If you think you've found the right answer choice, do you feel it is still wise to read through the other answer choices carefully? And how much time would you spend reading through those other answer choices? This is assuming a real-life testing scenario.

Is section 3 of PT 72 unusually hard? I've been told that PT 72 is weird and I shouldn't be discouraged by lower scores on this test than the others. I'm working on LR and did fairly well on the first LR section of this PT but I did horribly on section 3. What are your experiences with this PT?

Hello everyone,

I guess let me start with a brief overview of my story. I originally made the decision to pursue law school about a year ago. I prepped (and slacked off) all summer and took the September 2014 LSAT. Not surprisingly I blew it; I got a 145. But I tried to stay confident. I took a few months off to collect my thoughts and relax. I purchased the 7Sage course and the Cambridge packets with my Christmas bonus and started prep. I went pretty hard for a few months then I hit a standstill. I tried getting back into studying, but my brain was not focused enough for the LSAT. I felt guilty for not studying and I felt hopeless. I made the realization that I would have to put off school another year mainly due to financial woes, which was discouraging. When I first made the decision on pursuing law school, I wanted to start fall 2015. I turned 30 this year, I'm ready to get life going. I also had a lot of stressors in my life between work, school, and family. By Easter, I was in a deep depression (again). And I very nearly admitted myself to the hospital (again). So, I took a step back and said a big "screw you" to the LSAT. I got my meds adjusted, started one-on-one therapy, attempted to eat healthier, and increased my involvement in group therapy. I knew I had to get healthy before I could even attempt LSAT prep. So, for two months I haven't done anything related to the LSAT. I'm not all the way there but I feel like I am ready to start slowly welcoming the LSAT into my life. I know I am basically going to have to start from scratch but I feel better about that now. I feel like I can finally read about the LSAT and not feel despair.

I guess today I just wanted to share my story and see if anyone had any advice for my situation. I feel like I need to start slow perhaps do some logic games (my favorite and strongest section) to get back into LSAT "fun." I work full-time so I am fully aware of the stress this puts on me especially after what I've been through the last few months. I feel like that if I am just able to study an hour a day at first that is a step in the right direction. Of course I want to do more but I also don't want to wind up where I've been. Time management has been an issue. I also need to make sure I take the LSAT and my issues very seriously.

But I am looking at hopefully December for a retake. At this point, I'm definitely not taking it until I feel ready. I'll probably see how I feel in November if I'm not ready plan on February, if I'm not ready in January, wait until June so on and so forth. I'm hoping for a retake no later than June 2016 but we will see. My GPA is not too great so I need to score in the very high 160s to low 170s at least. And based off my BR scores in the past I think that is possible. Timing is the biggest issue on LG and some on RC, on LR practice will hopefully make perfect.

What I am thinking is maybe this weekend if I have the time take a timed diagnostic and BR it just to see what taking months off has done to me. I've taken the June 2007 PT so many times so I'll probably use some other random PT I've never taken. And then start back prepping slowly Monday.

I guess I'm just mainly rambling, but if anyone has any advice it would be appreciated.

Hi! I'm having some major troubles with assumption and "which will weaken the argument" questions...any tips would REALLY be appreciated at this point!

For assumption questions, I know that if the answer is false and the argument falls apart, then that answer is correct but I can't really seem to have enough time to do that for every response.

For weaken the argument questions, I'm not sure if I'm mistakenly focusing on the premises and should be focusing on just the arguments instead. I know I should be looking to destroy the relationship between the premises and the arguments, but I'm finding it difficult.

Again, many thanks in advance for any tips/advice!

I didn't take the February LSAT but to those of you who did or read about it in Discussion, can you share any takeaways or specific things about Feb that might be worth knowing before this June PT? (Obviously something from Feb doesn't mean it will be in June, but I want to prepare just in case) IE was there a crazy hard or odd game or long RC passage, hard LR etc?

Thanks!

Has anybody tried and found success with energy gels? (http://running.competitor.com/2014/07/nutrition/everything-you-need-to-know-about-energy-gels_44642)

I'm trying to find a 15 minute snack that will provide me the most amount of energy boost with the least amount of liquid.

So far, I've tried circling all transition words (ex: but, however, therefore) and important words that specify the author's viewpoint, but I've found myself pressed for time and each time I go to circle a word, I lose focus on what I am reading and find it difficult to grasp it all.

For my most recent pre-test, I tried reading without annotating/circling and found that my score improved, only by a little. Would you recommend annotating? Does anyone just read the passage and go straight to the questions?

Thanks!

Of course you are. You're about to take an important test. It's not the most important test though. That one is called the October LSAT.

Just kidding. This is likely the last LSAT you'll ever take.

I'm only trying to remind you that for something this important, there are second chances. That's not true for a lot of other important things in life, so that's something to feel good about.

For most of you, you already know what score you'll get. Take your last three recent properly administered LSAT PrepTests (e.g., 72, 73, 74) and average your scores. You'll get plus or minus 3 points of that average.

There is nothing separating you from that score except the mere passing of a few day's time.

You are as prepared as you can be. You have already seen everything those crafty LSAT writers will throw at you and you've amply demonstrated your ability to respond with craftiness of your own.

Monday will be just another PT day and the June 2015 LSAT will be just another PT. PrepTest 75, in fact, when the LSAC releases it. And how different could that be from PT 74 and PT 73 and PT 72 and on and on and on.

You're ready.

That's not to say, of course, that you won't encounter a few insanely difficult curve breaker questions. Every LSAT has them. Every student who has ever taken the LSAT before you has encountered them. You will encounter them (again) on Monday. I am telling you this now, so you will be prepared. Skip them. Keep moving. Maintain your rhythm.

You got this.

I still find it intriguing that there is more weight placed on my performance in undergrad, versus grad school, so now I have to wonder: is it better to submit a LOR from an undergrad prof versus a grad prof, even though I've been out of undergrad for -- eegads -- almost a decade!?!

What say you?

Hello.

So I am not sure where to put my question, so I will just write it here. I apologies if it is redundant, but I cannot find an answer yet. I have taken a prep course with Test Masters, and even though I improved from my original score and did learn something I am still not happy with my mid 150. My problem is that I did a lot of PTs, all of them starting from 2007. Some I did almost a year ago, but some were just recent. Of course there was no BR, so it was pretty much a waste of time. I am going to do all of the theory here again, since it seems that I have some fundamental misunderstandings there, but what should I do about PT practice? Should I take the tests I have already done again? How good would that be for me? Should I take the older ones? It seems that we'll do a lot of questions from those during the initial theory course. Any help or advice will help. Thanks.

Hi! I'm taking the June LSAT next Monday, and was looking for a little advice. I know the Logic Games section is the most feasible section to get 100% of the questions correct. However, every time I take a prep test, my LG section always comes up a little short. I usually miss 3-5 questions, mostly because I don't have time to complete the last game. Any advice on how to improve before Monday, even just a little bit to get those points I'm missing? Thanks!

I noticed on PT 74 and in previous PTs that passages can vary in terms of difficulty and at least # of questions.

I was pretty married to the idea of just going in order - even if easier ones are earlier (emphasis on if), I wanted to get easy points out of the way.

But now I'm reconsidering changing the order of passages. If not based on predicted difficulty, then based on doing the ones with Most Questions first. Thoughts?

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 :))