAT.

http://jamesclear.com/beginners-guide-deliberate-practice

The Beginner’s Guide to Deliberate Practice

by James Clear

Read this on JamesClear.com

In some circles, Ben Hogan is credited with “inventing practice.”

Hogan was one of the greatest golfers of the 20th century, an accomplishment he achieved through tireless repetition. He simply loved to practice. Hogan said, “I couldn’t wait to get up in the morning so I could hit balls. I’d be at the practice tee at the crack of dawn, hit balls for a few hours, then take a break and get right back to it.” [1]

For Hogan, every practice session had a purpose. He reportedly spent years breaking down each phase of the golf swing and testing new methods for each segment. The result was near perfection. He developed one of the most finely-tuned golf swings in the history of the game.

His precision made him more like a surgeon than a golfer. During the 1953 Masters, for example, Hogan hit the flagstick on back-to-back holes. A few days later, he broke the tournament scoring record. [2]

Hogan methodically broke the game of golf down into chunks and figured out how he could master each section. For example, he was one of the first golfers to assign specific yardages to each golf club. Then, he studied each course carefully and used trees and sand bunkers as reference points to inform him about the distance of each shot. [3]

Hogan finished his career with nine major championships—ranking fourth all-time. During his prime, other golfers simply attributed his remarkable success to “Hogan’s secret.” Today, experts have a new term for his rigorous style of improvement: deliberate practice.

What is Deliberate Practice?

Deliberate practice refers to a special type of practice that is purposeful and systematic. While regular practice might include mindless repetitions, deliberate practice requires focused attention and is conducted with the specific goal of improving performance. When Ben Hogan carefully reconstructed each step of his golf swing, he was engaging in deliberate practice. He wasn’t just taking cuts. He was finely tuning his technique.

The greatest challenge of deliberate practice is to remain focused. In the beginning, showing up and putting in your reps is the most important thing. But after a while we begin to carelessly overlook small errors and miss daily opportunities for improvement.

This is because the natural tendency of the human brain is to transform repeated behaviors into automatic habits. For example, when you first learned to tie your shoes you had to think carefully about each step of the process. Today, after many repetitions, your brain can perform this sequence automatically. The more we repeat a task the more mindless it becomes.

Mindless activity is the enemy of deliberate practice. The danger of practicing the same thing again and again is that progress becomes assumed. Too often, we assume we are getting better simply because we are gaining experience. In reality, we are merely reinforcing our current habits—not improving them.

Claiming that improvement requires attention and effort sounds logical enough. But what does deliberate practice actually look like in the real world? Let’s talk about that now.

Examples of Deliberate Practice

One of my favorite examples of deliberate practice is discussed in Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin. In the book, Colvin describes how Benjamin Franklin used deliberate practice to improve his writing skills.

When he was a teenager, Benjamin Franklin was criticized by his father for his poor writing abilities. Unlike most teenagers, young Ben took his father’s advice seriously and vowed to improve his writing skills.

He began by finding a publication written by some of the best authors of his day. Then, Franklin went through each article line by line and wrote down the meaning of every sentence. Next, he rewrote each article in his own words and then compared his version to the original. Each time, “I discovered some of my faults, and corrected them.” Eventually, Franklin realized his vocabulary held him back from better writing, and so he focused intensely on that area.

Deliberate practice always follows the same pattern: break the overall process down into parts, identify your weaknesses, test new strategies for each section, and then integrate your learning into the overall process.

Here are some more examples.

Cooking: Jiro Ono, the subject of the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, is a chef and owner of an award-winning sushi restaurant in Tokyo. Jiro has dedicated his life to perfecting the art of making sushi and he expects the same of his apprentices. Each apprentice must master one tiny part of the sushi-making process at a time—how to wring a towel, how to use a knife, how to cut the fish, and so on. One apprentice trained under Jiro for ten years before being allowed to cook the eggs. Each step of the process is taught with the utmost care.

Martial arts: Josh Waitzkin, author of The Art of Learning, is a martial artist who holds several US national medals and a 2004 world championship. In the finals of one competition, he noticed a weakness: When an opponent illegally head-butted him in the nose, Waitzkin flew into a rage. His emotion caused him to lose control and forget his strategy. Afterward, he specifically sought out training partners who would fight dirty so he could practice remaining calm and principled in the face of chaos. “They were giving me a valuable opportunity to expand my threshold for turbulence,” Waitzkin wrote. “Dirty players were my best teachers.”

Chess: Magnus Carlsen is a chess grandmaster and one of the highest-rated players in history. One distinguishing feature of great chess players is their ability to recognize “chunks,” which are specific arrangements of pieces on the board. Some experts estimate that grandmasters can identify around 300,000 different chunks. Interestingly, Carlsen learned the game by playing computer chess, which allowed him to play multiple games at once. Not only did this strategy allow him to learn chunks much faster than someone playing in-person games, but also gave him a chance to make more mistakes and correct his weaknesses at an accelerated pace.

Music: Many great musicians recommend repeating the most challenging sections of a song until you master them. Virtuoso violinist Nathan Milstein says, “Practice as much as you feel you can accomplish with concentration. Once when I became concerned because others around me practiced all day long, I asked [my professor] how many hours I should practice, and he said, ‘It really doesn’t matter how long. If you practice with your fingers, no amount is enough. If you practice with your head, two hours is plenty.’” [4]

Basketball: Consider the following example from Aubrey Daniels, “Player A shoots 200 practice shots, Player B shoots 50. The Player B retrieves his own shots, dribbles leisurely and takes several breaks to talk to friends. Player A has a colleague who retrieves the ball after each attempt. The colleague keeps a record of shots made. If the shot is missed the colleague records whether the miss was short, long, left or right and the shooter reviews the results after every 10 minutes of practice. To characterize their hour of practice as equal would hardly be accurate. Assuming this is typical of their practice routine and they are equally skilled at the start, which would you predict would be the better shooter after only 100 hours of practice?”

Image

The Unsung Hero of Deliberate Practice

Perhaps the greatest difference between deliberate practice and simple repetition is this: feedback. Anyone who has mastered the art of deliberate practice—whether they are an athlete like Ben Hogan or a writer like Ben Franklin—has developed methods for receiving continual feedback on their performance.

There are many ways to receive feedback. Let’s discuss two.

The first effective feedback system is measurement. The things we measure are the things we improve. This holds true for the number of pages we read, the number of pushups we do, the number of sales calls we make, and any other task that is important to us. It is only through measurement that we have any proof of whether we are getting better or worse.

The second effective feedback system is coaching. One consistent finding across disciplines is that coaches are often essential for sustaining deliberate practice. In many cases, it is nearly impossible to both perform a task and measure your progress at the same time. Good coaches can track your progress, find small ways to improve, and hold you accountable to delivering your best effort each day.

For additional ideas on how to implement deliberate practice, I recommend this interview with psychology professor Anders Ericsson, who is widely considered to be the world’s top expert on deliberate practice.

The Promise of Deliberate Practice

Humans have a remarkable capacity to improve their performance in nearly any area of life if they train in the correct way. This is easier said than done.

Deliberate practice is not a comfortable activity. It requires sustained effort and concentration. The people who master the art of deliberate practice are committed to being lifelong learners—always exploring and experimenting and refining.

Deliberate practice is not a magic pill, but if you can manage to maintain your focus and commitment, then the promise of deliberate practice is quite alluring: to get the most out of what you’ve got.

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FOOTNOTES

Interview with George Peper. GOLF Magazine. September 1987.

Hogan’s precision with the golf club allowed him to play the game in a different way than most. Once, another golf pro came to him for advice and said, “I’m having trouble with my long putts.” Hogan simply replied, “Why don’t you try hitting your irons closer to the pin?”

Ben Hogan was relentless in his quest for improvement. According to one New York Times article, Hogan once received a shipment of golf balls before a tournament and examined each one carefully with a magnifying glass. “Some of these balls have a little too much paint in the dimples,” he said.

The Making of an Expert by K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely. Harvard Business Review. July-August 2007 Issue.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this email, please forward it to a friend and tell them they can join my free newsletter at jamesclear.com/newsletter

Hey guys! It's me again.

Although, I have just started studying not too long ago... I can sense that time will be an issue for me. I find myself rereading the first two sentences multiple times. I think this might be the case because I'm often that last student writing the test. I have ALWAYS taken my time with writing tests and knowing that I only have 35 minutes per section gives me anxiety.

Not sure how I will be able to get through this.

Help!

The professor that I am receiving the LOR from just asked if the LOR should be school specific or if he can write a general LOR. I am applying to 7 programs, and I haven't seen a specific prompt to make them specific to the school. Can bot my recommenders send an LOR that is generic in nature?

Hi all,

In December, RC, which is my best section, was the first section and I felt like I wasn't understanding any of the sentences I was reading. So I read the sentence again and again but I just kept feeling like I didn't understand it...I guess this is a form of test anxiety.

How can I prepare to prevent such disaster in June? Any thoughts?

Thanks! :)

Hello dear reader,

Im writing in for the mid 2017 exam. Late 20s male here looking for a determined study buddy...preferably one whom which we can become attached at the hip, and serve as an inspiration, and a constant reminder to each other of our impending success on the upcoming exam.

Please post a reply here if you're interested.

Goodluck to everyone reading this!

When reading passages, are there any signs/ signals that one should look out for that may be an area of interest that questions focus on?

Hello fellow LSAT-takers,

The biggest thing I struggle with is knowing how much time to set per week to study for the LSAT. Like many other students, I tend to procrastinate way too much!! I am writing the June 2017 LSAT and hope to achieve a 170+. I am currently working part-time and I volunteer a lot. As of right now, I am beginning with the core curriculum and would like to know how much time you have dedicated per week in regards to studying. I know it varies from person to person but I really have to score this high on the June 2017 LSAT due to personal reasons. Let me know what you recommend or what study schedule has worked for you.

Thank you!

Hello fellow 7sagers,

There is no right or wrong answer to the question at hand. I know 7Sage's method is to read the question stem first. However, I am curious to hear from individuals who have tried "both" approaches. Which made your task of comprehending the stimulus and answering the question easier?

Thank you in advance.