A New Curriculum for the New LSAT
With the removal of LG this summer, we decided to revamp our curriculum for in-person classes to take advantage of the new format. Students taking April and June tests will gain access to a custom virtual LG course to make sure they get what they need as well!
LR and RC both involve the fundamental challenge of reading and understanding arguments: that's what the new LSAT is about. Our course will give you the skills necessary to overcome this challenge. Each class has a core concept that it uses to introduce various question types and their unique strategies, so that you learn both the theory and application of the test.
Class One - Thinking Like The LSAT
This class will introduce the logical foundations which will continue to be developed throughout the course, as well as prepare students for a diagnostic PT. To beat the LSAT we will have to think like the LSAT, and that means learning lawgic.
Main Topics: Conditional Reasoning, Arguments, Quantifiers, How to Blind Review Properly
Class Two - Creating a Process
This class will introduce LR and RC, and discuss the similarities and differences between the two sections. Students will learn the importance of forming consistent processes, which will make them more confident and efficient.
Main Topics: Learning from your blind review, Active Reading, the 7Sage RC process, the 7Sage LR process
Class Three - Understanding Conclusions
Having now learned the basics of the test, we will begin our in-depth journey with the first essential skill for tackling arguments: identifying and understanding conclusions. Both LR and RC have us read samples of text which are trying to establish particular claims. To properly understand these arguments, we must first be able to recognize exactly what they are trying to prove.
Main Topics: RC MP Questions, Identifying the Author's Position, Main Point vs Main Conclusion, LR MP & MC Questions
Class Four - Making Inferences
The LSAT not only requires us to identify conclusions, but to evaluate and make them ourselves. Making a conclusion based on a set of information is called an inference. Both RC and LR challenge us to be able to distinguish good inferences from bad ones. This class will teach students how to make good inferences, and quickly spot when the LSAT is baiting them with assumptions.
Main Topics: Evaluating Support, MSS Questions, Validity, MBT Questions, RC Comparative Passages, RC Inferences
Class Five - The Ideal Experiment
While the LSAT is not a test of your scientific knowledge, it will test your causal reasoning skills: your understanding of cause and effect. This class will use the ideal experiment to teach students how to think in terms of causality just as we learned how to think in terms of lawgic.
Main Topics: Causality, RC Science Passages, Hypotheses, Causal Strengthening and Weakening Questions
Class Six - Premise–to–Conclusion Gaps I
By now you'll now how to identify conclusions and evaluate them. This class will discuss how we can make conclusions stronger. To do so we will learn about premise–to–conclusion gaps, how to recognize them, and how to bridge them.
Main Topics: Premise to Conclusion Gaps, Sufficient Assumption Questions, Non-Causal Strengthening Questions
Class Seven - Premise–to–Conclusion Gaps II
The seventh class session will continue our discussion of premise–to–conclusion gaps, but this time our objective will be to use them to weaken arguments.
Main Topics: Necessary Assumption Questions, Term Shifts, Non-Causal Weakening Questions
Class Eight - Argument Structure
We've learned how to analyze, create, improve, and destroy arguments. Now it's time to take a step back and see the big picture. While we will see arguments about asteroids, amoebas, accounting, and everything in-between on the LSAT, we're not interested in this content. The LSAT is not a test about asteroids, amoebas, or accounting, but about recognizing and evaluating the logical structure of arguments. This class will teach students to see the recurring underlying structures of arguments.
Main Topics: RC Argument Structure, LR Argument Structure, Argument Part Questions, Method of Reasoning Questions, Parallel Reasoning Questions
Class Nine - Flawed Reasoning
Building off the previous class, the ninth class will focus on invalid reasoning. Flaws are structural; they are problems with the underlying structure of arguments. The skills we learned in the previous class will be crucial to detect and match flaws.
Main Topics: Invalid Reasoning, Common Flaws, Flaw Questions, Parallel Flaw Questions
Class Ten - Review
The tenth class will be an opportunity to slow down and review the content we've covered over the previous ten weeks as we enter the final phase of the class. We will review the RC strategies we've learned by trying them on some harder passages, as well as introduce the last remaining LR question type: RRE.
Main Topics: Advanced RC, RRE Questions, General Review
Class Eleven - Timing
This class will continue our move to more advanced topics by focusing on effective timing strategies. Students will learn how to use the step by step processes we learned in Class Two to maintain momentum and make confident, efficient decisions on LR and RC.
Main Topics: Timing, Flagging, Skipping
Class Twelve - Final Class
The final class will apply all that we've learned to particularly challenging questions, as well as instruct students on how to continue studying effectively after the course, and how they can best prepare for test day.
Main Topics: Effective Studying, Test Anxiety, Final Review