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Going Through the Entire Core Curriculum? Help!
joannamendoza6
Core Member
I have been studying following the core curriculum and am at about 70 hours. I am feeling overwhelmed trying to complete as much as the curriculum as possible. I feel like by the time I am halfway there, I am going to forget everything I learned at the very beginning. (It has taken me months!) If you have any suggestions on which sections to focus on, I would greatly appreciate it! For reference, I have issues with the timed aspect with RC and LR (anxiety) and logic games are my weakest. I took the LSAT in November and scored a 147 using Khan Academy only. Any advice helps!
Comments
The Core Curriculum is designed to give you a solid foundation and understanding of the question types and LG game types. Don't feel like you need to complete all of the problem sets under each section of the CC. J.Y actually said in one of his podcasts that he didn't actually intend for people to do all of the Problem sets in the order given.
What's most important is that you develop a good understanding of Formal logic, and feel familiar with all of the different LR Question types. It's recommended that once you complete the CC and start doing Practice tests, that you go back to the CC for sections that are still giving you trouble.
When it comes to games, the CC does a fantastic job of introducing you the different types of common games that you will see. Follow the foolproof method, of doing a game over and over again until you can get all the questions right in the allotted time. Eventually setting up games will become muscle memory.
Before you even get into the timed aspects of things, you want to make sure that you can understand everything untimed. If you had all the time in the world can you ace an LR passage? Once you get there, then its just a matter of speed.
If you're afraid of forgetting material from the beginning of the core curriculum perhaps it would be a good idea to every week (or every day) go through a problem set from each of the question types to keep everything fresh.
Hi @joannamendoza6 My last PT was a 140. I’m open to studying together sometime on weekends if you’d like?
Focus on an area you feel weakest in LR. LG and RC come with practice, although you may need to dedicate more to these sections to get familiar with the methods taught here.
I've shuffled through weak LR areas to drilling a few LG and RC in between to keep it fresh. You can skip around, but I recommend staying the course when learning the lawgic tools. Even if you've familiarized yourself in another way, the methods taught here really catch on to give you that "shortcut" that I haven't had stick with me using other methods (I have tried Khan, Kaplan, and PS). It's easier to pull from one toolbox than several.
That toolbox tends to expand in correlation with the CC in the LR section, and mastery level comprehension takes a lot of practice with the fundamentals that the CC gives you. I don't recommend brute forcing your way through every practice set before you move on to another. You can always save the high numbered practice sets for later, and honestly, you'll never have 6, 4-5 star level questions of the same question type in a row on the test anyways. Mind you, they're still good to familiarize yourself with, as you'll see some advance stuff that could either que you to skip on the real test, or maybe you will make a breakthrough. In any case, the team here gives you particular questions on those sets by design, and they are meant to que you in on certain cookie cutter patterns.
Practice builds confidence, and confidence wades the anxiety. Give yourself time and patience to get the fundamentals to stick before moving to strict timing. Practice without time, especially doing RC low-res to high-res summaries.
Hope this helps, and good luck!
For what it's worth, and maybe you've already done this, but if I were you I would look into seeing if you could get an accommodation due to your anxiety. If it's just like test anxiety, maybe not, but if you take some sort of medicine for your anxiety, maybe you can. I have a learning disability and anxiety, so having time accommodations for the test has really relieved some anxiety I have about the test!
Get through the Core Curriculum at a pace comfortable to you and take notes on the way in case you forget some key foundations such as validity, lawgic, etc. While you are doing that, drill your weakest areas like crazy. Take games you are having problems with, print multiple copies, and solve it again and again (not all the the same sitting).
Good luck my friend! You got this!
@andrew.rsn First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to responding to my cry for help. I printed your response and am going to take your advice. I do feel like sometimes there are too many problem sets in a section and I get overwhelmed. Knowing that not everyone sits down and completes 10 problem sets of 5-6 questions per section makes me feel a whole lot better! I have been doing the problem sets untimed for now. I print the pdfs, work on them and then submit the answers on the CC. I feel like if I do them all timed, I wont focus on the actual material and just worry too much on picking answer, therefore guessing. Thank you again for your comment! Means the world to me as I am struggling juggling life and working on my goals that I have left on the back burner for years.
Hi @briannatatyana, My schedule is not very consistent, so I am not a reliable study buddy! But it would be nice to talk about your progress and things that work or dont work for you along the way! How can we get in contact?
@teechj117 Thank you SO much for your response. As I was reading your response, I felt like you were describing my 7sage journey! The term "cookie cutter" ahh! Those are the questions I have been struggling with the most. I have been practicing without timing. I do the easier problem sets timed and the harder ones I print and take my time to work on. I feel like this has helped me understand so much better as I am not worried about the clock and just choosing an AC randomly. Do you think that if I skip some problem sets, I would be ok? From your experience what problem sets should I do and which should I skip? I've noticed that some are assigned longer times, I am assuming that is due to the level of difficulty? Thank you!!!
Hi @jack. I do take a mild medication for anxiety and insomnia. The anxiety does get worse when I know I have to do something under time constraints. How did you request accommodations? Thank YOU!
@matiecena83, Thank you so much! I am working through the core curriculum slowly and carefully. However, after a few months, I am getting frustrated as I scroll down and still see so much to cover! I have been on this LSAT journey for about 1 year and a half, so sometimes I feel like I am rushing to get to it! I graduated undergrad 8 years ago, and that has definitely affected my studying and focusing. I am taking notes and printing problem sets, although I already have a huge binder of papers and that itself is overwhelming me. I have not got to the games section yet, but I hope that when I get there, things will get better! thank you SO MUCH!
I'm so glad you found my response helpful! One more thing to keep in mind for LR. The answer to the question is always in the stimulus - one of your goals should be to work on predicting what the correct answer would be before even looking at the choices. Almost every single LR stimulus is going to be a faulty argument in one way or another.
Practice reading arguments - translate them into your own words - then see if you can figure out what's wrong with the argument. Sometimes when you read a stimulus and go straight to the questions without thinking about it first - it can be overwhelming - better to already have an idea of what you're looking for that way when you go into the AC's you have a mission and you can more quickly eliminate answers.
Shoot me a private message if you would like some additional 1 on 1 help - I'd be happy to find some time to work with you!
thank you so much! Just curious, when following the curriculum, are the sections under a specific order? I am kind of having a hard time labeling certain topics covered as LR, RC, LG. Like strongly Sufficient assumptions, or argument part questions are part of which section. Does that make sense? Thank you! I will be sending you a pm.
Keep at it! Take a break when you need it and remind yourself that you're a badass. No shame in starting off with a lower score - that means that you're on the road to improving!
I certainly didn't do every practice set as they are laid out in the core curriculum. That would have been just too much for me. I didn't want to get bogged down overdoing one type of problem - I was more interested in continuing to learn about all the different types of questions. What worked for me was going through the CC, practicing a few problems of each type, staring all the problems and sets I didn't do, and moving on.
I also have starred lessons I found to be especially difficult or especially helpful. Once I finished the curriculum, I came back and looked at everything I starred. I still haven't completed every single problem set, and I'm ok with that. By not worrying about cramming every single question in as they're presented, I was able to go through the curriculum and gain that general insight that I wanted.
Now looking back, I understand some of those difficult lessons that I had initially starred. And I've gone back to flashcards that I starred, so I can practice the questions that I have trouble with (cough cough: flaw/weakening in LR and sequencing double layer grouping games in LG).
Keep at it. I've definitely shed a few tears over this &%#$(#&^% test - but I also see improvement, which feels great.
All of the sections are Logical Reasoning until you get to **Intro to Logic Games**** the exceptions are the Grammar, and Basic/Advanced Logic sections which are earlier in the CC
Hi Joanna! You are NOT alone in feeling overwhelmed by the core curriculum. I started studying for the exam in January but only found my stride in the past few days! I have ADD and anxiety, and felt discouraged by my slow progress until recently. Please feel free to DM me directly if you want to talk. I am happy to share any advice/tips I may have about structuring your study schedule and managing the anxiety & stress that this test induces!
Thank you @A. Lorde! I am definitely going to start skipping some of those problem sets. I also want to focus on a little bit of everything but I want to spend most of my time on logic games (which I haven't got to yet and probably why I am getting so anxious to burn through the rest of the CC) I have been starring all the ones I have had issues with (like the ones I score 1/5 or 3/5) so I can go back and review hopefully when I know more! Thank You!
Awesome thank you!
Thank you! Will do! @"Krystell C."
Stoked to see the volume of responses here. I'll just add that this test is absolutely learnable. If you have any residual questions, please do hit me DM.
Couldn't agree with @"Krystell C." more.
I think broadly too, people get a whole lot more of a return studying LR question types and Games above RC passages. For better or worse, I think RC is probably the least learnable section of the test. If that section is a real pain point, those practice sections could certainly help. But, I don't think its necessary to consider the entirety of the RC material in the curriculum as important as the other two areas.
I think its important to have the perspective that's not about mastering Pseudo Sufficient Assumption questions by the time you finish that section. It's just about getting some exposure and getting your eye in - getting a good intuitive idea of what those questions feels like. Even once you start focusing more on PTs, it'll be a lot of identifying weak points and revisiting content.
Good luck!
@canihazJD I agree and am very grateful! I feel much more confident after reading everyone’s responses. It took a lot from me to post on the discussion board for the first time. I definitely didn’t expect everyone to come through with support. Thank you as well for your comment, and I will take you up on that DM offer as I plow through the CC!
@jjjooee3000 Your response literally hit the nail on the board for me. I have been going through the RC portions of the course and at times I do the problem sets, watch the explanation videos, watch them again, and I feel like I still don’t fully comprehend how to solve using “lawgic” but like you said the exposure is definitely helping a lot! I guess because I haven’t gotten to the logic game point of the curriculum, I’m a bit frustrated because I am going through the least learnable sections right now, so at times I feel like I haven’t really learned much. I plan on taking a PT right before I start the logic games section, so I can get an idea of what I have learned so far. Thank you so much for your input! Very helpful!