To CC or not to CC

jessicace

I switched over to 7Sage after completing Testmasters about a week ago and so far the only big difference I've seen has been to read the question stem first which I will do, but I was wondering if anyone has any advice about going through the Core Curriculum again. I'm scoring a 158 and a 170 BR which is my target score. I have difficulty with timing and getting through all of Reading Comp (two to three passages total) so I wanted to try the recording technique I've read about a few times in the discussion. I wanted to know if I should skip around the CC to the reading comp parts or if I should just go through everything in order. I started studying in October (scored a 141) and my test is in July. Everything seems redundant and I don't know if I'm wasting time I could be spending on actual testing conditions (controlling my anxiety and nerves under timed conditions).

MissChanandler

It's going to be pretty hard to score a 170 by July. Not impossible by any means, but be prepared to maybe have to delay or retake. I think that going through the core curriculum would definitely help. It takes about two months to go through it, and then you'd have a couple months left to PT before test day.

Andrew Alterio

I second @MissChanandler advice. Though, I'd give yourself more time than two months to go through the CC. If you do it right - meaning that you BR and Foolproof - it should take you a while.
Remember, you're essentially learning a new language, and it takes time to learn to but more importantly your muscle memory needs to be trained. If you recall back to the time when you began leaning the alphabet, you'll remember that it took a while for you to be able to identify the letters and form sentences -- even when you "knew" the letters. This is because you need time to train your brain to connect the images with certain ideas.
Don't shortchange yourself if you can help it. If you need to delay your application by a year, consider it an investment in your future. Note, that the difference between a 163 and 170 can be the difference of acceptance into a T-14 school or not, and also tens of thousand sof dollars in scholarships. It's not unheard of for 170 scorers to get full/majority rides at even T-30 schools. So, the time you invest in your studies will end paying off (if your goal is any of the above).
Good luck!

theLSATdreamer

I had a similar question on a previous post, i think the general consensus is, take your time with the CC and get it down solid, 170 is an ambitious goal in general, specially by july, i'm sure you can do it, what helps me with the CC is the the speed regulator on the videos, if something feels redundant, instead of skipping or ignoring i pay its at 1.4 speed, if i see i got lost i slow it down. There are a lot of variables to consider, your schedule being one, i can only study 3-4 hrs a day, so i'm aiming for september. well good luck hope i helped.

jessicace

Thank you both! I'm studying full time now so I'm aiming to finish CC by the June test and PT until the July test, I'm just trying not to burn out again. I figured I'd take July since I could cancel my score while also getting a feel of the test, but September might be my best bet at getting a 170. Do you have any tips on finishing RC on time by any chance? @MissChanandler @"Andrew Alterio" @theLSATdreamer

thecmancan

I'm not familiar with Testmasters but 7sage is about giving you tools you need to succeed on the test and drilling your usage of the tools.

I know some other prep companies really get into the theory and terms. 7sage is much more practical in their Blind Review process. So instead of reading about what's "out of scope" or "what's a distortion" etc, you just practice on real questions. That way, in Blind Review, you can find out for yourself what kind of traps you fall for often, what types of questions you struggle with and also what you are GOOD at.

So I tried following other curriculums that teach the test to EVERYONE. That means learning about what everyone else is weak at or what other traps other people fall for. I think that's irrelevant.

With 7sage, you'll immediately pinpoint what YOU suck at. Then you watch JY destroy the question like a pro and learn how YOU can avoid picking the trap answers for the next question. Do that over and over and JY has video explanations of THOUSANDS of LSAT questions and ALL the Logic Games, you'd get to your target no problem.

This is like learning to win at poker. Do you want to learn about ALL the rules and ALL the different hands and ALL the theory and math involvevd? Or do you want to watch a master play the real games while explaining is mental processes?

Andrew Alterio

@jessicace said: Do you have any tips on finishing RC on time by any chance?

I think the Low-Res approach to RC that JY teaches is vital for success on RC. You can also practice it while reading anything: when finished a paragraph, simply make a mental note, in two or three words, what the paragraph's topic was.
Another point: what is most challenging for me about RC is the fact that its approach is exactly the opposite of LR and, to some extent, LG. In the latter two, the goal is to analyze the passage; to deduce and induce based on the passage. RC is the exact opposite: you need to comprehend the passage and not analyze it. When you begin to analyze on RC, you lose. Period. This is especially difficult coming from LR and LG -- you just have to turn that part of your brain off.
As Sherlock Holmes famously said (okay, Arthur Conan Doyle): "There's seeing, and there's observing." On RC you want to observe; to encapsulate the passage and see the author's point. You want to become a microphone merely broadcasting the speaker's idea to another audience or more loudly.
The above has been quite difficult for me to implement, but you gotta do it - especially if you're an inquisitive and analytical person by nature. I want to challenge the author and understand why they said certain things. Big mistake.
Good luck!

Feel free to reach out for assistance if needed.

jessicace

@thecmancan very good point, thank you!

jessicace

@"Andrew Alterio" Yeah that's what I do! It takes me about 5 minutes to read the passage and 5-7 minutes to answer the questions. While I'm reading, I try to think of what the questions will ask. By comprehending as opposed to analyzing do you mean I should focus less on that?

Andrew Alterio

@jessicace
I think you should forget about the questions. Just focus on comprehending the passage. You want to aim for 7-8 for the easier passages and 9-11 for the harder ones. I notate every paragraph with one or two words.
JY's lessons are great.

MIT_2017

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I disagree that you need to go through every single lesson in the CC if you have already spent some time studying the exam before coming to 7Sage and are in a slight time crunch (speaking from experience). If you had 6 months until the test, sure review the whole CC. But if you are set on taking the exam this summer, then that definitely does not sound like the most time-efficient manner to go about studying. You also don't want to leave only one month before the exam for PTs.

You might be better served going through the CC specifically for those areas you know are your weaknesses, while ALSO completing PTs concurrently. Perhaps try doing a full PT two days a week, along with a solid BR afterwards, and go through the CC on the other days. It sounds like you should go through the lessons for RC. For LR, consider just reviewing the question types you struggle with. And as for LG, I personally think JY does a good enough job in his explanation videos that the CC is unnecessary (unless you identify there being a topic you are very weak on). I usually get -0 or -1 on LG, and the only LG "learning" I have done outside of doing the games themselves has been watching JY's explanations.

jessicace

@MIT_2017 Yeah LG is my strength when I manage to get through the whole section, definitely my favorite to BR. I've gone through a good amount of tests so far and someone suggested taking two a week in the month leading up to the test with intense BR. I was also going to record myself taking the tests so that would also take longer to review. How many PTs would you recommend before the test in July?

MIT_2017

@jessicace hmmm... two a week sounds like enough to me provided you are also doing a few additional sections throughout the week.

I think that recording yourself might be a large amount of time for a small payoff - I am sure there are benefits to be had from recording yourself (I have not done it), but given your statement "...when I manage to get through the whole section" it sounds like you might be better served spending that time exposing yourself to more and more games. For example, any pure sequencing game can (usually) be done in 5 or 6 minutes when you get really comfortable with them. And since those are quite common and there's a decent chance you could get one on test day, it could be worth nailing those down, such that you'll have close to 30 minutes for the remaining three games.

Another unpopular opinion: since you are on an expedited schedule, I wouldn't spend too much time "foolproofing" games - if you do the game a second time, if you didn't struggle that much, then good, you get it. There is a very marginal benefit to doing that game a third, fourth, or fifth time (unless you did very poorly the second time through)..... Move on to a new game. There are tons of them.

Lastly, I don't know if there is an ideal number of PTs for you to do prior to July. Certainly you'd want to do several, but I don't think you need to hit some high number like 30.... one PT with a solid BR and drawing precise lessons from it is worth more than 3 PTs that you took, scored, and just moved on. I'd focus more on week-to-week progress.

Leah M B

So, here’s my blunt advice about saying that your issue is with timing and you just need to speed up: the only way you speed up is by perfecting fundamentals. If it’s taking you too long (and I mean significantly too long, like not doing an entire game or RC passage), it’s not because you need to force yourself to go faster but that you do not have a solid grasp of fundamentals.

The way you speed up is by getting very very good at the LSAT. There is no way to just force yourself to go faster. For example: the reason it takes too long to get through games is because you maybe aren’t finding inferences that you need to or aren’t properly chaining conditionals together. You won’t be able to just force yourself to go faster if you aren’t doing the process in the most efficient and thorough way. Learning games is not just about increasing speed but watching how people like JY go through the games, step by step, inference by inference. If you learn how to organize and analyze the games, your speed increases on its own.

Similar things can apply to LR. You don’t need to learn how to just “go faster,” but you might need to learn how to spot trap answer choices better. And you learn to spot them by doing so many of them that the patterns begin to repeat over and over (cookie cutter analysis). You learn to see these patterns and know how to approach each type of question by watching masters break them down, premise by premise, and watch how they work through each individual question.

Another thing to bear in mind is that your score will improve much faster going from the 140s into the 150s than it will once you break into the 160s and try to crack 170. By the mid-160s, it’s a matter of just getting a few more questions right to hit 170. Each one of those extra points become harder and harder to come by. We’re talking about only missing maybe 10 questions on the whole test. It is a huge feat.

I started with a diagnostic of 155 and ended up with a 168 with 9 months of studying, starting with Powerscore and ending with 7sage. Also, most folks who score in the 170s are BRing in the upper 170s to 180 every single time. 170 is of course a fantastic BR score, but missing 10-13 questions with unlimited time means that there are still significant gaps in your knowledge that need to be filled in.

I say this not to be discouraging (you’re scoring better than many folks and I know you’ve put in the time!) but to say that, like all of us, you’ve got a ways to go and really still need to work on fundamentals. The 7sage CC is truly great at that. The way JY teaches grammar and logic is super super foundational to understanding how to approach this test to increase your speed and accuracy. It may seem tedious, it may seem like is repeating things, but if you’ve only given it a week then you need to just keep going through the CC. I also think the way it is organized is very much the best way to go through it and not skip around. The lessons build on each other and make more sense if you go through it sequentially. I recommend if you think something is repetitive or you don’t need to work on it, put the speed of the video higher so you’re “skimming” it. But if you want that 170 and to save tens of thousands of dollars on school, it’s best to be patient and just keep plugging along. Rushing studying doesn’t usually produce the best results.

Sorry this was so long winded! But I hope something here helped. If not, ignore me haha. But just my 2 cents on how to approach studying in general.

Leah M B

PS - similar to the above, I think the best way to control anxiety and nerves is to be super, super prepared. You have less to be anxious about if you are crushing it and PTing at your goal score.

The way to study that most people around here recommend is:

• Go through the cc and don’t rush it. This takes most people 2-3 months.
• Then, begin doing full PTs. 1 per week is great but 2 per week is ok as long as you have enough time to thoroughly BR each without rushing. Any more than 2 per week and you are likely to start burning out.
• After each PT, spend time thoroughly BRing. Dog in deep, really get to the meat of why you got an answer wrong, and how to do it better next time. THIS is where the true learning and growth happens, not during the PT. PTs are best seen as a tool to gauge your progress.
• Between PTs (and after your BR), mix in doing timed sections and drills. Those will help you improve even more for your next PT which, again, is best seen as a way to gauge your progress, build test day stamina, and work on focusing with distractions around you.

Also make sure to check out the webinars with studying tips. They are sooo helpful!