Hey all,

The past few PT's I've written have been encouraging and well within what I'm hoping to score in Feb. (166 on PT 78, 165 on PT 69, 164 on PT 71, 164 on PT 76). A couple weeks ago I scored a 160 on PT 72 and today I scored a 162 on PT 79. I'm hoping the 160 was an outlier because I felt sort of groggy that day, but at the same time I don't want to be making excuses for myself. And as for today's PT, I'm concerned that it dropped a 2 full points from what I was scoring prior to that.

Are small drops like this relatively normal and not a cause for concern if I'm aiming for 163-164?. I probably shouldn't be stressing too hard about my PT scores anyway because I know what I know at this point lol. Just wondering if anyone has words of wisdom to pass along to ease my anxiety haha!! (Also if it's relevant to know, I scored a 161 on the Dec.2017 LSAT).

In the meantime, I should probably be meditating and momentarily erasing everything about the LSAT from my mind, I can't wait for Feb. 10th to be done.

Thx for reading and good luck to everyone writing in Feb! :)

Hello everyone! This thread doesn't really have anything to do with the test haha. I just wanted to share that a lot of the time when I come on websites like 7sage & TLS, I get a bit anxious especially if I'm not having a very good studying day myself or if I'm just not in a confident mood. One of my friends taking the MCAT began crying after reading a forum on Student Doctor Network and having a stressed day. Haha so I'm guessing certain reactions to sites like these is somewhat common.

SO, I wanted to start a thread learning more about ya'll besides law school stuff since I've been on 7sage for over a year now and don't know much about anyone besides their ballpark PT score and personal statement glimpses...

Anyways, I'm 21 years old. I just graduated in the class of 2017 and I live in nyc. When I'm not studying, I like to read. I'm really into feminism and critical theory regarding gender studies and sociology. I also enjoy reading the New Yorker. I spend three days a week at the gym and I'm obsessed with skincare. Haha like essential oils and moisturizing creams. Sephora is like a sanctuary to me. I'm also a huge film junkie! I minored in film studies. I mostly love foreign films and avantgarde/experimental movies! English is my native language but I can also speak Mandarin-Chinese and have been studying/learning French alongside my LSAT studying.

Finally, if anyone would wanna respond introducing themselves (though I understand if you'd like to remain anonymous) and their interests and etc, I would really love that!!!! (3 And also tell me what your favorite movie is!! Mine is Ghost World dir. Terry Zwigoff.(/p)

I will be testing in just a few days and have to say the majority of my nerves are from not knowing what to expect during the actual test. I have a few (possibly really dumb and/or basic) questions I am hoping someone can assist me with. 1) Is the timer visible at all times (will I be able to tell if I am on a good pace)? 2. I know there is supposed to be more room to write and diagram on the test itself than in the past - is there any guidelines around how much you can or can't write on the test itself? 3. What am I allowed to bring into the room to actually take the test? 4. Any basic advice for a first time test taker in regard to the actual test environment? ..... I appreciate any advice you can offer.

Hello everyone,

I took 3 pts so far and my score have been the same (154).

In the example “All lions like to nap. Most lions like to eat meat. Therefore, some animals that like to eat meat also like to nap.”

I’m a little confused how we go from lions specifically to animals in general?

In the "Logic Games Habits for Speed and Accuracy" section J.Y. lays out a particular approach.

As you start a new LG, always put your pencil down and read the stimulus, the indented set of rules, and the acceptable situation question (ASQ). Take some seconds to absorb the information. The ASQ's answers often reveal the game board. Visualize what the game board will look like. Then, pick up your pencil. Read the stimulus again. Jot down your game board.

Is this method meant to be used in all scenarios or just for practice (FP)? It seems that reading the stimulus/rules twice would really be a time suck, but I suppose if it gives a much deeper familiarity/understanding of the passage then it could be worth it. Is this method generally well-subscribed to in practice and test conditions?

Hello everyone,

I took my first test in December and ended up scoring 8 points lower than my PTs leading up to it (164 down to a 156).I had been taking my PTs under normal testing conditions so I thought that I was prepared for the test setting. When I assessed my answers I realized that I missed some insanely easy questions in the first section. I remembered being very anxious and rushing through, which then spilled over into the next section. It turned out that I missed 80% of my questions in those two sections.

I feel like this is the only thing that is holding me back. Recently I've been scoring in the upper 160s and I want to do whatever I can to stay consistent on test day.

What do you do to start the test off calm and collected?

Thanks

Hi.

There was another post on this sometime ago, so I was wondering if there were additional thoughts. Here’s the situation:

I applied to schools on an old (not great) score. The day before Dec test, I got admitted to the PT program I was aiming for, but no $$. Given that the time and $ invested in the Dec test prep was a sunk cost and that I was confident of a significant improvement I took the Dec test (mainly to leverage for $ and to aim higher on apps). I got the Dec score back and it pushed me up 20 percentile points; based on this score improvement I asked for reconsideration at the program to which I had been admitted. They returned a scholarship offer that helped with tuition (about 30% of tuition). I just received admission to another PT program with what would be nearly 70% tuition - similar tuitions at both schools). The second school is marginally more well ranked than the first school in PT rankings and 10 spots higher in the regular rankings.

Is it reasonable and/or good practice to leverage the second school’s offer against the first school’s offer after having asked once for reconsideration for $ and been rewarded for the Dec LSAT score improvement?

Thanks,

TD

Hi all. First time posting, so if i do/say something obnoxious, please spare me.

I self studied for the lsat for about 8 months (from february till the past september) and took the september lsat. I was also stupid during this time and decided to take the june test when I wasnt prepared at all and was way overconfident in my abilities (When i took the test, my average was probably a 170, but that was a 170 average by taking only 4 section tests instead of 5 section ones, and practicing without bubbling (which can cost over a minute a section)). In the end, I also wasn't feeling so well on the test day and I got a 163. Obviously that sucks, but I totally understand the 7 point drop from my average, simply because that was a very inflated average score and i wasnt able to perform at 100%.

During my time studying, i had a bunch of ups and downs, but by the end (as in, between july and september), i was consistently scoring in the 175+ range. I had used almost all the powerscore materials, had been using 7sage stuff, and had used up basically almost all the preptests. When it came to the test though, my score ended up being a 167.

Now, i know that your score drops a few points from your average, but my average for my last 10 tests was at least a 176.

I don't know where I went wrong on the test because it was a sabbath observer test and can't see my mistakes.

If I had to guess i'd say I got a pretty good score on LR (I finished both of those sections with a couple of minutes remaining), missed a couple of points on games (the last problem was seriously hard), and I know that RC felt super super difficult and I barely understood a word of some of the passages, so I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that that was the section that got me.

My question is this:

I want to retake to actually hit my potential (or at least get close to it) - how should i study for it again?

To be honest, It's hard to locate specific weaknesses I have, because on practice tests I've gotten even 180s before. I just want to get to the point where even on test day, that 180 practice can turn into a 180 (or even 173) on the test.

It's not that I have anxiety when i take the real test, or anything like that - which makes it harder to solve the problem**. I just want to be able to get to the point where absolutely no matter what is thrown at me, I can make sure to hit very close to my average score.**

That all being said - how should i study? Should I get a tutor? Would a tutor be able to help me (seeing that I already know the concepts really well). I need more of a study technique and study plan thatll get me to the point to translate my practice scores into real scores.

ANY and ALL help is really really appreciated.

[also, side note: I was satisfied with my score and even applied to a bunch of law schools this past october, but over time i realized i'd come to regret not reaching my potential (after all, it could save a bunch of money down the line), and i wanted to work anyway].

Hi all -

Having graduated with an Undergraduate degree (B.M.) in music performance in 2010, I am now set on applying to Law School for the 2018/19 admissions term. I obtained a Master of Music (M.M.) in 2012.

My question relates to the fact that what I feel was my success in these degrees is most evidently shown by my applied work with my instrument. For Example, my GPA was sufficient as an undergrad (though not terribly fabulous), yet I won multiple awards for performance on my instrument, including winning a state wide competition, winning a school wide concerto competition, and receiving an award only given to 1 student per year at my school for excellence in music performance. Due to my focus on my instrument, my GPA does not reflect this success. My GPA was much higher as a Master's Degree student, however.

So, I am wondering if anyone has any advice on translating these achievements to my application for law school. My goal is to show that for a music student, these achievements were as or even more important than my GPA. Not sure if that is even remotely possible, but I suppose I have to try!

Thanks very much.

Interviews can be a kind of harrowing experience for some people so I wanted to give a kind of play-by-play for folks who may be interviewing at Texas Law. It was a fairly straightforward interview.

Kira Talent (the company that many law schools outsource their interviews to) interviews go as follows: There is no interviewer. You can take the interview at any time within two weeks of registering. You can practice on the questions as many times as you'd like (the practice questions are the same for every school), but you only get one shot during the actual interview (which are different for each school). I would recommend repeating the practice questions until you get three questions in a row that you feel like you answered well. They asked three verbal questions, each of which allocated sixty seconds of prep time and ninety seconds of response time. They also asked one written question, which provided fifteen minutes of writing time within a 300 word limit.

I believe that the questions are likely switched out, but also likely recycled. Here are the questions they asked so that you can prepare:

VERBAL (paraphrased)

WRITTEN (paraphrased)

If anyone else has taken this interview and wants to contribute their questions, that would be extremely helpful!

Overall, for any interview, I would recommend coming up with thoughtful answers to the following questions:

If you're looking for more interview tips and stuff, I'd recommend this guide here, which has been super helpful for preparing me all of these interviews: https://www.collegeessayguy.com/blog/preparing-for-a-college-interview-tips-and-strategies

I can process premise and conclusion and even anticipate the answer correctly. However, some answers are just so weirdly written and I end up picking wrong answers. I know practice is a key but is there other tip you 7sagers can share with me to spot the answer?

Here is a concept which LSAT sometimes tests:

false positive/false negative

I learned this concept a couple months ago and went:

https://media.giphy.com/media/wWuNgWHR7ZzMI/giphy.gif

Unlike other concepts, I don’t see it often on the LSAT, so I tend to forget about it.

But I see it again and again:

PT11.S2.Q15; PT15.S3.Q21; PT41.S3.Q17; PT45.S1.Q24; PT54.S4.Q20; PT61.S2.Q20; PT80.S1.Q10

So I'm making this post so that I can explain and understand fully!

False positive:

a result that shows something exists when it actually does not exist.

　Examples:

　・A medical test shows that someone has a disease when the person actually doesn’t.

　・A DNA test falsely shows that A’s DNA matches the DNA at a crime scene when it doesn’t actually match.

False negative:

a result that shows something does not exist when it actually exists.

　Examples:

　・A medical test shows that someone doesn't have a disease when the person actually does.

　・A DNA test falsely shows that A’s DNA does not match the DNA at a crime scene when it actually matches.

https://media.giphy.com/media/GSpDlV6BbFTyw/giphy.gif

In order for a test to be good, both the false positive rate and the false negative rate have to be low.

To sum up:

• True positive: correctly identified

• False positive: falsely identified

• True negative: correctly not identified

• False negative: falsely not identified

Actual LSAT questions:

:star: PT11.S2.Q15 Flaw

The computer security system has never incorrectly accepted someone, which means it has never committed a false positive error (falsely identified). The argument concludes that it will give access to the right people.

But what about false negative? In other words, it might not accept people who should be accepted. So this is the flaw.

:star: PT15.S3.Q21 MSS/Misc.

The EEG reading is a reasonably reliable indicator of temporal lobe epilepsy, so false positive rate is low.

But EEG test might not be able to detect abnormal electrical impulses even though the impulses are present (“false negative”). So not being identified doesn’t mean you don’t have temporal lobe epilepsy.

Let me know if there are other examples (other than the ones mentioned above)! :)

Hi,

I took my first practice test last week and received roughly a 162-3. This was my first experience with the lsat in any form. I was very pressed for time on the lg section, but I finished the others with about 13 minutes left. I missed about the same number of questions on each section. I’ve already improved signifcantly on the lg section as a result of the 7sage curriculum, but my other scores haven’t made the same jump. I have time to review those sections but it hasn’t seemed to help. Will it be possible for me to get up to a 173 by this summer?

Hi all, I just submitted my FAFSA but didn’t see a place to include 2017 tax return/income info. How can I include this information?

Also, I am struggling to understand how the FAFSA works generally. I only found some of my schools when I searched to add them. How do I get Federal aid for the others?

Hey Everyone. So I've particularly been having trouble increasing my score for LR. I'm getting -10 to -13 and I feel really hopeless. Can someone perhaps give me some tips on how they are approaching studying for LR for better results

Wrote about this on Reddit but curious as to what 7sagers have to say about parental information on law school apps as well. Why do they need to know their occupation for example. What is this even used for? Also, in the education level section I had input high school as the highest level of education because I was unsure of what to put for a parent that went to college but didn't complete (no checkboxes or options just a space to write/ felt like putting college would be dishonest and inaccurate since they did not receive a degree) I'm assuming that I did the right thing however, I'm curious as to how to address this in future apps/ how do other people approach this. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Got a bunch of messages from another thread requesting the LG spreadsheet I use. Here's a download link for it. It has room for all of the tests, PTs 1-83.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vtJeqvQRCYVZejcXU10u9BRgbnkdkmKq?usp=sharing

I know last minute you won’t make huge gains, but what are people’s study strategies before February test date??

I’ve been doing PTs every other day, and the other days section work. I know which question types I typically get wrong - should I instead be drilling those? I’ve been consistently scoring between 156-159 but today’s PT I got a 150...I’m afraid I’m backtracking. Any ideas or anyone else feeling like this??

Hello :)

I've been studying full time since Aug 2017. Studied about 7-8 hours, 6 days a week. I think I rested like 5 days in total. lol

Anyways, I started with 144 and the 3 recent tests I've taken in the past few weeks are:

PT 76(159): LR : -6, -8 LG: -8 RC -7

PT 72 (161): LR : -3, -8 LG: -6 RC: -9

PT 69 (158): LR : -4, -8 LG -8 RC: -10

So basically I don't have any strong section and I need improvement in EVERYTHING...! I guess my "best" section is LR, only by a little. This is frustrating because I worked on LG the hardest. I worked on daily about 3 hrs just doing LG since Nov. I've been foolproofing 20-35 and I've foolproofed some later ones as well. But when I take timed sections, I am still able to attempt about 3 games. Surprisingly... When I BR, I can get mid to high 170s. The highest BR score was 178.

So it seems like I know the concepts necessary to take the exam, but I just can't do the questions on time.

My goal is to get 165+ but this seems very far-fetched at the moment.

I guess I'm slowly getting unmotivated & exhausted because I'm studying full-time yet seeing very slow progress. I've been stuck in mid to high 150s since October..!!

I'm registered for the Feb test, but because some parts of me already thinks that I won't get a good score in the Feb test, I feel extremely unmotivated to prep for it in the next 2 weeks. Because I probably can't really improve a lot from the scores I've been getting... So I'm planning to take June and Sept test... In my head, I know that I will improve if I continue to study. But as of now, I'm tired and lost as to what/how to study. After the Feb test, I think I need to re-plan my studying but I don't know where to begin... because I don't have any strong sections.

thanks for reading my rant... ^^;;

Hello all! I understand how Negation is different from the Contrapositive, as with Negation we are denying the relationship / conditionality (I think, right?), but I'm struggling to figure out where the Negation aspect fits into LR Question application - types of questions and how an answer / stimulus would fit into the mold - thoughts?

I know better than to be doing things to impress this or that school, but these are all pre-existing interests of mine and I would like to know whether it's realistic to expect to get in with this particular mix of activities.

Aside from a 3.88 (that I plan to push up to a 3.9 by the end of Spring with a 4) GPA, and a 172 LSAT (hopefully- it's what I'm going for! My diagnostic is 157 and I have 7 months.......),

What kind of extracurriculars will help me as an undergrad (junior)? I'm currently pres of a UN-affiliated club and looking into starting (and by default becoming president of) a literary club, a finance club, and (subject to approvals) a harvard-affiliated student chapter (the affiliation exists, but the club doesn't. Go figure), a global professional association club, and (subject to interest and numbers) a track club (without a coach, so not a team). I've also recently joined MUN and hope to chair a conference.

I'd been considering running for student body leadership, but I think it's a massive time commitment and a ton of administrative work (great- but way too much of a commitment).

What kind of internships will help? I'm studying econ and politics and haven't done any yet, aside from the odd work with, and not for, this or that company through my UN club. I'm looking at getting in 3-4 before July, after which I'll take 2 months almost completely off to focus on the LSAT before taking it in mid-September. I know I'd like one to be at a law firm just to get a real feel of it (probably taking this one first), but I also know that law schools adore other work experience. I really want to head off straight after graduating though, so I have to be really picky about my internships!

Thanks for toiling through and for your helpful comments!

Does anyone has a tracker or spreadsheet that they use for LR and/or RC? I know that using a tracker/spreadsheet for LG is common but I was just wondering if anyone has something to track LR/RC progress before I try to make one from scratch and then realize there is one out there floating around which just so happens to be superior to the one I have created.

This may seem like a silly question but for the lsat section on some applications where you have type all your lsats in what do you write if you canceled? It will only let me put in a numerical amount or leave it blank. Should I just not list that lsat because I canceled? One more thing, I was thinking about writing an addendum but I'm not sure if its worth it. My freshman year of college was really bad but after that my grades picked up beside my junior year 2nd semester. I studied abroad in the fall so my grades are not counted on lsac and then when I returned my spring semester of grades were terrible. I got sick multiple times that semester and had to miss a lot of school. On top of that, I missed a week of school because of a conference I was attending for the school that got snowed in and I was stuck there. After, that semester my grades go back up in my senior year. Is it worth writing an addendum if I just say I was incredibly sick that semester? Will law admissions think that's a credible excuse?

In the MSS question sets, I found two interesting question stems. Even though they’re both categorized broadly as MSS questions, I found some nuances for each of them that might be helpful for shaving off time. If you find a flaw in my reasoning, please point it out!

Here are the two question stems and my comments for each:

“The statements above, if true, serve LEAST well as evidence for which one of the following?

- Correct answer not supported; every other answer at least a little bit supported

- In the videos, JY compares this to an MSS except question, where the incorrect answer choices each have a ton of

support

“Which one of the following is LEAST compatible with the information given in the stimulus?

- Correct answer not supported (contradicts, even); every other answer compatible, but not necessarily supported (Why?

Because they could be irrelevant and still be compatible)

SO, why does this matter?

- In a “serve LEAST well as evidence” question, each one of the incorrect answer choices must be relevant to the stimulus

in some way. If it’s not relevant, then you know it’s the right answer choice.

- In a “LEAST compatible” question, an incorrect answer choice does not have to be relevant to the passage. Don’t just

choose it because it’s irrelevant.

For examples of each q-stem, see: lsat 25.s2.q19 & lsat 35.s4.q22