The Official September 2014 Study Group Forum

[ilikebaseball]

Now this I could never do. Some of the stories here on TLS amaze me. I try to never find an excuse NOT to study because I constantly here about guys "who are married with 2 kids, work full time, and take classes" or something of that nature.

qft

just wondering, is your username named after Jason Chimera? One of my fav hockey player

[kbrizz]

Any of you spend more time thinking about lsat and not so called 'studying' for it? My work even though it's only 5 days a week leaves little time for study.
how are full timers here managing it?

I bring drills with me to work on when I have downtime at work. I have never gotten flack for it because I make sure to do my work first and only use free/downtime to study. I also always bring a lunch and sit in a conference room during my lunch hour eating and studying. I'll sometimes read over reference passages during breakfast in the morning too. After work I give myself an hour or so to relax, walk the pup, etc before I'm back at the desk for another 2-4 hours of focused studying/pting/drilling.

I'm also doing my masters full time so it's really important for me to be diligent in time management. Once you get in a rhythm it'll be easier to maintain. Ya just need to suck it up at first and realize that this is only temporary - you'll have a life again after September.

Edit: also remember that weekends are invaluable for getting 10+ hours of studying in. I usually do 4-5 hrs Saturday and Sunday morning, and then another 2 or so both evenings.

Now this I could never do. Some of the stories here on TLS amaze me. I try to never find an excuse NOT to study because I constantly here about guys "who are married with 2 kids, work full time, and take classes" or something of that nature.

Amen. People here are some of the best motivation for studying ever. I have no excuses haha

[chimera]

Now this I could never do. Some of the stories here on TLS amaze me. I try to never find an excuse NOT to study because I constantly here about guys "who are married with 2 kids, work full time, and take classes" or something of that nature.

qft

just wondering, is your username named after Jason Chimera? One of my fav hockey player

Negative. It's the title of one of my favorite books by John Barth.

[Gray]

.

[jmjm]

e: double post

[jmjm]

Any of you spend more time thinking about lsat and not so called 'studying' for it? My work even though it's only 5 days a week leaves little time for study.
how are full timers here managing it?

I bring drills with me to work on when I have downtime at work. I have never gotten flack for it because I make sure to do my work first and only use free/downtime to study. I also always bring a lunch and sit in a conference room during my lunch hour eating and studying. I'll sometimes read over reference passages during breakfast in the morning too. After work I give myself an hour or so to relax, walk the pup, etc before I'm back at the desk for another 2-4 hours of focused studying/pting/drilling.

I'm also doing my masters full time so it's really important for me to be diligent in time management. Once you get in a rhythm it'll be easier to maintain. Ya just need to suck it up at first and realize that this is only temporary - you'll have a life again after September.

Edit: also remember that weekends are invaluable for getting 10+ hours of studying in. I usually do 4-5 hrs Saturday and Sunday morning, and then another 2 or so both evenings.

no classes during the day? how are you managing attending both masters classes/lectures and work during weekdays if you work fulltime. It can be very demanding. I can see masters studies though being a little helpful as it keeps you aligned with and in touch academic thinking. In my line of for profit work, trying to be academic can be isolating and detrimental for career. One can't study at work. It seems to me that during my masters many years ago, it was much easier to study for standardized tests along with course work.

edit: info

[boris09]

Throughout my drilling process, and even in the LSAT Trainer drills, my weakest LR question type is always weaken questions. I'm having a lot of difficulty understanding what can be causing me to be good at flaw questions, good at strengthening questions, but horrible at weaken questions...

Has anyone who has ever had trouble with this type and overcame it, or anyone in general who has a good grasp of this type offer any tips or suggestions for how i can approach/answer these questions?

FWIW i do use the MLSAT forum for any question i get wrong/confused about, but maybe my brain isn't really processing what i'm supposed to 'see'

[Jon McCarty]

Throughout my drilling process, and even in the LSAT Trainer drills, my weakest LR question type is always weaken questions. I'm having a lot of difficulty understanding what can be causing me to be good at flaw questions, good at strengthening questions, but horrible at weaken questions...

Has anyone who has ever had trouble with this type and overcame it, or anyone in general who has a good grasp of this type offer any tips or suggestions for how i can approach/answer these questions?

FWIW i do use the MLSAT forum for any question i get wrong/confused about, but maybe my brain isn't really processing what i'm supposed to 'see'

The usual suspects would be:

not focusing on the conclusion/trying to weaken premises
not predicting what you think the correct answer will be after reading the stem
being poor at weakening causality

Any of these hitting home?

[dasani13]

Throughout my drilling process, and even in the LSAT Trainer drills, my weakest LR question type is always weaken questions. I'm having a lot of difficulty understanding what can be causing me to be good at flaw questions, good at strengthening questions, but horrible at weaken questions...

Has anyone who has ever had trouble with this type and overcame it, or anyone in general who has a good grasp of this type offer any tips or suggestions for how i can approach/answer these questions?

FWIW i do use the MLSAT forum for any question i get wrong/confused about, but maybe my brain isn't really processing what i'm supposed to 'see'

Have you drilled this type before? That helped me a lot.

[ilikebaseball]

PT66
RC-4
LR-4
LG-0
LR-2
-10 169... not too shabby after pt165's debacle

[Gray]

.

[ilikebaseball]

PT66
RC-4
LR-4
LG-0
LR-2
-10 169... not too shabby after pt165's debacle

-10 for a 169?? That's a rough curve.

Definitely felt like an easier test though, I will say that. Especially the games.

[HRomanus]

Do any other full time workers see their work product dropping as a result of LSAT prep?

[lsat_hopefull]

I have recently decided to make a serious effort to prepare for the September LSAT exam. I have been have to date only been half-heartedly studying. I have been scoring between 155-160 on the practice tests I have taken so far. My weakest test section seems to be the logic games area. I am missing roughly 10-12 questions in that section on every practice test. Does anyone have any advice on how to improve my score in the logic games section? Any help and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! thanks in advance.

[Gray]

.

[HRomanus]

Are the LGs on PT 55 just really easy? I finished with 5:48 remaining and went 23/23 - albeit without using Scantron.

[Louis1127]

Are the LGs on PT 55 just really easy? I finished with 5:48 remaining and went 23/23 - albeit without using Scantron.

Not the easiest game set I've ever seen, although not the hardest. Bus stops isn't easy. Good work.

[jmjm]

Do any other full time workers see their work product dropping as a result of LSAT prep?

Even though i leave work for home in the evening, my business requires constant attention to product users. So it's a little 24/7 even if pretty much in the background and prevents full immersion in lsat speak. But that i think is the case for all corporate environments.

[Gray]

.

[HRomanus]

Do any other full time workers see their work product dropping as a result of LSAT prep?

Even though i leave work for home in the evening, my business requires constant attention to product users. So it's a little 24/7 even if pretty much in the background and prevents full immersion in lsat speak. But that i think is the case for all corporate environments.

How are you managing work/LSAT life balance? For me, success on the LSAT is vastly more important than my August-October work product - even if my bosses would obviously disagree. I'm really trying to run on minimum work product between now and the LSAT, which I feel just absolutely awful doing. It doesn't help that our business season is September.

Yeah I remember the bus stops being frustrating, but I did go -0... I don't think I had much extra time though. The RC of 55 effed me up though. This was the RC that made me buy MLSAT.

I went -3 on RC, which is unusual for me. The passages weren't that hard for me, but several questions definitely were. #15 and #21 really gave me fits. Any suggestions on how to deal with something like 21?

[gnomgnomuch]

Any of you spend more time thinking about lsat and not so called 'studying' for it? My work even though it's only 5 days a week leaves little time for study.
how are full timers here managing it?

I bring drills with me to work on when I have downtime at work. I have never gotten flack for it because I make sure to do my work first and only use free/downtime to study. I also always bring a lunch and sit in a conference room during my lunch hour eating and studying. I'll sometimes read over reference passages during breakfast in the morning too. After work I give myself an hour or so to relax, walk the pup, etc before I'm back at the desk for another 2-4 hours of focused studying/pting/drilling.

I'm also doing my masters full time so it's really important for me to be diligent in time management. Once you get in a rhythm it'll be easier to maintain. Ya just need to suck it up at first and realize that this is only temporary - you'll have a life again after September.

Edit: also remember that weekends are invaluable for getting 10+ hours of studying in. I usually do 4-5 hrs Saturday and Sunday morning, and then another 2 or so both evenings.

no classes during the day? how are you managing attending both masters classes/lectures and work during weekdays if you work fulltime. It can be very demanding. I can see masters studies though being a little helpful as it keeps you aligned with and in touch academic thinking. In my line of for profit work, trying to be academic can be isolating and detrimental for career. One can't study at work. It seems to me that during my masters many years ago, it was much easier to study for standardized tests along with course work.

edit: info

Really depends on what i'm doing. I work for one company, but i do EVERYTHING there, list of duties include: Supervisor, basketball coach, personal trainer, volleyball coach and security. When I'm coaching/training I literally cant do anything LSAT related. When I'm a supervisor it's weird. I've had days where I've literally loll'ed away the day watching Netflix, and days where I wasn't able to relax for more then 10 minutes at a time, because something was happening. Security is the same, if its a regular quiet day, I'm solid on doing some light drilling - still have to keep track of whose coming in and whatnot - but if its a heavy day, I've got no shot at studying.

My schedule is like this:
Monday - Taking Chem/on transport from 10 30 - 5 30. Get home, relax/eat/etc. and start studying around 7. Study till about 9.
Tuesday - Chem is the same, except I go to work, and get home at 10:30... no studying.
Wednesday - is Monday.
Thursday - studying all day (either chem/LSAT) go to work in the afternoon, come home at 10 30.
Friday - study all day.
Saturday - study all day.
Sunday - study till like 1, go to work, and get home at around 9:30.

*All day means around 4-6 hours of studying, usually closer to 6*

I found its ALL time management, and sticking to it, if you can be diligent about it, you'll be fine.

[Colonel_funkadunk]

PT66
RC-4
LR-4
LG-0
LR-2
-10 169... not too shabby after pt165's debacle

-10 for a 169?? That's a rough curve.

PT46 Was -9 for a 170. I got -13 for a 167.

[valen]

no classes during the day? how are you managing attending both masters classes/lectures and work during weekdays if you work fulltime. It can be very demanding. I can see masters studies though being a little helpful as it keeps you aligned with and in touch academic thinking. In my line of for profit work, trying to be academic can be isolating and detrimental for career. One can't study at work. It seems to me that during my masters many years ago, it was much easier to study for standardized tests along with course work.

edit: info

It's definitely a struggle, but most of my classes are evening. I have decided to put off graduation one semester (January instead of fall) so I could focus more on lsat prep. But I agree, already being in an academic mindset was somewhat helpful. Sorry to hear that your work and academia don't match up, I work in a for profit company also but they love my penchant for learning.

[jmjm]

Do any other full time workers see their work product dropping as a result of LSAT prep?

Even though i leave work for home in the evening, my business requires constant attention to product users. So it's a little 24/7 even if pretty much in the background and prevents full immersion in lsat speak. But that i think is the case for all corporate environments.

How are you managing work/LSAT life balance? For me, success on the LSAT is vastly more important than my August-October work product - even if my bosses would obviously disagree. I'm really trying to run on minimum work product between now and the LSAT, which I feel just absolutely awful doing. It doesn't help that our business season is September.

tbh, i try to devote my weekends to lsat and weekdays to work but it's not that straight. it gets mixed up. i have had to limit my work too at times and it doesn't feel good. One of the challenges is that one's ass is always in the firing line, very unlike academia. if you shipped a product to a company or another user, you are on the hook, all the time. An intellectually strong argument without operational execution is nothing in the biz world so everything centers on growing the business. bosses will of course disagree with anything that divides one's commitment. i am a little surprised that some here can openly study at work, don't their bosses then consider it a flight risk.

[jmjm]

Really depends on what i'm doing. I work for one company, but i do EVERYTHING there, list of duties include: Supervisor, basketball coach, personal trainer, volleyball coach and security. When I'm coaching/training I literally cant do anything LSAT related. When I'm a supervisor it's weird. I've had days where I've literally loll'ed away the day watching Netflix, and days where I wasn't able to relax for more then 10 minutes at a time, because something was happening. Security is the same, if its a regular quiet day, I'm solid on doing some light drilling - still have to keep track of whose coming in and whatnot - but if its a heavy day, I've got no shot at studying.

My schedule is like this:
Monday - Taking Chem/on transport from 10 30 - 5 30. Get home, relax/eat/etc. and start studying around 7. Study till about 9.
Tuesday - Chem is the same, except I go to work, and get home at 10:30... no studying.
Wednesday - is Monday.
Thursday - studying all day (either chem/LSAT) go to work in the afternoon, come home at 10 30.
Friday - study all day.
Saturday - study all day.
Sunday - study till like 1, go to work, and get home at around 9:30.

*All day means around 4-6 hours of studying, usually closer to 6*

I found its ALL time management, and sticking to it, if you can be diligent about it, you'll be fine.

what's Chem?