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A few small tips for your final LSAT prep.
mike
Free Trial Member
Hi everyone --
I know that many of you are getting ready to take the exam, and so with J.Y.’s blessing I thought it might be helpful for me to post a few quick last minute tips here on the 7Sage site (I’ve also posted this on reddit and my tls thread). These tips are not specific to the trainer (though those of you familiar with the trainer will be familiar with these suggestions). I know that at this point, most of you are focused on taking and reviewing PT’s -- what I’m about to mention are all simple suggestions/exercises that you should be able to integrate into that PT work fairly easily. Not all suggestions are meant for all students, so please, of course, pick and choose whichever you think might be useful for your situation -- if any of this accidentally contradicts 7Sage advice, please assume that they are right and I am wrong
--
For LR
During this final period it can be very helpful to firm up and habitualize your question-specific strategies and thought processes. To that end...
Without looking back over your work, create a notecard for each type of Logical Reasoning question. On one side of this notecard, write out the most important things to know/keep in mind for that q type, and on the other side, write out the basic strategies you generally try to employ. Once you’ve done the best you can from memory, return to your notes and lessons and such and make sure to fill in the q types, key priorities and such that you missed initially. Review these cards before PT’s, then, in your PT review afterwards, use these cards to assess your methods, figure out where you need to modify strategies or put in a reminder for yourself, and so on. These actions can help you notice, and address, those areas of prep where perhaps your learning has yet to fully convert into skills and habits.
LG
The more automatic you feel about your notations/diagramming strategies, the less nervous you will feel about what might appear on the games section, the better you will be able to set up your diagrams, and the faster and more accurate you’ll be at doing the work necessary to solve questions.
So, to that end, without look back over your work/learning products, try to create a list of all the different types of rules that can appear in Logic Games, and try to organize all of these rules in some way (for example, trainer students know I organize rules in terms of ordering, grouping, and so on). Note how you plan to diagram each of these rules. Then go through games you’ve played in the past, just looking at the scenarios and rules, and fill in your notes with all the various other types of game rules you missed initially. Create notecards of any rules for which you don’t feel automatic about your notations, and study those carefully. Review all your diagramming strategies before taking PT’s, then, in your review, review carefully whether you were able to use diagramming methods effectively for every rule. Take note of, and carefully review, those situations when you were not.
RC
It’s very important to understand what pressure does to your brain (and, consequently, to your reading process): it literally changes the way that you think and the way you read. If, in all your practice, you are far more relaxed (and perhaps forgiving of yourself) than you will be during the real exam, it is possible that you are going to find it very difficult to apply all that you’ve gained during your practice on the real thing -- it’s very possible you will end up reading the passage very differently from how you intended to, and end up rushing too much and overlooking important concepts, or being too careful and wasting too much time, and so on.
So at this point you want to do whatever is necessary to train your brain to read the passage exactly as you want it to. Make your decisions about which reading strategies you want to apply, make sure you are practicing applying them under enough pressure, and get enough practice in so that you can feel a “set rhythm” for how you read LSAT RC passages. It gives you a great advantage to go into the test with a consistent, habitual, and effective method specifically tailed for reading LSAT RC passages, one which is practiced enough so that you apply it without having to think about it.
Timing Strategies/Mindset
Finally, you want to use for final prep to set your timing strategies, determine what you are going to do should tough timing decisions arise, and practice applying those timing strategies/making those timing decisions.
Nearly everyone who takes the exam wastes a lot of unnecessary time and energy thinking about section timing, rather than the question in front of them. It puts you in a much better position if you’ve anticipated potential issues, have the right mindset about them, have practiced dealing with them, and so on.
So, getting your timing strategies set should be one of the main goals of your final PT work. You want to think about your ideal timing, and how you’d like to balance your time through a section and so on, but you also want to make sure to practice and think about timing challenges -- how long to give yourself when stuck on a certain type of question, or how to balance your time between two RC passages when it seems like you don’t have enough to finish both, and so on. One way to experience/practice these challenges, especially if you are in a very high score range, is to artificially limit the time you have per section (say, to 30 mins, etc.) for a couple of your PT’s and test out your survival strategies.
Final Random Timing Tip
In my experience, one of the most common ways in test takers end up wasting time is by over-investing it in the hardest problems -- you want to avoid this as much as possible.
To illustrate, imagine that you are in the 160-165 range and your goal is to get that 165. Depending on the scale for that test, you know that you can miss about 20 q’s or so and still get the score you want. And if you were to take all the q’s from any one particular LSAT practice exam and order them in terms of difficulty, you’d perhaps find that about 70 of them are ones that you feel fairly confident you can get right without too much difficulty, 20 of them are ones that are challenging for you, and, depending on the day, your mindset, etc., you might get right or wrong, and finally perhaps 10 are so hard that you think it’d be very unlikely you can get the right answer in a reasonable amount of time no matter what.
The best way for you to use your time is to --
1) get through the easier 70 as fast as you comfortably can without making errors.
2) recognize when a problem is of extreme difficulty and don’t allow yourself to spend too, too long on those hardest 10.
3) give yourself as much time as possible for those 20 in the make/break down that will determine where you will score within your range.
Keep that in mind, and make sure you don’t allow yourself to over-invest too much time or energy in those hardest problems -- the harder ones aren’t worth any more points.
Again, not every suggestion is for every student, but if you read this whole thing I hope you found at least some of it useful -- I wish you all the best on test day -- Mike
I know that many of you are getting ready to take the exam, and so with J.Y.’s blessing I thought it might be helpful for me to post a few quick last minute tips here on the 7Sage site (I’ve also posted this on reddit and my tls thread). These tips are not specific to the trainer (though those of you familiar with the trainer will be familiar with these suggestions). I know that at this point, most of you are focused on taking and reviewing PT’s -- what I’m about to mention are all simple suggestions/exercises that you should be able to integrate into that PT work fairly easily. Not all suggestions are meant for all students, so please, of course, pick and choose whichever you think might be useful for your situation -- if any of this accidentally contradicts 7Sage advice, please assume that they are right and I am wrong
--For LR
During this final period it can be very helpful to firm up and habitualize your question-specific strategies and thought processes. To that end...
Without looking back over your work, create a notecard for each type of Logical Reasoning question. On one side of this notecard, write out the most important things to know/keep in mind for that q type, and on the other side, write out the basic strategies you generally try to employ. Once you’ve done the best you can from memory, return to your notes and lessons and such and make sure to fill in the q types, key priorities and such that you missed initially. Review these cards before PT’s, then, in your PT review afterwards, use these cards to assess your methods, figure out where you need to modify strategies or put in a reminder for yourself, and so on. These actions can help you notice, and address, those areas of prep where perhaps your learning has yet to fully convert into skills and habits.
LG
The more automatic you feel about your notations/diagramming strategies, the less nervous you will feel about what might appear on the games section, the better you will be able to set up your diagrams, and the faster and more accurate you’ll be at doing the work necessary to solve questions.
So, to that end, without look back over your work/learning products, try to create a list of all the different types of rules that can appear in Logic Games, and try to organize all of these rules in some way (for example, trainer students know I organize rules in terms of ordering, grouping, and so on). Note how you plan to diagram each of these rules. Then go through games you’ve played in the past, just looking at the scenarios and rules, and fill in your notes with all the various other types of game rules you missed initially. Create notecards of any rules for which you don’t feel automatic about your notations, and study those carefully. Review all your diagramming strategies before taking PT’s, then, in your review, review carefully whether you were able to use diagramming methods effectively for every rule. Take note of, and carefully review, those situations when you were not.
RC
It’s very important to understand what pressure does to your brain (and, consequently, to your reading process): it literally changes the way that you think and the way you read. If, in all your practice, you are far more relaxed (and perhaps forgiving of yourself) than you will be during the real exam, it is possible that you are going to find it very difficult to apply all that you’ve gained during your practice on the real thing -- it’s very possible you will end up reading the passage very differently from how you intended to, and end up rushing too much and overlooking important concepts, or being too careful and wasting too much time, and so on.
So at this point you want to do whatever is necessary to train your brain to read the passage exactly as you want it to. Make your decisions about which reading strategies you want to apply, make sure you are practicing applying them under enough pressure, and get enough practice in so that you can feel a “set rhythm” for how you read LSAT RC passages. It gives you a great advantage to go into the test with a consistent, habitual, and effective method specifically tailed for reading LSAT RC passages, one which is practiced enough so that you apply it without having to think about it.
Timing Strategies/Mindset
Finally, you want to use for final prep to set your timing strategies, determine what you are going to do should tough timing decisions arise, and practice applying those timing strategies/making those timing decisions.
Nearly everyone who takes the exam wastes a lot of unnecessary time and energy thinking about section timing, rather than the question in front of them. It puts you in a much better position if you’ve anticipated potential issues, have the right mindset about them, have practiced dealing with them, and so on.
So, getting your timing strategies set should be one of the main goals of your final PT work. You want to think about your ideal timing, and how you’d like to balance your time through a section and so on, but you also want to make sure to practice and think about timing challenges -- how long to give yourself when stuck on a certain type of question, or how to balance your time between two RC passages when it seems like you don’t have enough to finish both, and so on. One way to experience/practice these challenges, especially if you are in a very high score range, is to artificially limit the time you have per section (say, to 30 mins, etc.) for a couple of your PT’s and test out your survival strategies.
Final Random Timing Tip
In my experience, one of the most common ways in test takers end up wasting time is by over-investing it in the hardest problems -- you want to avoid this as much as possible.
To illustrate, imagine that you are in the 160-165 range and your goal is to get that 165. Depending on the scale for that test, you know that you can miss about 20 q’s or so and still get the score you want. And if you were to take all the q’s from any one particular LSAT practice exam and order them in terms of difficulty, you’d perhaps find that about 70 of them are ones that you feel fairly confident you can get right without too much difficulty, 20 of them are ones that are challenging for you, and, depending on the day, your mindset, etc., you might get right or wrong, and finally perhaps 10 are so hard that you think it’d be very unlikely you can get the right answer in a reasonable amount of time no matter what.
The best way for you to use your time is to --
1) get through the easier 70 as fast as you comfortably can without making errors.
2) recognize when a problem is of extreme difficulty and don’t allow yourself to spend too, too long on those hardest 10.
3) give yourself as much time as possible for those 20 in the make/break down that will determine where you will score within your range.
Keep that in mind, and make sure you don’t allow yourself to over-invest too much time or energy in those hardest problems -- the harder ones aren’t worth any more points.
Again, not every suggestion is for every student, but if you read this whole thing I hope you found at least some of it useful -- I wish you all the best on test day -- Mike
Comments
In all seriousness, thank you for this. I'm taking in October and I think this is what I need to do to uncover weaknesses/things I need to review for the next phase of my prep (having gone through the Trainer fully twice after going through it rather casually the first time, and then adding 7sage in this Spring), as well as returning to this in August/September. A great way to test myself—"So what do I know, for certain, really"?
Printing and sticking on the wall. Thank you so much, @mike ! You and @"J.Y. Ping" have made an inestimable difference in the lives of thousands of students who can't afford $1,500 for a course (and really, 7sage + Trainer is better than any course). The Trainer was the first step I took towards realizing my calling—that it could and ought to become a reality.
A family is moving in next door to you, and you know that this family has a total of two children. You see one of the children as the family is moving in, and it is a girl. Knowing nothing else about the family, what are the odds that the other child is a girl too?
This is not a play on words or anything like that -- pure math. And of course, because it’s a riddle, you probably already know that the right answer isn’t the one you expect. Good luck!
I myself have gotten a but comfortable with time so I wanna start reminding myself of time guidelines/pacing on my last PTs
I am simply angered but in the most lovely way.
If any of you want a clue about how to figure this out, this riddle uses essentially the same mathematical principles as the better known Monte Hall problem.
On the other hand we really only have 3 worlds since we are assuming we have some kind of order like first or second child. Meaning if we take order out of it we know that the only worlds possible are BB GB or reverse and GG.
And then if we think of the Monte Hall problem where we're given better odds free because of the knowledge that came with opening a certain door we could be given the odds that we know BB isn't possible. But then we're assuming we're rooting for a girl and not a boy.
So in conclusion, I have no idea what I'm talking about and Mike has shown me I don't know math like how the LSAT has shown me I don't know how to read.
But yes, add my thanks to the list. I started my LSAT studying with the trainer while on vacation in Japan and I thought it was so good I got my friend to buy it even though he doesn't even know if he's going to take the LSAT. I do wish there were an e-book format though, would have been a whole lot easier to load onto my iPad than lugging a heavy book around.
ive always wondered about this. how are your results from this approach?
This method has reduced my tendency to panic mid section. No matter how many times I told myself that sometimes the LSAT will throw curveballs in the earlier questions, I still couldn't help but get the "10 in 10" mantra out of my head. This would mean that I'd start second guessing myself on the earlier questions, spend way too long on questions I know I don't need to, and then miss questions on the latter half because I either couldn't get to them or I was in such panic mode I might as well have been blindly guessing.
I echo what @jdawg113 says about not changing up methods so close to the test. I've been practicing this for about a month now so it is my instinct to turn immediately to the second half of the section and begin at around question 11 (or wherever falls a few before question 15).
Anyway. Such great points. I've become better at taking things in stride -- recently, questions early on have been real jerkhats, and I've learned to just circle "answer choice (F) Yo' mama so fat..." and move on from those little monsters. No, just kidding. obviously LSAT has done wonderful things for my maturity.
This went absolutely horribly for me when I tried it about 6-7 months ago (about 10 months into prep at that point) and I do not recommend it at all.
What you want to do instead is pick allllll the low hanging fruit in the first 10+ questions and build up your momentum. So just go for it and ride the wave of victory.
how many practice tests a week should I be taking? also should I be doing these on top of the cirriculum I am confused by the way this is set up