Trouble Focusing

GeechieGullah

Some of these explanations are so long, verbose, and full of stuff that's not relative that I'm having a hard time paying attention. JY is all over the place. Do I really need a nine minute video for two minutes of information?

drbrown2

Get to the point where you embrace the over the top explanations that are way more in depth than what you need to answer the question. That's how deep you should strive to go when you review questions you missed or weren't sure about. That's the level of understanding that will help you get to the correct answer in multiple ways even if you didn't have the exact pre-phrase in mind before looking at the answer choices. Learn to love the LSAT and get nerdy about it. BTW, if you have a tough time paying attention to a 9 minute video then law school is going to be rough.

BinghamtonDave

I actually don't think the 12-13 minute explanations are that much "all over the place." Much of that time is contextualizing precisely what the flaw or issue or subtly of the problem really is and an attempt by Mr. Ping to get the information to stick. This was enormously helpful for me. Mr. Ping often stops for a few seconds to describe what we could reasonably conclude from the premise given. This helped me make a breakthrough in my approach: we can often compare what the argument could conclude vs. what the argument did actually conclude to find the issue with the argument. Mr. Ping often stops to describe the roll of context, among several other things that are also very helpful.

MissChanandler

Yeah, I'd have to agree with @BinghamtonDave. Quite frankly, unless you're a very high scorer, it's probably unlikely that you're able to distinguish between "stuff that's not relative" and the stuff that is really important. And you definitely need to be able to focus on something verbose and potentially uninteresting for more than ten minutes to make it through the LSAT, let alone law school.

tekken1225

There's a speed-up option on videos, you know... You could even speed it up to 3X.

TEXASAggie

I don't know about you guys...but at some points of general studies or completing PT's...I hear JY's voice rationalizing my answers (but the ones that I get wrong are from JY's evil twin lol).

LSAT_Wrecker

It might help you to shift the focus from "what is the specific answer to this one question that I'm listening to" to what is the structure and form of this question, why is this one answer choice right, why are these four answer choices wrong, and how I take the patterns and form of this question and these answer choices and map that knowledge over to all the other questions and answer choices I might see in the future. That's the desired learning point and why JY (and other reputable LSAT instructors) goes into greater detail.

It relates back to the old principle of someone giving you a fish or a fishing pole.

akistotle

Can you point to the video where J.Y. talks stuff that's not relative? J.Y. actually welcomes criticism so he might redo the video if it's needlessly long.

tekken1225

@akistotle said:
Can you point to the video where J.Y. talks stuff that's not relative? J.Y. actually welcomes criticism so he might redo the video if it's needlessly long.

I actually really enjoy it when he talks about things that are not relative. Wish he did it more. It provides humor and he's a pretty funny guy. Maybe that's just me, I don't know.

turnercm

When I started 7sage, I felt the same way. Since then, I’ve found that the lengthy explanations do a much better job of teaching the LSAT rather than simply telling the right answer.

The PT85 study sessions where we went over the questions were absolutely needed. Sometimes we would only go over a few questions in a couple of hours, wrestling with each of the answer choices. I don’t think we (the students) actually checked the answer key lol. If you’re looking at the explanations, is it safe to assume that you got the question incorrect? Did you go through the same process when answering?

Reflecting on each answer choice in depth and realizing why trap answer choices are attractive made me realize that if you understand the structure of the passage, and exactly how the conclusion relates to the premises, then you have the ability to answer any question correctly. Period. If you can’t differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information, then you’re going to have a bad time.

PT85 was full of LR questions that, even after blind review, I had no clue what the right answer choice would be and why. Had it not been for lengthy explanations, I would not know why the answer choices were what they were. Mastering the LSAT really is the difference between understanding why the correct choice is correct and why the incorrect choices are incorrect. When you get to a place where you can break it down the same way, except in 2 minutes or less during the test, then you can skip through. However, I’d encourage you to make sure you’re also able to have the same level of depth when answering the question!

john1234-1

@turnercm said:
When I started 7sage, I felt the same way. Since then, I’ve found that the lengthy explanations do a much better job of teaching the LSAT rather than simply telling the right answer.

Completely agree with this. Early on I didn't realize what I didn't know. Perhaps a case of ignorance is bliss.

As I have progressed with my studies, I have found the videos increasingly of value as I am more conscious of my shortcomings