What should I do to minimize the struggle the newer material poses?

BinghamtonDave

There has been some discussion lately about the difficulty of PT 83,84 and 85. I want address an aspect of these discussions I have yet to see fully articulated as of late. I am by no means the first person to come to this conclusion, but I hope you find my take both helpful and reassuring. This process is what has worked and continues to work for me personally, I mean this advice as respectfully as I can.

Several people have written about the difficulty/subtly of these newer exams. Yet, almost by definition, the exams should not truly be that different from the previous exam which shouldn’t be that different from the previous exam before that and so on, because if they were markedly different, the LSAT would no longer be standardized in a way that any meaningful data could be gleaned from someone taking the exam. The exams would become “non-standardized” at that point. Imagine the shock for instance, if you sat down for an LSAT PT marked “PT 95” after all the hours of drilling valid argument types and the common flaws only to find the entire exam was a manual on how to disassemble and troubleshoot the transmission of a 2006 Honda Civic. Then the entire process of taking this standardized exam would be defeated.

Obviously, no one is claiming that the exams are now that different from previous exams, but nonetheless: this raises a question, if the newer exams are different, what are the primary differences? The answer to this question is usually something like: the reasoning patterns on LR are more subtle or “the answer choices are wrong because of the inclusion of a single word,” or “the flaws aren’t really as cookie-cutter as they were on older exams.” Obviously, there are more tangible differences between the PTs in the 80s and the PTS in the 40s: the inclusion of rule substitution questions on LG and the comparative passages on RC for instance, but these differences are by no means “new.” In fact, some of them have been around nearly a decade.

So, the general consensus seems to be that the newest exams are more “subtle” than exams 10-15 years ago. Which brings me to my central point, I am in no way claiming that the exams have remained completely unchanged, but I do claim that the changes have been subtle enough that if we have been doing pretests in order, we shouldn’t have noticed a big change from PT to PT and we should have in our approach inbuilt fixes to whatever has arisen.

So what should we do to minimize the struggle the newer material poses? After you’ve gotten through the CC and you are comfortable with the material: do the pretests with thorough blind review in order. Either from PT 37-present day with thorough review of each PT, or if you are like me and you need a few more PTs to drill from to get comfortable with the material then from 49-present day with thorough review. This helps us get a great foundation, hone our test day skills (pacing etc) and also mitigate any newer elements of subtly or surprise that might come our way.

So, ideally, the process would go something like this:
-You leave the CC having what you believe is a decent understanding of the material
-First PT 37: score 151
-Revisit the CC while thoroughly doing BR, because you thought you knew how to do necessary assumption questions but on the PT you missed 3.
-You watch the videos, you interact with the community, you walk away from that exam knowing how to explain every question, maybe not as fully as you one day will be able to, but nonetheless, you can explain it in a way where your strategies are being used.
-You take PT 38 rinse and repeat, maybe get in on a study group to answer questions and ask questions. You do this through all the PTs. This takes time, but can lend itself to the student getting used to the subtle difference between exams.

What I argue emerges here is a process in which by the time we go through the 60s, past the 70s and into the 80s in order, the “subtly” of the newer exams should be something we are acclimated to. If we have done this process correctly.

In summation, I have met a ton of elite high scorers in my journey. From them telling me their stories I have come to view the process these used in two rough categories: those that got a super high score by doing a process similar to this, if not more in-depth and those who come into the LSAT with amazing LSAT skills already in place who could start with PT 70 and do this process, but greatly abridged (either due to some combination of previous training in logic or other skills.) Basically, every high scorer I have met has done some iteration of this process, the only question is how much did they do.

On test day there are going to be people who get elite scores, how do they do it if the exams have this new subtly to them? They simply have become acclimated to the features of the exam that might be new or slightly different and assimilated this newer subtly into their already built approach of general skills honed through taking PTs and thorough BR. A wise person once told me that we have enough PTs available to us that the LSAT has in a very real way already “showed us their hand.” So the process can be done: go out there and do every post CC PT if you have to in order with super thorough review building skills you can carry forward to the next PT, you’ve got this.

TL;DR: if the newer tests have a unique subtly to them, we can mitigate this difficulty by doing pretests in order. That way we build our core skills along the way and also try to become acclimated to the subtly the newer material poses.

David

akistotle

Great post (as always)! By and large, I do think PrepTests should be taken chronologically for this reason.

_oshun1_

Nice post!!
Personally I jumped from PT 37 to PT 50 and then realized the newer tests were different and tried to stick to PT 60 and up. I think a lot of people don’t have time to go through every single test so instead of having a gradual integration of the tests’ changes they’re just randomly slapped in the face with it. I even stopped drilling from the earlier tests as I realized the differences.

BinghamtonDave

@oshun1 You make a good point. Many people don't have the time to go through the exams like this. Where I respectfully disagree is the point about drilling. I think there is a wealth of great material to get from the old exams. Let me give you 5 solid things I believe we can get from the older exams that instill/reenforce the skills we have to use for more modern exams:

-Flaw questions from old exams, they often lend themselves to the common flaws in the CC and also help us to notice different ways in which flaws that repeat a ton (suff/necess flaw, corr/cause flaw) may present themselves. I would add to this parallel flaw questions both for the patterns that are present in them that we can clearly recognize and the skill we might need if we cannot recognize/name the flaw present but we have a general form we can test against the answer choices.

-Any question that hinges on the use of lawgic/formal logic, the gold standard of LSAT readiness is (among other things) to consider these questions when they appear to be "freebies." In service of that goal, we can practice questions of this type from the older exams.

-Argument part questions: any question that focuses on the highly technical aspect of a line of reasoning's structure will both repeat on future exams and aide us in our ability to quickly and efficiently pull apart an argument's underlying structure.

-All RC passages: the older passages are slightly/marginally different from the current passages, but can still provide us with the ability to both balance enough understanding of the details when asked and recognizing the underlying reasoning structure present in the passage. For me, RC is all about practicing the reading and practicing the tasks they ask us in the questions. rinse and repeat, the old sets can certainly help us with this.

-Every old LG set: both for the older "normal" games and the odd games. We study the normal games for self evident reasons, but the odd games might actually help us keep our head on if we come across an odd game on a current set, while working a strategy we honed via practice. This strategy can range from skipping to taking what they've given us in the set up and rules step by step in a way in which we are confident that the game won't be a complete disaster. Some old odd games might actually be historical precursors to modern odd games. Take for instance PT 1 Game 1, that is a circle game. That exam is from what, 1991? I was 3 years old, that is a super old exam. Yet, it might show up on later exams. Take another example: PT c game 4, does it feel to you at all loosely related to PT 72 game 4? Imagine if we could draw upon these experiences and be able to apply them to future games.

I think there is a ton to take from the old exams, but obviously they aren't our best resource for the newest exams.

I hope this helps
David

devosegal

quote:
PT c game 4, does it feel to you at all loosely related to PT 72 game 4?
Is it really PT c? Or did you mean to put in a number?
Sorry if this obvious and I am just missing it.

akistotle

@devosegal said:
quote:
PT c game 4, does it feel to you at all loosely related to PT 72 game 4?
Is it really PT c? Or did you mean to put in a number?
Sorry if this obvious and I am just missing it.

PrepTest C is February 2000 LSAT (The Official LSAT SuperPrep). Ultimate+ users can access the PT C.