How to incorporate supplemental material?

dantab26

Hello everyone! this is my first post, as I am about to start studying for the October LSAT. A lot of you mentioned that the Trainer and Cambridge Drilling Packets are very useful but I'm curious as to how you all incorporated that into your 7sage course? I'm thinking of purchasing them so let me know!

Thanks!

ddakjiking

LR: http://www.cambridgelsat.com/bundles/logical-reasoning-by-type/
LG: http://www.cambridgelsat.com/bundles/logic-games-by-type/
RC: http://www.cambridgelsat.com/problem-sets/reading-comprehension/

What I would recommend is go through the 7Sage curriculum slow and steady. Say you go over the "Strengthen" lesson on 7Sage. What I would do for the next day (or couple) would be to drill a good amount of the "Strengthen" questions from the Cambridge LR packet. These packets are conveniently organized by question type from PT 1-38. The purpose behind such drilling is for you to become proficient at tackling a specific question type.

Rinse and repeat for the other LR question types and LG game types. I would recommend at least for LR to do the packets untimed. You want to focus on accuracy and not timing (yet).

I recommend saving most of the PT 40's for when you transition from drilling/7Sage curriculum into sectioned timing. After you have been drilling for so long, your mental endurance might not be in top shape so I highly recommend starting this transition by starting to do timed sections.

You can use PT's 52-74 (soon to be 75) as your full PT's as you near the end of your studies.

bSM45LSAT

Hmm sorry to intrude into this discussion, but I'm following the core curriculum for 7Sage, and I've started doing a bunch of the Problem Sets for stuff like Main Point and Weakening Questions. My problem is JY says to time the sections, but I usually can only do about 7 out of 10 before the time runs out, and I feel like even the questions I'm doing I sometimes am just "taking a gamble" on an answer choice.

I like this concept of drilling the questions so I can fully understand them before I go ahead and time myself on them. Which is why I'm wondering should I maybe do untimed Problem Sets, or go with these Cambridge packets as well like dantab26 to learn better.

Thanks, appreciate the help!

visualcreed

My personal strategy when I was beginning was to time myself but not force the issue. For example I'll do all 10 questions but it ends up taking me 20 minutes. I'll have worked on my accuracy but also benchmarked where I am. As I continue to drill I try to get the time to drop more and more so maybe a few tries later I can do 10 questions in 15 minutes etc.. @ddakjiking 's method is pretty spot on to what I would do and still do. Any LR questions I miss on my PT's I'll go over that question type on 7Sage, Manhattan LR, and the Trainer then do a few timed drills. As a bonus, after you do questions I mentally explain to myself why the correct answer is correct and why each wrong answer is wrong. If you want to keep yourself accountable you can write that down.

As for LG I have the bundle but if you don't have that simply take a LG section from an earlier prep test and have at it. At first time yourself but I'd worry about accuracy first. Using the fool-proof method is great although I never do a game 10 times, probably 2-5 depending on how comfortable I am with it. I never tried the Cambridge packets for LG but I'm assuming they would be beneficial when first starting.

For RC, I have no idea really but I've started to do similar to LG by taking a section from an older PT and have at it. A lot of my issues in RC our focus issues, I often find myself day dreaming so I'm just practicing mental toughness. Also, you'll find some of the themes are pretty similar and the questions are quite similar so you might be able to get more comfortable with certain types of passages. Again, Cambridge packets might be nice to have for this method.

bSM45LSAT

@visualcreed said:
Any LR questions I miss on my PT's I'll go over that question type on 7Sage, Manhattan LR, and the Trainer then do a few timed drills.

I'm definitely going to buy the Trainer, but I'm not sure if I'll pick up the Manhattan LR, unless I need to I suppose.

I've bought all the prep tests from 19-74 basically, but the tests obviously aren't categorized into weakening, strengthening etc. so my only real options to practice are the problem sets. Not sure what I will do when all of those problem sets are done.

Also thanks for mentioning info about the LG and RC sections, but I just started studying last Tuesday, so I'm still only 20 hours into the course, only on LR at this point!

visualcreed

Honestly, if I could do it over I would probably not pick up the Manhattan LR nor the Manhattan RC, it helps some people but for me I didn't gain anything useful. I think after a point you become stagnant and try to give yourself a boost thus I bought them.

Knowing the little that I do now over when I started I think my plan would have been to first read the Trainer, do some of the drills but not the full drills specified in their plans. This should give you a good basic understanding of what you're up against. From there I'd work my way through 7Sage and all the drills from Cambridge. Then cycle PT and drilling until test day.

bSM45LSAT

Hmm great suggestion! My only thing is I'm reluctant to buy the Cambridge packs as I already bought all the prep tests, I mean the only real advantage is that they group the question types together, and so I could just flip through my current Official Prep tests 1-38 and do the same, but considering each Cambridge pack separately (like just weakening for ex.) costs only $8 I might give it a try.

emli1000

What I did was follow 7Sage's study schedule and implemented Cambridge packets for each section. After I finished the course I started on the Trainer. Since I did not complete every Cambridge packet, when I started reading the Trainer a lot more begin to click. So I continued drilling the packets. I would read 1 chapter per day and then drill LR/RC question types.

bSM45LSAT

@emli1000 said:
What I did was follow 7Sage's study schedule and implemented Cambridge packets for each section. After I finished the course I started on the Trainer.

Hmm interesting! I just ordered the Trainer, will receive it next Wednesday.

Also today I did half of the LR- Weakening Drills on Cambridge, and holy I already feel so much more confident with them! I'm definitely going to buy a lot of the packages.

Regarding the trainer though, do you think I should read a chapter a day when I receive it, or wait until I'm done the 7Sage core curriculum?

My basic plan is this: Review 7Sage course, mainly lessons pertaining to LR for now, then drill Cambridge Packages for each question type, and then follow up with reading LR section of the Trainer. Is that sufficient or maybe a switch in the order is needed?

I've heard so much good stuff about the Trainer, just not sure how it helps, is there practice questions or is a more review type style?

Also thanks so much for answering these questions, I know I'm being kind of annoying :P.

emli1000

@bSM45LSAT said:
Regarding the trainer though, do you think I should read a chapter a day when I receive it, or wait until I'm done the 7Sage core curriculum?

My basic plan is this: Review 7Sage course, mainly lessons pertaining to LR for now, then drill Cambridge Packages for each question type, and then follow up with reading LR section of the Trainer. Is that sufficient or maybe a switch in the order is needed?

Those Cambridge packets are very helpful! It depends how far along are you with the course. I've seen people on here use 7Sage & The Trainer together. Also, some have started with the Trainer first then moved on to 7Sage. Others have finished 7Sage and then started on the Trainer. What i really liked about the Trainer was that the little things that I missed from 7Sage it emphasized them which made using both go so well. It also goes into depth with flaw question types. Before you know it flaw question types will seem so easy to you that you'll be shocked when people don't recognize the flaws.

nicole.hopkins

@bSM45LSAT said:
I've heard so much good stuff about the Trainer, just not sure how it helps, is there practice questions or is a more review type style?

Concepts approached from a slightly different perspective. Might help to fill in some gaps in your thinking and offers a new approach for a few game types, different ways to think about flaws, and (I believe) more in-depth/systemic approach to RC questions.