Discussions

All posts

New post

477 posts in the last 30 days

Just curious because the LGB and LRB have both served as my personal Savior. My only reservation about ordering the RCB is that I feel like the skill needed to improve on RC questions can be gained by doing Main Point questions

0

So I'm working through the problem sets on the harder weakening questions. Through BR I can get 80-100% correct, while doing timed I am only able to get maybe 40-60%. Should this be a concern at this point in time? I have also been doing prep for about eight hours today, so that is one thing I can attribute to the scores. There was a point earlier today I was 25/25 on timed.

Note: My test date is December 3rd, 2016

0

Looking for ideas :) So far I'm finding (no surprise) that waking up around 7-8AM, having a quick fulfilling breakfast (oatmeal, fruit, tea), doing a quick workout (30 mins or so) does wonders to my whole day not just the studying portion. Taking a shower at night before bed also really helps me because I'm able to sleep better and I'm not wasting too much time in the morning getting ready.

4

*clears throat*

Since I love y'all, I'm going to start offering tutoring services. As some of you know, I scored a 169 on the June 2016 LSAT, and I'm gearing up to retake in September.

My "specialty" is working with accommodated test takers and/or test takers who aren't traditional learners. I, myself, have learning disabilities and physical disabilities for which I have been granted accommodations by LSAC for my administration. I have a good bit of insight for accommodated test takers as far as the process before and on test day and what to/not to expect.

I have studied for the LSAT for almost 2 years, and I really believe in the 7Sage curriculum, but some things just don't click or work for some of us in the ways they do for others. I understand that, and I will work with you to accommodate your learning style and share with you some things that worked for me on my administration.

I have over 5 years of tutoring experience in other areas of study including working in my university's writing center and teaching English as a second/foreign language.

If you would like to schedule a consultation, pm me here, and we can work something out. I am based in Boston, and I'm available to meet in person, over the phone, or via Skype/Facetime.

Pricing $20/hour; free 30 minute consultation.

<3 you & I believe in you <3

9

Hello 7sage, it's been a while, good to see the forum is still bustling with activity and people putting in hard work in pursuit of their LSAT dreams!

It's October 2015, I was 6 months out from convocation, and I knew I had to get started. I thought it would be a good idea, in November, to enrol for the February 2016 sitting. After I signed up, I set out to find the right study materials. I asked a friend who'd just started their first year at Queens, and he recommended 7sage! So, it's November 2015 and I'm signed up for the February 2016 LSAT without a clue what I was doing. DO NOT DO THIS, wow, time and time again people on the forum say this and I wish I had listened, do NOT sign up until you are ready. In hindsight this was a ridiculous amount of pressure to put on myself, I hadn't even finished the curriculum when people sat the Feb '16 test...

A little bit of context, I had moved into my Aunt & Uncle's house with my two cousins in high school, because I knew it was a good environment for learning. Both of my cousins are extremely hard working, excelling academically and athletically. This provided the structure I lacked in University, where I finished with a 2.9 GPA. I found full time work in the construction industry, 7am-3:30pm, roughly 20km from my home, it was physical labour, for a good hourly. When the weather was good, I would cycle to and from work. I studied after work and on weekends, either after a long bus journey or bike ride. It is important to note that I was in a long-distance relationship at the time, so I was often travelling to or hosting my partner on weekends.

Anyhow, first things first, right? I learned about arguments and grammar. My English and Philosophy background helped, but it was eye opening, I was surprised by how much I learned from these sections. Then, it was time for my diagnostic! I ploughed through it, LG -13, LR1 -8, LR2 -11, RC -8, for a150/159 BR after to figuring out the LG section and changing some correct answers for LR and RC.

Because of my GPA, I knew I needed a good score, my initial aim was 90-94th percentile.

One thing I did not do at first was purchase any prep tests... I didn't think I would need them, and I had zero disposable income after paying for the 7sage Ultimate+, the LSAT administration, and maintaining my romantic relationship. I made cue cards as I worked through the syllabus, reviewing them every morning on the bus.

Once I hit the problem sets I spent SO MUCH TIME taking screen shots, rebuilding the worksheets into word documents, and printing them out. I got this down to a science, but still, it was a ridiculous endeavour that I did throughout the entire curriculum; doing it was mentally exhausting.

As I worked through the sets, there were times I blind reviewed really well, but never like any of @"Accounts Playable"'s posts... I highly recommend using hi posts as the blueprint for your BR.

There were times I wanted to quit, I relied heavily on my partner, my family, and this forum to keep me going while battling through the urge to pack it in after a long day of work and the 40km of cycling or the 2 1/2 hours of public transit. That being said, I did fall off... I had a massive addiction to Clash of Clans and Boom Beach, there were a couple weeks where I didn't study at all after work. My diet also took a nose dive, safe to say this was my all-time low. I'm pretty sure this happened from mid December through the beginning of January.

I essentially paid for the test again to push my sitting back to June 2016. But the universe delivered a gift when I dropped my iPhone in a heroic toilet that killed the phone and my CoC and Boom Beach addictions with it! That might be the greatest thing outside of my control that happened during my journey.

My grind through the core curriculum was completed April 5th, 2016. It was a great milestone, I remember my partner tearing up with joy, it was a long process, watching that green circle fill ever so slowly.

After that point I ordered every PT ever published, and patiently awaited the begging on my final phase of prep.

It is important to note that by late April/early May I started doing the guided meditations, cut alcohol out completely (aside from a sherry on my late Nana's birthday, and a shot at my Uncle's wedding), was doing approximately 90mins of cardio 5 days a week, and followed the "Dolce Diet" as best I could.

I developed what routines that I could, did what worked for me, and focused on not stressing about the things I couldn't do. I would often visualize test day, I was talking to people about the LSAT at every possible opportunity, and I kept telling myself and everyone who would listen that I was confident I would score in the 170s, confident in my preparation, and I would succeed.

Part of my routine was a list of positive affirmations, I would say theses to myself every day after my morning meditation. I also discovered "bulletproof coffee" and after the fall/winter where I consumed like 5-8 double doubles a day... cutting down to 32oz of bulletproof coffee was a huge change, but I think it paid dividends for my sleep quality and energy levels.

My first prep test was actually PT 35, not realizing I had "seen" the questions before until afterwards when I realized the syllabus called for 36. I wound up completing 12 PTs before my sitting in June, including the diagnostic. I also watched every webinar that I could find time for, though I must admit, I rarely watched them work through the questions at the end. I took what I needed from the explanations, updated my cue cards, and focused applying those principles during my PTs and especially during my BR.

I did not have the luxury of writing at 1pm during the week, so I tried to do that on the weekends as best I could. That being said, it did not always work out. The only thing I really could control was how strict I was while taking the PT, I added an extra section from the curriculum PTs, and dropped my pencil when the proctor said so.. There was no way I was going to be tagged for a violation during my sitting.

I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2014, and didn't apply for any accommodations because I was told by my learning strategist that the test would involve "draconian measures" to prevent cheating, and I wouldn't be given accommodations because I didn't have them for exams during my undergrad. So it was 5x35mins for me, to be honest I never wrote a single timed writing sample before my sitting, but I reviewed JY's pointers and made sure to review it close to June 6th. I made sure to force myself to BR every PT as best I could, by the end of the whole process, I think I had filled out 2 whole notebooks between the curriculum and the PTs. Sometimes it would take me a week to complete a review, sometimes less.

3 weeks out from my test, my partner decided to end our relationship, she had her reasons, but the next 3 weeks were a blur. I know that I ate the same breakfast, drank the same amount of coffee, would do the 24 min guided meditation before and after work, and was riding my bike like a madman to and from work. I probably averaged 6.5 hours of sleep a night, with my alarm going off at 4:15-4:30, I tried to be in bed between 9-10pm every night.

I did score a 173 on PT 65, the week before my test... so I felt quite confident and encouraged, especially after briefly participating in the June pep rally. Hearing JY and Nicole's advice and feeling the love from everyone in that webinar was amazing.

When I wrote PTs on the weekend, I recorded the time and amount of my water and food intake, along with my bathroom breaks. There was only one PT where I had to run to my bathroom toward the end of S3.

For my last three Weekend PTs, I tried emulating my bike ride to the testing centre, I ate the same meals, I wore the same clothing I planned to wear on test day. I became obsessed with these details.

The day of, I did everything the same as I'd done on my dry run on Saturday the 4th. I woke up, same coffee, breakfast, I warmed up, I biked the 14km to the campus; after completing my undergrad there, I had no issues accessing the room. After arriving I stretched, meditate, I sauna'd a bit in order to ensure any excess water was gone, that wasn't part of the routine but it helped, showered, ate my same meal, sat down and wrote out my game plan for each section, writing out how many minutes I wanted to allot to each RC passage, I think it was a 7,7,9,10, listened to my Eminem pump up playlist, and walked over to the testing area. The game planning wasn't part of my routine either, and in hindsight, I should have warmed up then on top of the game planning, since it had been hours after warming up at home when I finally started by test around 130pm.

After arriving in the registration area, I was relaxed, sat off in a corner by myself, ignoring everyone, waiting for the proctors to take us over the the testing area. I didn't say a word to a single person other than a proctor.

Once I opened that booklet, I went into auto pilot, except S3... It was the second LG section, after opening with LG, I knew that it could be the experimental section AND I SLOWED DOWN once the first two games were ridiculously easy sequencing games... I also knew the first section had rules very similarly worded to the game from PT 76 that I'd warmed up with that morning. THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA, DO NOT DO THIS!! I didn't even finish the section in time, guessing the final 3 questions. That is awful, considering I knew I had to go -0 on LG in order to score 170+...

I was extremely lucky to walk away with a 169 (LG -1, LR -3, RC -6, LR -2), if my gamble on that experimental section had gone badly, I could be sitting here telling you about how I'm sitting down again for a re-write, but, I'm not. I had scored bang on my average, despite the break up, despite the 6 years of my life where I was a brutal student and at times never thought I'd pursue academics or even finish the degree. I had a construction job to fall back on, I had grown complacent, at one point using ADHD meds without any of the proper studying habits in place to make proper use of them... but persistence paid off, I didn't give up, and 7sage never gave up on me.

My aim for writing the LSAT was to show law schools that I was capable of working that hard and achieving such a good score, I intend to argue that my ADHD diagnosis late into my undergrad was a big turning point for me, and turning that around couldn't have happened over night, but it has, and I am more than ready to pursue my dream of a legal career.

Thanks to you, 7sage, I will do that with confidence.

Sorry for the length!

Looking back, I would have put way more work into RC, and worked on trusting my gut more... I had changed an answer in the first LR section from the correct one to an incorrect one, and with that my 170 became a 169! Those short cuts with the webinars and BR early on might have made the difference, but in the long run, I never reached @"Nicole Hopkins"'s benchmark of 15 PTs for a 170+... maybe with 4 or 5 more... who knows.

Cheers everyone, thanks for reading, best of luck moving forward! I will lurk around here for a bit but, I'm training for my first sprint distance triathlon in 6 weeks and might be busy sleeping more than ever before!

23

So far I've been working on LG and LR. I started with Logic Games as I figured this would allow me to develop formal logic skills necessary for LR and RC. I intend to begin RC as the final part of my studying.

One thing I have been finding is that LR/LG/RC all test cognitive skills that need to be maintained through regular practice. Although I supposed "regular" varies from person to person, I personally find a noticeable drop in performance even if I only take a daylong break from a section. In other words, if I want to maintain my skills level in each section I HAVE to practice that section each day.

I'm finding this makes spending any large amount of time on any one section difficult.

Thoughts?

1

For the brs i understand im suppost to go back circle the ones im not sure about and re do them, is it completely wrong to first write down the ones i got wrong and re do thoses ? And if i get them wrong twice then i know i need to fully focus on that one, i dont read the answers i just write the number down and re do them, mainly due to lack of them i figured this way im not trusting on just my understanding of what i know and dont know but focusing on all that i dont know. Can anyone advocate why this is less affective?

1

For this particular question, could someone run me through the process of why whether or not the Ann was offered the fellowship is irrelevant?

I do see how the correct answer makes the conclusion valid but I can also spot a second sufficient assumption: If ann received the offer for fellowship, then the company will not allow her to take a leave of absence. From the stimulus, we know that quitting her job means two things, that she didn't take leave of absence and that she received an offer for a fellowship. Linking this "offer" term with the sufficient condition of the assumption that I had just listed, we then know that the company will not have let her take a leave of absence. And due to the bi-conditional, we know that if she isn't allowed to take leave of absence, that means that the company will find out that she was offered a fellowship. Wouldn't this also make the conclusion valid as well? I just wanted to know if this thought process was also correct and that there are other potential sufficient assumptions for this question.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-21-section-2-question-20/

0

Hi I just started drills on RC and the speed is a huge problem for me. My average time to finish 1 passage is 10 mins! That means I can only finish 3 passages in a timed section :(. The blind review result is relatively good. I normally got -1 on a passage after BR, if I didn't fully understand the passage, I could got -3 sometimes after BR.

Any suggestions on how to improve the speed? Any annotation methods you recommend? Thanks!

Another question is: Unlike most LSAT takers, my big understanding problem lies in the passages of literature, art, history...etc... since my background is science/engineering. I have to read the passages at least 2 times before I can understand! Sadly most RC are about literatures and arts......

What is a good strategy for the drills? I am using 1-35 PTs as drills.

Thanks!

2

Hey guys, I'm currently in the middle of studying for my first LSAT in September and everyone I know that is currently in law school advised me to use 7sage for the games instead of the Powerscore Logic Games Bible, does this sound true to you?

In other words, can I completely do away with reading the book and attempt to study from the Logic Game Explanations on 7sage? If so, how would I do that, or is there a better way that I should go about studying for these games that anyone advises?

Thanks for the help in advance!!

0

I suppose the difficulty of any given LR section depends on your strengths and weaknesses, but I'm wondering if there's a general consensus on certain LR sections being much more difficult than others. I'm finding my LR scores are varying greatly.

I'll take one section and get 8 wrong and just be completely utterly stumped. Then I'll take another section and only get 2 wrong.

Anyone else have this experience?

Also wondering which prep-test have LR sections most similar to today's. I know the older one's aren't as similar, but when do they start becoming similar? 35+? 40+?

0

I understand that E is the correct answer choice, but since this is a sufficient assumption question, isn't E describing a necessary condition? Isn't it too strong? It says New subway cars are REQUIRED. But they're not required. They're sufficient to cause an efficient, attractive subway, which in turn is sufficient to product good economic sense, but neither new subway cars NOR having an efficient and attractive subway system is NECESSARY for good economic sense.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-34-section-2-question-02/

0

Hey, I am sorry if this seems super obvious. But I was trying to access some games that I had marked by clicking the "star". I was hoping that later on I would be able to see a list of them, and watch the videos for them again. They are not part of a lesson but particular PT's. I can see how under "syllabus" you can see if you have starred a particular lesson or PT. I was wondering if there is a way to just access games or questions that you mark with a "star" that are part of Practice Test.

-Thank you :)

1

I really don't like the way answer choice (E) is worded. It's too ambiguous and abstract that I was not able to wrap my head around it during timed conditions and made me go for easier sounding wrong answer choice even though I knew it was descriptively incorrect!

Can someone explain to me what (E) is even saying?

And do recent tests have answers like this?

Thanks in advance!

0

Hi guys, I need some advice for how to go about my third LSAT

I took the LSAT for the first time in Dec of 2015 and cancelled my score (that LG petrified me). I retook June of 2016 and got a 160. I was a bit disappointed because I had scored a 166 a couple of times, but to be perfectly honest a 160 was a pretty accurate score given my last few PTs. I am applying to law schools in the fall (aiming for T20s only) and I really need scholarships so I have decided to take the LSAT one last time in September.

I haven't looked at anything since the June LSAT and I am wondering if anyone can give me some direction for how I should start studying. To give a basic overview, I did blue print the summer of 2015 leading up to the Dec LSAT, took a couple of months off and did the 7sage cirriculum in March of 2016 and used it leading up to the June LSAT. My paid 7sage membership has since expired and I am wondering if I should get a new membership, get the LSAT trainer that I keep hearing more about, or if I should just take a lot of PTs and isolated sections since I have already gone through the basics so many times.

Without a doubt, my biggest weakness is RC. While I was averaging -2 on LG and -4 on LR, I am lucky to get less than -10 on RC. For example, one of the times i scored a 166, I got -13 on RC but did really well on the other sections. If anyone has any advice on where to go from here I would appreciate it. I have actually gotten to a point where I am thinking about giving up on RC because I feel like I have tried everything (including the RC bible) and I still suck at it but I am also still able to pull of a decent score by doing well on the other sections.

Thanks in advance!

2

Hi 7Sagers,

On Wednesday, July 20, at 9 p.m. EST, I’ll give you a bird’s-eye view of the admissions process. We’ll touch on almost every component of your application:

  • Personal statementsDiversity statementsCharacter and fitness addendaExtenuating circumstances addenda“Why school X?” essaysRésumésLetters of recommendation

I’ll will take questions at the end.

To join, just follow this link: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/501860757

Use your microphone and speakers (VoIP). A headset is recommended. You can also call in using your telephone:

    • Dial +1 (408) 650-3123.Use access code 501-860-757.Use the audio PIN shown after joining the meeting

    • We’ll use Citrix GoToMeeting. The meeting ID is 501-860-757.

    9

    https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-23-section-2-question-22/

    I'm having a difficulty accepting D as an answer for this question. Hoping someone can help!

    My issue with this answer choice is that it seems to create a further discrepancy. Answer D doesn't specify whether Peacetime refers to before or after the war. It doesn't seem unreasonable to think that since the war has ended there is peace. I mean, absence of war is peace. All this answer provides is the general statement that during Peacetime oil production and transport in the Persian Gulf result in negative environmental effects. Wouldn't this create a discrepancy? If D is correct, how can there be less damage after the war than before?

    0

    I have noticed a dip and performance when I am tired. I'll misread a weaken question, have trouble with conditional reasoning, amongst other things, when I am tired. As I mentioned the other day, my last practice test was a 158 and I know that isn't great but I shouldn't have struggled with simple weaken questions. In most subjects, one can push through being tired and I don't want to go to bed. Any advice on preventing a dip in performance?

    0

    Hello 7sagers and future sages,

    Is anyone in the Boston Area interested in meeting to study, particularly about high difficultly questions and advanced techniques? I've heard that getting a real time perspective into your thought process can be eye opening and helping explain something forces you to get to that next level closer to mastery. If nothing else it would be fun to meet up and see how other people approach this beast with which we all must tango. Send me a message if you're in the area or want to Skype, and I look forward to conquering this mountain together!

    Best Regards,

    Peter Jones

    4

    Confirm action

    Are you sure?