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?

I have this book, "Ace the LSAT Logic Games" and I can't seem to find any online explanations for the games in here because they don't mention which PT they're from and googling key words is not bringing up anything in search results. One I'm having a particular hard time with understanding is a game that has to do with spa sessions involving mud, kiwi, lime, and nutrient treatments. If anyone can explain why K has to be first in this game, I would really appreciate it. It seems to be the source of why I'm not getting certain questions right. Just can't wrap my head around it.

Also, if anyone knows how to figure out which PT's are in this book so that I can search for additional help online, that would be great.

Thank you

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!

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

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…

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.

So the consensus is that if you're able to take PTs in the actual room that you're taking the LSAT, do it, right? I would have to agree with this notion. Not many people have this luxury, but I do. So far I've taken a total of 3 PTs after re-doing the curriculum. 2 were in the actual room (which is at my university), 1 was in my university's library. However, for the PTs which were in the actual room, I was faced with a myriad of distractions and interruptions that I don't think would be present on D Day: my university decides that NOW is a wonderful time to start repaving that beat-up street in front of the room (imagine jack hammering, huge trucks scraping up the demolished pieces of concrete, the constant beeping of those trucks when they go in reverse), also a janitor decides that cleaning said room is absolutely imperative to the functioning of the university: arranging chairs to desks, throwing out the garbage bins that have no garbage in them, and just walking around the room aimlessly which was incredibly distracting (mind you, it's just a big room that no classes are ever held in). Now for the cherry on top, the room adjacent to this room is undergoing some sort of construction as well: drilling holes, hammering, literally anything that could make noise. I had to Pause mid-PT until noises died down a little.

I was definitely off of my game for those PTs in the actual room and it showed with my scores.

However, for the PT I took in the library, it was perfect. Some noise, but definitely not inhibiting my ability to focus...and it showed with my score. (this was the highest score I received to date)

What I'm asking is: should I not continue taking tests in the room and take them in the library? Getting accustomed to the actual testing environment is important, but not with all that noise/distractions, right?

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...

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

Hey Guys,

Needed some help with diagramming a couple of sentences into lawgic and their contraceptives.

1. If Aliens or Ghosts are in the house, then Tim and John are not in the house...Is the info I have written below correct?

- The way I have diagrammed this is like: A or G --> /T and /J. Taken further, this becomes: A --> /T, A --> /J ; G --> /T, G --> J. If Aliens are in the house, then Tom is not there. If Aliens are in the house, then John is not there. If Ghosts are in the house, then Tom is not there. If Ghosts are in the house, then John is not there.

- Contrapositive: T or J --> /A and /G. Taken further, this becomes: T --> /A, T --> /G ; J --> /A, J --> /G. If Tom is in the house, then Aliens are not the house. If Tom is in the house, then Ghosts are not in the house. If John is in the house, then Aliens are not in the house. If John is in the house, then Ghosts are in the house.

2. Totally confused about diagramming "Tom will play really well for his soccer team if John or Bill, but not both, play on the same team as him."

I understand that John or Bill, but not both will be diagrammed as /J (--) B, where contrapositive is J (--) /B. But how do I diagram the info about Tom. Is this correct? /J (--) B --> T? If yes, what will be the contrapositive?

Thanks for your help, as always.

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.

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/

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!

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????

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/

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.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-18-section-2-question-23/

Here is my conditional reasoning:

teachers are effective ------> when they help students become independent learners

teachers have power to make decisions in their own classrooms ------> enable their own students to make their own decisions

become independent learners -------> students' capability to make their own decisions

teachers are to be effective --------> have power to make decisions in their own classrooms

Apparently my conditional reasoning in line two is incorrect??

But I don't understand why it would be.

"Yet not until teachers have the power to make decisions in their own classrooms can they enable their students to make their own decisions."

This looks like: Not until TD can they enable SID

"until" is group 3, negate sufficient

So negate "not TD" which would make it just TD and keep it in the sufficient spot which would turn to TD --> SID.

But this screws up the chain.

Can someone explain?

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-23-section-1-game-2

I watched the explanation for this game and am struggling with why in the set up you can not assume that HIRED equals INTERVIEWED (i.e., that they are interchangeable terms), since interviewing is a required condition for hiring?

I interpreted the corresponding rules to be just attempting to confuse me and depicted all hires as, by default, interviewed in my rules interpretation, e.g., I interpreted rules 4 and 5 to be combined as: F-K-M (if F then K then M). But clearly this does not work in the execution of the game!!!

Why is this not a valid interpretation?

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!

I'm having trouble applying contrapositives because in many instances they seem like bunk. Specifically, it seems like they require unsupported assumptions other than those that can be derived from game rules. Here is an example:

A group of three must be selected from the variables, A, B, C, D, & E:

1. If C is not selected, then B is not selected

2. D and E cannot both be selected

3. In order for A to be selected, B must be selected.

According to the study guide that I'm using, the contrapositive of rule 1 is, if B -> C. As I see it, although B -> C may be true there is nothing that requires it to be true. To my mind and contrary to the contrapositive of rule 1, it is also possible, although not required under the rules that if B is selected then C is still not selected. That being said, contrapositives are a proven concept and its unlikely that I'm right and my study book is wrong, so what am I missing, what systematic leap in logic am missing to make the concept of contrapositives useful on the LSAT? Thanks

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

Saturday, April 23th at 8PM ET: PT70

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

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

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

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