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From 138 to 171!

OksYan2020OksYan2020 Member
edited July 2020 in General 182 karma

This is my inaugural post lol. Just wanted to share the progress I've made since February. I switched over to 7Sage in April, after a 138 diagnostic a few months earlier. Took PT 71 today and broke 170 for the first time!! So so SOOOO grateful for this program. Hopefully I'll keep the momentum going 'til the August Flex. Good luck to everyone out there :^)!

Comments

  • ekman_kaurekman_kaur Core Member
    29 karma

    Congratsssss! thats awesome! great work buddy!

  • DINOSAURDINOSAUR Member
    591 karma

    Congrats!

  • goforbrokegoforbroke Core Member
    320 karma

    Congrats! Can I ask how you study? Meaning how many hours per day, have you been doing drills, just taking PTs, etc?

  • gigi_m1308gigi_m1308 Alum Member
    149 karma

    Congratulations! This is really motivating and inspiring to me

  • noonawoonnoonawoon Alum Member
    3481 karma

    Congrats that's awesome! Keep up the good work!

  • dianejuventinadianejuventina Core Member
    26 karma

    Can you give us some of your study tips?

  • stephaniego1stephaniego1 Member
    47 karma

    Congrats!!! If I may ask, what studying strategies did you use to improve, and how did you not burn out during studying?

  • okkkkkkkkkkkokkkkkkkkkkk Member
    135 karma

    Beautiful

  • sourgrapewhinesourgrapewhine Alum Member
    9 karma

    this is the best thing ever; i'm so happy for you!!! Congratulations and best of luck with August!!!! /Fingers crossed.

  • xoxosshh22xoxosshh22 Core Member
    20 karma

    This is amazing, congrats on your huge jump!! I would love to hear of any study tips you have / how many hours you studied for and what your routine was.

  • fall22WAfall22WA Core Member
    75 karma

    This is amazing, congrats. Can you share with us how you made that big jump? Your study habits and tips? what material u used?

  • 22 karma

    Congratulations!!! This is so inspiring. I know the jump is possible with dedication and focus! Great Job!

  • OksYan2020OksYan2020 Member
    edited July 2020 182 karma

    Hi friends!

    I just finished responding to a fellow 7sager, so here's a revised version of my response below:

    I started started studying in Feb. I knew I wanted to sign up for a prep course to familiarize myself with the basics, seeing as I hadn’t taken a standardized test since like 6th grade lol. I’m gonna skip over my s*** show experience with Kaplan and fast forward to April, which is a when I signed up for 7Sage.

    From Feb to April, I went from 138 to 153. I was very unsatisfied with Kaplan’s curriculum and began scouring the internet for alternative test prep resources. I then decided to switch gears by signing up for 7Sage and ordering a copy of the LSAT trainer. I finished 7Sage’s curriculum in around 7 weeks and FINALLY felt like I was ready to start drilling full length sections. DISCLAIMER: I study 6-7 hours a day, 5x a week, which is why I was able to finish the CC so quickly. This brings me to my first tip: Be realistic with your timeline. Had I known how low I'd score on on the diagnostic, I would've taken it like a year ago as opposed to 6 months. I think the average person should spend around 9 months studying for this test. Since I want score somewhere in the low 170s on the August test, I have no choice but to study like a madwoman lol.

    Anyway, I flew through 7Sages curriculum because it was so straight to the point and digestible. Also, I think that JY does an impeccable job at teaching the fundamentals of logic, given his background in philosophy. Up until I finished the CC, the mere thought of having to sit down for a PT would give me severe anxiety.

    Logic Games still fluster me from time to time, but I’ve made some good headway. Drilling the games from PT 1-35 was a major factor in my progress. Whenever I feel like i'm struggling with a game I've haven't seen before, I stop the clock and do it untimed. If I'm still not getting it, I resort to watching JY's explanation.

    When it comes to RC, I don’t follow any specific strategy. I try to read slowly and go about answering the questions as methodically as possible. Writing down 1 sentence summaries after reading each paragraph was very helpful at first but it adversely affected my timing, so I stopped. The most important tenet of RC is making sure that whatever AC you pick is supported. Even the inference Q’s have to be substantiated by the text in some way.

    I never got around to reading the Trainer, mainly because I’ve been so happy with 7Sage. What I’ll do sometimes is look up LR explanations in the PowerScore/ Manhattan Prep forums, but that’s about it. Speaking of LR, I found it to be more learnable than LG. What I realized, however, is that translating logical relationships is just as important in LR as in LG. Once you get your conditional relationships down, LR becomes 5x easier.

    From the outset, my goal was to score a170. Despite my diagnostic, I never regarded the low score as being indicative of my potential. I just looked at it as “Oh, so I’m gonna have to spend more time studying than the person who landed a 160 their first time around”. Obviously, I don’t want to get ahead of myself, since I have another month to go until August, but having a positive mindset and dedication is everything when it comes to this LSAT. I really do think that it’s an extremely learnable test.

    For those of you plateauing in the low-mid 160s/having issues with endurance, listen to this podcast episode: https://7sage.com/1-ama-w-7sager-cant-get-right-152-to-176/ . Getting the material down is only half the battle. After certain point (usually once you’re done covering the basics and start PTing consistently), you’ll begin to notice patterns and the so-called cookie cutter question types. Picking up on them will cut your time down by a lot, thereby allowing you to dedicate more time to the tougher questions.

    Hope you guys will find my write-up at least somewhat helpful. I'm happy to answer any specific questions :). Good luck studying!

  • tneustaeter3tneustaeter3 Core Member
    8 karma

    This is super helpful!! Thank you so much!! I am also writing my first test in August - I will be doing the flex as well. My score is still really low and I have been feeling discouraged. It is very encouraging to hear you say that it's all about practice, repetition, and the hours that you put in. Thank you!

  • jameseticknorjameseticknor Member
    12 karma

    Good job. I'm proud of you!

  • miriaml7miriaml7 Live Member
    edited July 2020 1013 karma

    Thank you for this! There have been many low and high points during this journey, and stories like this help me push through those low points. Congratulations on such a great accomplishment! @OksYan2020

  • meganday2121meganday2121 Member
    74 karma

    You and I have a very similar trajectory, I just wish I had been studying and using 7Sage as long as you have! Your hard work has really paid off, congrats friend!

  • mrowley91mrowley91 Alum Member
    203 karma

    Congrats! Your progress is inspirational!

  • dcmark07dcmark07 Member
    48 karma

    Good job! This is very inspiring. Any tips on getting through the CC quicker, or building studying endurance?

  • MarkmarkMarkmark Alum Member
    976 karma

    @OksYan2020
    "you’ll begin to notice patterns and the so-called cookie cutter question types. Picking up on them will cut your time down by a lot, thereby allowing you to dedicate more time to the tougher questions."

    Hey so I've listened to the webinar you're talking about, in what way exactly does recognizing the cookie cutters help cut down time? After I BR a question I can say "o yea this was a contrapositive," or "o yea this was 'other opinion, author's opinion, premise.'" How does this skill cut down time?

  • Ru_mp1639Ru_mp1639 Member
    56 karma

    Congrats 🎉 and good luck on your exam!

  • 375 karma

    Congrats, that's amazing! Best of luck with the exam!!

  • ali.rubinfeldali.rubinfeld Member
    17 karma

    Wow thank you for this! I was worrying I'd hit a ceiling but now see I just need to dig in deeper! Congratulations, that's incredible.

  • LawHokageLawHokage Yearly Member
    edited July 2020 129 karma

    @Markmark Hey so what she means recognizing "cookie cutters" question & how it helps to cut down time because you can intuitively predict the structure of the paragraph or possible answer choices. From what I've learned from high scorers is that they are able to recognize a certain variation of a question and then are able to logically dissect the task at hand quicker. Instead of consciously spending precious time thinking, they have encountered a similar situation so many times that they can do a lot of their work upfront allowing them to save a couple of seconds per question - which in a section adds up to extra time to use for more difficult questions. Pretty much it helps to eliminate unnecessary time in the problem - solving process.

  • OksYan2020OksYan2020 Member
    edited July 2020 182 karma

    @Markmark , @NeverGiveUp-2 summed it up perfectly. For a lot of the 1-3 level difficulty questions, you begin recognizing the underlying structure of the stimulus, which not only allows you to predict the correct AC but also eliminates the need to map out the relationships on paper. For example, I only spend 15-20 seconds on most of said questions.

  • OksYan2020OksYan2020 Member
    182 karma

    Thank you all for your kind words. This is a wonderful community of learners and I wish you all the best of luck in tackling the LSAT. The cyber camaraderie is real <3 :)

  • MarkmarkMarkmark Alum Member
    976 karma

    @OksYan2020 said:
    @Markmark , @NeverGiveUp-2 summed it up perfectly. For a lot of the 1-3 level difficulty questions, you begin recognizing the underlying structure of the stimulus, which not only allows you to predict the correct AC but also eliminates the need to map out the relationships on paper. For example, I only spend 15-20 seconds on most of said questions.

    Whoa 15-20 seconds? Can you give an example of a specific question on the lsat ie 35.1.1? If you explain it I can open the question on my own and follow along. Would you please do that? I don't exactly understand but it sounds like a valuable tool.

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