Questions about taking PT

Samcandoit!

Hi guys, I just finished the core curriculum and decide to take some days off before start taking PT. I will be a senior student this fall semester. I wonder what is the best way to take PT. J.Y. asks us to take stimulated LSAT practice. However, I doubt if I have 4 hours during the morning when the semester begins. Is it ok for me, let's say, to break a PT into 4 different sections and finish them separately? I hope you can give me some advises. My new semester is about to come, although I have the ambition to balance my LSAT and academic goal, I started to feel stressed because I don't know if I can handle it. Please suggest me the most helpful way to take PT. If it is really necessary, I can still make the four-hour morning stimulated practice happen. In addition, do you think 1 PT per week is enough and reasonable for a full-time student? Thank you so much!

Pacifico

I don't know where you're getting 4 hours from... With a 15 minute break it only takes 2 hours and 35 minutes to take a PT. I'd say just do 1 per week with an excellent BR and you shouldn't find it too strenuous.

harrismegan

@"Samcandoit!" said:
do you think 1 PT per week is enough and reasonable for a full-time student?

If you've just started your PTs and you have sometime before you write (I'm assuming you're not writing October?) then yes, 1 PT a week is plenty with an amazing, slow BR.

c.janson35

Yup, if you don't take a break then you can finish a 4-section test in a cool 2 hours and 20 minutes which is definitely doable. I do feel like 1 PT a week is entering "not enough" territory, but if you are doing other timed work in addition then you may be able to make it work. Don't sell yourself short though; if it only means waking up earlier twice a week to fit in a PT then that's totally worth it in my opinion.

Pacifico

I think if you BR on a different day than you take the PT, and then have a third day for some light drilling it should be enough if you're planning to take a year off and are shooting for next June. It was unclear from your original post if you are applying this year or not. If you are, then you probably need 2 PTs per week and shoot for December with February as a backup. However, as a hopeful splitter, I would not sacrifice your UG performance for LSAT performance, even though the latter is ultimately somewhat more important in almost every case. If you need to take a year off to test next fall then I'd recommend doing so to put yourself in the best possible position.

Samcandoit!

Thank you so much guys. I am so sorry that I did not reply these wonderful comments immediately on the other day, because my school just started. I would definitely take your comments, since I decide to take my first LSAT on this December, so surly 2 PTs every week and carefully BR. I am wondering how do you guys felt when you first took PT, because I felt I got lost in reading section very quickly (probably because I did not do PT on print papers but on my tablet, I did not make any notes while reading). I also felt I need to improve my logical games so badly. When I did the problem sets of logical games in the core curriculum. I literally cannot finish any single logical game by myself, so I followed J.Y 's method: redo all the logical games 8 to 10 times. I also did not finish all the logical games by myself independently in my first PT last week, but I think I've been improved. Is this the correct path? I mean, I doubt if I can get the goal of 0 loss in logical games eventually, because I could not finish any single logical games 1 month ago. During the past years, LSAT scared me because of it difficulty, 0 loss in logical game is like a magic to me which I cannot imagine. That's why me, as a newbie, beg for you sharing your experience with me.

In addition, how you guys took the PT. J.Y recommends us to make our PT situation the same as the situation in which we take real LSAT. I think it is a great idea. However, I realize that each PT will cost me around 20 printing papers. I am so scared to cut many trees like this. However, if you guys think this is the most helpful way to do PT, I will definitely oblige it .

I really appreciate your sharing and helps.

c.janson35

First, you definitely can get to the magical -0 in LG! The games seem impossible at the beginning because they're so new and overwhelming, but if you keep drilling them then they should start to become a lot easier for you! Just keep practicing.

About the PTs, you should be printing them out. You're gonna want to replicate testing conditions as closely as possible, and that means doing tests on paper. When you're done, just recycle them instead of throwing them in the garage!

Samcandoit!

Thank you @c.janson35 . You make me feel encouraged so much.

Pacifico

Don't ever take them on a tablet unless you are @c.janson35 and are pretty much just messing around at this point.

For some LG tips check this out: http://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/2737/logic-games-attack-strategy

Pretty sure this still has some decent resources for getting paper PTs since PDFs are vanishing: http://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/2770/list-of-affordable-pts-paperback-hard-copy

Just tell yourself that you'll be a good enough lawyer to warrant cutting down one tree for your prep... and if you're gonna get really crazy about it then just go and plant a couple trees somewhere... problem solved. FWIW, the electricity you're using to power your tablet is probably worse for the environment anyways.

nicole.hopkins

@"Samcandoit!" said:
In addition, do you think 1 PT per week is enough and reasonable for a full-time student?

I think that's fine, but as others have said that might be the very bare minimum—just make sure you're really making the most of BR. Wrangle with each AC for each question you circle and really make sure you're learning what you need to learn.

Benefit of taking full PT's is that you build your stamina. That's indispensable for test day. But the world will certianly not end if you split up some of your PT's some of the time.

@Pacifico said:
Don't ever take them on a tablet unless you are @c.janson35 and are pretty much just messing around at this point.

Yeah I'm not a baller like Corey ... He cray ... Exception that proves the rule ...

nicole.hopkins

@"Samcandoit!" said:
how do you guys felt when you first took PT

I felt pretty freaked out

c.janson35

Haha @Pacifico and @nicole.hopkins I did leave my school's library last year with 30 freshly printed PTs, so I'm not all about the iPad life.

In any case, the trees are already cut down, so the real question is whether the paper is gonna be used to help you rock the LSAT or if it's gonna be used to print out someone's iTune's agreement.

Samcandoit!

Thank you so much for sharing these valuable experience with me. I will keep being freaked out and crazily BR

Samcandoit!

So I just finished my third PT and blind review. I feel like "time" is really a big issue for me currently. For logic, I usually have no time for 4 questions, sometimes when I skipped some "hard" ones, I end up with blindly circling them, cos I have no time. For reading, I usually have only 5 minutes when I heat the last article. For games, I usually have 5-6 minutes for the last game of that section. Is this normal for a newbie? In addition, two questions come up with my mind. First, how you guys do blind review for Reading? I usually have 1-2 articles which I feel totally lost in a single section.I re-read all the four articles and do all the questions again for blind review; but I look at the video for each article when I just finish blind review of that article. Another question is how you guys circle the bubble sheet. I feel like it is better for me to circle each question once I just finish that question, cos if I circle all of them when I finish the whole section, I would end up with running out of time.
I would appreciate your help and suggestion.