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Last comment thursday, nov 05 2015

57.2.2 Taxi drivers

I am just not seeing this one. I understand the gist of what answer B is saying, but I don't understand how the assumptions you need to make in the other answer choices are necessarily better than the assumption needed for B to be the correct answer.

The question is a must be false question, so 4 answer choices could be true.

Taxi drivers earn income based on the fares they get. The decide their working hours by setting an income target, and they stop working when they hit the target. Thus, they typically work fewer hours on busy days than on slow days.

What I am looking for: Essentially, the drivers at the start of the day say, "I will stop once I make $100." Once they hit that, they stop working. How does this suggest they stop working earlier on busy days? Couldn't they set their target higher on those days (assuming busy days are predictable)?

Answer A: Ya, I guess the argument supports this idea. The driver himself sets the target, so unless the driver isn't rational, he sets the target based on his needs. This could be true.

Answer B: I still really don't like this answer choice. It is true that if you set the target for $100 and you work 1 hour on busy days, the EHW is $100/hour. On slow days, say you work 10 hours, your EHW would be $10/hour. Thus, the passage seems to suggest that the opposite of this answer choice is true: you work less when your EHW is high (on busy days). But, what if they change their income targets on busy days to even out their EHW? You have to assume the drivers don't do this. Given that answer choices C-E also need assumptions, how do we value this assumption over the others? For this reason couldn't this answer choice also be true? I just don't see how we have enough information to say it must be false.

Answer C: It's true that the drivers get to set their own schedule, so I guess it could be true they accept a lower wage.

Answer D: Same as D. You have to assume that the drivers take into account their standard of living when they set their target. This could be true.

Answer E: We don't know anything about people with fixed hourly wages, so any comparison could be true.

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Hey 7Sagers, had someone email me with a question and I thought you guys could help out! Here it is:

I have a question or comment regarding LSAT 46, game 3, section 4, question 12. The game ask for the order.

In accordance to the rules P=3 and L and N are before J. The rules don't state that L or N is immediately next to J. Thereby the explained set up is:

L N P J O or L/O N P L/O J. As with the rules, I agree and can understand this except for N = 2. With L = 4, that places L immediately next to J for LJ.

That is my problem. If LJ then why not LN. For set up with J=5; L = 1, 2, 4; N =1,2, 4, and O = 1,2,4,5

For order choices question 12

L N P J O O N P L J N L P J O

O N P L J N O P L J L O P N J and so forth.

The answer choice

L N P O J - Answer A deemed correct answer choice.

L O P N J - Answer B deemed incorrect answer choice. However, both L and N are before J with P =3

N L P J O - Answer D deemed incorrect answer choice. However, both L and N are before J with P = 3

Please explain. Hail and rain is not a factor to answer this question. In addition, the rules and the scenario do not include N = 2.

Thank you.

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Thursday, Nov 05 2015

Advice

Hey all, Al here.

Throughout my long (and I mean LONG) journey with the LSAT, I've come across this specific issue more times than I can count! I'd like to give my own personal thoughts on this topic.

Fellow LSAT students (non-7sage included) have reached out to me time and time again about this recurring topic: advice. I think it's safe to say that many (if not most) people think advice is inherently good. It is after all rooted in the premise that advice helps to inform and guides those that are lacking in certain information that can help others in the long run. And in many respects, the right advice can provide an enormous positive impact on the person receiving it.

But what's rarely talked about are the devastating effects of bad advice. Bad advice can lead us to do things that we normally wouldn't consider and the negating effect can be as substantial as any good advice. Not only does it deviate a person from one's initial trajectory, but it can undo a lot of the progress they have made on their own.

But what really is the distinction between good and bad advice? Here's what I think are the major distinctions:

1. Advice is inherently subjective. What may be great advice for one person maybe horrible advice for another.

2. Good advice has specificity, whereas bad advice is openly vague. The LSAT is a great example of this. So many of the nuances embedded within concepts can be very hard to absorb and the advice provided has to not only be logically congruent within the parameters of the LSAT...it also has to make absolute sense to the person receiving it. I've seen many people (including myself many times) THINK they have an understanding of a certain tidbit of advice but really have no understanding at the core of it.

3. Good advice more often than not takes time, whereas bad advice is usually impulsive. I've noticed this for myself when I've been asked for advice. When I have the time to really think about a problem, I more often than not have something worth telling the person asking for advice.

I have been the benefactor of both great and bad advice. All three of these tenets that I've mentioned applied to me. Yes, it does suck when we get bad advice. But the onus cannot be entirely on the person providing the advice...the onus is on the one receiving it. At the end of the day, it's all about personal responsibility and knowing what truly works and what doesn't work for you.

Just food for thought.

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Hello 7sagers,

I just signed up a while ago and thought I'd give this forum a shot. I was wondering on logic games, when do you create a table between the game pieces and the base set like in the Feb 1993, Logic Game #4? Sometimes I'll create a table when it is not needed. Thanks for all the help!

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Last comment wednesday, nov 04 2015

57.2.25 The law of the city

EDIT: I had the wrong question in the title

I have a huge bone to pick with this one. I don't see how any of the answer choices "must be true."

Here is the law:

Greater than $100 AND made by nonresident AND nonresident isn't former resident--->Register

The campaign complied with the law (so it complied with the contrapositive as well). The campaign accepted contributions only from residents and former residents.

What I am looking for: I thought this was a pretty weird passage since the final clause only denies the sufficient condition, which tells us nothing about if those contributions needed to be registered. Thus, I thought an answer choice was going to specifically reaffirm this premise.

Answer A: This is what I chose, even though I was confident it was wrong. I chose it since I thought all of the answer choices didn't work. This answer is incorrect because the dollar amount of the people that donated to the campaign is irrelevant. The nonresident in this answer choice MUST have been former resident, and if this were what this had said, it would have been correct. However, the dollar amount could have been anything since our conditional rule is irrelevant.

Answer B: This could be true, but it doesn't have to be true. We only know one sufficient condition for registration; there could be multiple sufficient conditions for registration.

Answer C: This is the correct answer??? How must this be true? We only know one rule/sufficient condition for registration. Why can't there be other rules? The passage never indicates that the rule given is the only rule. What if all contributions from residents and former residents must be registered? How this is even close to being a correct answer is beyond my understanding.

Answer D: Again, this doesn't have to be true. We know nothing about donations by the residents and former residents. They each could have given the campaign $1 or something.

Answer E: Again, we only have one sufficiency condition for registration, so this could be true.

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Last comment wednesday, nov 04 2015

LR

What is the best method to program yourself to look for incorrect answers, as opposed to correct answers, during the LR section?

I was told that this is the most effective approach to do very well within this section. What do you think?

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Last comment wednesday, nov 04 2015

Outside Reading Suggestions

Someone last time recommended "The Great Dissent" by Thomas Healy and I absolutely loved the book.

Figured it would be good to start another thread of book/article recommendations that can help improve reading skills + make you more familiar with LSAT subject matter.I struggle with Humanities passages so if anyone has any recommendations...

I mentioned last time that Bill Bryson's " A Short History of Nearly Everything" is a great read: will help you become familiar with a lot of the topics that are tested on the science passages and is also interesting.

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Last comment wednesday, nov 04 2015

Clean copy BR process

Just to clarify when you LSAT PT rockstars do your clean copy BR, are you just BRing the ones your circled during your PT or are you going back through every question untimed? Thanks in advance.

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I know there was a discussion thread going on about the 180 watch or just a test watch in general... But, I wanted to get a confirmation. Is it okay to bring multiple watches?

I was going to order the 180 watch.... but, I guess they ran out of inventory or something because the watch is on back order.. So, I am wondering whether anyone has brought 3+ watches, set them all for 35 minutes, and used them for each different section?

I would really appreciate all the answers! Thank you!

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Last comment wednesday, nov 04 2015

Someone please help!

I just took my first PT in months to prepare for the December LSAT. I finished the course a couple days ago and I scored a 151, and after BR 162. I did miss a significant amount of questions in each section averaging about 7 in each. I'm not sure where to go from here... Should I keep PTing until the exam or....? PLEASE HELP!

Admin note: Please don't post thread titles in all caps!

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Hey all,

Just wondering how I can increase focus/concentration? I keep on thinking about other things while doing PT questions. I take longer than I should/could on questions.

I starting meditation right now every morning.

Is there anything else anyone recommends?

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Last comment wednesday, nov 04 2015

Retaking...is there a problem

Hi all! I have exhausted all test materials from 30 -75. I am redoing tests 50+ and plan for the December retake. Although I am doing these tests again, I am plateauing around 170. I wouldn't say that I remembered all the questions and answers but I think with this kind of performance I would not be able to score 170 in the real thing. Any thoughts on how to improve? Thanks!

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Last comment wednesday, nov 04 2015

pt 45 s1 q 21

I have a question on how the video comes to the contrapositive of the answer choice.

"there are many records of major meteor impacts that do not seem to have been followed by mass extinction"

in the stimulus

becomes

""...then all major meteor impacts would be followed by mass extinction"

I understand we need

P ---> -CCL

or

CCL---->-p

And that this is to be P3. But how is all the contrapositive of many? Many could potentially be All. Shouldn't the right answer here be not many aka none, no, etc?

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Last comment wednesday, nov 04 2015

Write up of my study process?

Hey everyone! I was wondering if anyone would be interested in a write up of my experience/thoughts on studying for/taking the lsat. I got a 180 on the October test (still can't believe that happened and I keep thinking it's a mistake) and so much of the credit goes to the inspiration and helping words I found on this forum that I want to find a way to give back a bit, since I mostly lurked while studying. I wanted to gauge the interest before I spent a couple hours writing the thing, would people be interested in that? What would you want to know, if you are interested?

Edit: Here it is! http://classic.7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/5889/journey-to-the-center-of-a-180

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Why is answer choice C correct? I thought this is a Most Strongly Supported question. I picked answer choice D thinking it is most supported since back then those who learned about natural processes through active learning where the only ones who learned at that time. So when compared to nonagricultural societies, they had learned how to grow plants. But I guess that is assuming too much. But that still doesn't explain to me why answer choice C is correct.

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Hey Gang,

I’ll be gone for the next five days. I’m taking the family to Connecticut for a nice ole’ fashioned New England Halloween. All of the Skype BR Groups are already set up. All you have to do is click on the link of the BR Group Conversation you’d like to attend. They’re all listed in previous discussions, but I’ll reproduce them here for your convenience:

DECEMBER TEST TAKERS

Friday, Oct 30th at 8PM ET: PT75

Click here to join this conversation: https://join.skype.com/qzGIJoSAyLJT

LSATurday, Oct 31st at 3PM ET: PT67

Click here to join this conversation: https://join.skype.com/tA67DTS6xgqW

Monday, Nov. 2nd at 11AM ET: PT51

Click here to join this conversation: https://join.skype.com/tLgIUSlQDEPg

FEBRUARY TEST TAKERS

Friday, Oct 30th at 8PM ET: PT70

Click here to join this conversation: https://join.skype.com/sdiINq0J9AwI

LSATurday, Oct 31st at 8PM ET: PT67

Click here to join this conversation: https://join.skype.com/C8Yeac0csm8G

If the you-know-what hits the fan, please PM @nicole.hopkins and she will fix it like she always does.

Have a Happy Halloween, everyone! See you next week!

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Hi everyone, do you know if there are any real time RC videos where J.Y. Ping reads the passages and answers the questions in real time? The videos I've watched so far are really great but I would love to see and hear him processing the passage and working through the questions in real time. I'm thinking it might help me to see how I could process everything more quickly and accurately.

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Hey there,

Does anyone have any information regarding Canadian law schools and their tendency to consider the February LSAT?

I'm all of a sudden feeling super unprepared for December, and haven't been able to kick that feeling this past weekend. However, waiting until applying for the 2017 admissions cycle is not an option for me. I need to be certain that if I wait for Feb to write (knowing very well that I have a better chance of obtaining a higher score), that I have a chance of still getting in for 2016.

If you have any info and/or experience with this, it is very much appreciated! Thanks!

1
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Last comment monday, nov 02 2015

Tips/Resources for Studying Offline

I've been through the Logical Reasoning curriculum - and feel like I need to print it all out, and even just get access to JY's organisational charts... just so that I can read over it and commit it to memory when I'm not at a computer. I've printed out all the cheat sheets - but things like the flash cards are only digital. Does anyone else feel the same way? What's the best solution? Copy and paste?

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So I took the October 2015 LSAT and scored a 155. I've been within this range for the last 4 months now so I wasn't surprised when I got my score back. The problem is, I don't know how to break out of this plateau. I've gone through the Logic Games Bible once already (might go through it a second time) and am currently working on perfecting my timing. I'm still having significant issues on Logical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension however, missing up to -8 on each LR section and between -7 and -9 on RC. I've also read through the LR Bible after taking a BluePrint prep class, but it felt more like review than anything else.

I've heard that the Manhattan LR and the LSAT Trainer books are good, but my fear is that it'll just be more review without targeting my exact problems. Since my BR scores are between 168 and172, I've been told it's a timing issue. My tutor also said that I fall for trap answers too often. How can I learn what these trap answers are? What should I do in preparation for my retake?

I'm already registered for February with the intention of applying in Fall 2016.

I still have Prep Test A,B, and C, 50, 51, 57, 58, 59, 60 - 75.

Thanks.

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So I'm a little worried regarding the background check. Serious question: just how thorough is it? See when I was on spring break a few years ago in Italy I was arrested for public intoxication and spent the night in jail (traumatizing) nothing ever happened beyond that, I was released and just told to take it easy next time I visit the country....can I get away with not mentioning this since it was in another country and there's no record of it in the US, or would I need to report it.

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B is definitely a flaw in the argument, but can someone analyze my breakdown of D? Here is my breakdown:

50% of people in the survey believe that politician indicted----->politician resign.

35% believe that that politician resign----->politician convicted.

Therefore, more people think politician indicted----->politician resign than those that believe politician convicted---->politician resign.

What I am looking for: First, the conclusion is about "people" in general, but we are using a survey/poll. This introduces the possibility that the poll was biased/unrepresentative. Second, the conclusion makes a sufficiency/necessity conflation in the second comparative statement (about conviction). I didn't see this at first since, and I caught this flaw during BR.

Answer A: This is OK statistical/inductive reasoning. This would describe the flaw if the answer choice put the words "potentially biased" in front of sample.

Answer B: This is the correct answer since the 35% think resign--->convicted. But, the conclusion is about convicted--->resign. Pretty obvious answer choice if you read the last sentence carefully.

Answer C: What term is ambiguous? At best, the argument assumes that "politicians" and "elected officials" are the same thing, but that is an OK assumption.

Answer D: This is what I chose since I failed to see the sufficiency/necessity conflation originally. Would this be correct if the conclusion was correctly stated (if the comparative statement stated resign---->convicted)? Since the two responses convey different beliefs and since the argument is drawing a conclusion/comparison between them, is that a flaw? I am not so sure since the conclusion is about there being "more people" believing X than Y. Since both question were part of the same poll (and presumably same sample size) and since 50% is larger than 35% of that same sample size, would the argument have been valid (assuming there was not sample bias as well)?

Answer E: Why can't the premises all be true?

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Hello everyone,

I have always just read discussion postings and never thought about actually asking a question about my own problem.. Think I really need some sage advice at this point, since I am planning to take the December test, which is my last shot...

So, a little bit of where I stand in my test prep.

I finished both the Trainer and 7sage curriculum and have been taking PTs for a month. For a personal reason, I am just preparing for the LSAT full time. So, I take a PT everyday usually in the morning and do BR in the afternoon. I have been consistently taking a test a day at least 4 days a week for a month.

I used PTs from earlier periods like PT 10 - 28 when I first started out and built my habits based on those. I also added in some PTs from 44-50 and have recently took PTs 57 and 58.

The problem is... I have been scoring (under timed condition) around 173. My highest score has been 177, which I got three times. But, for the PTs 57 and 58. OH MY GOD. I just did not have enough time to finish some LR and RC questions. Even the games were so hard for the PT 57 especially!

I got 160 on PT 57 and 168 on PT 58. This is really a huge problem, since I am developing a downward pattern and I don't know what to do....

I think my average miss on LR is -4 or -5. For RC, I used to get only -1 or max -2, but for the PTs in 50 range... it has been -3 or -4, so it is also very depressing :( I am betting everything on the December LSAT and have to submit my application this cycle. I just don't know what I should do make necessary change....

I print out a clean copy of the test for BRs. My BR scores range around 175-178, so it is not like I do not have fundamental understanding. For some reason, I can't get some of the easy questions earlier in the LR section fast enough. Timing has become a huge issue, and I would love to get some feedback on my test prep.

If there is anyone out there who is having a similar problem as I do with dropping PT scores.... could you please share how you overcame that depressing phase and actually made it to high 170s? I would really really really appreciate any kind of advice.

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