RC success is a function of knowing what to read for and a healthy balance of focus and confidence. Without confidence, it is hard to really focus. Knowing what to read for helps to build confidence, which increases your willingness and ability to focus.

I will briefly discuss how you can practice knowing what to read for below. This is difficult at first, but gets easier with repetition- the more you do it, the faster and more accurate you become.

First, why RC? Why does LSAC care to test us on RC and what do they really want us to do?

In law school, we will be reading tons of cases written by judges. It will be our job to discern the main point of the case, determine what the judge really thinks, and how they build their argument. Once we have this understanding, we can (with the help and insights of professors) analyze the strength of the argument and think about its implications.

The LSAT tests our ability to identify the main point or thrust of an argument, discern the authors’s view, and be able to see the author’s logical progression to the main point or conclusion, in other words to map the blueprint of the argument.

The questions are almost all based around these elements. By reading with the intent of figuring these things out before the questions, the questions fly by. This is analogous to making up front inferences during Logic Games.

RC is hard because we are not used to reading and thinking in this manner. Most of the things we read, we just skim.

So here is a template to fill out when you read RC. Filling this out yourself will get you in the habit of consciously thinking about the things LSAC requires of you. The more you do this, the better your ability will become. After writing these things out many times, you will eventually be able to hold these elements in your mind. This is how comfort, speed, and accuracy is built. So focus on filling this template out untimed at first. Then hit the questions. During the questions, you will find that you have thought about many of the concepts asked if you already.

So here is the template:

Paragraph #1 Low Resolution Summary:

Author’s separate paragraphs to signal a shift in ideas. Each paragraph is the reporting of a different idea. We want to identify what that idea is.

We are looking to summarize the takeaway from the paragraph. This will show us 3 or 4 different ideas. Then we take these ideas and examine how they relate. The relationships of the paragraphs come together to allow us to see the takeaway of the whole thing.

P2:

P3:

P4:

Main Point? - What does the author want you to take away from this? What are they trying to argue, show, or tell you about?

Author’s tone? - Where do they show their opinion and what is it? Pay close attention to when the author is speaking versus when they are telling you about the opinions of others. Do not conflate the 2!

Argument Structure?-

How does each paragraph relate to one another? Use your low res summaries to tell a story. For example: Paragraph 1 tells us about a strange phenomenon, Paragraph 2 then gives us Jones explanation for the phenomenon, Paragraph 3 introduces Kate and she offers a different explanation for the phenomenon, Paragraph 4 ends with the author telling us why they think Kate’s explanation is better than Jones’.

Analyzing an RC passage and doing this is time consuming and even draining- for harder passages it will take me sometimes 1.5 hours to fully feel like I have a full understanding of the passage. This is normal, take your time and shoot for quality of training over quantity. Knowing deep down that you have a true understanding of the passage is how you develop confidence! Like I said earlier, this process will start out slow and painful, but it will pay off if you stick with it.

Once you have completed the template, and feel comfortable with it, you are ready to hit the questions.

More so than LR, you need to take your time to fully understand the question stems, or what is being asked if you. For example, in LR a stem may ask you which AC most strengthens the argument. You can read this and know your task in about 2 seconds because you have seen hundreds of these. However, an RC stem is more likely to be unique, specific, and its meaning may turn on a single word. So it is important to take your time with stems.

Use Pre Phrasing! After reading the stem, answer the question in your own words. Think about what a credited answer choice might be. For example, if the question asks you what an author would most likely agree with, think about what you know about the author’s opinion. This type of conscious thought before looking at answer choices will make you less prone to traps and more efficient. It also forces you to full understand the question stem. I found that many of my mistakes were a product of not understanding the task at hand.

Steps:

1.Fill out template untimed (this will take forever at first)

2. Analyze the questions. Read the stem and pre phrase before looking at answer choices. Write out justifications for every answer choice, right or wrong.

3. Take a break, reset your brain, repeat

4. Check answers/grade

5. Over time this will become easier and you can try doing 2 passages in one sitting

6. Once you can do 2 passages in one sitting and go -1 or -0 per passage, you are ready to add in timing

7. Complete a 35 minute strictly timed RC section. Pick the 2 passages you found most difficult and complete the template and question justifications, untimed.

8. Keep an excel sheet tracking your results, timing, and takeaways. Before you take a timed section, revisit this sheet and set intentions/ goals going into the section.

Hi 7Sage,

We’re offering six free admissions packages to low-income or under-represented applicants. We’ll give away two packages each of Admissions Consulting, Unlimited Editing for One Essay, and Edit Once. (See the descriptions of those packages here.)

To apply, please fill out this form.

For those that have been studying for a long time, can anyone give tips or what it looks like to feel burned out? Im not sure if im burned out or just lazy or what. Recently have just been feeling really drained doing LSAT questions. Usually ill really enjoy studying but lately not so much.

Princeton Review, in my opinion has failed me because my instructor on numerous occasions has failed to explain things in simpler terms. I have asked for additional help but my instructor only suggest other Princeton Review material. My last practice I received a 137, do you think I am ready to take the April LSAT, or should I postpone ? My goal score is a 150. I am ready to invest my blood sweat and tears solely into 7Sage now.

Hey folks,

I've been studying for the LSAT for quite a long time now, and while my accuracy has improved, I still find myself missing hard questions—4/5 stars. There isn't a question type pattern or anything when the difficulty rises, I tend to miss the question. Do you have any tips, ideas, tricks, or anything that could help me get better when dealing with difficult questions?

Cheers,

Hi,

I am a beginner who just started studying for LSAT, however, am currently very discouraged by the fact that law schools "must" acquire at least 1~2 LOR from applicants.

The problem with me is that I don't have any professors who I can ask for LOR.

(If only I knew I was going to prepare for grad school, I would have built relationships with my professors!)

Are there people out there who ran into a similar situation as of mine?

Isn’t there an assumption w/ C? That the songs they were asked to write for movie soundtracks were written for those movie soundtracks? If I’m a movie producer and I ask a hit song writer to write a song for a movie sound track and they say no and write it instead for radio, how does that imply that the song was written for a movie soundtrack? Why is “Such songs” taken to reference “songs written for movie soundtracks” rather than referencing “those songs that movie producers (or whoever asks) asked writers to make for movie sound tracks,” because where the former implies they were written for movies, the latter does not.

They sometimes decline, because although “songs written for movie soundtracks” frequently become hits, their writers receive single up front payments rather than continued revenues from airplay.

Versus

They sometimes decline, because although “songs which movie producers asked hit song writers to write” frequently become hits, their writers receive single up front payments rather than continued revenues from airplay.

The latter example opens up the scenario that a movie producer could of asked a hit song writer to write a song for a movie sound track. The writer could reject the offer and write it instead for radio. In this case the song was never written for a movie soundtrack to begin.

It’s a small and reasonable assumption but it felt strange making in a MBT, I would of expected it to be reasonable in a MSS.

Admin note: edited title; please use the format of "PT#.S#.Q# - [brief description]"

Admin note: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-83-section-1-question-13/

From what I'm reading, it appears that there's not really a mechanism for analytics within problem sets. I would find this very helpful, and would particularly love to be able to see the "Question Type Analysis" section of the Analytics page within my problem sets, since that's where the bulk of my practice has been so far. Is there a way to do this that I'm missing??

.

I received a message form 7sage user "officiallsatmadness" trying to sell a copy of his/her study notes. Not interested.

Hi,

Would anyone be able to explain why the answer here is B instead of E? I couldn't find any direct evidence showing how E is wrong

#help

Thanks!

Hi all. Sorry if this is something JY has directly spoken to in lessons, as I just have a free account here. But I was wondering: would it be safe to say that in any in/out game with a biconditional that says two elements can never be together, it’ll be worthwhile to create multiple game boards?

I just took PT 83 and missed a great opportunity to split the third game along the N/R biconditional that the rules create, and I’m wondering if I could have just automatically assumed it was worthwhile to split once I found that biconditional. Thanks!

Hi! I am about to graduate college and I have a great job lined up afterwards. I have always known I want to go to law school so I am studying for my LSAT now and hope to take it the summer before I start working. With that being said, there will likely be a 2 year gap in between my LSAT and when I apply to law schools. Will admissions care about that gap? Thanks

Hi Folks:

Some of you may not know how to properly blind review. What better way to learn than from a seasoned LSAT Sage?

Or perhaps you just want a different perspective on how to tackle LR questions, or want some constructive feedback on your LR process. Whatever the case may be, please feel free to join me as we blind review PT 65 LR Section 1 next Saturday

When:

Saturday March 7th 3PM-5PM Eastern I will be hosting a blind review session for PT 65 LR Section 1 LR

What to do to prepare:

Complete PT 65 Section 1 but DO NOT mark it. Come prepared to talk about the questions you had difficulty with and to walk through your thought process with me.

Platform: Zoom!

Link here: https://zoom.us/j/383280821

I’ve just picked up the Loophole after seeing a few people saying they thought it really helped them with LR. Before I dive into the book, does anyone have suggestions on how to effectively use it in tandem with the 7sage account? Do you use strategies from both curriculums?

Thank you!

A few weeks back I was in a blind review with the man himself, Mr. JY Ping and JY said something which I thought was rather profound. He mentioned that being aggressive on the LSAT is a self-correcting trait, meaning how aggressive you are in answer questions will often times have a direct impact on your LSAT Score. This makes sense because if say you are doing an Argument Part question and you clearly identified the part in question to be the intermediate conclusion, the aggressive response to that question is to immediately look for the answer choice which says intermediate conclusion and move on. A more conservative test taker may take extra time to consider the other answer choices and thus may still get the correct answer choice but may spend an extra 30-60 seconds on the question vs. the aggressive approach. JY mentioned that the conservative approach is harder to correct because you are likely not even to think about the argument part question because you got it correct but that extra 30-60 seconds you spent on it may have had a detrimental impact on your performance on another question. Those who get the highest scores on the LSAT tend to be those who manage their time the best and I would wager that the majority of LSAT takers fall on the conservative side of the scale under normal conditions. I think at this point it may be wise to actually define what being an aggressive LR test taker means. In my mind, being aggressive in answering choices means having the confidence and knowledge to spot the correct answer choice without the need to verify that the other answer choices are wrong. For some questions this is easy to do, for other questions it becomes much tougher and the potential gains from being an aggressive test taker increases. That begs the question, how do we actually become more aggressive during the test? I’ll discuss a number of ideas around that with the rest of this post.

10 in 10, 12 in 12, 15 in 15, 25 in 25

One way to force yourself to be more aggressive is to set time limits for yourself on how quickly you want to go through the LR section. Some set a 10 in 10, 12 in 12, or 15 in 15 target where the aim is to try to answer 10 questions in 10 minutes and so forth. This is a mechanical way of forcing yourself to be aggressive and it works! If you combine it with a good skipping strategy this will enable you to reap points quickly and save it for the more difficult question. My recommendation is that you begin to play around with this idea during PT’s, if you are not already doing so try to hit 10 in 10, 12 in 12 or 15 in 15. You may find that your score initially suffers from doing so but as you get more comfortable with this notion you should see some stabilization and then an increase. You will be uncomfortable pushing your pace at first, but eventually you will find your own equilibrium. What you want to do is to find the optimal level of aggression that is tied to your individual skill set and knowledge. I do not recommend even trying to push the pace until you are at a level of your LSAT journey that you are very comfortable with answering most question types. That being said, it’s all well and good to set goals for yourself to be faster and more aggressive, but what do we actually do to achieve that quickness? I’ve got some ideas.

1. Prephrase/CLIR

Powerscore refers to Prephrases, Loopholes calls it the “CLIR”. In reality these are just fancy names for educated guesses on what the right answer choice could be, based on a close reading of the stimulus. If you have a prephase/CLIR scan through the answer choices quickly to see if it is there, if it is pick it and move on.

2. Glance over the answer choices initially.

After reading the stimulus and formulating your prephrase. You should glance over the answer choices to see if your prephrase is there, or if an answer jumps out at you. Avoid digging deep into any one answer choice until you’ve looked at all of them and quickly assessed which are winners and losers.

3. Ignore confusing answer choices, at least initially

If you run into an answer choice that confuses you, skip over it. Try to see if another answer choice jumps out you rather than trying to dig deeper into trying to decipher what the answer choice means. If you spot another answer choice that jumps out at you as correct, go with that answer choice and move on. Do not spend any intellectual effort until you have to.

4. Aggressively skip:

It should go without saying that being aggressive with the answer choices goes hand in hand with having an aggressive question skipping strategy. You can’t be aggressive if you don’t understand the stimulus so make sure you are diligent in following your exit strategies. Read more on exit strategies here: https://classic.7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/22449/road-to-170-exit-strategy-long-read-on-a-strategy-to-help-you-attain-a-170-score

5. Know what you are looking for.

This should go without saying but you should be at a point where as soon as you’ve read the question stem you should know what the right answer choice should look like. For example if the question stem asks you to find what COULD BE TRUE EXCEPT. Then immediately you know you are looking for something that MUST BE FALSE. Most people in this situation default to a POE and in some cases that is the only viable strategy but that does not mean you should default to it. Always know what you are looking for!

Caveat:

Note that being aggressive on the LR section is something I would reserve for the high-level test takers who have reached a plateau and want to break through it. If you are just getting started on your LSAT journey, focus on the fundamentals. If you are already reaching your target score, do not change anything. This is primarily for folks who are trying to break into the 170’s and 175’s.

Take Away:

The reason we are doing this strategy is because we want to optimize the time it takes us to answer the easier questions on the LSAT. The quicker we do that, the more time we have to throw at the more difficult questions. The downside is that because we are being aggressive in our choices, sometimes it may cost us a point. This becomes a tough optimization activity. This is why I suggest you only do this if you are a high-level LSAT taker and have plateaued, because the potential benefits may only be 1-2 extra points on each LR section but if you are trying to get to 170 or 175, those are exactly the kind of gains you are seeking! You also have to give this methodology a chance, it will force you out of your comfort zone, most people are inherently risk adverse but in life those that risk the most often gain the most. You also have to modulate how aggressive you are relative to your skill level, there is an optimal point for everyone. I recommend you keep pushing yourself until reach a happy medium. Try it out and see if it works for you!

I've been having a hard time trying to reach 160. I do blind review, but I think I probably do it wrong. I think I may need more drilling and probably focus on my basics while blind reviewing.

Hey all, need some help on some conditional logic.

31.3.18. It is a match the pattern of reasoning argument.

The stimulus:

It is impossible to do science without measuring. It is impossible to measure without having first selected units of measurement. Hence science is arbitrary, since the selection of units is always arbitrary.

Now, the argument and correct answer is easy to spot. However, there is a subtle flaw (yes, I know, it is a match question-but just analyzing the flaw for practice):

The form of argument

Therefore, Science is arbitrary

The flaw is that the author assumes a quality (arbitrary) is applied to all of science, because something necessary for science (selecting units) has that quality...

But sometimes it is not clear when a ‘quality’ like being arbitrary, is a necessary condition or not. The language “selecting units is always arbitrary” seems to imply a conditional relationship: If Selecting units, then arbitrary because of the word “always”.

How do we know that given language like always or everytime (usually a sufficient trigger) is not introducing a necessary condition? Or is it conditional, but for the fact that we say arbitrary is a necessary aspect of science we are going too far as to say that all of science is arbitrary? Or just that when we do science a part of that will be necessarily arbitrary.

It seems that sometimes a quality can be a conditional relationship:

If you’re tall then you’re good at basketball. Or tall people are always good at basketball.

**If it is conditional, then we have:

therefore,

science then arbitrary

And still have a flaw even though the conditional logic lines up? (Valid)

Is it a context issue? Is it an issue where I’m over applying the conditional language cues, but that there is not actually a conditional relationship?

Very much would appreciate any input.

Thanks!

Hi,

The answer for this question is B. I understand why B is right, but I was not able to fully eliminate why D is wrong (I understand why A, C, and E are wrong). The reason why I am still not sure why D is wrong is because D states that, "the highER costs..." thus implying that brand-name drugs are more expensive than generic drugs and thus supporting the conclusion of the passage (that generic drugs costs less but are just as good as brand-name drugs).

Any #help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

#help This question gave me trouble but I think I understand now. Here's my explanation, please let me know if it's right.

Conclusion: early detection of fire is no more likely now than it was 10 years ago

Premise1: 10 years ago 30% of houses had detectors, now 45% do

Premise2: but over half detectors are either inoperable or don't have batteries.

I chose A which says "15% of detectors were installed over the last 10 years." This isn't a trigger for the conclusion, and it doesn't connect the dots, because this premise just doesn't lead the premises any closer to the conclusion. If we said "All detectors installed in the last 10 years, which accounts for 15% total, are all defected or inoperable" this would guarantee the conclusion. This would allow us to say that indeed even though there are more detectors total, early detection is still equally likely as it was 10 years ago.

D makes sense now but I eliminated it because it doesn't need to be that the detectors are inoperable (which is 1 explanation of the 2), they could just have no batteries (the 2nd of the 2 explanations). I thought "D doesn't need to be true, there could be an alternate explanation." However, this explanation, despite the existence of other explanations, does connect the dots between the premises and the conclusion. Now we could say we have more detectors overall, but the proportion of inoperable detectors increased a lot so now the early detection rate is the exact same.

A parallel argument would be "We installed 15% more security cameras than a year ago but vandalism rates are the same. This is because the proportion of working security cameras dropped over the last year. As a result, roughly the same amount of security cameras were of use, and we weren't able to prevent more vandalism despite having more cameras."

Admin note: edited title; please use the format of "PT#.S#.Q# - [brief description]"

By way of background, I've taken the LSAT once (January of 2020). I've finished the core curriculum and I have worked through probably 40 practice tests' worth of logic games. I've worked through these games at least twice and have watched the JY explanation videos to understand how to correctly solve any that gave me issues.

With all of that said, I'm still not scoring how I'd like to on the section (I usually hover around -4 but it can go up to -7 on a tough section). LG is also the only thing holding me back from scoring in the 170s which is what I'm aiming for in my June 2020 retake.

I definitely think a part of the issue is psychological. If I encounter a game that catches me off-guard, I freeze up. I start to feel sort of warm, like the blood is rushing to my head, and I start to make very basic mistakes, such as mislabeling a simple sequencing rule-that I otherwise would label correctly. Often, I'll blind review games in which this occurred, and I'll get every or most questions correct.

I'm sort of at a loss on what to do to improve. One thing I have not tried is working through a book such as the Powerscore Logic Games Bible.

Any advice on how to practically improve, or how to sort this this mental barrier, would be much appreciated!

I chose (E). I had thought that the discrepancy was how is it that a restaurant with worse food could be more popular. Assuming this is the discrepancy, would (E) not justify the conclusion? We are told Traintrack has a better location and this brings in customers, but there is still a gap: how is better location enough to compensate for having worse food? (E) tells how, food is irrelevant to the popularity of a restaurant. But from what I got from the explanation is that the actual discrepancy the question wants us to focus on is how is it that a more popular restaurant offers worse food? Did I just miss what the question was truly asking for?

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Hi all,

I'm in a phase during my LSAT journey where my BR score is consistently near-perfect, but my regular score is much lower. I understand the questions and I know how to do them, but I just can't do them correctly fast enough. I find that even during BR, very few questions give me trouble and I end up seeing the right AC with just a LITTLE bit of more time than during the original, timed run. But a combination of me not being fast enough plus getting super stuck/anxious when I have a time limit leads me to select wrong ACs.

Essentially what I'm asking is, how valuable is the BR score in terms of predicting long-term LSAT results? Does it actually indicate my potential? I would be super happy if the answer to that were a yes, but of course, I'm not really trying to make myself feel good here, so I would appreciate your brutally honest responses.

Thanks a bunch!

Hello Everyone,

This will be my second time attempting the lsat, the first time I did it on paper with pencil and eraser, classic way

Now I saw on the lsac website that they will be imposing the digital lsat to almost everyone.

This is making a bit anxious, about how I should study and practice now, since i cant use paper anymore, I have to get used to tablets and I dont do really well with these things

Has anyone taken the digital lsat, any insight to share?

Do we have the choice btw digital and paper?

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I am just deciding when to write the LSAT again, and I do have the opportunity to study full-time from the second week of April until August 29th, but I am just concerned that this is not enough time for me and I will have to rewrite again. Having to rewrite scares me since I still have a few courses left to graduate for the 2020/2021 academic year. I can register for only one course for my first term next year to give myself enough time for applications and rewrite, but theres this fear that I will burn out and not be able to focus on school, the LSAT, and applications at the same time. For me applying next September will be ideal because the few courses remaining for me are very difficult and are likely to lower my GPA and if I apply in September, most Canadian schools will not take those remaining courses into account to give me an offer.

I wrote the July 2019 exam and got a 150 which I cancelled. I studied full-time for two and a half before the exam, mostly going through the CC and I only had the chance to complete 2 PTs before the exam. My diagnostic was a 137, so I already improved 13 points, but, I have not the chance to look at the LSAT since October 2019. Do you have a study schedule that you followed to improve at least 15 points? I need at least a165 for my top school (UBC Law).

The other option would be for me to do summer school and wrap up my courses by December 2020 and then study 6-7 months for the LSAT. However, I would have to delay a cycle and start law school at 24 instead of 23 which I am not very fond of.

I would really appreciate it if you can share some of your study strategies and opinion on when I should write the LSAT. I know that I have a long road ahead of me, but I am willing to work hard to not go to a different school. Also, I would love to talk to someone who is currently studying at Allard Hall.

Thank you in advance.