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140s to174!!! Thank you 7sage!
Hi all,
I feel so honored being able to finally make a post like this but damn does it feel good!
I got my score back from the October Asia test today and got a 174!
This is my personal best. I scored a 164 on the June test and had several 169s and one 173. Looks like I peaked on test day!
I never took a true diagnostic but scored a 153 untimed when I took the June 2007 test before beginning my journey. Guessing it would’ve been in the 140s timed?
I have so many people to thank for supporting me, but I especially want to give a big shout out to:
@"Lucas Carter" @"Cant Get Right", Rav, Alex divine, Jon Denning from powerscore, Ellen Cassidy from Loophole, and the Jedi master himself, JY
This community has been so supportive and helpful throughout my 1.5 year journey. I’ve met so many wonderful people. I really couldn’t have done it without the 7sage community!
Some tips and info for posterity:
1) I used 7sage and the Loophole for my prep. The LSAT trainer did not help me that much. I think combining the Loophole and 7sage methods helped me get to -1/-2 averages on LR, sometimes even -0.
2) @"Cant Get Right" method on skipping and moving on when you hit a certain expected value prediction helped me limit time wasted.
3) reviewing the common flaws daily on quizlet, with LSAT question examples, helped me quickly identify flaws and not waste any time
4) doing half a section of timed LR sections daily, from sections I have already done (odd questions one day then even questions the next) helped drill pacing, skipping, and my LR approach.
5) deep dive BR and then thoroughly reviewing, setting questions I just didn’t really get aside in a binder and then revisiting until I got them
6) practicing translating RC passages into my own words and then being very strict with my POE process in the questions: eliminate inaccurate ACs and picking the ones that required the least assumptions
7) repeating “be sensitive to the support” as a mantra on every LR question so that I would stay disciplined and attack the gap rather than the premises or conclusions
Lastly, worry about getting good before getting fast!
Best of luck everyone!
The Real Mike Ross
Comments
Congrats !!!!
Above every median, very nice! So happy to have been a part of your journey and that the timing strategy was ultimately so effective!
Could I get a link to this strategy? Timing is definitely a weakness of mine, so I'd love to see what worked so well!
I think he'll be posting a webinar soon!
Do you have a specific quizlet you used for common flaws? If so, do you mind sharing?
Yeah, law school put me behind, but this is a good reminder. It’s mostly ready, so maybe I’ll look into scheduling something soon.
Congratulations sir. Glad your hard work paid off. I am in the process as an ultimate level student. Wish me luck!
Congrats! That 174 will open a lot of doors for you. Your progress is amazing, good luck on your cycle!
Hey congrats! would you mind sharing the quizlet for the flaws that you studied?
Congratulations!!
Here i you go!
https://quizlet.com/275899828/flaws-flash-cards/?i=1by9dn&x=1jqY
Feel free to PM me
Congratulations! Did you study full-time or part-time?
CONGRATS!!!
congrats and thanks for your useful sharing!
So proud of you, bro! You earned this!
Congrats and thank you for posting!
What was the timeline of your studying? And I’d be curious to know how many hours/week you have been studying!
Hey so I studied after work daily for 4.5 hours a night mon to thurs and then 6-8 hours every sat and sun. Rested Friday
I wish I took more time to rest and CTFO but I don’t think I ever experienced any burn out. Even though I kept the same pace for over a year
Part time Studying as I work full time
@Mike_Ross
Agreed with your rec of the Loophole - that book got me from -7/-9 to -0/-3 on LR. It can't be overstated how important that book is...
But the LSAT Trainer was also useful for me as an all-in-one resource for early prep - I credit Mike Kim with helping me break the 165 barrier.
If I had it all to do over again I'd get 7Sage Ultimate+, The Loophole, and the Manhattan Logic Games Strategy Guide - that's it. No other resources required and, IMHO these three are unmatched.
One other thing you mentioned that gets too little attention: the value of reworking old LR sections. Going back over LR helps one understand their strengths and weaknesses. Just like fool-proofing LG, one can learn to master LR in much the same way.
Great motivating post. Congratulations on the fantastic score and on your future career in law.
@Mike_Ross Congratulations on your great score!!!
Congrats, man! Pleasure meeting you.
Congratulations!! That score is objectively incredible and it seems like you put in the work to deserve it.
(Also - Just put in an order for the Loophole book now)
Thank you everyone!
Congrats! That's an awesome score!
Congrats! I'm so inspired and thank you for those tips. !:)
Can you tell me what you did for your RC translation drill? Translation from the Loophole has helped me big time and I know she has a similar drill for RC. Is yours the same?
Hey! Yes it’s very similar, I’m sure. There’s no silver bullet alternative to building the skill to read and translate. When you can ingest arguments and passages, the information becomes easier to manage and comprehend
Way to go!!
Congrats!!
@Mike Ross.
I have just read your post again and found I am pretty much at where you were at 164 last June! The fact that you achieved 174 in October is really encouraging!
Several questions for you:
Could you please tell starting from last June, how many PTs have you done and the frequency of taking it?
Which section did you improved the most during this time and how did you achieve it?
Have your met plateau during this time? If so, what are the methods you used to get out of it?
Other than taking PTs, BR and drills, did you supplement with other materials to help with LSAT prep?
PS. I am also a big fan of Suits
! Congratulations again on your LSAT success!
Hello, thank you!
Sure! So I didn’t take many PTs. I only took 8 total timed PTs throughout my prep. The reason is I didn’t find the routine taking of PTs every week that helpful. The real gains always come from relentless BR and thorough review. I found that taking these steps successfully required a lot of time and effort and it was best done following single timed sections instead. Timed sections also allowed me to practice my skipping strategy and time management skills. I certainly did hit plateaus but I broke through with careful evaluation of my timed section performances and strategizing how to overcome weaknesses. I think you could do it with PTs but the sheer size of it and the desire we all feel to quickly see that score in the end, does have the tendency to compel us to cut corners to get to score reveal quickly
The only drill and materials I used were the ones I described above. Plus my flash cards and wrong answer choice journals
Best of luck!
Thank you for the feedback! I had also PM you for more questions and hope to hear from you soon!
Congratulations! I wanted to ask at what point in your studying did you decide to start using The Loophole? Do you think it's worth it to get the book while you're still in CC or should you get it when you're trying to break that 170 mark? Also, what tips do you recommend to people beginning out their study with 7Sage Ultimate+ plan, alone. Congrats once again!
Hey! I stated the loophole after completing the CC—twice. Looking back, I wouldn’t change how I did it. It’s better to complete one, practice 7sage CC theories before using another resource so that you don’t confuse yourself with any cross pollination of ideas. You should get one set of methods down before deciding what else to incorporate for other methods as you evaluate your personal approach
My main recommendations are mentioned in the posts I made and basically the same: worry about solidifying your approach consistently before worrying about speed.
Consider LG: we all struggle in the beginning and only get faster as our confidence in our ability to diagram and make inferences grow. So why should that be any different for LR and RC?
Thank you so much for this entire post. I have been completely afraid that if I don't do enough PTs before test date I am just going to do horribly. I've felt this way because I have heard from several different sources that there are those who have literally done very single PT. While that was my goal at the beginning, I am realizing just how much time the CC is taking, and I seem to definitely gain a better understanding when I BR even just psets.
I have felt weighed down by the fact that I just do not have enough time to actually get through all of the PTs before I sit down for the LSAT a 2nd time this June. It's kind of my last chance to try given some financial restrictions .I definitely wish I had committed to studying with 7Sage way earlier as I find everything on here incredibly helpful.
I took a Blueprint class and the instructor just had to idea how to teach. It was the most disappointing investment of my time and money I have made.
Again, cannot thank you enough for this post, and all of the questions and comments. It has felt like I have been going about my studies completely wrong for awhile.
Best of luck!
P.S. Suits omg. addicting.
Hey! Awesome! So happy they helped
Yes, although taking PTs again a and again may be helpful for some people, I found that I didn’t make much progress by religiously taking PTs week to week. The improvements truly came once I focused on 2 timed sections and BR every week. You certainly do not need to exhaust all PTs to be successful!
Hi Mike! I'm trying to access your Quizlet flashcards and it's asking for a password...TIA!
Same! Would really appreciate it too, thanks for doing this and congratulations on your score!
Same here! Thank you so much for sharing all your tips and inspiring journey. Congrats!!!
@Mike_Ross Congratulations on the phenomenal score! So in reference to the above, does this mean you did 2 timed sections plus BR of both those sections a week and nothing else? I do extremely thorough BR of individual sections, but I find that due to the thoroughness of the BR, it takes me a really long time to complete it. This results in me sacrificing practice time to do BR. I'm now pushing myself to do a section plus BR of that section a day because I'm at the point where my BR score is near perfect because I understand how to do virtually every question, but my execution sucks and timing is my biggest weakness. That's why I feel that doing more practice will probably help the timing/execution issue, but would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Hey so for LR, yes I typically did 2-3 timed sections per week. But I also did daily Full sections of LG foolproofing, and I tried to do 1 passage of RC per day, a fresh section per week. I rarely did full PTs until the end
I’d advise you to continue taking BR and Review very seriously.
I’m going to share this for the benefit of everyone else reading this:
Many people are just rushing from PT to PT without really taking the time to BR and Review thoroughly. Then they wonder why they remain stuck at a plateau.
You never get better by taking PTs. You get better by meticulously and shamelessly reviewing your reasoning, what you through the stimulus said, what you thought the flaw was, why you were drawn to an AC, and then comparing it to the answer and JYs explanations. If it’s right, you know to reinforce this reasoning. If it’s wrong you account for it and strategize how to avoid the same error in the future. The gains ALWAYS come in review.
It’s like wanting to get better at a sport, like tennis. Do you just keep playing matches hoping to get better? Nope. At that point you’re past relying on athleticism (intelligence). Rather, you want to focus on evaluating and fixing your technique (reasoning approach).
The better you are at your approach, the faster you move through LSAT.
When it comes to timing, a skipping strategy is key. It’s not enough to just skip questions but to know WHEN to skip
I encourage you to check out @"Cant Get Right" webinar! That’s the strategy I used and it paid off tremendously
Hey!
Just wanted to thank you for a nice post. I wanted to ask you a few questions regarding this:
Could you elaborate a bit more on this? It sounds a bit similar to archiving LR questions that people struggled with, and revisiting those questions later. But you do this for LR sections as a whole. What are the advantages of archiving individual questions versus sections as a whole?
Drill pacing--does that mean that you take old PTs timed and try to abide by a certain timeframe? Like 10 questions in 10 minutes and 15 questions in 15 minutes to have 10 minutes left over? Were you recording yourself for pacing?
Skipping--@"Cant Get Right"'s webinar. Which one are you referring to? There seems to be multiple ones, including Skip it! Skipping Strategies Panel. I've been struggling with this as to knowing which questions to not only skip, but also to return to on the 2nd pass.
Hey sure
So the archiving / setting questions aside to review for later was something I kept doing, but this was not the same as my daily warm ups. Daily warm ups involved taking OLD sections I had seen before (say PT 30 onwards) and doing HALF a section a day for the warm up. I did every other question (Odd questions only on this day; Even questions only the next). In these warm ups, I was practicing my pacing and reasoning under timed pressure. For eexample, I'd give myself 16.5 mins to answer 12-13 questions on the section. I found that this helped get me ready for the LR section prep of the day, and also to give me constant exposure to LR questions from the past. That way I would always get a 2nd or 3rd look at questions.
Of course, when it came to timed sections, I had my own thresholds and target times for each block of questions. Like first 10 in 10, etc..
And apologies about the webinar.. I guess it hasn't been posted yet! Maybe one day but until then, it's basically developing a sense for knowing "when should I get outta here" when you approach LR questions.
Never got around to that webinar, haha. Maybe we could do a quarantine session and go over it? I made the slides and everything, so would be easy to do if there’s any interest.
@"Cant Get Right" I can't speak for anyone else, but I would certainly be interested!
@"Cant Get Right" also interested in the webinar
@"Cant Get Right" definitely also interested, I don't know if you can, but maybe a poll would help? Or at least a notice in the forums? Perhaps some kind of announcement?
I would be very interested for sure. I feel like strategy guides/discussions like these is really what separates 7Sage products from everything else.
Very interested!!!
@"Cant Get Right" have you hosted a session on this in this crazy period yet?
If not, i'll be happy to show some folks to get over my cabin fever! ah!!
@Mike_Ross Thank you! I would be happy and grateful to learn from either one of you!