The Official September 2014 Study Group Forum

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cavalier2015

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by cavalier2015 » Sun Aug 10, 2014 11:37 pm

Got a 175 on PT45 I think and then hit reality with a 169,169 on the next two. Nonetheless, congrats and now make sure to maintain that average!

Taking PT52 tomorrow. It's my start of the "new" PTs. Hope it goes well.

dasani13 wrote:
CFC1524 wrote:Took PT 45 in the afternoon today.

LR: -3
RC: -4
LG: -0
LR: -2

Giving me a solid 173. Anyone else take this test recently? I thought the curve was really generous - games were on the easier side, and the LR and RC seemed relatively normal. Thoughts?
I thought PTs in the 40s were noticeably less difficult than the most recent ones but that 173 is still a great job, of course. Good job!

Valamar

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by Valamar » Mon Aug 11, 2014 3:27 am

kevgogators wrote:So....is anyone else contemplating suicide yet? :evil:
Stay strong! I think a lot of people (myself included) are hitting a wall around this point, but I've talked to a bunch of previous LSAT takers and the general consensus is that once September comes, your motivation will be rekindled. =)

h3jk5h

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by h3jk5h » Mon Aug 11, 2014 8:31 am

Valamar wrote:
kevgogators wrote:So....is anyone else contemplating suicide yet? :evil:
Stay strong! I think a lot of people (myself included) are hitting a wall around this point, but I've talked to a bunch of previous LSAT takers and the general consensus is that once September comes, your motivation will be rekindled. =)
I already have suicide. I'm spiritually reborn today.

HRomanus

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by HRomanus » Mon Aug 11, 2014 9:23 am

The suicide jokes are definitely in poor taste.

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Toby Ziegler

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by Toby Ziegler » Mon Aug 11, 2014 10:13 am

HRomanus wrote:The suicide jokes are definitely in poor taste.

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valen

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by valen » Mon Aug 11, 2014 11:59 am

For retakers out there, I have some silly basic questions:
-can we bring in bottled water?
-can we use our own pencil sharpener or is one provided?
-can we bring in extra pencils or erasers?
-can we bring in a stop watch or timer, or do we need to rely on the wall clock?
-does the proctor warn you at 5 minutes left?
Thanks in advance!

HRomanus

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by HRomanus » Mon Aug 11, 2014 12:25 pm

valen wrote:For retakers out there, I have some silly basic questions:
-can we bring in bottled water?
-can we use our own pencil sharpener or is one provided?
-can we bring in extra pencils or erasers?
-can we bring in a stop watch or timer, or do we need to rely on the wall clock?
-does the proctor warn you at 5 minutes left?
Thanks in advance!
1. Yes, but it stays under your desk.
2. Bring your own. Get this one: http://www.amazon.com/Staedtler-Pencil- ... +sharpener
3. You should bring extra pencils and extra erasers.
4. You can bring a non-digital watch - and yes, you should bring one.
5. Yes, typically. Don't trust proctors though, bring a watch.

ETA I love how the sharpener describes itself as "double hole" - that sounds so wonderfully sexual.

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rwe13

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by rwe13 » Mon Aug 11, 2014 12:51 pm

Straight up dreaming about logic games almost every night. My mind will make up some convoluted game that I'll be like half asleep trying to figure out before I'll finally wake up and realize that the game isn't real and doesn't make sense because it was authored by my subconscious hah.

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dardardelight

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by dardardelight » Mon Aug 11, 2014 12:57 pm

Anybody take PT 55 recently and thought it was abnormally easy?

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HRomanus

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by HRomanus » Mon Aug 11, 2014 1:09 pm

dardardelight wrote:Anybody take PT 55 recently and thought it was abnormally easy?
I took it two weeks ago and got a 172. I don't remember the sections, but I have notes that I finished LG with 5:48 left and went -0.

Learn_Live_Hope

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by Learn_Live_Hope » Mon Aug 11, 2014 1:21 pm

HRomanus wrote:The suicide jokes are definitely in poor taste.
+1

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schmelling

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by schmelling » Mon Aug 11, 2014 1:43 pm

.
Last edited by schmelling on Sat Feb 28, 2015 4:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Irish11

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by Irish11 » Mon Aug 11, 2014 1:56 pm

Another question for re-takers: What do people typically do/what are people allowed to do during the break? Sitting there staring at the clock makes me lose focus. Can I take a walk? Go to the back of the room and do jumping jacks? Or just sit quietly and lose focus?

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CFC1524

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by CFC1524 » Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:03 pm

Irish11 wrote:Another question for re-takers: What do people typically do/what are people allowed to do during the break? Sitting there staring at the clock makes me lose focus. Can I take a walk? Go to the back of the room and do jumping jacks? Or just sit quietly and lose focus?
We were allowed to leave the room. I went for a walk (the proctors made sure we didn't leave the particular floor we were on) and made small talk with the people in the hallway. By the time I returned to the test center I had almost forgotten I'd done 3 sections already.

Disclaimer: this could vary by test center

Disclaimer about the disclaimer: I doubt that it does
Last edited by CFC1524 on Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

cavalier2015

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by cavalier2015 » Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:13 pm

PT 52 under timed conditions:

LR: -10
LG: -2
RC: -1
167

I had previously diagnosed Flaws to be my greatest flaw (no pun intended..) so I worked on that the past 3 days only and went 7/8. So for those of you who think drilling is pointless, I found it pretty helpful. Now I found out I suck at weakness and mss. will spend the next few days working on these, doing LG games to not loose touch, and some passages as to not loose touch.

Will take PT 53 and PT 54 sometime this week as well.

Learn_Live_Hope

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by Learn_Live_Hope » Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:14 pm

cavalier2015 wrote:PT 52 under timed conditions:

LR: -10
LG: -2
RC: -1
167

I had previously diagnosed Flaws to be my greatest flaw (no pun intended..) so I worked on that the past 3 days only and went 7/8. So for those of you who think drilling is pointless, I found it pretty helpful. Now I found out I suck at weakness and mss. will spend the next few days working on these, doing LG games to not loose touch, and some passages as to not loose touch.

Will take PT 53 and PT 54 sometime this week as well.
How did you improve on flaw? I have trouble with those as well :(

HRomanus

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by HRomanus » Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:20 pm

I hate parallel reasoning questions with a passion. I rarely miss them, but they take forever to do.

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bound

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by bound » Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:23 pm

jmjm wrote:
bound wrote:PT69 today

LR1 -4
LG - 0
RC -9 :oops:
LR2 - 0

169.
Fuck you RC.
rc has become very hard recently. aren't you retaking a very high score; how was your rc on that test? where are your rc mistakes coming from?
tbh, 69 LR is tough so -4 on it is good.
Yes, retaking higher. But haven't studied since the last go around. Definitely content with a 169 with 6 weeks to go. I missed 5 on RC on the real deal in December 2013, but only missing 5 isn't typical. I just thought December 2013's RC was really easy.

joeisreallycool

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by joeisreallycool » Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:29 pm

Did you guys hop around when drilling? Not just for individual question types but sections too?

I've been pretty much drilling LR because its my weakest point and have yet to touch LG because I'm already fairly good at it, just need to nail down timing a bit better. Definitely feel behind the eight ball seeing all of you already going PT after PT.

HRomanus

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by HRomanus » Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:36 pm

joeisreallycool wrote:Did you guys hop around when drilling? Not just for individual question types but sections too?

I've been pretty much drilling LR because its my weakest point and have yet to touch LG because I'm already fairly good at it, just need to nail down timing a bit better. Definitely feel behind the eight ball seeing all of you already going PT after PT.
You definitely need to do at least one PT every week starting the last week of August. You cannot go into the test without at least 2-4 PTs under your belt. I didn't when I took last October and it definitely hurt me.

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Comstock

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by Comstock » Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:37 pm

Hey guys,

PT 56:

LG 19/23 (-4)
LR 1 22/25 (-3)
LR 2 21/25 (-4)
RC 23/27 (-4)

Score: 167

Upon blind review:

LG 23/24 (-0)
LR 1 24/25 (-1)
LR 2 24/25 (-1)
RC 25/27 (-2)

Score: 178

So I made a bunch of dumb mistakes in LG which cost me, but I'm learning from it and working to improve on it so as to avoid in the future. I still think I can get LG down to a consistent good score and that I have room to improve and work on it, so that's a good sign. However, I'm starting to feel like LR and RC are approaching my 'natural' ability in a way, and I'm stuck on how to consistently improve it. When I go over LG with mistakes, I quickly see what the issue is and can identify ways to make this go better for next time, whether it be in my game-set up, timing on other games, etc. In other words, I feel like I have concrete approaches to get better and more consistent.

On the other hand, when I go over LR and RC, I can identify the question I'm getting wrong quickly (as done in the BR) and easily get the right answer down for 97%-99% of the questions I do in LR/RC. But, there are absolutely 0 trends I see (even LSAT QA is all over the place) with certain question types I'm getting wrong - they are almost all just stupid mistakes. I've also had success in these sections before, so its not like I'm incapable of doing well on them, it just seems that there is a lot of luck in whether I make a dumb mistake or not.

I've gone perfect on a PT at some point in all of LR, RC and LG, as well as numerous times of -1/-2, etc. It seems when at least a few of the sections align well (as in, I don't make/ I catch a bunch of dumb mistakes in more than one section or two) I'm able to break 170. To be honest, I'm happy with a 167 and my original goal was anything 165+ so I'm very happy with my score range at the moment, but its frustrating seeing how many mistakes I'm making simply because I miss a key word or read something wrong, which upon review I identify in 30-45 seconds. It would almost be less frustrating if I got a 167 and had to look up in textbooks/online why what I did was wrong - then at least I would know I'm performing to my abilities.

So at this point I'm wondering if anyone has any tips/tricks or strategies for improvement who has experienced similar things. My strategy right now is to continue doing PTs consistently, while also writing out why I got a question type wrong after each PT. So for example I have a page where I write down where my thought process went wrong for each LR and RC question I got wrong, and I re-read it a few times before my next PT to try and internalize where I'm getting trapped so as to make conscious moves to avoid them in the future. Hopefully this helps, but any other pro tips? I really don't think Cambridge packets or anything like that is useful for me anymore - again, I have the fundamentals, just need to put it all together consistently in a PT.

Then again, I may also just be at the point of diminishing returns where I'm going to have to work a lot to see my average scores go up consistently and/or I may just be at getting close to a natural peak where my average is around 168~ and on "good days" I can break 170. I guess only time will tell! Hope everyone else is doing well and thanks for any advice in advance.

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joeisreallycool

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by joeisreallycool » Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:40 pm

HRomanus wrote:
joeisreallycool wrote:Did you guys hop around when drilling? Not just for individual question types but sections too?

I've been pretty much drilling LR because its my weakest point and have yet to touch LG because I'm already fairly good at it, just need to nail down timing a bit better. Definitely feel behind the eight ball seeing all of you already going PT after PT.
You definitely need to do at least one PT every week starting the last week of August. You cannot go into the test without at least 2-4 PTs under your belt. I didn't when I took last October and it definitely hurt me.

Do PTs themselves help with timing?

HRomanus

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by HRomanus » Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:43 pm

joeisreallycool wrote:
HRomanus wrote:
joeisreallycool wrote:Did you guys hop around when drilling? Not just for individual question types but sections too?

I've been pretty much drilling LR because its my weakest point and have yet to touch LG because I'm already fairly good at it, just need to nail down timing a bit better. Definitely feel behind the eight ball seeing all of you already going PT after PT.
You definitely need to do at least one PT every week starting the last week of August. You cannot go into the test without at least 2-4 PTs under your belt. I didn't when I took last October and it definitely hurt me.

Do PTs themselves help with timing?
Yes, PTs will help with timing in that you're doing a bunch of timed sections. PTs reinforce your fundamentals and develop time management and stamina skills. The latter skills are why you really need to PT before a test. Certainly timed sections are relevant and worthwhile, especially while drilling, but they're not replicating the intellectual stress of a full-length test with scantron.

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schmelling

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by schmelling » Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:44 pm

.
Last edited by schmelling on Sat Feb 28, 2015 4:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

joeisreallycool

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Re: The Official September 2014 Study Group

Post by joeisreallycool » Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:51 pm

HRomanus wrote:
joeisreallycool wrote:
HRomanus wrote:
joeisreallycool wrote:Did you guys hop around when drilling? Not just for individual question types but sections too?

I've been pretty much drilling LR because its my weakest point and have yet to touch LG because I'm already fairly good at it, just need to nail down timing a bit better. Definitely feel behind the eight ball seeing all of you already going PT after PT.
You definitely need to do at least one PT every week starting the last week of August. You cannot go into the test without at least 2-4 PTs under your belt. I didn't when I took last October and it definitely hurt me.

Do PTs themselves help with timing?
Yes, PTs will help with timing in that you're doing a bunch of timed sections. PTs reinforce your fundamentals and develop time management and stamina skills. The latter skills are why you really need to PT before a test. Certainly timed sections are relevant and worthwhile, especially while drilling, but they're not replicating the intellectual stress of a full-length test with scantron.
Definitely see that in the 3 PTs I've done. Completely DEAD by the end of it, and they are only 4 sections. What about drilling with the earlier PTs? More than likely I would just use them for experimental sections anyways, any experience with just drilling full sections at a time? Or would it be better to use them as experimentals.

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