Weighing options and strategy

BirdLaw818

Hi guys,

I want to summarize some stuff in points and hope you guys can chime in and give some much appreciated suggestions!

-studied one month 6-8 hours a day for February LSAT. Went from 149-164 average.

-took February test, Spazzed out on LG and RC , my BEST sections, and missed a section each (guessed) and surprisingly did well on LR when I was doing poorly before *i was more confident though in my answer choices that I got to than I have ever been on my PTs so I guess that's a plus

-GPA is 3.26 so I need a low to mid 170 to get into USC.and a mid 160 for UCI. due to my recent mess up I think USC is definitely out and UCI is in critical condition.

-need to set backup plan in motion.

-I have certain weaknesses such as applying the flaws I see in passages of LR to answer choices, I hate inferences in LR and some smaller stuff which is awefully specific. Powerscore book didn't help me because I feel like it focuses so much more on structure than content. Very basic and generalized I was so disappointed. It didn't help me to be a better critical thinker like JYs videos on say LG did.

-I need a more tailor made approach, I need to read and retain better, and I need to up my vocab as well lol. And my timing needs to definitely improve.

-if you guys think it's possible to get to the low to mid 170s in the June or September LSAT, then I will start studying in about two weeks regardless of how February turns out.

I broke 160 on my PTs very early on in my studying...hit a 166, then started to decline back to 161-162.

Thanks and sorry for the long post. But what do u guys recommend in terms of study guides and options given my scenario?

BinghamtonDave

-I need a more tailor made approach, I need to read and retain better, and I need to up my vocab as well lol. And my timing needs to definitely improve.

You are already in a great spot because you know what you need to improve to move forward. My recommendation would be to attain these things with the guidance of a package on 7sage starting from the ground up, picking up and retaining these skills each step of the way through the curriculum. The LSAT is an extremely difficult exam, but is learnable.

The topic is considered a debatable one but a 3.26/mid 170s is would open quite a number of doors in the top 20 schools. Others will know better than me, but you could possibly make top ten. Opinions will be diverse on what schools those numbers will get you into, but the common thread will be to apply broadly.

Best of luck and if you need any help moving forward don't hesitate to reach out.
David

BirdLaw818

@BinghamtonDave said:

-I need a more tailor made approach, I need to read and retain better, and I need to up my vocab as well lol. And my timing needs to definitely improve.

You are already in a great spot because you know what you need to improve to move forward. My recommendation would be to attain these things with the guidance of a package on 7sage starting from the ground up, picking up and retaining these skills each step of the way through the curriculum. The LSAT is an extremely difficult exam, but is learnable.

The topic is considered a debatable one but a 3.26/mid 170s is would open quite a number of doors in the top 20 schools. Others will know better than me, but you could possibly make top ten. Opinions will be diverse on what schools those numbers will get you into, but the common thread will be to apply broadly.

Best of luck and if you need any help moving forward don't hesitate to reach out.
David

Hi David, thanks for the reply. Im looking over the courses and the pricing is more than fair so I'll take up one of the options soon.

The logic games were very learnable through brute forcing sections (doing them over and over again) but can this be applied to LR and RC? Can I apply JYs method in LG success to LR and RC? Or will it be wrong because they're so different from one another. I feel like I got to where I am , which I'm not saying is even good, through brute forcing sections and the volume of prep tests I took.

BinghamtonDave

My recommendation would be to slowly steer away from the brute force and start to engage with the exam with a bit more finesse, fashioned through exposure to the deeper underpinnings of the exam. Brute force is a very useful skill to have, but should be the last option available. What I mean by finesse with your approach to the exam would be to know the questions on LR so good, to see them as variations on older forms. Take for instance a question that moves from correlation in the premise to a causal claim in the conclusion. How do we weaken that relationship? What could we do to weaken that? How do we strengthen that relationship? What can we say to point out the flaw with that reasoning? What recycled wrong flaw answer choices are not describing what we see and are instead describing some other flaw? When you start to look at questions deeper like that through blind review, you start to really work on prephrasing answer choices, you start to save 5-10 seconds on questions like that.

Then you move on to something else through the 7sage curriculum, revisiting what you learned a week or so later.

I look at the lsat like I do a language exam or a boxing match: you are tested not on you ability to recall details and put them on paper, but rather, you are tested on how fast and efficiently you can put fashioned skills to use in "new" situations. This is why fundamentals are so important for this exam.

BirdLaw818

I just feel like most of my trouble comes from instances where my line of reasoning might differ in one aspect and lead me to select an answer that seems right, but lo and behold, the test maker applied some other line of reasoning that reaches a different conclusion/answer choice and yes, it is always right but I only realize it in retrospect and when I go back and interpet the stimulus or passage the way they did, I come to that answer choice as well. I never have a problem with understanding a passage or stimulus and I'm knowledgeable in many subjects to atleast a certain degree and some more than others (maybe not the bees haha). So it's more of a struggle in understanding why the test makers reasoning applied or mattered more than mine did on certain questions.