Good morning, all-

I saw someone mention somewhere on the forum (can't seem to find it now) about unusual games making a reappearance and I'm trying to make sure I've been exposed to everything. You'll have to excuse my ignorance, when you all say "subzones," does that mean PT67, Game 4 specifically or what JY would call subcategories? I looked it up and saw that PT67 mentioned subzones specifically so I took and BR'd that one.

Other "weird" games I can think of off hand are circular, mapping (like the Zephyr airline one, right?) and pattern games. Are there any other weird types that I'm missing?

Hope everyone's studying is going well!

One week before test day! Here are three things to do and three things to avoid in the lead-up.

DO:

Scout out your test site – Even if you don’t know exactly what room you’re going to take your test in, don’t throw up your hands and skip this! There are a lot of different things you can scout out on test day, assuming you know at least the general location they’re going to put you in. Your mileage may vary, but if at all possible you want to get in there and poke around a bit. A (non-exhaustive) list of things you can do:

• Look into the classrooms. Are they full of student desks with those fold-up half-tables, or are you getting long desks? Classroom layouts within the same building generally follow a similar pattern, so look and see if there are clocks inside the rooms and, assuming you’ll be oriented toward the front of the room, whether you can see them easily. Are the seats bolted down? How closely packed are they? Decent lighting?

• Check for bathrooms. Does each floor have both a men’s and a women’s bathroom, or perhaps they alternate between floors? I suggest looking for two bathrooms so that you don’t have to wait in case there’s a line. You can maybe even get away from everyone and clear your head a bit while heading over to your backup.

• Find multiple parking lots, if applicable. Recognize that there will be a lot of people there on test day, and if you can’t find a parking spot it’ll throw a wrench into the whole works. For large university campuses and other such spaces this shouldn’t be a problem, but better safe than sorry.

• Get a sense of the traffic at that time of day. The last thing you need is to have entirely-predictable traffic gumming up the works on your big day. This might be difficult for folks who have full-time jobs, but you students out there have no excuses.

Get all of your logistics ready – Do you have your pencils? Passport photo? Plastic baggie? Lucky jeans? Adult diapers, if you’re going that path? (Just kidding – please don’t go that path). Don’t wait until Sunday; get it all done ahead of time. Especially true for things that you can’t just drop into a drug store on Sunday evening to pick up (i.e. get your passport photos taken right this instant). Think about how you’re going to keep yourself occupied while the test proctor deals with the people who didn’t realize they had to bring their own pencils or know their own social security numbers (there’s always at least one). Also, pick the questions you’re going to do for your Monday morning warmup ahead of time – no scrambling day-of allowed.

Fix your sleep schedule and set your routine – June takers obviously get a bit more leeway on this, as the test doesn’t start until afternoon. Still, the last thing you want to be doing on the day of the test is deciding what to have for breakfast, whether to go for a jog, where you should be doing your warmup questions, and so forth. If you haven’t already, nail down a routine that will allow you to be ready to go at 1pm. In particular, it’s important to avoid the ~2pm food coma – figure out how much food you can have at lunch such that you have enough energy to get through the test without putting you on the brink of mid-afternoon naptime. On test day, it should be pure robotic execution.

DON’T:

Attempt to Cram – Cramming for the LSAT makes about as much sense as cramming for the Tour de France. At this point, if your skills aren’t up to par, they’re not going to be by the time next Monday rolls around. There really aren’t that many things you have to memorize, and all of those things should be completely burned into your brain by this point anyway. Even if you learn an extra thing, it’s just as likely to hurt you as help you – it won’t be integrated into your thought process so it’s not likely to be principled or well thought-out when applied to a question, and it might even introduce confusion. If your skills aren’t there, the solution is not to cram – the solution is to take in October. I typically tell people to shut the books between 48 and 72 hours before test day (in other words, if you’re taking on Monday, stop studying on Friday, or Saturday at the latest). Spend the last few days relaxing, scouting out your test site, and getting into a good mindset.

Take a PT in the last few days – What’s the point? This is all downside and zero upside. If you do about as well as normal, then nothing changes – I accept that maybe it’ll be a minor morale boost in the best case, but it’s certainly not going to be a significant one. If you do better than normal, you’ll wonder if it’s a fluke, and you certainly should know by now not to put too much stock in fluctuations that you can’t replicate. You have no time to even attempt to replicate it, so it’s functionally worthless. Meanwhile, if you do poorly, you risk completely ruining your confidence and mind frame. I’ve seen the doom spiral too many times to count – people get one subpar mark, freak out because it’s so close to the test, take more tests in a desperate attempt to validate themselves again (usually failing because, well, if you’re in that mindset you’re way too tilted to do your best), and wind up scoring way worse on test day for no real reason other than that they took a meaningless practice test way too late in the game. Remember that full-length practice tests are taken for the purpose of giving you a benchmark for how you performed at a particular point in time. Does that benchmark really matter anymore 7 days before the test? You should know what you’re capable of at that point. If you don’t know, then you haven’t practiced enough.

If you insist on studying until the bitter end, then don’t take a practice test – review things you’ve already done instead (it’s much more helpful). If you’re going to take one last practice test, take it early in the week and score it by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest, and then DON’T DO ANOTHER ONE. And if you absolutely positively insist on risking your state of mind for no good reason at all, then for the love of the flying spaghetti monster do not score that last test. In my opinion, if you’re looking at an answer key at any point in the last 72 or so hours before your test, you’re doing it wrong.

Freak Out – Take a deep breath. Look over your previous practice test results, and understand that you are perfectly capable of scoring just as well on the real deal as you did on those. To you, this is the June 2015 LSAT, and it’s understandable that you’re stressing it and putting a ton of mystique around it. But at about 4pm on June 8, 2015, the test will be nothing more than PrepTest 75 - just a number like all of its brothers before it, a tool for September 2015 takers to use as practice. Heck, for those of us who work with the test for a living, it’s already just PrepTest 75, and we eagerly await its release. There is nothing special about this test. It’s exactly the same as all the PrepTests you took before it. Don’t let it psyche you out.

I don’t wish any of my students good luck on the LSAT, because luck has nothing to do with it. Stay calm and focused, apply what you’ve learned, and you’ll be just fine.

Am really excited!

Hi Guys

During the 15 minutes recess after first three sections, what do you guys usually do? Listening to cheerful music like Rocky's theme song is usually what I do. Do we need to relax during this 15 minutes or make us more excited facing the rest of sections?

I thought this would be a cool way to outline our priorities and maybe exchange ideas on what to review/go over :D!

-Last Week of LSAT Prep-

-As Much as possible of LG Bundle (2nd Time Around)

-Go Over PTs (Late 60s/Early 70s ESPECIALLY PT 74)

-PT 72/73 (After Reading Jon's Post I've decided I'll take one of these on Tuesday) BR and review should be good enough!

-Cambridge RC Packets

-Review 7Sage Lessons (LG/LR) -- LSAT Trainer Lessons (RC/LR)

-Sleep/Eat (I Sort of forget to do these 2 things, hehe)

Happy Posting :D!

Hi All!

For those who work full-time and study before/after/during (lol) work, I'm curious: How many PTs do you take per week and how do you schedule them?

I've been studying since January, finished the course in about March but have only taken about 10 PTs. I'm only able to take 1/week (usually on a Saturday) because I find myself unable to concentrate after a long day at work. I once took a PT on a Friday after work and my goodness, it was AWFUL.

I'm taking the October test and would really like to manage my time for PTs in the best way possible. Any tips?

Thanks!

I am sorry about asking such a silly question, but for those of you who already took the real LSAT before, could you guys please tell me if the paper LSAT used was similar to the one that we normally use for printing at home/work or the one that is like recycled paper and somewhat gray-ish color?

I have a couple of questions regarding how LSAC calculates our GPAs.

1st: Will they take any addendum into consideration or is that reserved solely for law school admissions?

2nd: What do the three passing, four passing and 5 point fields mean on the 7sage calculator? Are they credit hours?

Thanks and my average of my first 3 PTs after the course is 164 from a 152 diagnostic! Encouragement---go go go!!!

Hey Everyone,

Got this question right when I did this initially, but having a tough time ruling out answer (D). I know at first glance it seems out of scope, but here's my reasoning why (D) could be right. If all scientific investigators don't receive any grants for which they apply, then they face no restrictions (ignoring anything that doesn't directly bear on the funded research), and therefore serendipity can still play a role. I know (D) sounds far-retched, but why can't it be a NA?

I know I've gone wrong somewhere in my thinking and I'd appreciate if anyone can help me out. Thanks!

Everyone,

I've practiced every part of the test but the one section that fails to improve is RC. As a result, it prevents me frm getting the scores I want. I've tried annotating, using the memorization method, doing 3 sections for accuracy, but nothing seems to help it improve. I'm currently seeing 14-17 correct in that section. Pretty far off from the rest of my test. Does anyone have any suggestions or did they start doing something that just made it click for them? I've also been working through the Manhattan RC book but I'm not seeing any improvements as a result. I'm willing to put any amount of effort or time in to achieve it.

Thank you.

Hello! I thought I would ask the 7sage community for some advice regarding my recent PT performance.

I had previously been PTing consistently in the high 160s to low 170s, but recently my last three PTs have been 166, 168, and 164. Am I taking too many PTs? I was wondering what course of action I should take:

A: Continue to take practice tests and drill like mad to take the June test

B: Do only light studying and take the June test

C: Pay to push my test date to October

Thanks so much for your input! If there's anything you can suggest that I didn't think of, please let me know.

How did/do you guys determine where you will apply for law schools? This is mainly a question of curiosity.

Hello, my fellow 7sagers! These days I have been working on my lg bundle and realized that it takes much more time than I expected! I initially thought that it would take about 2-3 weeks to finish it according to the previous study schedule suggested by this site. But now I feel like it would take much more than that to finish the lg bundle if I properly follow the fool-proof method suggested by JYP :((

Is this normal or should I worry? I would really appreciate it if you guys share your lg bundle stories with me!

Thanks in advance :))

Hey guys. During timed prep tests, I take a long time to answer Parallel Reasoning and Parallel Flaw questions and I only get them right 20% - 40% of the time. Even with this issue, I score pretty consistently in the low 160's. I am considering skipping these questions altogether by guessing after a 30 second preliminary P.O.E. for questions of these sorts. Actually trying hasn't worked much better for me from a percentage standpoint and I think it would probably save me 3-4 minutes over the course of each LR section. Any recommendations? Does anyone else skip problems under timed conditions?

Hey guys. During timed prep tests, I take a long time to answer PR and PF questions and I only get them right 20% - 40% of the time. Even with this issue, I score pretty consistently in the low 160's. I am considering skipping these questions altogether by guessing after a 30 second preliminary P.O.E. for questions of these sorts. Actually trying hasn't worked much better for me from a percentage standpoint and I think it would probably save me 3-4 minutes over the course of each LR section. Any recommendations?

Hi Everyone

In the beginning of doing prep test, my highest actual score is 152 with highest blind review score 162 after 7 prep tests. I figured something went wrong and I stopped doing prep-test and focused on drilling cambridge RC, LR section. I just restarted prep test this week. I got 155 in prep test 47 with BR score 167, and I got another 155 with BR score 173 in prep test 64. Does the difference between BR score and actual score signify how much I can improve?

Another thing is when I do LR sections, I always have second thoughts. Something like "oh man, why do I get stuck even before question 10, this should be easy" and I vacillate between 2 or 3 answer choices a lot, which wasted me lots of time. When I BR these questions, I usually found I chose right answer or I got it after several thoughts. It happened to me in the RC as well since I want to get all of questions right in the first passage which is supposed to be easier than other passages. I normally get above 20+ questions right in LG. Did what I said ever occur to you guys? How did you guys overcome this barrier? Thank you so much 7sagers!

Hello friends.

Tonight at 7pm EST we will congregate over Skype for Blind Review of PT64.

1) Take PT 64 under timed conditions

2) Blind review as you are able

3) Join us at 7pm EST for fun and (logic) games

PM me if you would like to join; include your Skype handle.

Hi All,

What's the general consensus on PTing up until test date? 2-5 PTs a week? 1 PT per week?

Hello all,

I tried to post a photo of my idea to save copies, but failed! This really helped me keep track of my progress for the Fool proof method and has been working really well. New games have become a lot easier. Anyways, here's my layout:

Ex. On a full LG section, I drew a chart under each game as follows:

# Date # of Mins. Out of ( )

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

On the last game I expanded my chart:

# Date # of Mins. Out of ( ) Total time (35) Total Out of ( )

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

I then cut scratch paper in half to use as my space for game boards and to place my answers on. If you want to go to great lengths, you can write out answer choices on the scratch sheet, so you can track what you eliminated without writing on the master copy. If someone posted this idea already, oh well! Enjoy

I've yet to take the 70-74 exams. Instead of squeezing in all five, I want to take and thoroughly BR 2-3 in the last week.

Does anyone know if any of these more recent exams have particularly difficult games or reading comp passages? I'm inclined to think that they're generally comparable in difficulty, but I'd rather focus on any 70-74 PTs that have very difficult or unusual games/reading passages.

Thanks!

Hey guys,

So I have bought the 7sage's lsat starter, and I am wondering how do you study as you follow the program? Do you drill specific question types while studying? or do you just continue to watch the videos until the end after learning about everything, and then start drilling?

Hi!!! I have written my history before, but I'll do a general recap. Studied (mostly with Cambridge) before the December 2014 LSAT. Finally purchased 7Sage with less then three months of studying left. Studied 5-6 hours a day and worked full time. I didn't use that many PTs. I still have (I believe) 50-70s left. Which is good!

I've been through the curriculum 2x now (ultimate package). I wrote my first prep test (for this study cycle) last weekend. I wrote #36. I plan to write #50 tomorrow and prep test 1x a week (Saturdays) right until test day (either October or December).

My question is..... what do you guys do for studying between the prep tests?

What I did last week was....

Saturday - Prep Test #36

Sunday - BR the entire exam. Go through each section. For LR, I identified which questions I got wrong and what question type they were. For LG, I noted which game type gave me the most trouble. For RC, I went back and review where in the passage I could have found the right answer & which types of passages were hardest for me.

During the week....

In the AM I would write 2 times RC passages from both my weak areas (Natural Sciences and Humanities). I would then print off a LG section from the LG Bundle and do that under timed conditions. I made sure to BR the RC passage. I then reviewed both and noted which were harder games/passages so I could go back and redo them.

At lunch I would go through the Cambridge packages and do questions on my weakest LR areas from the prep test (Flaw, MSS, and Parallel Flaw). Before I started prep tests, I reviewed the Cambridge packages for each question type and did #s 1-60. So Now I'm doing #60+. I blind reviewed these, wrote out the corrected reasoning for the questions I got wrong, and went over the answers the next day to reinforce the concepts.

I also read through my notes for about 10 minutes in the morning before work. Just basic notes from 7Sage about the question types, how to solve them, how to negate conditional statements, ect.

I guess I'm wondering if it's "enough". I know I still have a lot of time, and I have now been studying for about a year....... does anyone see anything I could be doing more? I also have taken up reading in my spare time so my mind is more actively engaged. Nothing crazy, just a few leisure books.

Thanks!

So, it's June 8th and I'm ready to take my exam. The school location changed at the last minute and I seem to be in an industrial building. As confused as I am as to why the location was changed, I'm still just trying to stay focused and remind myself of the different strategies I intend to use to attack the LSAT. I walk into the room and it's different than any other classroom I've experienced. There are no windows, the walls seem to be made out of dark metal sheets, and the lighting is very dull. Our seats are arranged in a square like fashion. If I look in front of me I can see someone directly facing me and there are people immediately to my right and my left. I'm worried because this just feels unnatural and depressing. As I look up I see the proctor walking in, and it's the TA from "Writing I" during my freshman year of college. This confuses me. He was also heavy smoker, and I am reminded of this as he proceeds to fill the room with a dull smog of cigarette smoke. Suddenly J.Y.'s voice pops into my head, he says "you can do this, remember all of your training, and the countless hours you watched videos of Jon and I explaining simple answers you got wrong." The proctor administers the test and shortly after I begin.

I open to the first section and it's LR. "This is awesome", I think to myself. "LR and LG are the sections where I've produced the best results and intellectual advancement, just like J.Y. said I would." However, by the time I get to #14 time has been called and I've missed answering half the questions. I'm going crazy. I think to myself "Is this the experimental? Should I cancel my score? Should I continue?" The next section is LG, attempting to shrug off the crappy feeling the previous section bestowed upon me, I move forward. Time is called again, and once again I only finished halfway though. This makes no sense to me. My 180 watch has 15 minutes left on it. Somehow everyone else in the room comfortably finishes except for me? "Is this a joke?" I think to myself. At this point, I go through all of the mathematical possibilities for me to at least hit a 155 (assuming one of the sections was experimental.) I eventually move on to the third section and it's RC. This is my worst section, yet I finished it on time with 5 minutes left to spare. It's weird, he didn't call time early and I finished RC early?? "I must be dreaming" I thought to myself. It's time for our break, but, it's 45 minutes long. "This must be why he cut the first two sections so short, he wanted to add 30 minutes to the break so he could smoke half a pack."

During my break I go home and contemplate suicide. The stress is eating at me horribly, thoughts of 1L at a crappy school are haunting me, and I feel like all I've studied/worked for was for nothing. I started to cry and feel ashamed to look into my family's eyes, my girlfriend's eyes, and all I could think of was being an outlier of the 7Sage curriculum. 7Sage has produced so many high scoring awesome individuals, but I couldn't live up to that standard. I get ready to go back to my testing location and try to at least finish the exam with some dignity.

As soon as I get there the test had already started. I WAS 15 MINUTES LATE! well, I really wasn't, but the proctor decided to cut the break by 15 minutes. I rush to my exam and it's another RC section. I only answered 10 question before time was called, and it was horrible. I felt tense, I felt everyone's glaring eyes staring into my soul through the smog, and I started to laugh hysterically. I looked at my test booklet, and it was infinite. I was stuck in a room with an LSAT test that never ended. As I was laughing J.Y. appears and clears the smog away. I then looked at my test booklet and it was brand new with 5 sections. As I look up I noticed I was in a new testing room. J.Y. is the proctor and everyone's usernames I could remember from 7Sage hovered over blank faces. I started my exam and as soon as I turned to the first page I woke up.

I took a well known in person course for my June LSAT prep and it appears that from my original practice testing scores, I have had a serious regression on all of the categories. Is this common? It just seems like with all that I knew (didn't know) has been trashed and I'm more confused now than when I started. I'm feeling bummed out.

I've been studying for the LSAT since January; however, I had been using Powerscore for three months. Although I'm sure some might have benefitted from this prep, I didn't as much as I wanted to. It wasn't until late April that I started using Manhattan and have seen a great improvement!! I was supposed to take the June 2015 LSAT, but I'm almost certain I'll withdraw. I am just now improving and not near my target score yet (I am aiming for a minimum 160, and I'm now on the low 150s). Additionally, I'm only half way through the Manhattan course (it is very exhaustive), and I'm extremely confident I'll be closer to my target score by the end of the course.

I want to go into the exam feeling as prepared as I can. My friend who used 7sage along other prep courses (and also got a 172 and will be attending Stanford in the fall) recommended 7sage to me. I feel confident with most basic lessons pertaining the LSAT. With all of this being said, where should I start with 7sage?

Additionally, my main two challenges concern endurance and timing. On practice tests, the first two sections, I do decent (not yet where I want but VERY close). It's the last three sections that my brain starts to literally shut down. Does this happen to anyone else? What are your recommendations? I haven't taken as many practice tests (around 6-7), so it might be a thing I might just have to get used to. Timing used to be a bigger factor, but I'm getting better at it. I am still rushing on the last 5 questions on most sections though. Any advice for this as well? I KNOW these two things (especially endurance) are preventing me from reaching my minimum target score. All and any advice and positive vibes would be extremely appreciated.