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Annoying LSAT Instructor. Advice?

168hopeful168hopeful Alum Member
edited July 2018 in General 61 karma

I am currently registered for a prep course with Manhattan Prep. (My folks paid for the course. I would've stopped going a long time ago.) Now, I've completed about 85% of the 7Sage CC. In terms of LR, I'm pretty good at paraphrasing, brainstorming what the answers should entail, narrowing the answer choices down to two, but I tend to fall for the trap answer (I started studying full-time on May 21, 2018). My LSAT prep class is very small, and I find it helpful because I can use it as a way to express lawgic and assure that I am understanding the material. However, I find that after every other class, my instructor is always making a comment about 7Sage (I revealed to him early on that I started studying with 7Sage three weeks prior to the first class). For instance, in our most recent class we learned about In/Out games. Manhattan Prep has their own method to solving In/Out games that I had to just completely disregard because... what the fuck. Why anyone would choose to not chain the rules, then do the same for the contrapositives (leaving you with two diagrams) is beyond me. Once I reverted to using the method that I know (and love!) I felt significant pressure from my instructor. And when one of my classmates got to an answer before me (which doesn't phase me at all), I even heard and saw my instructor giggling in a mocking way. I guess I am writing this because I am in need of some encouragement... Any and all advice/criticism is welcomed. I am definitely someone who can take it. Thank you! :-)

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Comments

  • JPJ July2021JPJ July2021 Core Member
    1532 karma

    Just do what works for you and don’t worry about what some LSAT instructor thinks. This is your future, not theirs.

  • Seeking PerfectionSeeking Perfection Alum Member
    4423 karma

    I wouldn't worry about it. Especially with games, mostly just ignore him. It sounds like you are still getting something out of the rest of the class so I wouldn't stop going, but 7sage definitely has the best games methods and they are working for you so there is no reason to waste time and mess up your rhythm learning theirs.

    One little thing though...

    @"Kellie P." said:
    Why anyone would choose to not chain the rules, then do the same for the contrapositives (leaving you with two diagrams) is beyond me. Once I reverted to using the method that I know (and love!) I felt significant pressure from my instructor. And when one of my classmates got to an answer before me (which doesn't phase me at all), I even heard and saw my instructor giggling in a mocking way. I guess I am writing this because I am in need of some encouragement... Any and all advice/criticism is welcomed. I am definitely someone who can take it. Thank you! :-)

    If I'm understanding right you would write out something like

    A --> ¬ B --> ¬C --> D
    and also
    ¬D --> C --> B --> ¬A

    Except they are usually more complicated and branchy than I can type.

    It's been a while, but I don't remember doing this except maybe as practice. I definitely still chained the rules, but not the contrapositives. You get so you can read the diagrams forward or backwards so there isn't really a need to have them written out both ways. However depending on how the rules are given to you you might need to take a contrapositive to get them to chain them up.

    If your initial translations to lawgic are

    A --> ¬ B
    C --> B
    ¬C --> D

    Then you need to take the contrapositive of C --> B which is ¬B --> C in order to link it all up. If you have a lot of rules and are fast at contrapositives which you will be sooner or later it might be easiest to just take the contrapositives of all your rules right next to them. But I would only have the goal of creating one diagram because two take more time and don't give you any additional info.

    TLDR
    In my opinion not chaining the rules would be a major mistake because it makes the relationship easy to see. Writing the chain the opposite way doesn't really do all that much for you if you really understand everything the first one is telling you. It might be good practice, but is probably is lost time on the real test.

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