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I'm not a Saturday observer but I do play college basketball and we have a game the day of the dec lsat. What are the rules to not take a Saturday test? Could I possibly switch it to the Monday? I don't practice that religion but the only way I can take the lsat this winter is if it isn't on a Saturday. Wondering if you guys have any advice or experience with a situation like this.

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So I took the June LSAT, by going through 7sage pretty quickly and the LSAT Bibles I got a 153.I took the test last weekend and am going to cancel my score due to proctor problems but was scoring around high 150's during PTs right before. I skimmed through 7 sage and mostly did practice tests and reviewed wrong answers.

So now I am registered for the December LSAT and kinda stuck on how to study for it. Should I go through 7sage again or the Bibles again or just really focus on my weak area of RC? I was planning on started 7sage from scratch and going through the whole thing but not sure if that is truly the best use of my time. Im usually missing -7 or -8 in each LG,and each of the LR and missing about -11 to -13 on RC.

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I am going to get 7sage basic and study as much as possible before the December Lsat. I took a diagnostic and got 164 but my goal is 170+. I also have a Kaplan LSAT 2014 book. Questions are:

Is this enough time to improve to my target score?

Should I even bother to read my Kaplan book in addition to using 7sage?

Should I add anything to my plan at all (other books or study programs) or just hit the 7sage course hard when ever I have free time?

I work full time and am taking 12 credit hours of college. I know it will be hard to fit it all in, but law school won't be much better. I figure it's good training. I can study for the LSAT about 6 or 7 hours a week if I give up almost all social life for the next three months.

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Hey y'all,

So unfortunately I cancelled my score from Saturday's test. I took the test at Pace NY and there was construction being done on the roof of the building and as I'm sure you can all imagine, the incessant banging of pipes and jackhammering of concrete didn't make for an efficient test site and it certainly didn't complement the Reading Comp section very well.

The good news is that I took the test, cancelling my score after, and I really believe I was well prepared, thanks to the months of studying aided by 7sage. I do think, however, I can better my timing, I ultimately cancelled the score because I couldn't risk the possibility that the distractions screwed me up on things I know I could otherwise have been positive about.

BUT, now that I have time to do some more prep, I want to look at bettering my timing. When I time myself and take pts on my own, I finish sections in 33 minutes or so, but both times I took the actual test (last October and Saturday) I fell apart. Of course distractions were at an all time high on Saturday because of the crazy amount of noise from construction but now that I am taking the test in December I'd like to better prepare getting my timing down to a science. I'm thinking maybe I should start taking tests with other people.

Does anyone know of any programs or group that facilitate group tests? If not, would anyone in the NYC area be interested in maybe putting a group together this way we can take the exam under more realistic conditions?

P.s. if anyone else was at the Pace location and feels the construction was an overwhelming distraction, LSAC is being very accommodating and investigating all the reports and will either offer a make up or reimbursement. Be sure to get your complaints in to them if you need to!

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Even though I had written close to 39 prep tests, I did feel much more nervous on the actual LSAT. And I tried to keep as calm as I could by relaxing and doing fun things on the day before but I realized it's hard not to be nervous. For people like me, who have wanted to become a lawyer since they were 10, the LSAT pretty much determines whether you make it or not. You try to forget it but it's really something you can't get rid of completely. That being said, I didn't lose my head, and kept as calm as I could I be. I think my adrenaline rush helped me go faster and I finished the reading comp and first logical reasoning with 5 minutes to spare. And I also finished the logic games and second logical reasoning without feelings of impending doom.

Overall feelings:

The reading comprehension: the first passage was easy, second was by far the most difficult and the other two were okay.

Logical Reasoning: the first was pretty easy, the second was tough, many questions I had to really think about and make an educated guess.

Logic games: not as easy as I expected, time consuming, had to do a lot of brute forcing, and last game I ran out of time so guessed last 2-3 questions.

All in all, it wasn't terrible, no surprises, and I felt it went okay. I wasn't coming out of the exam crying, or wanting to cancel it. BUT I can't tell you for the life of me of what my predicted score could be. I just have no idea. Is this normal ?! And do people who scored in the 160's and 170's

ever feel this way after their exam. ( I was scoring high 160s and even a 170 the day before the exam).

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Hey,

I took the test 2 years ago. I'm studying to retake it in December for reasons.

This is for the few people out there who think they BLEW THE TEST UP!!! I really hope you did!

On the day of the test I felt like I aced the test. I was confident going in and not surprised by any thing. Walking out I thought I did better than I ever did before. For the days leading up to getting my score I was getting really excited expecting to see something crazy ( for me ) like a high 160 or a 170+!

Result:

I got a point higher than what I had been scoring on my PT's. I felt really bad about that score. But now I look bad and realize 1) What was I expecting? 2) That score was pretty good. 3) If I wasn't going to be happy with my score I should have pushed it back and studied more until my PT's were higher.

So for those who think they did awful and for those who think they did amazing. The LSAT is really accurate and you probably scored very close to what you've been scoring. So relax and don't get a big head like I did.

I wish you all the best.

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Hello All! I'm wondering if it's not recommended to skip through the curriculum? For example- I'm at strengthening Questions now on the Syllabus, but I'm feeling really antsy about the fact that I've done no logic games prep. Would skipping to logic games and coming back to the rest of the curriculum above hurt me in some way? Thank you!

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I am having a hard time whether I should follow the schedule. I assume (uh oh) that to be able to strengthen or weaken an answer, you must first be able to see a flaw with the argument. That is why I see it makes more sense to work on the flaw before strengthen/weaken. However, I am sure there is a reason why the syllabus is set up as is but I can't figure out why.

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You probably didn't.

But in case you're feeling this way, I want to say a couple of things before you cancel your score.

First of all, congratulations on completing the LSAT. What an exceedingly difficult challenge—but you did it! For what it's worth, I am proud of you for your hard work over the months and your accomplishment today. I wish I could shake your hand because I would do it earnestly until you said "J.Y. stop it."

Please get together with your poor friends whom you've been neglecting for the past x months and drink your collective faces off. On you of course. I mean that literally as in have your friends drink things off your body. And also in the sense that you should pay because you've been such a bad bad friend.

If that's not appealing, please get together with your friends and spend a lovely and sober evening together not nourishing budding alcoholism. But you should still pay for whatever it is.

Okay, on to business.

Your score will likely be a couple points lower. I'm sorry, but that is how it goes. It's completely normal to feel stressed out on test day and that's likely what causes the "test day penalty" that everyone talks about. Objectively, that just happens.

Subjectively, though, your stress might distort your impression of that fact. It might distort your impression of your performance by overemphasizing the negative. You fixate on things like how rushed you felt, how much you guessed, how you never guessed on PTs, that one LR question that you just couldn't figure out, etc. That's what contributes to that dreadful "I f***ed up" feeling. But don't let that get to you. All of that has already been taken into account under what we call the "test day penalty".

If nothing objectively terrible happened, like you had a seizure or heart attack during the test, your city suffered a major earthquake, the guy sitting next to you was so frustrated with the 3rd game that he stood up, ninja stared the proctor in the leg with his sharpened #2 pencil and yelled "F******** EVERYTHING!" and stormed out of the room, then mostly likely, you did just fine.

It has to be fine because the LSAT is a very consistent and reliable test. And that's a good thing. Why would PrepTest whatever be "special"? It can be "special" only in so far as any of the other PrepTests were "special" and you've already preptested those other "special" PTs.

So there it is. If you're thinking about canceling your score, I hope you'll read this a few times and think about it carefully.

76

Hi Everyone,

I'm sorry if this has already been discussed elsewhere! I looked but couldn't see anything.

My question is, are you restricting your timing when practicing RC questions, or are you just timing yourself to see when you're finished? I have been restricting my time between reading the passage (and summarizing as I go), then restricting the time again to writing a summary for each paragraph and the overall summary, and restricting my time to answering the questions.

J.Y. said to not restrict your time too much when first practicing... maybe 12 minutes for harder passages. But it's hard to set up a timer if you don't know how hard the passage is before you read it. That's why I'm wondering if people have been just marking down how long it took them, but not actually setting a timer.

Thank you for your input! I like reading how other people are practicing.

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Hey everyone,

So, I decided that I would write a little (turned out to be long) guide on my LSAT experience. I am doing this for two reasons. First, I am not some genius nor do I even think I did that well, so I think the average person will be able to take at least something away from my experience. Second, 7sage and it's community has been there for me throughout my studies and I believe that giving back and never forgetting where you came from is an important rule to live by. So, that being said, here is what I learned from my LSAT and things that may help you for when you take it.

1) There were two things I certainly didn't want, RC upfront and experimental RC. That is because RC is my worst section, I hate it. Well guess what, that is EXACTLY what I got. I always added LG/LR as a section 5 part PT's and I will always do my added section first. Thus, I don't think I EVER did RC as my first section.

Lesson #1: If you are thinking that there is something you DON'T want, it's best to prepare for it.

2) My experience for LG can be found in this post:

http://classic.7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/1427/i-just-had-my-worst-pt-which-is-the-actual-lsat-t_t

Lesson #2: Mastery for LG goes beyond getting a perfect score. Once you begin to improve in LG to a point where you can get perfect, it's time to move on and begin working on getting perfect WHILE moving faster. Easier games MUST be done faster in order to have adequate time for the harder/time sucking games.

3) This lesson goes mostly to LR but is applicable to RC as well. I was pretty decent at LR going in, I would average anywhere between -4/-6, with a few cases of -7/-8 on harder LR sections. I definitely wish I would have done more TIMED sections of LR. Being able to finish in 35 minutes was always a stretch for me, as well as I always had difficulty skipping questions. It wasn't until the end of studies where I started making a conscious effort to skip questions. So for LR I gained 3 lessons.

Lesson #3: If you really want to feel good about yourself and get a decent score. You need to get comfortable finishing LR in ~33 minutes (more on this later).

I found that while I was writing the test for LR, I didn't have a clue what was going on. My mind was racing so I was focusing on controlling that, I was keeping track of time, making a conscious effort not to get bogged down, focusing on just keep moving, convincing myself not to worry about that last question I just did. Point is, you have a lot on your mind. So, the lesson from this is to get to a point in LR where your like Nike and "just do it". I say this because if the process in LR is not to the point where it's automatic you are likely going to want to blow your brains out from anxiety. I am not saying this to scare you, nor am I saying this to sound like some guru. Words can't describe the feeling, I am just telling you from my takeaway I actually have NO IDEA how well it went (could've bombed it for all I know). It was a weird feeling and all I know is that if my process was similar to what it was while I was practicing then I should be okay.

Lesson #4: Get the point in LR where you "just do it", like the whole section is something your capable of doing in your sleep. You have a lot more on your mind to manage so it becomes fogged up, so you need to place yourself in autopilot.

One thing I noticed on practice test is I didn't want to take risks. I cared so much about my scores and how well I was doing, that I overlooked the amazing experience that can be gained from taking risks. Practice failure it's only a PT. What do I mean by this? I mean see which questions you should skip and develop a strategy on where the best area is to fail. By this I mean which question types are best for you to skip and around what question #. For me, I remember during a couple PT's I straight up skipped some questions and when I went back for BR I was like "damn, I wish I wouldn't have skipped that one, I could've easily gotten it". But there were some cases where I skipped and when I BR'd I was like THANK GOD I didn't waste my time on that one.

Lesson #5: Just keep moving, don't hesitate, don't contemplate. Do the questions, eliminate the wrong answers, choose the right. Be strategic and PRACTICE figuring out which questions are best to skip.

So that's it for me. The rest of my learning experience is no different from everything you've already heard. Do PT's, add a section, do a couple at the time of the test. USE THE PROCTOR app. Anyways, good luck to everyone, I hope that at least one person can take at least something away from this.

19

Hi,

Reading Comp is my weakest link. I have a lot of room for improvement and I was wondering if you guys could share your strategies (of course successful ones). I try to usually follow the VIEWSTAMP method (views, structure, author's view, and main point), but that seems to get me 65-70%.

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I started with a 141 diagnostic, and with the help of 7sage, I have gone up to a 163 as my highest so far, after 4 months of studying. I am thankful for the improvement, but I have a ways to go because my target is 165-167 for Canadian schools. My marks went from being all over the 150s, to stabilizing at around low 160s just last week. Weakest section would have to be LR as I can get up to 10 wrong on an individual LR section (flaw being my weakest point). LG and RC are better for me.

The past 2 weeks have been PT-ing every other day, and blind reviewing on off days + just going over questions I did wrong using JY's video explanations. That's about it. I feel like my study plan needs major tweaking because I feel like I'm rushing through too many PTs without REALLY making improvements on weak areas (although doing many PTs has helped greatly with timing). Should I go back to lessons more, and review wrong questions more than once?. I read in other threads that some people would cut out LR questions they got wrong and to review them often. How do people go about reviewing their mistakes, and how often should I do it? Any studying tips/plans to make big improvements in LR? Thank you in advance :)

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