When a rule says S is a higher number than N, is that S-N or N-S? Does higher mean lower?

My brain is in that weird place where I can feel myself over thinking..

like stuff it with tissues during the test?

First off I am so excited to be joining such a wonderful community! The positivity, I have already seen is so uplifting.

For the past few weeks, I have been in the valley of the LSAT. We all have peaks and from those we can definitely find glimmers of hope on the horizon, but I believe no more than when in the Valley! My LSAT journey so far has been abysmal and utterly disgusting. After graduating with a a degree in education and teaching the young minds of elementary aged children, I left the wonderful profession in May to dive head first into the massive ROADBLOCK called the LSAT. After taking a Kaplan Course and PTING consistently in the 158-161 range I thought man I am going to rock the LSAT and Hey Sweetheart, were moving to X place to go to X law school, pack up your bags and let's begin this new journey! Little did I know December would come and I would put out my worst score ever...lower that my Diagnostic a HORRIFIC AND TERRIFYING..........141. I was absolutely shocked and astonished, I remember spending hours contemplating the idiotic decision to leave a career that I was finding success and accolades come my way. But here I am...not at a pizza buffet like I have been for the past few months! I fell off the peak into the valley only to learn how I desire to see this piece and part of my life to be marked with a stamp of personal triumph and perseverance.

With the sob story behind, really...so sorry! I had to let it out finally! To those of you feeling discouraged please know that you are not alone, we see many a triumphs here and all around us. We all have the capability to find success in our endeavors, regardless of what this BEAST of a test spits out at us. To those of you beginning the journey or continuing the LSAT journey we truly have this! To those leaving this journey for your acceptance letters and plans of where and what next, I salute your dedication and hard work to slay the BEAST you are our inspiration!

Let's finish the race strong!

https://media.giphy.com/media/26tPrj21W9DYMB2dW/giphy.gif

Hello,

Does anyone know how seriously admissions considers gaps in your résumé when applying to law school?

I'm a recent graduate of my state school CU Boulder (May 2016). I was very involved in school, business fraternity, founded a social fraternity, student government, business case competitions, internships, and side jobs; I graduated with a 3.6 with a double in Finance, Accounting, and minor in Philosophy. Then I worked as an analyst for a management consulting firm in the energy industry for buying/selling power plants.

I had the job for a year, but quit because I wanted more time to study for the LSAT.

If I worked the job for a year and quit in August 2017 and apply to law school in September 2018; how much will admissions consider this one year gap in terms of my résumé? Is this a serious problem if I don't fill the gap between now and September?

Thank you for any advice!

So for necessary assumptions, the assumptions can be about the context, premise and conclusion? If the negation a statement attacks, say, the context of an argument, would this statement be a necessary assumption? Am I understanding this right??

The ThinkingLSAT podcast takes a strong stance on several issues that seem directly counter to 7sage forum advice.

In particular, they say that people should not care about time at all and should instead focus on understanding what they read and "figuring it out". Obviously there is some merit to that point, but it seems to be the opposite of this "skipping strategy" that many 7sagers recommend. Some high-scorers on this forum apparently try to work through an entire LR section in 25 minutes while skipping liberally along the way so that they can spend 10 minutes on the problems that were hard. Thinking LSAT would say that that approach encourages rushing and not thinking carefully enough and places too much energy and focus on timing and thinking about whether one should skip or not. Instead, going in order without skipping and trying your very best on each problem until you are truly stumped will produce a better score, even if you have to guess on whatever you don't get to.

Another issue they have strong opinions on is stimulus first. They assert that understanding the stimulus is the most important part of LR and that reading stem first can interfere with how one reads the stimulus and encourages a highly question type-specific approach that is inflexible. Just understand what you read and think about it critically; you can answer any question and you don't need to know the question ahead of time, is what they'd say.

What are your thoughts on ThinkingLSAT's positions?

PT19. S2. Q17

Hi everyone, I'm having trouble with this one. Here is how I diagrammed it.

premise1) devote to study natural process---- have leisure

premise 2) resources plentiful --- have leisure (------ note: i originally diagrammed premise 2 as the reverse of this statement but since it says "when" in premise 2 which introduces a sufficient assumption I changed it.

premise 3 + 4) early societies made complex discoveries - result of active study of natural process(/p)

I thought the answer was A) but its C. I thought it was A because when you combine premise 1 and 2 it creates a some statement between the two which I thought would be correct.

Can someone explain to me where I am going wrong.

Hi this may sound like a silly question but I want to make sure- I still haven't gotten my score back due to waiver appeal, but I see on other forums online that the real LR was sections 1 and 3. On my December test i had three LR reasoning sections, I believe they were sections 1,3 and 5 if i remember correctly. Not sure if I'm making this too complex, does that mean that for sure the first and third sections that I took were the real ones? I just didn't feel good about section 1, does that mean for sure it was the real section and not experimental or could i have been given the real sections in different order to take?

As the discussion title says, the Dec. 17 LSAT is now available for purchase on Amazon. Hopefully @"Dillon A. Wright" will soon put up the electronic version for 7Sagers.

Is there a difference between A --> (B-->C) vs A --> B or C

If so, what is the contrapositive of the A --> (B-->C)

Is there any rule of the English language that allows us to tell when the claim "As are B" means every single A is a B, and when "As are B" is a generalization that means only that some or most As are B?

This issue comes up in PT57, Section 2, #12.

The conclusion says that "criminal organizations will try...."

But the premise told us that MOST criminal organizations' main purpose is profits.

If you add the correct answer to the argument, it's sufficient to prove that MOST criminal organizations will try to become involved. But the conclusion here is "criminal organizations", which grammatically seems to mean all criminal organizations. So the conclusion technically is still not fully proven even with the "sufficient" assumption added. The only way the correct answer is sufficient is by reading the conclusion as giving us a statement about "some" or "most" criminal organizations. How does this add up? Any thoughts?

Here are additional example sentences to explore the issue:

"Dinosaurs are extinct." Does that mean some dinosaurs or all dinosaurs are extinct? I submit that it clearly means all, and not only some.

"football players with at least one year of experience in the NFL are used to taking hits." Does that mean some or all players with one year of experience? I submit it means all NFL players with at least one year of experience.

"Criminal organizations will try to become involved in tech revolutions." Does this mean some or all crim organizations will try to become involved? If the first two example sentences apply to "all", then what distinguishes this last example from the others?

The issue seems to be that sometimes plural nouns are referring to all members of the group, and sometimes they're not. But what are the rules governing such interpretation? "Videogames are fun." Is that asserting that every single videogame is fun? I submit that it's ambiguous. Naturally, I would not think that claim commits one to thinking that every single video game is fun...maybe there are a lot that are not fun, but generally, videogames are fun. However, in a hyper-literal logical thinking type of analysis, I could easily see that sentence implying that, yes, all videogames are fun.

How about this example? "Apples are fruit." vs. "Apples are healthy." The first statement means all individual apples are fruit -- it'd be very odd to think it leaves open the possibility that some apples are not fruit. Yet the second statement seems to mean that apples generally are healthy and is not asserting that every single apple in the universe is healthy...some might be unhealthy/poisonous etc. But WHY do we interpret these sentences differently and how can one tell the correct interpretation?

Hey all!

Does anyone have any advice on which PTs are essential to cover before the February test? Obviously tricky ones like 79, 81... but any others? If you felt like you struggled in a certain aspect of the test, was there a PT that you thought was personally really helpful that you covered?

To everyone studying for the February test (like me) we can do it! Good luck to all!

OKAY, I have been almost mastered my LG skills and have been getting the 100% with untimed pts (under 1 hour ). And most of the time, the wrong answers were from my small mistakes. HOWEVER, I am completely lost with LR & RC. Yes, maybe it is because my reading skills are sucks to comprehend or to make an inference from the passage? I can admit that I was never a reader, never really enjoyed reading, but what can I do ? I have no choice since I want to go to the law school and become a lawyer. I have been studying for almost 2 months, 5 days a week, almost 10 hours a day at the library, but LR and RC are killing me.... It's really painful to see myself just staring at the passages and not even understanding or cant even comprehend with the questions or answer choices.... I really believed that I have been studying so hard but I don't see any improvement on those two sections..

Any advice to save my poor life : (

Can someone please tell me a story where they took the diagnostic and scored like, low 130s, but after months of studying improved drastically? I read a forum of people taking the diagnostic and scoring over 155 and I just feel like crap right now haha. I realize some people are naturally gifted when it comes to the LSAT, and I am happy for them, but I am not one of those people. I'm really struggling here. Just BR an LR section and only got 11 questions right.

Thought it could be fun and motivating to hear other people's stories about why they are starting down this path. So, what's your story? Do you come from a long line of lawyers? Is there something specific you want to accomplish? Are you not sure what else you should do with your life and this seemed reasonable enough? (Maybe not that last one haha)

It's supposed to help with understanding topics you're unfamiliar with and just a supplement to actual studying.

I have a tedious desk job and used to play netflix in the background but now I'm trying to do something to stimulate my brain a bit. I've been listening to Radio Lab.

Or audiobook recs!

.

So, I chose B at first and then changed to C for BR. Now I know why B and C both cannot be the correct answer for this question.

B talks about dominant class which we don't know anything about.

C talks about social class which its different from noble class in the premise.

The correct answer for this question was A...

(A) To say that feudalism by definition requires the existence of a nobility is to employ a definition that distorts history.

I understand the answer until "is to employ a definition that distorts history"... How does it distorts history..?

Can somebody explain why A is a correct answer?

Thank you!

Admin note: edited title

I'm curious. For the GPA averages that law schools report, do they use the LSAC GPA of applicants at the time they are admitted, or at the time students enroll in the program? In other words, does a law school report a college seniors LSAC GPA from march when they are accepeted, or from May after they graduate? Thanks!

deleted

Feb LSAT takers, we're almost there!

I've been getting down on myself these last few days, because my LG is not where I want it to be just yet. And so naturally, I've been having another existential crisis. So I decided to sit down and write out how far I've come with my LSAT prep to motivate me to finish strong these next few weeks. It was really helpful, so I thought I'd start a thread so we could all celebrate our growth and keep moving forward.

I understand the LSAT. I know what to look for with each question type.

I finally started consistently scoring -3 in LR. Started off with -11, and this took months and months of work.

I have the stamina to finish tests.

I know how I learn best ( this is my biggest take away).

I can talk myself down from my anxiety in the middle of PT's.

My BR went from 159-178 in 9 months.

What have your takeaways been?

I finishing the LSAT Trainer and I am now deciding what to do next. I'm deciding between 7Sage and the Powerscore Bibles, but I'm leaning heavily towards 7Sage. Is it worth it to buy the Powerscore Bibles or should I just forgot about them and go 7Sage all the way? I'd love to hear about everyone's experiences with either.

from those of you who have already taken the lsat after completing practice tests. how close is your practice score to what you scored on test day?

i have heard that it is easier to make a higher score..anyone else know anything about this?

This is a pretty easy question IMO, but I have a question about why (E) is wrong and the interpretation of "or".

The author of the passage provided Nicaraguan pines as an example of a forest produced in part through controlled burning. The author does not think the pines were produced by natural fires. So the most straightforward explanation for why (E) is wrong is that the author would not agree that the Nicaraguan pines "could have been created by natural fires or controlled burning" because (s)he disagrees with natural fires as the cause.

But consider this: Let's say we know that A is true, and that B is not true. Given that information, can I logically conclude that "Either A is true or B is true"? I submit that the answer is yes. Because we know that A is true, it's a true statement to say that "A is true or B is true." For example, let's say I'm a senior in college. Someone asks me what year I am. I respond, "I am either a junior or senior in college." What I said in response is logically true even though I am not a junior. Or, let's say today is Wednesday. Someone asks what day it is. I say "It's either Wednesday or Thursday." That is a true statement, even though it's not Thursday.

So returning to answer choice (E), if the author's point is that the Nicaraguan pines were produced by controlled burning, then wouldn't the author logically HAVE TO AGREE that the fires could have been created by controlled burning or natural fires? Even if they weren't created by controlled burning, they were created by natural fires. So in the same sense that "I am a junior or senior" is true even if I am only a senior, "Created by controlled burning or natural fires" must be true even if it's just controlled burning. Why is this analysis wrong?

Does it have anything to do with the "could have been created by either" aspect of the answer choice? Some might think that the answer choice is not using "or" in the exact same way as "I am a junior or senior", because whereas that statement is equivalent to asserting that "I am at least one of the following things: junior or senior", the claim that the pines "could have been created by either natural fires or controlled burning" is asserting that both parts of the OR are definitely potential explanations, rather than the idea that "at least one of these explanations is correct". Is that what explains why (E) is wrong? If so, can someone elaborate on the grammatical or contextual rules governing the meaning of "or" in this situation?

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-38-section-3-passage-1-questions/