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CPAlawHopefu wrote:Mike, I love your book and I'm almost nearing the end of your book. It's been a wonderful journey so far!

However, I'm struggling through the LSAT Vocabulary section right now, especially the Extreme Links (Conditional Statements Links) on page 460. This is literally the hardest thing I've encountered on LR so far and still having hard time understanding the concept. You didn't provide any explanation on these drills, so I am completely lost as to why my answer is wrong. Like for the "Cheaters" problem, I literally answered every problem wrong, and I can't see why....

Also, one question on your "ice cream store" drill in that chapter.

"Everyone who orders A gets offered B, and most people say yes to B. Some people who order C get offered B, and less than half of those people say yes. Therefore, more customers get B with A than they do with C."

I answered Valid for the above statement because my train of thought was...

100% of A gets offered B, and >50% of A says yes to B.
>0% of C gets offered B, and <50% of C says yes to B.
Therefore, B with A > B with C.

However, the answer on your book says the statement is invalid. Why is this so?

Hi there -- sorry to hear that you are having such a hard time with the chapter -- two things that might be helpful to consider are that a) those extreme links drills are meant to be harder than what you should expect to see on the LSAT, and so it's understandable that you find some of them tough and b) one reason why I've included such over-the-top exercises is to help expose any underlying weaknesses that you might have -- so, my apologies for creating a chapter that I kinda knew ahead of time would be annoying (but hopefully helpful) --

For your specific q's --

If you need help w/the Cheaters exercise, please feel free to write in here, pm, or email -- let me know how you translated the conditional statements and let's start from there. Since you struggled w/so many questions for that exercise, my guess is that there were some issues w/your setup. If you want, I'm happy to go back and forth w/u as you need in order to help you get more comfortable w/it.

For the ice cream store q, the reason we can't make an inference is that we don't know the relative sizes of A and C -- to give extremes, imagine 5 people order A and 500 people order C.

Hope that helps and again please let me know if u have any follow up or need anything -- MK

factoryresetsadness wrote:Hello Mike,

Thanks for writing the book and maintaining the website, as well as answering questions. It has been very helpful.

My question is regarding Lesson 14: "Or" Rules. Pages 201 and 202 for Game 4. Why does the second rule "J and I as a pair will either be teamed with F or with G" preclude the possibility that J and I are on different teams? My apologies if this has already been addressed - I am still learning optimal search methods. Thank you in advance!

Hi there -- to me the phrase "as a pair" indicates that J and I took the action together, and so they both ended up with F or both with G. I imagine you may have asked because you interpret the phrase differently, and so please let me know if you think there may be something I haven't considered -- MK

lsat2013-study wrote:Hi Mike - Really love your book, and your philosophical approach to attacking the exam.

My question is also about attacking the exam and FOCUS. Can you comment on whether or not the following proposed test strategy has any value or not. If yes/no - why??

A friend I studied with earlier, (he took the Dec. exam) told me to do the following during the LSAT exam.

After finishing the first 15 questions of the LR section take a 15 second break. Close your eyes, relax, deep breathe. Then hit it hard for the remaining questions. Also again, in the Games and RC sections, each has 4 games, and 4 passages. Take a 10 second break between each section. Close eyes, relax, deep breathe. Then hit it hard again..

I know I would lose those 15 seconds in the LR - then in the Games and RC about 40 in each. But, he claims you gain some renewed focus and concentration. And you will move much faster through the rest of the questions. Any thoughts? He said he did it during his exam, and it helped. He scored good.

I can see some value in what he is saying. But, not sure - and if I am going to incorporate something like this, I need to add it to my practice regime.

Thoughts???

Update: Why am I considering this test strategy? On all my PTs and earlier real LSAT - I notice an obvious trend in my scoring. I have NO mistakes in the first half of every section of questions. I get thrilled. Wow - awesome. But, then I get hit with a brick. I make ALL my mistakes in the last part of every section. I am NOT over- exaggerating. No mistakes in the first part of question sets. Then in the second half of questions sets I go -5, -6. Its killing my score.

Hey --

I could see the reasoning behind your friend's suggestion, and I think it's fairly similar to some of the advice I've given recently in this forum about trying to break the test down into bite sized pieces -- here are some of my thoughts --

1) though the difficulty level of individual q' tends to go up and down, on average, the q's you see after 15 after significantly harder than those in the first 15 -- so, it's understandable that you'd have more misses there.

2) As I alluded to above, I think that perhaps why your friend's strategy was effective for him was that it allowed him to a) avoid decision fatigue and some of the other negative side effects of thinking about the test as one big blob of a challenge and b) helped him see the test instead as a series of smaller challenges.

3) The one thing I'd disagree with is the amount of time for the break -- 15 seconds is really long -- and everyone is different but for most students that is a lot to sacrifice -- it would be to your benefit to work on getting some of the same positive effects while spending less time in the breaks.

4) Since you are doing so well on the first 15 q's, I really encourage you to try practicing pushing the pace -- see how fast you can possibly go without sacrificing accuracy, and try to develop a sense of when the pace is "too fast" and you are not being as accurate as you should be -- and then you can of course afford to spend more time on the remaining q's --

Hope that helps and wish you the best -- MK

The LSAT Trainer wrote:

factoryresetsadness wrote:Hello Mike,

Thanks for writing the book and maintaining the website, as well as answering questions. It has been very helpful.

My question is regarding Lesson 14: "Or" Rules. Pages 201 and 202 for Game 4. Why does the second rule "J and I as a pair will either be teamed with F or with G" preclude the possibility that J and I are on different teams? My apologies if this has already been addressed - I am still learning optimal search methods. Thank you in advance!

Hi there -- to me the phrase "as a pair" indicates that J and I took the action together, and so they both ended up with F or both with G. I imagine you may have asked because you interpret the phrase differently, and so please let me know if you think there may be something I haven't considered -- MK

Thanks for answering Mike!

Yes, I get tripped up on language like this, because I don't have faith in the concreteness of certain phrases. The only way I would feel confident that J and I HAVE to be on a team no matter what, is if the rule says "J and I ARE on the same team," or "J and I ARE a pair." "J and I AS a pair" implies to me that J and I may NOT always be a pair. But I am intent on getting on board with what is common understanding, so as long as I know that this kind of construction always means the two elements are together, then I will apply that understanding for all future games/questions going forward.

Thank you for taking the time on this. I am enjoying the Trainer a lot.

Hey Mike!

Re-reading the final 3 chapters of the trainer today. Took PT 74 yesterday and got a 170. -3 total LR, -1 LG, -8 reading comp. I am shooting for 172-175 on test day and would love to hear if you have any advice for making my reading comp score more consistent. It fluctuates widely from -1/2 all the way to that bummer on Saturday of -8. One week left till Feb and I'd like to put myself in the best position possible.

Also you mention creating 3 * 5 note cards with tips to remember for each section. I have created some of my own but was wondering if you had any standard ones available in your resource section (if not, might be cool to include!) or if you had any essential tips that in your opinion MUST be included on the notecards. In addition any tips for maximizing study/ avoiding burnout in the final week?

Sorry for the many questions, but thank you again for all your help so far. I really enjoyed your book and it's very apparent how dedicated you are to helping people succeed on this test. If I don't get it done next week-- I'll get it done in June. Either way I'm going to get me my median top 3 LSAT score haha.

J

Sherlock1122 wrote:Hey Mike!

Re-reading the final 3 chapters of the trainer today. Took PT 74 yesterday and got a 170. -3 total LR, -1 LG, -8 reading comp. I am shooting for 172-175 on test day and would love to hear if you have any advice for making my reading comp score more consistent. It fluctuates widely from -1/2 all the way to that bummer on Saturday of -8. One week left till Feb and I'd like to put myself in the best position possible.

Also, you mention creating 3 * 5 note cards with tips to remember for each section. I have created some of my own but was wondering if you had any standard ones available in your resource section (if not, might be cool to include!) or if you had any essential tips that in your opinion MUST be included on the notecards. In addition any tips for maximizing study/ avoiding burnout in the final week?

Sorry for the many questions, but thank you again for all your help so far. I really enjoyed your book and it's very apparent how dedicated you are to helping people succeed on this test. If I don't get it done next week-- I'll get it done in June. Either way I'm going to get me my median top 3 LSAT score haha.

J

Hey Sherlock --

Awesome to hear that you've been doing so well! I love your attitude and I'm excited to see how you do on test day --

I don't have premade note cards (thank you for the suggestion), but I think those final chapters are good summaries of the main points from the book, and I think you can use them to make your own note cards if you'd like. Also, in terms of final week prep/mindset, if you haven't already, you may want to take a look at the discussions on this thread from before I the Dec. exam -- I heard from a few different students that those comments were helpful to them.

This close to the exam, your main focus should be on maximizing your existing skill set and habits, as opposed to trying to see or figure out something new - but having said that, it’s unusual to see someone with such extreme differences in RC and LR scores - your LR performance indicates that you definitely have the skills necessary for greater success on the RC section, and I wonder if there is something you can tweak in your strategies/mindset that might earn you a few more points on test day.

Here are some RC thoughts that come to mind, along with my usual caveat that you know yourself best and ought to take the advice you find useful and ignore the rest. Sorry for the wordiness and typos etc. -- figure this close to the test you don't want to wait for a more properly edited version of a response --

1) Make sure you are not rushing to understanding the structure of a passage

Especially for more difficult passages, it is much easier to see the entire reasoning structure of a passage (the reason why the author organized it the way he/she did) after the fact than it is to try and correctly guess at it during your read. Give yourself a few seconds after every passage to think about and organize it in terms of reasoning structure.

2) Remember one difference between LR and RC: for LR, you need to focus more on prioritizing key info. For RC, you need to focus more on organizing info in relation to priorities.

For example, in an LR q, you want to focus on and think about the conclusion of an argument much more than you do information given in the background. For RC, you want to try to be roughly even in terms of keeping in mind the role each component plays in relation to the main points being made. During your brief end-of-passage pause, it should be fairly easy (though not always necessary) for you to assign roles to each part of the passage, and, if you found a passage very difficult to read, I think taking that extra time, after the fact, to reevaluate the role each component of the passage played can help firm up your understanding and can help you save a ton of time during the questions.

*** Most Important *** 3) Make sure you are fully utilizing the question stem. ***

For the RC section, I would argue that the most important words to pay attention to are the words used to define the question. Specifically, you need to assess correctly

a) whether the question is asking about something directly mentioned, an inference to be made, etc.
b) which part of the passage the question relates to &
c) how much you are expected to know/when you are supposed to go back and get info

For reference, think of the differences between these two q stems:

A. The passage discusses…

B. The author mentions “bi bim bap” in the second paragraph primarily in order to…

For the first q, I know there are no clues I can use to go back to the passage before looking at the answer choices, and I expect that
a) most of the answers will be wrong for obvious reasons - often because they do not match the theme or general subject matter of the passage
b) once I get down to one or two attractive answers, at that point I will need to go back into the text to verify.

For the second q, I am going to go into the text, find the word, read all around it, and come up with a very strong sense of what to expect from the answer before evaluating them.

In between those two extremes are a whole bunch of other q types for which the decision of when to go back to the text/where to look is more subtle -- make sure you are thinking about this decision very carefully. Speaking of which…

4. Make sure you are going from general to specific in evaluating answer choices

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, if you give me a correct three or four sentence summary of the reasoning structure/point of each of the passages, I can get the majority of RC questions correct without using the reference text.

A correct sense of reasoning structure/point makes the right answers far more attractive and the wrong answers far more obvious for a ton of different types of questions, in the same way that focusing on the argument core in LR makes your job a ton easier. Focusing on specific details or subtleties in the opinions presented and whatnot is far more difficult and time-consuming.

A common issue I’ve seen students have is that they don’t pay enough attention to reasoning structure as they read, then as a result they are far more dependent than they need to be on details/matching up when it comes to evaluating answers - this makes questions harder, and it makes questions take more time.

Make sure you are focused on developing as correct an understanding of the overall reasoning structure/point(s) of the passage as you read, and utilize it as much as possible as your first line of evaluation when it comes to answer choices.

I suggest that you focus on the above issues as you review your final RC performances (and you can also go back and review some of your recent RC performances on these terms as well) --

Specifically, think about how you went about solving each problem, and, in retrospect, evaluate the “ideal” process you could have used had you understood the passage perfectly, utilized the q stem perfectly, and found the simplest and most accurate ways to evaluate the answers.

When you study the problems that caused you the most issues, think about them in terms of the above points - did they cause you problems because
a) you didn’t see the structure of the passage during your read as clearly as you should have?
***b) you didn’t fully or correctly utilize the q stem? If so, what should you have done differently?***
c) did you have to work too hard in evaluating the answers? If so, what were some more obvious giveaways of incorrect answers and why didn’t you notice them initially?

I know that all the above is discussed in the book, but I hope that was helpful -- congrats again for getting to such a lofty level, and best of luck on test day --

MK

Any advice on how to get really consistent on LG? On the recent PTs, I fluctuate wildly between being able to finish the section with a -0 (PT 67, for example) and not even being able to finish and having to guess (PT 68 and PT 72 both killed me with game 4, with LG being section 5). I've seen every PT section from PT 17 on at least once, though it's been a couple of months for some of the latest ones. I have a couple of days left until February- what's the best way to spend them? Should I be taking full length PTs, or drilling games sections timed, or what?

Hi Mike! I've been following the Trainer through my study plan and I've been scoring really consistently between 170-173. While I'm really happy with this, I want to do everything possible to get as close to a perfect score as possible on Test Day (and allow for fluctuations that happen on the day of the exam). Do you have any advice for how to get those last 5-7 points? What bugs me is that the mistakes don't seem to have a pattern of consistency- I've tracked my mistakes on LR and LG as suggested in the Trainer and it seems like they can happen anywhere, not restricted to just a few types of questions. I'd really appreciate any help or advice you have- thanks!

leslieknope wrote:Any advice on how to get really consistent on LG? On the recent PTs, I fluctuate wildly between being able to finish the section with a -0 (PT 67, for example) and not even being able to finish and having to guess (PT 68 and PT 72 both killed me with game 4, with LG being section 5). I've seen every PT section from PT 17 on at least once, though it's been a couple of months for some of the latest ones. I have a couple of days left until February- what's the best way to spend them? Should I be taking full length PTs, or drilling games sections timed, or what?

Hey LK --

Here are some thoughts / exercises that might be useful -- as always, please feel free to pick and choose what you feel might be effective for you --

If we think about what could go wrong on test day or what could cause you to underperform, there are four common issues --

Three of them are obvious --

1) you run into a game (or games) that you can’t get your head around. You can’t visualize a diagram for it, you don’t know what types of deductions you are expected to make, etc.

2) you run into a rule (or rules) that you cannot get control over. You either can’t quite understand it completely, or, more commonly, can’t figure out how to notate it or relate it to the other rules/your diagram. This makes it markedly more difficult and time consuming to go through the processes necessary to solve individual q’s.

3) you get stuck on one problem (or more) and invest far more time in it than you ought to -- this happens to students far more often than they expect or realize (it’s important to remember that pressure can often distort/mess with your sense of time).

And the final is silent but deadly --

4) you waste time not being aggressive enough on easier q’s. At your score level, the majority of q’s are ones that fit into your comfort zone, and going a few seconds faster or a few seconds slower on average for each of these q’s really adds up.

Another way of thinking about the above is --

If you don’t have trouble visualizing any of the games, if you don’t have trouble with any of the rules, if you are able to prevent individual q’s from over-impacting your overall performance, and if you can stay aggressive on the easier q’s -- I expect you’ll be very happy with your LG results.

Again, not sure which of the above (if any) is a cause for some of your inconsistency (which is totally normal, btw -- most test takers, even fully prepared, are far more inconsistent on LG than they are on other sections, and it just has to do with the way the section is designed -- it would be a totally different story if there were ten smaller games instead of four big ones) -- but if any of them are, here are some exercises / thoughts that might be helpful -

1) Go through past games you’ve played just looking at the scenarios and rules. Test yourself on whether you would be comfortable playing that sort of game, and make sure you can visualize how you would lay out the diagram. Make a list of the games you have trouble doing this for and study those carefully.

2) Go through past games you’ve played just looking at your initial diagrams. Do this without looking at the scenarios and rules. See how clearly and easily you can read and understand your diagram. Then - and most importantly - match up your notations to the original rules given and make sure that your understanding of your notation was indeed correct. For the times when it wasn’t, it may have been because you hadn’t firmed up your LG skills by the time you had played that game, but otherwise, take note of the situations where your notations do not accurately represent the given rule and study these situations carefully.

Both of the above exercises can be done fairly quickly and neither is meant to take more than an hour or so, so if you think they might be helpful hopefully you can fold them into your schedule today or tomorrow.

3) Make sure you have a set routine for what to do when you run into a problem or game that causes trouble, and make sure you practice this on your final pt or section work -- in order to artificially simulate the pressure of falling behind in a section and having to implement some of these strategies, you may want to take one or two of the game sections you’ve done before and give yourself just 30 minutes (or even less) per.

One common q strategy is “two tries” -- if you get stuck on a q, you allow yourself one more fresh try at it and then if that doesn’t work you move on --

Another one is “one try and then come back” -- if you get stuck on a q, move on to other q’s and then come back at the end of the game and give yourself one more chance -- often you’ll find that you made inferences while solving the other q’s that ultimately unlock the q you were stuck on to begin with.

Of course, if you get stuck on two or three q’s in a row, that’s a strong sign that you’ve misunderstood the game in some way or missed some key inference during your setup, and you also want to try to “build in” an expectation that you may have to go back to one of your initial diagrams to think about it some more, and know that that is perfectly fine (you can still get a great score doing this as long as you don’t run into too many other issues), and practice doing this in your final prep (going back and spending a minute reassessing can very well save you from a far worse consequence - having to grind out every single question).

4) Remind yourself to go as fast you as can (without sacrificing accuracy) on the easier q’s --

Just want to give you one q type in particular to think about --

Conditional q’s that ask for an answer that must be true or must be false --

Of all q’s in all sections, these are the LSAT problems that typically least require us to use elimination skills.

The way these q’s typically work is that the condition given in the stem sets off a predictable chain of inferences, and if you exhaust these inferences fully, what you figure out based on the q stem will directly indicate one answer that must be true or must be false. Again, the tough and important work is done during your setup and w/the given condition, and the act of picking an answer is kind of like receiving your prize for work well done.

The wrong answers to this q’s are ones that could be true or false -- that we don’t have enough information about to say fully one way or the other. If you aren’t careful, it’s very easy to waste a lot of time and energy over-thinking these answers, which can often leave you frustrated because, well, you don’t know enough about them to fully judge them. Make sure you are really aggressive about utilizing the stem fully, and zeroing in the answer as easily as possible. Only do the grind out work of checking every answer when necessary (that is, in those rare situations when the work you’ve done w/the stem doesn’t lead you directly to a MBT or MBF answer choice).

Again, not sure if any of the above hits on what you need at this point, but I hope at least some of it was helpful -- best of luck on the exam --

Mike

Thanks for the tips, Mike! I think my LG woes are definitely a combination of 2-4, so I'll have to give these a try. I'm going to try a games section with the reduced timing strategy and see how it works out, then review my last few PTs the way you recommended.

chaitealatte wrote:Hi Mike! I've been following the Trainer through my study plan and I've been scoring really consistently between 170-173. While I'm really happy with this, I want to do everything possible to get as close to a perfect score as possible on Test Day (and allow for fluctuations that happen on the day of the exam). Do you have any advice for how to get those last 5-7 points? What bugs me is that the mistakes don't seem to have a pattern of consistency- I've tracked my mistakes on LR and LG as suggested in the Trainer and it seems like they can happen anywhere, not restricted to just a few types of questions. I'd really appreciate any help or advice you have- thanks!

Hi there --

It's great to hear about how well you've been doing on your PT's, and I wish you the best on the big day --

I don't think there is a whole lot you can do at this point to change your overall aptitude for the exam (of course, the good news is that you've already gotten to what I certainly would consider an expert level), and what I think is more important now is trying to ensure that you do whatever you ought to in order to score at the upper end of your range (and perhaps surprise yourself and go beyond it).

Sorry to keep linking to previous comments, but I do think that some of the responses I wrote for previous test takers might be helpful for you (I realize I really need to update the TofC for this thread) so I encourage you to take a look if you have some time -- here's one in particular that seems most relevant - http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 0#p8198260 -

Please keep in mind that as I often mention, different students require different advice, and I really mean that -- someone who tends to get over-aggressive or rash needs different advice from someone who gets bogged down and overthinks things, for example --

In addition to the comments I made to others about being aggressive on easier q's and embracing challenges and so on, I want to mention that in general (though again you know yourself best), I don't recommend that students go into the exam with a mindset of trying to perform significantly better than they have during practice -- note this doesn't mean that surprisingly higher-than-normal score can't happen. However, I think a better mindset is to keep your range of scores for a section in mind -- say, for example, that you typically get -2 to -4 on the RC -- and do your best to score at the upper end of your range. This doesn't mean you aren't still going to try and get as many q's right as you possibly can -- however, you just want to make sure that you don't build up too much stress as the test builds on, and you don't want certain tough q's to haunt you and waste your energy.

But most importantly, be proud of the work you've put in, be proud of how good you are this test, and feel confident that if you face the tough parts head on and just allow yourself to fully focus and utilize the skills that you already have, you are going to come out of this with an amazing score --

Wish you the best - Mike

Hey Mike,

I finally got my copy of the LSAT trainer after struggling with textbookrush for two weeks. Anyhow, I wanted to ask you if you think it is ok to practice using older PT's. I say this because at the end of developing my fundamentals, I want to have as many recent PT's as possible to take under test conditions. It says in your intro to use tests 52-71 to drill with, however if I use older ones for now, do you think it is ok? It is not a problem of money, rather I have been reading that people are running out of study material sometimes (churn and burn). I want to make sure that I am not churning and burning. I think have 40 practice tests already, I think from 19 to maybe 62. And also I wanted to ask you if I should go through the book in a systematic way 1-600 or skip around? I am really dedicated to getting a good score on this test and need any advice you can give me. I know this will sound pathetic, but I am reading 3 books simultaneously The Trainer, Manhattan Prep LR, and Power Score LR. Any general advice or specific advice to help me conquer this test would be awesome man, thank you.

eli2015 wrote:Hey Mike,

I finally got my copy of the LSAT trainer after struggling with textbookrush for two weeks. Anyhow, I wanted to ask you if you think it is ok to practice using older PT's. I say this because at the end of developing my fundamentals, I want to have as many recent PT's as possible to take under test conditions. It says in your intro to use tests 52-71 to drill with, however if I use older ones for now, do you think it is ok? It is not a problem of money, rather I have been reading that people are running out of study material sometimes (churn and burn). I want to make sure that I am not churning and burning. I think have 40 practice tests already, I think from 19 to maybe 62. And also I wanted to ask you if I should go through the book in a systematic way 1-600 or skip around? I am really dedicated to getting a good score on this test and need any advice you can give me. I know this will sound pathetic, but I am reading 3 books simultaneously The Trainer, Manhattan Prep LR, and Power Score LR. Any general advice or specific advice to help me conquer this test would be awesome man, thank you.

Hi Eli --

Thanks for picking up the trainer and sorry to hear that it took so long to get to you (first time I've heard of textbookrush) -- here are some answers to your q's -- let me know if I miss anything --

1) I agree that more recent exams should be used primarily for practice tests, and older for drilling, and I apologize if anything I've written gives the impression otherwise. All of the trainer study schedules reflect this in their design.

2) Speaking of which, it sounds like you ought to check out the schedules! Not sure if the tls mods want me linking to them, but they are available on the trainer website under student resources. In particular, it seems like the 16 week / exams 29-71 one might be appealing to you -- The schedules are designed to be very flexible, so that you can adjust them along the way as need be in order to fit your study needs best.

3) In terms of using other materials -- in my experience the benefit of getting multiple viewpoints typically far outweighs any negatives in terms of conflicting strategies, etc. -- generally, students have little trouble combining instruction and figuring out what works best for them, and so as long as you are using quality materials, I'm all for it.

I think the bigger issue is one of time -- you have three key components to your prep -- learning, drilling, and pt'ing, and you want to make sure that the learning doesn't crowd out the other aspects. So, a good strategy might be to use the trainer as a base, and then to go to those other materials if and when you feel that you could use a bit more instruction or alternative strategies or whatnot.

4) I strongly recommend against going through the trainer in an alternative order. I understand why you might ask the question, and some other LSAT books are designed for you to do that, but the trainer is designed so that later lessons build upon earlier ones, and for maximum effect I recommend that you go through it slowly and in order.

I hope that clears things up and I hope you enjoy the trainer! Get in touch if you need me -- Mike

The LSAT Trainer wrote:

eli2015 wrote:Hey Mike,

I finally got my copy of the LSAT trainer after struggling with textbookrush for two weeks. Anyhow, I wanted to ask you if you think it is ok to practice using older PT's. I say this because at the end of developing my fundamentals, I want to have as many recent PT's as possible to take under test conditions. It says in your intro to use tests 52-71 to drill with, however if I use older ones for now, do you think it is ok? It is not a problem of money, rather I have been reading that people are running out of study material sometimes (churn and burn). I want to make sure that I am not churning and burning. I think have 40 practice tests already, I think from 19 to maybe 62. And also I wanted to ask you if I should go through the book in a systematic way 1-600 or skip around? I am really dedicated to getting a good score on this test and need any advice you can give me. I know this will sound pathetic, but I am reading 3 books simultaneously The Trainer, Manhattan Prep LR, and Power Score LR. Any general advice or specific advice to help me conquer this test would be awesome man, thank you.

Hi Eli --

Thanks for picking up the trainer and sorry to hear that it took so long to get to you (first time I've heard of textbookrush) -- here are some answers to your q's -- let me know if I miss anything --

1) I agree that more recent exams should be used primarily for practice tests, and older for drilling, and I apologize if anything I've written gives the impression otherwise. All of the trainer study schedules reflect this in their design.

2) Speaking of which, it sounds like you ought to check out the schedules! Not sure if the tls mods want me linking to them, but they are available on the trainer website under student resources. In particular, it seems like the 16 week / exams 29-71 one might be appealing to you -- The schedules are designed to be very flexible, so that you can adjust them along the way as need be in order to fit your study needs best.

3) In terms of using other materials -- in my experience the benefit of getting multiple viewpoints typically far outweighs any negatives in terms of conflicting strategies, etc. -- generally, students have little trouble combining instruction and figuring out what works best for them, and so as long as you are using quality materials, I'm all for it.

I think the bigger issue is one of time -- you have three key components to your prep -- learning, drilling, and pt'ing, and you want to make sure that the learning doesn't crowd out the other aspects. So, a good strategy might be to use the trainer as a base, and then to go to those other materials if and when you feel that you could use a bit more instruction or alternative strategies or whatnot.

4) I strongly recommend against going through the trainer in an alternative order. I understand why you might ask the question, and some other LSAT books are designed for you to do that, but the trainer is designed so that later lessons build upon earlier ones, and for maximum effect I recommend that you go through it slowly and in order.

I hope that clears things up and I hope you enjoy the trainer! Get in touch if you need me -- Mike

Oh, I actually like the 16 week study schedule. Do you think it is better if, for the drills, I used the specific question type drill packets instead of going through some problems specifically on my tests?

Mike, I am not understanding the "double dip drill" on page 81. I feel as if im missing something because I don't eve know what I am looking for.

Hi Mike! First off, I just want to say THANK YOU so much for writing the Trainer! From where I am in the book, I already learned a different "way" of looking at LR's..the broader approach definitely helps with focusing on concepts/generalities, instead of going straight into LR types.

I am currently studying for a re-take this June, and completely changed my study/life schedule for this test. Last time I took it, I was working full-time and focused mostly on taking PT's instead of learning the concepts. I was scoring 170-173 with my PT's...90% of which were untimed (HUGE mistake on my part.. I don't know what I was thinking or not thinking). Anyway, test day comes and I did not feel prepared at all and blanked out starting from Section I! In hindsight, I don't think I felt comfortable enough in knowing the fundamentals, and add the time restraint, I just completely forgot/lost anything and everything that I learned and no techniques were used on test day..

This time around, I am dedicating more of my time for this test; I took a break from working and invested more in quality materials. I browsed different study methods here on TLS and Reddit threads, and found that your book is highly recommended by a lot of test takers. I was hoping to incorporate it into my version of Pithypike's study plan would love to hear your thoughts on it. From reading your thread, I saw you recommended the below course of action for someone who is planning on using multiple materials (summarized it here):

1. Go over the Trainer solely for Lessons 1-15
2. Return to LGB (and MLSAT) for LG's
3. The Trainer goes into specific LR types starting at Lesson 17. At this point, I should start incorporating LRB (and MLSAT) lessons/drills in. For example, after reading the Flaw lesson in the Trainer, I should then read/do the Flaw lessons in LRB (and MLSAT).


I have the following materials to work with:

1. Cambridge Packets for LR, RC, and LG PTs 21-40 + PTs 7-19 that I compiled
2. All 3 PS Bibles
3. All 3 MLSAT books
4. LSAT Trainer

I am worried that mixing all these materials would be overkill, and to be honest, I can't come up with a confident way of integrating these materials to result in optimal use. Pithypike's method focuses on LG drilling and repetition (ex. 3 new LG's and 2 repeats/day), do you think I should be doing this before or after I finish your book? I don't want to start drillng LG's around Lesson 15, if there are more to learn in the later chapters..

Thanks again for your help!

eli2015 wrote:Mike, I am not understanding the "double dip drill" on page 81. I feel as if im missing something because I don't eve know what I am looking for.

Hi Eli -- the concepts discussed in that lesson are expanded on in the next three -- so, if you are still having trouble after this response, maybe try coming back to the exercise after lessons 6-8 and see if it makes more sense at that point --

Before I go further, here's a random picture of a lovely couple --



I just tried this drill again myself -- it's not easy! -- here are my thoughts, and I'll go from what are arguably the easiest matches to the hardest --

1) Ted / shirt -- these are very easy to match up because in both of these instances the author is incorrectly using a comparison about an issue/thing (age, shirt) to reach an absolute conclusion (Ted must be old b/c he is older than Grandma; This shirt must be hip because it is less formal than other shirts).

2) Creationism / LeBron -- in both of these instances, the author is using the opinion of one group of people to make an absolute conclusion. A poll of Sports Illustrated readers is used to support the LeBron claim (SI readers constitute a very small portion of the population that may or may not be representative of general opinion) and the opinions of "reputable scientists" is used to justify the claim about creationism. No other arguments in the group use opinions of a small group to reach generalized blanket conclusions.

3) Journalism / Enacted Systems -- In both of these arguments, the author uses a truth about the present to make a specific (and absolute and unjustified) claim about the future. In so doing, he/she fails to consider other factors that could contribute to the situation.

For the journalism argument, notice the conclusion zeroes in on "government and media corporations" as the two entities that must act (or else we won't have a well-working democracy), when the premise was a more generalized statement about news. Perhaps other people can act instead. For the enacted systems problem, the conclusion happens to miss a big component in the equation for debt: debt = revenue - spending, and though we have info about $ of gross collected, this doesn't actually tell us info about the revenue collected (imagine, for example, that Americans make a lot more money -- in that case the government can take a smaller percentage of it and still end up with a greater total amount).

4) Careers / good intentions -- both of these are about a very specific issue -- cause and effect -- which is very important to the LSAT and which we will discuss at length in later lessons. The most common causal error is that of "correlation-vs-causation," or thinking that two things in some way caused or had a direct impact on one another simply because they are related in some way -- happening at the same time or in same place, etc. (if you want to jump ahead to learn more about this please see pg. 112). The careers argument makes a claim about college having a direct "impact" when we have no evidence one thing (going to a certain school) had any causal impact on the other (getting on the Supreme Court), and the good intentions argument makes a causal claim as well, even though there is no evidence that the good intentions caused any of the negative consequences of plastic. Notice no other arguments in the group involve causation.

5) chimps / wine -- this is the toughest match (and it's cruel of me to have put the chimps first on the page because the chimps argument has additional issues) -- however, the common issue they both happen to share is that the author is using a specific characteristic to try to prove something that is more general. For the first argument, the author uses a claim about a very specific talent (musical ability) to try to justify a point about overall intelligence. For the wine argument, the author uses a statement about one element-antioxidants-to try to justify a general claim about overall healthiness (maybe wine also contains a heavy dose of other things that are very harmful for you).

Again, not easy, but hope that helps clear it up a bit. Please keep in mind that each of the reasoning issues highlighted in this lesson will be discussed in far more specific detail in lessons 6 - 8.

Sometimes students struggle w/those initial LR lessons not necessarily because the q's or arguments are too difficult but rather just because they don't know what they are supposed to be thinking about/prioritizing (did you happen to see the baby in the initial picture?) -- not sure if that was the issue for you here, but regardless, throughout your prep, it really helps to notice situations where the "alignment" is off, and hopefully what you will find is that addressing those areas will make the test feel easier and easier (and more and more understandable) --

Hope that helps--

Mike

The LSAT Trainer wrote:

eli2015 wrote:Mike, I am not understanding the "double dip drill" on page 81. I feel as if im missing something because I don't eve know what I am looking for.

Hi Eli -- the concepts discussed in that lesson are expanded on in the next three -- so, if you are still having trouble after this response, maybe try coming back to the exercise after lessons 6-8 and see if it makes more sense at that point --

Before I go further, here's a random picture

I just tried this drill again myself -- it's not easy! -- here are my thoughts, and I'll go from what are arguably the easiest matches to the hardest --

1) Ted / shirt -- these are very easy to match up because in both of these instances the author is incorrectly using a comparison about an issue/thing (age, shirt) to reach an absolute conclusion (Ted must be old b/c he is older than Grandma; This shirt must be hip because it is less formal than other shirts).

2) Creationism / LeBron -- in both of these instances, the author is using the opinion of one group of people to make an absolute conclusion. A poll of Sports Illustrated readers is used to support the LeBron claim (SI readers constitute a very small portion of the population that may or may not be representative of general opinion) and the opinions of "reputable scientists" is used to justify the claim about creationism. No other arguments in the group use opinions of a small group to reach generalized blanket conclusions.

3) Journalism / Enacted Systems -- In both of these arguments, the author uses a truth about the present to make a specific (and absolute and unjustified) claim about the future. In so doing, he/she fails to consider other factors that could contribute to the situation.

For the journalism argument, notice the conclusion zeroes in on "government and media corporations" as the two entities that must act (or else we won't have a well-working democracy), when the premise was a more generalized statement about news. Perhaps other people can act instead. For the enacted systems problem, the conclusion happens to miss a big component in the equation for debt: debt = revenue - spending, and though we have info about $ of gross collected, this doesn't actually tell us info about the revenue collected (imagine, for example, that Americans make a lot more money -- in that case the government can take a smaller percentage of it and still end up with a greater total amount).

4) Careers / good intentions -- both of these are about a very specific issue -- cause and effect -- which is very important to the LSAT and which we will discuss at length in later lessons. The most common causal error is that of "correlation-vs-causation," or thinking that two things in some way caused or had a direct impact on one another simply because they are related in some way -- happening at the same time or in same place, etc. (if you want to jump ahead to learn more about this please see pg. 112). The careers argument makes a claim about college having a direct "impact" when we have no evidence one thing (going to a certain school) had any causal impact on the other (getting on the Supreme Court), and the good intentions argument makes a causal claim as well, even though there is no evidence that the good intentions caused any of the negative consequences of plastic. Notice no other arguments in the group involve causation.

5) chimps / wine -- this is the toughest match (and it's cruel of me to have put the chimps first on the page because the chimps argument has additional issues) -- however, the common issue they both happen to share is that the author is using a specific characteristic to try to prove something that is more general. For the first argument, the author uses a claim about a very specific talent (musical ability) to try to justify a point about overall intelligence. For the wine argument, the author uses a statement about one element-antioxidants-to try to justify a general claim about overall healthiness (maybe wine also contains a heavy dose of other things that are very harmful for you).

Again, not easy, but hope that helps clear it up a bit. Please keep in mind that each of the reasoning issues highlighted in this lesson will be discussed in far more specific detail in lessons 6 - 8.

Sometimes students struggle w/those initial LR lessons not necessarily because the q's or arguments are too difficult but rather just because they don't know what they are supposed to be thinking about/prioritizing (did you happen to see the baby in the initial picture?) -- not sure if that was the issue for you here, but regardless, throughout your prep, it really helps to notice situations where the "alignment" is off, and hopefully what you will find is that addressing those areas will make the test feel easier and easier (and more and more understandable) --

Hope that helps--

Mike

Interestingly enough I am able to identify the flaws in the arguments properly, however I can not seem to match the argument structure. I think I am unable to match the structure because I am moving too fast in my learning process. I am going to begin to write down the reasoning and match it up until I am able to do it mentally. I will stay in touch. Thank you, I value your feedback.

Hey dude. Shoot me a PM if you're interested in offering a prize for this year's rankings prediction contest. Here's this year's thread: http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewt ... 2&t=243939. This is the third year I've put it on, and I'd like to continue the tradition of expanding the available prizes. In return for putting up prizes, you’ll get some pretty good exposure for your company in what is a perennially popular thread on TLS (last year’s thread had more than 25,150 page views – that’s more than almost any thread in the Professional’s forum except this one and Spivey's) and also the goodwill of TLSers (I’ve been on this site for about 5 years, and people here love it when the people they ask for advice do this kind of stuff).

PM me if you're interested or have any questions.

LCantimb wrote:Hi Mike! First off, I just want to say THANK YOU so much for writing the Trainer! From where I am in the book, I already learned a different "way" of looking at LR's..the broader approach definitely helps with focusing on concepts/generalities, instead of going straight into LR types.

I am currently studying for a re-take this June, and completely changed my study/life schedule for this test. Last time I took it, I was working full-time and focused mostly on taking PT's instead of learning the concepts. I was scoring 170-173 with my PT's...90% of which were untimed (HUGE mistake on my part.. I don't know what I was thinking or not thinking). Anyway, test day comes and I did not feel prepared at all and blanked out starting from Section I! In hindsight, I don't think I felt comfortable enough in knowing the fundamentals, and add the time restraint, I just completely forgot/lost anything and everything that I learned and no techniques were used on test day..

This time around, I am dedicating more of my time for this test; I took a break from working and invested more in quality materials. I browsed different study methods here on TLS and Reddit threads, and found that your book is highly recommended by a lot of test takers. I was hoping to incorporate it into my version of Pithypike's study plan would love to hear your thoughts on it. From reading your thread, I saw you recommended the below course of action for someone who is planning on using multiple materials (summarized it here):

1. Go over the Trainer solely for Lessons 1-15
2. Return to LGB (and MLSAT) for LG's
3. The Trainer goes into specific LR types starting at Lesson 17. At this point, I should start incorporating LRB (and MLSAT) lessons/drills in. For example, after reading the Flaw lesson in the Trainer, I should then read/do the Flaw lessons in LRB (and MLSAT).


I have the following materials to work with:

1. Cambridge Packets for LR, RC, and LG PTs 21-40 + PTs 7-19 that I compiled
2. All 3 PS Bibles
3. All 3 MLSAT books
4. LSAT Trainer

I am worried that mixing all these materials would be overkill, and to be honest, I can't come up with a confident way of integrating these materials to result in optimal use. Pithypike's method focuses on LG drilling and repetition (ex. 3 new LG's and 2 repeats/day), do you think I should be doing this before or after I finish your book? I don't want to start drillng LG's around Lesson 15, if there are more to learn in the later chapters..

Thanks again for your help!

Hi! Thanks so much for the comment and glad to hear that you are finding the trainer helpful --

I think you have a lot of effective study strategies in mind -- here are some general thoughts that might help you figure out how to bring all together most effectively --

1) Especially in your situation, I think it is super-helpful to think of all of your training in terms of developing the right skills and habits (as opposed to, say, developing the right understanding and strategies). At your score level, it's obvious you know pretty much all there is to know. So what you want to focus on is making sure you have the right skills to deal w/every situation, and, most importantly, that you habitually apply the right skills at the right time.

One way to work on this is to be extremely, overly, methodical and consistent in your prep. Think of how Steve Nash (or now Stephen Curry) worked to get good at shooting free throws -- by shooting them exactly the same way every time in practice, in order to develop the right muscle memory. Why are some others just a few percentage points worse? In part because they haven't been as obsessive about forming exactly the right muscle memory.

A lot of students, without realizing it, develop two sets of habits -- those for when they are practicing and loose, and another for when they are timed and nervous. Make sure you time every single q, and that you always think about the most efficient and effective way that you could have solved every q. In your review, focus on your actions (I should have done this or I shouldn't have paid so much attention to this) and not just on understanding (oh, now I get why the right answer is right, etc.).

2) Divide up your study time into three main areas -- Learning, Drilling, and PT'ing (with each part having plenty of cushion for review) -- and expect to spend about an equal amount of time in each area, which the following understanding --

a) The trainer, Powerscore books, and MLSAT books, even though they have plenty of drilling etc. in them, all generally fall under the learning category. As I've mentioned elsewhere, in my opinion the benefit of trying out multiple products typically far outweighs the negatives. However, it is not necessary to utilize multiple learning products, and you want to make sure that you don't overinvest time in this area b/c you don't want to run out of time for drilling and pt's. My suggestion is to play it by ear and add supporting products as you need them -- so, for example, if you do a trainer lesson a certain LR q type and afterwards you feel like you totally get it, and you try a bunch of drill problems and have no trouble w/them, then you probably don't need to study that same q type in the other guides. On the flip side, if a problem or game type or whatnot is causing you a lot of trouble, even after the trainer, you'll definitely appreciate getting the different perspective from those other books.

b) I think it's great to have overlap between learning and drilling, so that you can get practice right at applying what you learn right away. So, as you mentioned, I would recommend you start drilling LG after lesson 15. I also recommend you start drilling LR right as we start discussing specific q types (that is, right after lesson 17) -- so, for example, you learn about Flaw q's then drill a bunch of flaw q's.

c) check out the trainer schedules if you want some help organizing this. They are meant to be very flexible, so it should be very easy for you to see how to incorporate the other books if and when you need to.

3) Going back to #1, make sure to gauge your progress in terms of skills and habits -- that is, determine what you are strong at, and what you need to work more on, based on what you feel comfortable doing (skills) and how consistent you are at performing those tasks (habits) -- you have plenty of time before the exam to address every single issue you need to, and to do so at great depth -- make sure you aren't "rushing to get through a whole bunch of stuff" and instead being really smart about how to utilize all these resources to grow out your skill set. So don't be afraid to speed through areas you are already comfortable in (and don't feel like you have to read in every book you have about every subject), and don't be afraid to slow down (and utilize additional resources) when you hit a rough spot --

Sorry it's the same advice I give again and again and in the trainer, but I hope it helps -- whenever you need extra advice, please come back here and I'll be happy to help --

Best of luck --

Mike

Hey Mike,

What version of the trainer is amazon selling right now? 1.4?

Hatshepsut wrote:Hey Mike,

What version of the trainer is amazon selling right now? 1.4?

Hi - yeah, that's the latest version - MK

The LSAT Trainer wrote:

jaylawyer09 wrote:

The LSAT Trainer wrote:

suitsfan wrote:Hey Mike,

I wanted to integrate the trainer with cambridge drilling packets. im kinda confused how to because the trainer isn't completely separated by question types since they come up again at times. any suggestions?

Hey there -- the trainer does go into specific LR q types, but not until a bit later in the book --

I know a lot of people are having some of the same issues -- if you (or anyone else, for that matter) don't mind, if you can list here the cambridge drilling categorizes, I'll be happy to give some more specific advice about how to integrate the two --

Mike

Heres a nice graph showing them.

http://www.cambridgelsat.com/resources/ ... ion-types/

i made a quick and dirty table to help with using the two together -- let's see if this works -- if the image I post isn't clear enough, you can pm me and I'll send you the original PDF -- hope this helps, and let me know if you have any other q's --

thanks Mike!!!!!!

Super helpful~~~ I made a chart myself yesterday, just discovered your original chart now in the library, and corrected my categories and ready to go!!!
start from evaluate and flaw~~~

Dear Mike,

Please let me trouble you with two matters.

The first is resource strategy. I'm retaking a 170 from 5 years ago. I thought I had long forgotten any of the preparation I did back then, which is why I began late January, but it's coming back to me very quickly. I am now testing at the 175 range on five section simulations and I need to figure out the best way to use the remainder of my time. I now have only 12 fresh modern tests (59-60 and 65-74) and I need to stretch them all the way to 28 June because I am taking it in the Asia-Pacific region. As you can see, even if I take things at the very glacial pace of one per week, I will run out by the end of May.

I also have a hard time understanding how to review these exams most effectively. Of course I spend my effort on the missed questions but that takes at most one day intermittently between my tasks at work. To stretch out my time, I also review every single test question, going over my process for each one carefully and strenuously. I think there's value in doing this but that also goes by very quickly. Basically, by the end of Wednesday, I'm not sure what I should be doing if not another practice exam. Should I maybe study another curriculum like Powerscore?

Second, I hope to solicit your input on how I intend to proceed tactically. When I go back through the exams, I can usually pick out my errors quickly. I'd attribute these mistakes to misreading and general carelessness. At most, there are maybe 1-3 missed questions that I get wrong on my second try and take more than 5-10 minutes to fully comprehend. Whilst I'm happy about my general position, I have some persistent weaknesses.

In Logic Games, even if I come across one really unusual game, I will miss maybe 4 at most. However, I have not yet seen a perfect section because I just don't feel at ease with these types of questions; I'll rush through and miss some big inferences or use a very sloppy diagram. I did all the drills in the book conscientiously but the payoff continues to feel distant. I think my best play here is to simply go back to the drills repeatedly and labor over the old exams and every game I can get my hands on. If I run out, should I use the unofficial games made by companies like Kaplan?

On Reading Comprehension, I have not seen a worse section than -1 after four tests. However, I still don't feel entirely confident. In my last two exams, I struggled on two problems and then returned at the end of the section to find the right answers. That seems inefficient and I'm not sure what to do about that. There is no rhyme or reason to this. As you note in the Trainer, some questions are tougher and I think those are the ones tripping me up.

Logical Reasoning is just a slog and so I'll sometimes get a combined -0 but other times -4 depending on my stamina. My only tactic here is to hit the gym and eat better. I think the ones I usually get wrong are the Match the Reasoning and the Reasoning Strategy types but I can't say definitively as I miss some simple ones on occasion; hopefully a pattern will emerge with a larger sample.

Thanks in advance!

Hey, Mike -

I'm going through The Trainer, and everything is going well. I had previously worked throught the LR Bible, and after just a portion of The Trainer I can see improvement in my LR. Thanks for your help.

So I just finished up Lesson 20, and I'm going through the "16 Week | Exams 29-71" study schedule (yes, I'm a few days behind if I'm going to finish before the June LSAT). At this point I've done several of the LR drill sets and I just completed PT 30 Section 4 (just the subjective questions). As you know, several of the LR drills use questions from 30.4. So when I did the 30.4 section, I was pretty familiar with a few of the questions.

When I repeat questions like this, how much value do I get?

Also, I feel good about my performance on the 30.4 section (-1 in 21 min.). Should I not put too much stock in this performance due to the repeated questions?

Lastly, if I come across repeated questions in my future studies, do you have any tips for how I can approach them so that I can extract the most value? I tried to go through the normal steps as if I didn't remember the problem just to reinforce the correct habits. This was a struggle because I would immediately remember the flaw when beginning to read the argument, and I would immediately remember the correct answer when I was trying to eliminate incorrect choices.

Thanks!