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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
Congratsssss! thats awesome! great work buddy!
Congrats!
Congrats! Can I ask how you study? Meaning how many hours per day, have you been doing drills, just taking PTs, etc?
Congratulations! This is really motivating and inspiring to me
Congrats that's awesome! Keep up the good work!
Can you give us some of your study tips?
Congrats!!! If I may ask, what studying strategies did you use to improve, and how did you not burn out during studying?
Beautiful
this is the best thing ever; i'm so happy for you!!! Congratulations and best of luck with August!!!! /Fingers crossed.
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.
This is amazing, congrats. Can you share with us how you made that big jump? Your study habits and tips? what material u used?
Congratulations!!! This is so inspiring. I know the jump is possible with dedication and focus! Great Job!
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!
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!
Good job. I'm proud of you!
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
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!
Congrats! Your progress is inspirational!
Good job! This is very inspiring. Any tips on getting through the CC quicker, or building studying endurance?
@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?
Congrats 🎉 and good luck on your exam!
Congrats, that's amazing! Best of luck with the exam!!
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.
@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.
@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.
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
![:) :)](/forums/resources/emoji/smile.png)
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.