Anyone interested in doing a small group session to discuss the appropriate method of reasoning for certain LR questions? I know I have quite a few that I'm not confident about which one it is. Happy to use my examples as an "agenda" or have each person bring a few examples they'd like to work through.

Hi Everyone!

This seems to be a recurring theme in several LR questions, so perhaps worth considering. When attacking a support (premise to conclusion) in an argument, isn't the use of "some" i.e. other cases or situations, irrelevant - as we cannot know whether our case at hand falls within the scope of that "some".

Take for example the below question on proto-indo-european languages: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-29-section-1-question-16/

Here, we have to assume that PIE falls within the "some" languages which do not have words for prominent environmental conditions.

However, in the question on chess players and humming (link below), apparently it is wrong to assume that the humming falls within the scope of "some" involuntary actions as per AC (C).

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-20-section-4-question-25/

Any thoughts welcome!

Hello! I am trying to study full time for the LSAT with the hopes of taking the exam in either August or (most likely) October and would love to have someone to take PTs with and reason out questions on the tests. Specifically LRs. I am currently in central time zone (Milwaukee) and can be available to meet or discuss whenever usually so shoot me a message if you're interested! My goal is a 165 and currently practice tests are ranging for me in the 155-160 range.

Hi! does anyone have any idea about how 7sage scores 3 sections and if that's reliable?

For example I took PT85 now and have -1(RC), 0 (LG), -6 (LR 1st section), -6 (LR 2nd section), missed questions is 4 sections which gets me a score of 168 (4 sections calculated), but if I get rid of one of the LR sections from being scored (switching to flex mode/only 3 sections for scoring) it shows up as 172.

Does anyone have any recommendations for scoring 3 sections while practicing with 4 sections?

Hi everyone!

So i’m sure everyone knows that the August LSAT is now 4 sections, one of which is experimental, therefore it’s not being scored. Since 7Sage doesn’t have the option to take a 4 section exam with one un-scored section, do you guys think taking a PT test will provide an accurate measure of what score we will get? Also, if we get a high score on the PT does that mean there’s a good chance we won’t score as high on the actual test? All thoughts/responses are appreciated ! :)

I'm looking at the Flaw-Descriptive Weaking questions and Necessary Assumption questions on the CC. Each of them has about 20 example questions and 20 PSETs. Is it recommended to do all of them? If not, how many are recommended?

The guys at Powerscore put on sessions predicting what's going to be on upcoming LSATs, and the session for the August 2021 sitting happened yesterday.

I missed the session and don't think I can access a recording at this point but was wondering:

Thanks!

I am getting ready for the August LSAT, which brings back the fourth experimental section. Whenever I have taken practice tests on 7Sage, I notice I usually get two LR sections. Was it just more common with past tests that there would be two LR sections?

The LSAC said in their recent communications that there could be a double of LG, RC, or LR. As I prepare for August, I want to take practice tests with TWO RC sections because that is my most dreaded section and that way I won't feel so disheartened if I end up getting two RC sections come test day. Are there any practice tests that have two RC sections? If so, please let me know!

I'm between 0 and - 2

PM me if you're interested!

Is there a significant difference between applying in early September vs in October, regarding chances of admission?

so the august test is going back to 4 sections (one being unsecured correct?) so it would be just 3 scored sections (1LR 1RC 1LG) correct? so it would be beneficial to score practice test w just three sections instead of 4 right?

I understand why AC (A) is the correct answer because it is the best suited. However, is it really an assumption the argument depends on because if you utilise JY's negation method, you can get this:

Say, there is a political debt she owes to somebody longer than Lee & it can be as suitably repaid by appointing them to the Head of the Arts Commission, couldn't it be the case at the exact same time another job became vacant that was better suited to this unnamed individual (the individual Mayor Drabble had a longer standing political debt to). Therefore, allowing Lee to be appointed to the Head of the Arts Commission and fulfilling her longer standing political debt as soon as possible.

I am not sure if the slight flaw in the logic is due to it being an older LSAT so not as logically rigorous or I am missing something?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

#Help.

Took a one weak break from testing and my score dropped 6 points. What happened ? How do i maintain my score until test day ?

Hello,

If anyone is interested in forming a small group to talk through reasoning for LR please comment below! I feel like this could be helpful going forward

Hello everyone!

I'm student born with an American passport, grew up outside of the United States, and attended an accredited University outside of North America which offered courses in English(had a faculty that taught courses in English which I was enrolled in). Will I count as an international student in my application for law school? Also, is it true that my GPA will have little bearing on my evaluation for admission? I hear GPA is weighted much less heavily for international students, and that a third party institution 'translates' scores before sending them to lsac. I'm not sure about this so I would appreciate if someone could confirm!

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

Situation: 4 LSAT's: 137, 143, 141, 165.

Reason: Didn't study correctly, did undergrad with multiple internships and jobs. For the 137 I was part time in family law legal assistant, other part time internship at the PD's office, plus course load. GPA was 3.20 but CAS 3.0 (I repeated Bio and Chem, school doesn't count initial fail, CAS does.)

165: Graduated, own my business so I gave myself time by hiring an additional assistant to deal with day to day ops and concentrated on 7Sage and most importantly PTs.

My worry is that the schools would think this is just luck and that a similar situation could happen in law school, especially with the workload. On my personal statement, I plan to cover about challenges in starting my business and the lessons learned, I will also talk about learning from experience and delegating which would ideally tie to lessons learned in undergrad with the insane load I had. And also make it clear to them that I will hire someone to take care of operations to relieve me from the responsibilities of my business during law school.

But I'm not sure if an Addendum is warranted if I should just incorporate that into the personal statement.

Edit: Removed Diversity statement question that was clearly answered in the admissions course that I hadn't seen.

I don't understand why D is incorrect. So we are trying to explain why these canaries go through this yearly process of losing their neurons and then replacing them with new ones and the author claims that it's so that these canary brains don't get so huge that they can't fly so doesn't D provide a scenario where these canaries don't need to go through this process and can still fly due to "better developed muscles?"

And does this whole neuron regenerating process apply to all canaries or only some of them?

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-13-section-3-passage-1-questions/

Hi everyone

I am trying to study for the upcoming August test and have been doing problem sets throughout the week. Last week I would complete a LR problem set and average 2-3 wrong out of 25-26 questions. This past week, it's dropped to 5-7 wrong seemingly out of nowhere. Habits and eating schedule have stayed the same, and I just took a practice test and got the most amount of questions wrong since 4-5 months ago. Upon review I understand my mistake and will answer the question right, but in the moment I don't know where that line of thinking goes. Feeling super defeated. Any advice?

I made myself a reminder sheet for each section with recommendations/strategies to avoid errors I've previously made. Every section I do, I assess why I made each error and what I should do to avoid it, and then I add this recommendation to my reminder sheet.

I thought you guys might benefit from seeing what a sample reminder sheet looks like, the tips here are specific to me and many methods might work for your own LG practice.

I thought the argument was a causal conclusion because of “increases.” Since the argument goes from correlation to causation, isn’t one of the assumptions that there is a causal relationship between watching TV and obesity among North-American school children? What effect does answer choice B have on the argument?

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-39-section-4-question-04/

I am studying for the LSAT full-time. I saw on one of the YouTube videos posted by a Korean-American HLS student that reading the Economist was helpful for him to hone his RC skills. I tried reading the Economist but it doesn’t relate to my current standing in the world, specifically in South Korea as a tutor. I am looking to read books and papers such as Federalist, Declaration of Independence, Democracy in America, Leviathan, Politics, Prince, Republic, Two Treaties of Government, Utilitarianism, Writings of Thomas Paine. These works are written by famous thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson, Tocqueville, Hobbes, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Plato, Locke, Mill, and Paine. I was just wondering to what extent reading these works would be helpful on my end to hone the RC part.

Thanks,

Ken

Quick question––will the 4th unscored section for the LSAT be one of the two LR sections? Or can it be any one of the three section types?

These types of posts were really helpful for me while studying, so I felt like I owed this post to the forum. I’ve tried to boil it down to 8 things that I wish I could tell an earlier version of myself that was studying for the LSAT.

Timelines are Man-Made

At one point, I was so convinced that I needed to be a KJD. After an unsuccessful first LSAT take, a few awesome people challenged my thinking and I’m glad they did. It afforded me more time to study for this test and get some great work experience before school. This has been said 1,000x, but don’t take the LSAT before you’re really ready. Like PTing-above-your-target-range ready - based on my experience, the test day penalty is real. Please learn from my mistakes :)

If you want to hit your full potential, take JY’s post about how studying can take over a year seriously. Unless you’re an LSAT unicorn, that’s just how it is. This isn’t another college exam where you’re being tested on knowledge, instead the LSAT tests skills. Skills take time to develop and finetune. Accept that the timeline will likely be long, exhausting, and even slightly annoying. It’ll make your life easier.

And btw, when people say things like “you’ve been studying for HOW long?” or other snide bs, just don’t listen to them. If you want to perform at your best, it may take a while. I started studying in the spring of ‘19 and received my 170 in June ‘21. I didn’t study that entire time, but collectively it took over a year.

“The difference between a 165 and 170 is strategy”

I received a 166 on the January exam. Based on my last 5 PTs, this was a fat underperformance. I knew why my score dipped: I panicked during LR and RC. The harder question to answer -- why did I panic?

Then I heard this quote about strategy. I think @Sami or @canihazJD said it (thanks!) on the podcast. Unlike LG, I didn’t have any real strategy for LR and RC. Once I started implementing skipping rules in LR and started standardizing my approach to RC, I became far less likely to panic and saw less volatility in my scores.

Strategy builds confidence and you’ll need confidence when shit hits the fan on test day.

Logic games can be slain

I was NOT good at LGs ( -10 or so a section) and it took me a long time to get to -0/-1. I would get frustrated when I’d read about how “learnable” they are -- really, just a bruised ego on my end. Here’s a quick overview of what worked for me.

I did games over and over and over again. I foolproofed games 1-35 and would foolproof games after each full PT I took. Eventually, I’d dedicate full study days just to foolproofing a gametype. Sequencing. Grouping. In/Out. Etc. By the end of these days, my brain was mush. That being said, I started to see inferences far more quickly. It also helped me anticipate splits/SGBs and the right ACs.

Also I adopted a section strategy - here’s a high level overview: during timed sections I would read the first two games before deciding which game I’d tackle first. I’d do the same for the third and fourth games. This approach helped me build confidence under timed conditions. Having a strategy can really help you feel under control and forget about nerves.

I’d also put my finger on the screen to make sure I didn’t misread a rule - weird, I know. But I found that at a certain point, if I was struggling with a game it was because I misread a rule. Back when the LSAT was made of paper, JY recommended touching every word with your pencil. This is kinda my adaptation to the times. Everyone functions differently, but I had a tendency to jump the gun while reading rules. Touching each word forced me to slow down and understand the game.

If possible, use your most productive hours on study

Try to study for the LSAT before other activities burn you out. Work and classes, for example, can eat up a lot of mental energy. Personally, this meant studying before work. I didn’t enjoy waking up at 5 but it was well worth it. ALSO - don’t compensate for a lack of sleep by drinking a ton of caffeine. Coffee is great...but in moderation.

Meditate

Do it. I would usually do a mix of guided and unguided. I used the Waking Up app for guided meditation. In general, mindfulness is the best - not only for your studies but in your personal life as well. If the LSAT is a real source of anxiety for you, I’d recommend trying out worry scripting. A Google search will point you in the right direction!

Your PT Scores Don’t Matter! Focus on Improvement

Sorry if that comes off as blunt, but it’s true. I used to care a LOT about my PT scores, but they’re just practice. If you hit 100 free throws in practice, it doesn’t really matter, does it? But if you actually work on your mechanics, that can really pay off come game 6. (sorry for the metaphor, I love Giannis)

PTs are a tool for learning, so don’t focus on scores. Leave that for the Reddit users. All that matters: you learn from your mistakes, you maintain your strengths, and you execute on the real thing.

Unplugging is essential

For a while, I tried studying 7 days a week. This was a terrible, terrible idea. It led to constant burn out and, frankly, poor mental health. You can’t replace rest. You can’t replace socialization. You should view these elements of your life as necessary conditions for getting your best score. (they’re also important in their own right, obviously)

A few things that worked for me:

Finally, be kind to yourself

Seriously. If you’re reading this post, you’re likely highly motivated - I know this because you’re reading some dude with a weird username’s LSAT ramblings. I’m willing to bet you put plenty of pressure on yourself. Remember that this is a learning process. Like I’ve said, the LSAT is a skills test. So work your ass off but remember that patience is a virtue. Trust that good things take time.

Best of luck on the test and beyond!

I recall seeing in the CC that "IS" is a conditionality signifier (necessary). However, is that the case all the time? Is "IS" a biconditional when it's just something like "The number 5 is hot ?

Is it possible to get into a school where your LSAT score is under the median but GPA is there , combined with a good personal statement? Anyone have experiences or know anyone that has gotten into a reach school?