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Is it normal to go through 7Sage CC and PTs painfully slow?
Webby_Songdo
Alum Member
Hi everyone,
Foremost, I appreciate you for reading this discussion post, and genuinely thank you for sharing your 2 cents, should you happen to respond.
Let me begin.
I am in the stage of my life in which I am able to allocate 7-10 hours of my day into studying for the LSAT. I just graduated from Johns Hopkins master’s program, and only have two hours of tutoring per day. In other words, the rest of my day is free for me to do what I want.
However, the difficulty I encountered is that I am unable to work solely on the LSAT for 10 hours. What I mean by this is that I am not blasting through these LSAT problems, or the 7Sage Core Curriculum but rather moving in a gradual, painfully slow manner. In other words, I am inching forward, instead of blasting forward.
I am on computer 7-10 hours per day but I feel as I progress through the 7Sage Core Curriculum painfully slow while I have read others saying they finished the Core Curriculum within 2 months while working full-time.
The way I approach the Core Curriculum is that I take notes of all modules and write wrong answer notes for each question I get incorrect or am confused about.
My goal is to get into HLS, but having grown up as a non-superstar, I am not sure if I am just plainly stupid or is not focused enough.
I got all A’s on my last half of the program at Johns Hopkins AAP, and we had students who went to UPenn Law, Berkeley Law, and UCLA Law from our program. Although these individuals had almost perfect GPA at JHU AAP, I, too, was getting a perfect GPA once I was used to the distance learning during the second half of the program.
My first college was Northeastern University School of Pharmacy in which I was a part of 0+6 accelerated Doctor of Pharmacy program. I quit the program and transferred to an American college in South Korea, receiving an American state school college bachelor’s degree.
In other words, although I graduated from JHU AAP, I didn’t grew up as a Harvard undergraduate material, or any of the sort that we encounter during high school era (so called, “superstars.”)
Was moving forward the 7Sage Core Curriculum and going through the LSAT Practice Tests painfully slow for those of you who have done well on the LSAT? Or, were you all just blasting through these modules and tests, acquiring logical rules and conventions in a glimpse of second?
I am just confused because tutors I deal with in South Korea (I live in South Korea) makes it seem as they studied for such a short period of time (less than a year) and was able to achieve a 175+. However, I am unsure if I am gifted to achieve the same feat, or if I should just continue to grind hoping that I will eventually acquire the knowledge to do well on the test.
Please help and share your thought.
Comments
Don't worry about "normal." We all learn at different paces, so if it's taking you longer, that's fine. Do what's going to allow you to earn you the score you want.
Of course there are people who can do it quickly, but many people study close to a year before taking the LSAT.
Schools won't see how long it took you to get the score you want. Just the score. So don't worry about how long it takes you.
Thank you. I will duly note what you have stated.
I haven't sat down to go through the entire Core Curriculum, so I don't have an answer for how long it takes to do so. Are you currently still learning the fundamentals of the test? If so, know that this phase generally takes some time, since you're learning new skills as opposed to memorising facts.
In fact, I would urge you not to rush any part of the study process. Even once I thought I had finished learning the fundamentals, I still had to return to them a few times to properly grasp everything that I needed to know. And even after that, it took me months and months of doing individual questions, sections, and dozens of practice tests before I got to a top score.
Listen to the 7Sage podcasts in which J.Y. interviews 7Sagers who have made significant score jumps. For two 7Sagers interviewed, the whole process took about two years. For another, three years. To be sure, all three of them ended up scoring in the 170s. But I suspect that it is generally the case that the study process, despite what people you know may tell you, takes longer than one expects. There were few points in my study process when I felt as though I was "blasting through" anything. In my experience, progress was slow, and it was not always reflected in my practice test performance from week to week.
You say that you are not sure whether you are gifted enough to achieve the same feat as your friends. I would recommend that you assign less importance to talent or to natural ability. This is an extremely challenging test. From what I gather, getting a top score requires, in most cases, hard work and smart work over a relatively long period of time, some determination and focus, among other qualities. Luck also plays a role, in this as in most things in life. Yes, being gifted at taking standardised tests or having a talent for deductive reasoning helps. However, in all but a very small number of instances would having such gifts or talents be sufficient for getting a top score.
I would also suggest that you don't do too much in a short period of time. It is a luxury to have more than the few hours a day of studying that working full time might afford you. When I wasn't working full time, the most I managed to put in was about six hours per day. Anything more felt like too much to me. Obviously, your mileage may vary. But I would recommend that you limit the number of hours that you study each day, and that you take at least a day of each week off. Spend some time doing other things that you enjoy. This is perhaps the among the most difficult advice to take, because it seems counterintuitive, but going easier sometimes can actually help you do better in the long run.
Thank you so much for your reply. I will promptly respond to your message.
In my opinion, I think most all people will have a "max" of time per day that they can study before severe diminishing returns (or even reverse returns) set in. I think anywhere beyond 5 hours is well past this point for most people. The way I see it: if the LSAT designed their test to be defeated by a few simple "cram sessions" then it would not serve much of a purpose. It's a hard test by design, and it's hard to study for by design.
As for the people who you've spoken to and have scored high with seemingly little time and/or effort, maybe what they are saying is true, but if so they are by far the minority. For myself, I've STRUGGLED HARD from an initial starting point of 141 to my current best of 157.
Also, it might not be best to compare your success or lack of success from other educational endeavors to studying for this test. This is a whole different ball game.
sounds good thank you
Yes. Trust your process.