Problem Set Changes

Alan Cheuk-2

Note: These changes are now live!

Hi everyone,

We were really eager to improve problem sets after LSAC changed their licensing requirements, so we pushed out LR problem set changes before we should have. This resulted in a lot of confusion - thank you for bearing with us through all these changes, sorry!

We've been working hard to do an overhaul of the problem sets that we hope you'll all like. We hope to roll out the changes in about a week, but it may take longer. Here are the major changes:

* You will be able switch between seeing the new problem sets and the old ones from the Account settings page. So if you select the old problem sets, you'll only see those ones and not the new ones. The new problem sets are the default. The old problem set lessons will be back where they used to be if you select old problem sets. Shoutout to @focaliant for this great suggestion!

* There will be little to no overlap between the core curriculum and the problem sets. Some of you noticed that some of the questions in the old and new problem sets were also in the core curriculum, and we wanted to fix that.

* There will be new RC and LG problem sets.

* The new LR problem sets will be reordered to ramp up difficulty a more evenly.

This means that if you are in the middle of a group of the new problem sets, we recommend finishing that group and delaying other problem sets until after the changes take effect.

For example, if you're in the middle of the new group of Most Strongly Supported problem sets, you should try to finish them, and put off the Weaken problem sets until after the change is done.

If you are in the middle of a group of problem sets when the change hits, then you may end up skipping some questions, and repeating others. Not a catastrophe, but it is definitely cleaner if you're not in the middle of a group of problem sets.

Matt1234567

Awesome, 7Sage keeps getting better and better.

Maestro_eba

thanks for the head up, i've not started the sets, so i'm good!

cliffiness

just as a clarification - all of the problem sets right now are old?

Pacifico

all of the problem sets in the "old problem sets" section at the bottom of the curriculum portion of the syllabus right now are old, the stuff that is embedded in the curriculum right now within the lessons are the new problem sets.

msvott

Just curious but not an essential question: How did the LSAC licensing requirements change? Was that recent?

Pacifico

It was back during the winter I believe. They basically made it highly impractical and nearly impossible to use sells PDFs.
Here's a brief synopsis: http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/lsac-bans-lsat-preptest-pdf-sales.html

DaveH162

Just to be clear are these regarding just the problem sets at the end of each section only or also the problems when starting each section?

Pacifico

Only the ones that say "_____ Problem Set #" are what he's talking about... the ones at the beginning of the sections are just questions in video format where JY takes you through the process...

CrazyAmbitious

Perhaps I misunderstood the information here, but, on my syllabus the old problem sets tab at the bottom seems to actually contain the new problem sets.. embedded in my curriculum are the old problem sets currently (I can only tell this because one of the practice sets was entirely from the video sample questions JY uses) Is anyone else having this happen? Is this normal for the time being? I was not sure if the change had already taken place or if the swap was going to happen later (within the week). I noticed the sets under the old problem sets tab actually contain more questions per set than those in embedded core curriculum (currently only containing 5 questions per set). I am currently working on the weakening questions problem sets which consists of 13 total sets of 5, while the tab with "old problem sets" has only 7 sets for the weakening questions section, each with about 10 if I recall correctly, per set.

Alan Cheuk-2

Sorry, this is confusing because it's complicated and hard to communicate what happened. We ended up in a weird place in terms of what's included where. Our fault. The upcoming overhaul should fix this and make everything clean again.

Here's my best attempt at trying to explain what's going on (warning: long!)

Before mid-June, there were Old LR, Old RC, and Old LG problem sets. Because of the LSAC PDF ban, these problem sets were just lists of questions followed by lists of answers that left the work of getting the questions up to the student, unless they got the PDFs before the ban.

These problem sets date back from when we started 7Sage, and we did the best we could with limited time. Unfortunately, they were a loose collection of questions that overlapped with the core curriculum, were sometimes mislabeled, they were too long (not bite-sized like the rest of the curriculum), didn't use analytics data, and did not take difficulty into account. This was a difficult thing to fix since they were tied with the PDFs.

Since we can't have problem set PDFs any longer, we decided to redo the problem sets, make it a little easier for users to find the questions they need, halve their length, add analytics data, and take difficulty into account. We finished the LR problem sets first ("New LR Beta"), and replaced the Old LR on the site in mid-June.

The Old LR were moved to a new class at the end of the Core Curriculum called "Old Problem Sets". The time estimate for these problem sets were reduced to zero so that it wouldn't affect the time estimates for students using the new problem sets. The Old RC and Old LG problem sets remained where they were, but we planned to do something similar with them when the New RC and New LG were ready.

Unfortunately, after putting it out we noticed some problems with New LR Beta:
1. The difficulty scaling wasn't very smooth. It was roughly correct, but it didn't go smoothly from easiest of the easy to hardest of the hard.
2. Some (8) questions were mis-tagged.
3. Students were justifiably confused by the "Old Problem Set" situation, and the completion/time estimate complications that resulted from it.
4. There was still overlap with the Core Curriculum.

We still needed to replace Old RC and Old LG with New RC and New LG, so we decided to incorporate fixes these 4 problems into the LR and RC replacements and also for New LR Beta.

We normally like to put out changes incrementally as we complete them. But given the complications that arose from the release of New LR Beta, we're going to bundle all these changes into one big push.

Once the change is out - you'll be able to go into your Account settings page http://7sage.com/account/, and see an option for using the old problem sets. That setting isn't there now, but will be available after the change. If you select that option, you won't see the new problem sets on your syllabus, and your time estimates should reflect the old problem sets, and vice versa.

The New Problem Sets are going to be distributed like this:
* Starter: The very easiest problem sets
* Premium: Easy problem sets
* Ultimate: Easy/Medium problem sets
* Ultimate+: Easy/Medium/Hard problem sets

We haven't added it up, but after taking into account no repeats from the Core Curriculum, we expect that:
* Starter and Premium will probably have less New Problem Set questions than Old Problem Set Questions.
* Ultimate will probably have roughly the same number of Old/New questions.
* Ultimate+ will probably have more New than Ultimate had Old.

You'll continue to have access to the Old Problem Sets (with the Account settings option) for at least the rest of the year. So if you want, you can chose the Old Problem Sets option and have the same amount as before.

nicole.hopkins

@"Alan Cheuk" said:
Since we can't have problem set PDFs any longer, we decided to redo the problem sets, make it a little easier for users to find the questions they need, halve their length, add analytics data, and take difficulty into account. We finished the LR problem sets first ("New LR Beta"), and replaced the Old LR on the site in mid-June.

This sounds like a lot of blood/sweat/tears y'all have undertaken to deal with a very real challenge introduced by the LSAC regulations. Kudos, guys—I know this has been many (!) hours of work and you could have just as easily said, "Meh, they'll figure it out."

No complaints here—I've worked in change management and this is par for the course.

tosin1213

i went to my settings and did not see how to switch between new and old problem sets.

inactive

@tosin1213 said:
i went to my settings and did not see how to switch between new and old problem sets.

Hey @tosin1213 , that's because the option won't be available for at least a week, like Alan mentioned. Sorry for the confusion!

xqr1s4f3ed

Yeah...thanks for the responsiveness guys. I like 7Sage's method of transparent management; call it pseudo-crowdsourcing. We all have a huge stake in our LSAT scores - thanks for eliciting and responding to our feedback!

LARamsNation

While I do love and rave to everyone I know about 7sage's curriculum and quick responsiveness to students' concerns, I am concerned that this shift may decrease the quality of questions available to those that had a "Premium" package. It's totally possible I'm misreading this, but I'm fairly certain that if I knew that the only questions available to me with this package would be of the easy sort, I would have have probably went with the higher (ultimate) package upon purchase. Moreover, I thought that if the premium package wasn't sufficient for my studies, I could simply pay an extra $200 to get the entire curriculum. It seems now, as evidenced through the "TBA" under pricing "Ultimate +" on the upgrade page, in order for us to get "hard" problem sets, we must upgrade to the highest package possible. This seems also unfair to those who signed up for an ultimate package, believing the price they paid entitled them to the entire curriculum. I understand the LSAC is screwing just about everyone with their licensing fees, but to have hard problem sets available only to those who have Ultimate+ -- which is no one yet -- all but forces you to upgrade. I know the LSAC isn't gonna be in a giving mood this October having just lost an embarrassing law suit, so I doubt we'll see similarly "easy" questions that are made available to those with a Premium package. For example's sake, if you go through the first 8 "new" problem sets of Necessary Assumptions, almost every question had over 80% of respondents selecting the correct answer.. Those numbers tell me that all 8 problem sets were just very easy; not even "easy-medium" that I anticipated would be available upon signing up for the course. I apologize for the long rant, but I know you guys take the time to read everything and I just wanted to express my concerns. That's what makes you guys the best in the business! Maybe there is a part of the course I overlooked, or misread something but I hope all of this can be sorted out asap!! Thanks

Pacifico

You still have the old problem sets which is what literally everyone who has bought a package has paid for so far. No one is losing anything. They are adding content for free to current subscribers. Whether you find that content to be value added is irrelevant because it is free.

The only people who will really have a decision to make are new subscribers once all the packages are revised and put on sale in their new format. And they have to build in some sort of incentive to purchase a higher level package.

Personally I think it would be better to offer more problem sets as you go up, but not segregate difficulty by price. For example, starter packs could get three problem sets: one easy, one medium, one hard. But I can understand their approach as well.

Everyone who has an account needs to realize they still have everything they paid for and will continue to have it for the foreseeable future, likely well past their subscription's expiration date. So just enjoy the free added content or ignore it if you don't need it. Honestly the old problem sets were more than enough so everyone should be good to go with what they have.

mc_meatt

@Cheuk. when are you guys gonna post a price tag for ultimate+?

inactive

@"mc_meatt" said:
when are you guys gonna post a price tag for ultimate+?

When we've figured everything out for the course, probably. We don't have a set price yet. Once we know, you'll know.

Pacifico

Let's just say October 2023 and then when it comes out in a few months everyone can be pleasantly surprised

Nathanial

Are the changes going to be ready for tomorrow?

Alan Cheuk-2

@Nathanial said:
Are the changes going to be ready for tomorrow?

You must have the gift for prophecy

http://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/3248/problem-set-changes-happening-tonight-wednesday-night-thursday-morning

Nathanial

excited about these as I'm ready to get some new problem sets in me

Cher____

Are the new problem sets real LSAT questions?

brna0714

@CFloyd1221 Yes! They're all official, LSAC-created questions.

Pacifico

Yeah this isn't Kaplan or Princeton Review... This stuff here is real!