what is the point of "questions problem set" at the end of each section?

spittingnickels

presumably the point is to reinforce the concepts learned previously. for example i just finished the whole section about the weakening questions, and that section ends with 7 or 8 "questions problem sets" ...........but here is what i dont understand : we were told at the start of the curriculum that the newer preptests would all be SAVED to be used later as FRESH practice tests. but these questions problem sets throughout the curriculum contain questions from some of the newer preptests!

so are we supposed to save new preptests to be used FRESH in their entirety for practice tests? or are we supposed to dutifully complete all of the "question problem sets" throughout the curriculum, regardless of how many of the questions WITHIN these problem sets are from newer preptests (the SAME prep tests we were told originally we would be saving to take fresh)?

i am confused. and i had a 7sage staff member/ autotmatic response person offer an explanation which i didnt find satisfactory

Cherry - Student Service

@spittingnickels we are actually replacing the pre-made problem sets in the Core Curriculum with an advanced drilling option. You can read more about it here: Core Curriculum Update - Drilling Feature

I will be quoting J.Y.'s comment about the change here for your reference:

We perceived two issues with the existing Problem Sets and replacing them with Drills is our attempt to remedy both.

The PSets are static sets of 5 questions in increasing order of difficulty and newness. For example, Flaw PSet #1 contains 5 of the easiest and oldest Flaw questions from PTs 1-35. Flaw PSet #23 contains the hardest and newest. As they are laid out in the CC, the expectation is that a student should just proceed through them one by one.

The issue with that is the typical student probably doesn't need to start with PSet #1 (too easy) and probably doesn't need to finish all the way to PSet #23 (time could be better spent elsewhere). This is inefficient. The Drill addresses this by giving the student the ability to set the difficulty themselves. A student can, based on how well they followed the lessons, set the difficulty to, say, medium, and see how they do. Based on the results of the Drill, they can quickly adjust the difficulty for the next Drill. (We're also working on auto adjusting as a new feature to be released.) Admittedly, this is also something that could be done with PSets: a student could jump into the middle of the PSets and work forward (if too easy) or backwards (if too hard). But that's very cumbersome and not everyone will know to do this. Drills will allow students to more efficiently hone in on what they need to practice.

The second issue is that PSets contain a disproportionate amount of older questions. Their questions are pulled from only PTs 1-35. The assumption was that the newer PTs should be saved for timed PTs. Two changes undermined that assumption. First, it's been 5 years since the PSets were created and many more new PTs have been released. Second, the modern LSAT only contains one scored LR section. The two changes together meant that we have many more newer LR questions that should not be in PTs. For example, PT 45 was originally released with two LR sections but the second LR section should not be in a modern PT. So what do we do with it? We pushed it into the Drilling pool of questions. We did this for all the LR sections we deemed to be "extra." This way, you still have a huge pool of modern PTs (with a rotation of LR, LG, and RC experimentals on the next feature release). You will also have a larger and newer (compared to PSets) pool of LR questions to Drill with. PT 76's second LR section is the newest section that we placed into the Drilling pool.

For those who are concerned about spoiling PTs, if you choose "Simulate Modern" and take PTs 45 and higher, there will be absolutely no overlap between PT LR and Drilling pool LR. In other words, you're guaranteed to have a fresh PT with a reliable PT score.

Please feel free to reach out if you have any further questions, I am happy to help.