I was under the impression that, on reading comprehension, reading the questions before you read the passage was a bad idea and a waste of time. However, I have been struggling with reading comprehension lately, and so wanted to experiment with some new techniques.

I decided to read the questions ahead of time. Specifically, I read for the details. I tried my method out on PrepTest 60. On one of the passages, I noticed that about three questions were about a group called the 'New Urbanists." Also, I found one question that mentioned a specific line, and marked this in the passage. Basically, I took a note of the concept in each question. This probably took me 15 seconds.

That ended up changing the way I read the passage. I now read with a focus on those details I had just scanned. It made the right parts of the passage pop out and ultimately led me to be able to finish all four passages (which I had been struggling to do).

This approach just make reading comprehension a lot more straightforward because I approached the passage with a direction instead of feeling around for which details would be important.

I would compare it to reading the question stem before doing a logical reasoning question. It seems similar to me because reading an RC passage without reading the questions beforehand gives me the same feeling that reading a logical reasoning stimulus without knowing the question stem. A feeling of foreboding about what would be coming at the end. I tried to retain what I'd read in the stimulus, but was always jarred by the need to contemplate the question stem and its effect on the passage. I find reading the questions for the first time after reading a passage is like someone pushing me while I'm trying to balance on a ball or something. It's such an effort to stuff the passage into my brain that trying to juggle the questions and their effects on the passage really throws me off.

By having a heads up on the questions, I am able to search my way through the passage instead of stumble my way through.

It made me wonder if somehow logic games might benefit from the same approach?

I have found that labelling the answers in LR as either "True," "Could be...," or "False" helps me to understand the question types better.

The only significance compared to the way I've seen answer choices labelled in other places is that I don't separate Could be true or could be false.

If you think about it, there is no question where you would need both could be true and could be false answers. If an answer COULD be true then just by definition it could also be false.

In a can't be true question, you would say a wrong answer choice could be true.

In a must be true question, you would say that very same answer choice could be false.

So, in the context of the question, it doesn't matter if you label CBT or CBF, you might as well shorten it to C.

I eventually started to notice that question types tend towards distribution patterns.

For instance, a necessary assumption might have a distribution like T T T C F where..

T (1) is the correct answer, a necessary assumption...

T (2) restates the conclusion and...

T (3) restates a premise,

C is a sufficient assumption answer choice (and so it COULD be true and so bring the argument to validity, but also COULD be false, and so must not be true in other words is not a necessary assumption.), and...

F is a can't be true answer choice, that is, it would evoke some sort of contradiction in the stimulus.

Compare that to a Can't be true question, which might be F C C C T

F - Correct answer. Evokes a contradiction.

C - Random, Irrelevant. And so could be true or could be false.

C - Random, Irrelevant. And so could be true or false.

C - Random, Irrelevant. T/F

T - Something that must be true. Some tautology or inference.

Compared to a Could be true, which is probably C F F F F (and is pretty strict, I find)

C Correct answer. Some possibility given the stimulus.

F Contradiction

F Contradiction

F Contradiction

F Contradiction

So you can see that the question types tend to have different types of distributions...

This is not to say that every question type has an exact distribution, but they tend towards particular patterns.

A CBT question couldn't have a distribution like CCFFF and it also probably wouldn't have a distribution like CTTTT. I've rarely seen one that has any T's in it, though I do remember one case where they put a T into a CBT Q.

Any critiques or comments?

I would like to try and take at least 6 or 7 5 section practice lsats. I live in queens but can meet in the city. It would be helpful to have at least one or 2 other people in the room. Thanks. Message on this thread or contact me directly. danpelo1@gmail.com Thanks and best of luck in your studies!

Danny

Has anyone tried this before? I plan on doing it on the PT I take tomorrow and I feel like it could be a legitimate strategy. My RC is consistently my most weakest section, usually 5 min is called as i begin the last passage and the last passage is just about always stacked in regards to the number of questions and the degree of difficulty. This leaves me with precious little time to get through a difficult passage that carries with it a lot of points. At the same time I've noticed that the first passage is consistently the easiest, in terms of structure and content, and is usually accompanied with fewer questions. So my thinking is that I'll be pressed for time right at the end with (hopefully) an easier passage in front of me carrying with it less weight (number of questions).

Has anyone tried this approach before? If so, what did you think?

I have tried reading answer choices E through A and think this method has helped me improve on LR. First of all, most of the time, the trap answer choice precede the correct answer choice, since the test makers know that people normally read A- E. Also, a lot of difficult questions, where you hardly understand the stimulus, will also have the correct answer choice somewhere towards the bottom to make sure you slow down. Has anyone else tried this and found it helpful?

I apologize in advance if a question similar to this has been posted before.

I am looking for advice in regards to how to properly use the prep tests I have available. The issue is that I am already registered to write on June 9th, however, as of right now it looks like I may be having to rewrite in September. Obviously I would prefer not to rewrite in September, but this is my first time taking the test so I just need to have a backup plan incase June doesn't go as planned. So, my question is how should I use my prep test if I do need to rewrite in September. I have every test available to me (purchased all the books), but a lot of the drills I did came from PT 1-38, and I have used the tests 52-61, as well as 62, 63, 64. This leaves me with 65-71 before the June test, but if I use them all for the June test I will not have any "new" test to use for the September test. So, should I set aside a few, maybe 2-4 PT's, just incase I do need to rewrite? Or should I go ahead and use them before the June test? If I do use them for the June test, then what should I use/do to prepare for the September test?

Thank you in advance for the assistance, and I look forward to hearing all your responses.

I'm looking to buy a 180 watch. If anybody is selling, please please let me know. You can e-mail me at richadhirani@hotmail.com or send me a message through 7sage. Thanks so much !

with the thousands of law schools in the US it is impossible to go through each one and determine if they meet all my needs and if i meet theirs. is there a website with credibility that i can go to, put in what i am looking for in a law school and they give me a list of schools that have what i am looking for.

currently using law school transparency and have determined my number one choice but i need other options. what are you using?

I am looking for a dedicated study buddy in Orange County Area.

I live around Irvine, and am prepping for September 2014 test.

Anyone who would like to join me, please let me know!

Is there anyone in LA (koreatown area) studying for the Sept 2014 LSAT? I could really use a study buddy. I work full-time, so evenings or weekends work best for me. Shoot me a message if you're down to study with me!

So my question is about Step 5 "Watch the explanation video." and Step 6 "Take a clean copy of the game.

Reproduce all inferences from memory with control and speed. "

Should I be repeating the game right after watching the video? Trying to reproduce all inferences from memory?

If so, I feel like a complete fool :) I've been watching the videos right after a game I feel I haven't mastered, then waiting a day before I try the game again...And well that hasn't gotten me to where I want to be, so I rewatched the video and I'm thinking I could have been doing it wrong this whole time...

Hey guys, Alan just made this neat chart to help you figure out what GPA / LSAT score you need for your target law school.

Rule of thumb is to get above 50 percentile in both GPA and LSAT to have a realistic shot and above 75 percentile to have a good shot.

http://classic.7sage.com/top-law-school-admissions/

Copying game boards used to stress me out a little bit because of the numbering. Every time I copied a game board (which could be 4 or 5 or even 8 times possibly?) I knew I needed to copy over the numbering (1 2 3 4 5 6 beneath the spaces), but found it very time consuming. My way around that is 1. using roman numerals instead of numbers. They are a lot quicker. 2. only marking slots 3 and 5. I borrowed this from the guitar fretboard, where only select frets are marked. You are told which is the 3rd and 5th fret, and from that it's plain to see which is the 2nd and 4th etc. This made copying game boards just a LITTLE bit faster, which made logic games just a LITTLE bit less stressful.

Efficiency 8-)

This might be a dumb question, but if you are blind reviewing do you time yourself when you are redoing questions? Also, are you erasing/making a copy of questions so that your previous work is not there? Finally, do you blind review entire tests sometimes? or are you are only to BR the questions you marked, got wrong,etc?

Thank you in advance for the assistance :D

Thanks JY... You've made me into a causation theory nerd. -_-

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/what-correlation-implying-causation-means-in-the-real-world?trk_source=nav

Hi guys,

Just wanted to let you know that registration is now open for the following dates:

- September 2014

- December 2014

- February 2015

For those who are taking the June test and wish to postpone, please note that you only have 7 days to do so since the deadline is May 25 (at least in Europe).

.

Hi everyone!

The grammar section helps me a lot.

However, since I can’t post the real LSAT sentences, if I have trouble deconstructing a sentence I read, where or how can I raise my questions at 7 sage? or Is it allowable to post one or two sentences?

Any comment or suggestion is welcomed.

Thank you.

Hi all,

Aidin Again, I have been studying LSAT using 7sage for few months now and I have noticed many comments regarding HOW to use this website. Do you take notes when the lessons are being taught? Which pages should you print out and which ones just go over on the screen? What information between hundreds of hours of video is note worthy? How do you access the big picture spider web looking master chart J.Y. always pulls out that no one gets access to ? If anybody has a good idea about what is the most effective way to use all this useful material to our advantage without being confused please SHARE!

J.Y. has repeatedly told us not to erase in the LG section but to cross out, especially when we are making our game board.

I'm a notorious eraser and wanted to know why its bad to erase?

Does this take up more time for me? I don't want to cross out bc I'm nervous I will look at what I had crossed out under pressure.

The erasing thing has been bugging me all week and wanted to know why we should erase what so ever.

Hey everyone,

So today I wrote PT 65, and I was a writing the second LR section, I thought to myself that it seemed considerably harder than usual. I was just wondering if anyone else thought that? The first LR for PT 65 I went -6, but the second section nailed me and I went -11. I felt like a lot of the answers were very difficult to read and understand (more than usual) and that a lot of the answers were very difficult to distinguish between two answer choices. Clearly I need to work on my LR, but looking to see if it was just a fluke and that it was reasonably more difficult or if I really do need to improve THAT much more.

http://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-47-section-1-question-24/

This is what I don't understand how answer B can be eliminated, "the manufacturer's instructions for assembling a product should be written in such a way that most CONSUMERS would find it much easier to put the product together" answer choice B says that someone OTHER than the consumer will assemble it for them, therefore, the suggestion does not apply because the consumer themselves do not have to assemble the product, so weather the instructions change or not the subject of the argument is not affected and therefore irrelevant, making answer B ideal. Am I over analyzing this too much or what?

help me obi-wan, your my only hope...

I've completed all of the coursework and having been taking my prep tests consistently for the past 8 weeks along with Blind Review, but it seems I have hit a peak. I have been consistently scoring in the 158-162 range (with blind review at 170), but I can't seem to take that next step. Any suggestions?

There's no particular question type that I struggle with, and on average I'm missing the same amount of questions on each section of each prep test. RC is my main weakness.

Hi all, just hoping for some of your opinions. I have lots of preptests already (all up to #62) and I am wondering if these are enough to practise off or should I ignore these and purchase "newer" tests? Theres not a lot of time left before June and I would like to study as effectively as possible and I can't do all of them, at most I think I could do 10-12.

What are you doing?

=D THANKS

How would you make it more simple to understand? I took me 5 minutes just to figure out all those negations. Preptest 51, Section 3, Question 23.