The Official September 2014 Study Group Forum

ilikebaseball · Post by **ilikebaseball** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 2:03 pm

It seems to me that june was just hard for a lot of people. I wouldnt look too far into it. Just keep working.

Oskosh · Post by **Oskosh** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 2:10 pm

I mean, let's be honest guys....

What is the likelihood that the December 2013, the June 2014, AND the September 2014 test will have a -13 curve??

bound · Post by **bound** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 3:03 pm

Oskosh wrote:I mean, let's be honest guys....

What is the likelihood that the December 2013, the June 2014, AND the September 2014 test will have a -13 curve??

Dec 13 was -14, wasn't it? And thank the Lord it was hahah.

NotASpecialSnowflake · Post by **NotASpecialSnowflake** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 3:17 pm

Oskosh wrote:I mean, let's be honest guys....

What is the likelihood that the December 2013, the June 2014, AND the September 2014 test will have a -13 curve??

It makes sense in light of declining admissions. If people get higher scores thanks to an easier curve, more people will go to law school and schools can keep their medians high.

vracovino · Post by **vracovino** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 4:20 pm

Hope everyone had a nice fourth of July weekend and got at least a small break from their studies for a while.

I just took my first timed LR section...ever! I'm done drilling Assumption Family and currently working through Analyzing Argument Q's. I haven't touched Inference yet.

Anyway, I got a -4 (PT40, s1) which I'm pretty stoked about. It seemed a bit easy and I know I could have done better, but I was unsure of how I would handle timing so I rushed through some earlier questions I should have spent more time on. Then i missed the last three because they required a bit more of a careful approach and I was feeling a little dazed. Looking back a lot of them that I missed I could have answered accurately with better representation of conditionals. Nonetheless, I KNOW I could do better, and I know I will do better after I'm drilling for another few weeks and as long as I keep working on timing.

It feels good to at least know the drilling for LR has paid off. Some of the Weaken, Strengthen and Flaw Q's were an absolute breeze compared to many of the level 3s and 4s in the packets I drilled.

Now..LG's are another story.

JakethaSnake · Post by **JakethaSnake** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 4:23 pm

Got a 163 on the June LSAT so definitely rewriting with everyone here. I went -15 on RC, -15!!! It was about -10 worse then my average prep test and is the reason I am here, but oh well. Anyone got tips on how to refine my RC skills, without starting over as my PT since the scores were released have been 176 and 174. Lets get it.

appind · Post by **appind** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 4:30 pm

JakethaSnake wrote:Got a 163 on the June LSAT so definitely rewriting with everyone here. I went -15 on RC, -15!!! It was about -10 worse then my average prep test and is the reason I am here, but oh well. Anyone got tips on how to refine my RC skills, without starting over as my PT since the scores were released have been 176 and 174. Lets get it.

Can you say why you did worse on test day RC than the regular PT? Are the PTs you have taken fresh tests?

JakethaSnake · Post by **JakethaSnake** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 4:38 pm

Can you say why you did worse on test day RC than the regular PT? Are the PTs you have taken fresh tests?

Much worse, lower then I have ever done including my cold diagnostic. And yes they were. They were 50 and 52 so not super recent. I have done 60-71 but plan to rewrite them in August/September. I prepped for 4 weeks so every PT I did was just crammed together in a short period.

vracovino · Post by **vracovino** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 5:05 pm

JakethaSnake wrote:Got a 163 on the June LSAT so definitely rewriting with everyone here. I went -15 on RC, -15!!! It was about -10 worse then my average prep test and is the reason I am here, but oh well. Anyone got tips on how to refine my RC skills, without starting over as my PT since the scores were released have been 176 and 174. Lets get it.

Wow

sorry man. that's rough. I could see feeling overwhelmed with the section on test day when a hard passage comes along. Its easy to get flustered.

appind · Post by **appind** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 5:27 pm

JakethaSnake wrote: Much worse, lower then I have ever done including my cold diagnostic. And yes they were. They were 50 and 52 so not super recent. I have done 60-71 but plan to rewrite them in August/September. I prepped for 4 weeks so every PT I did was just crammed together in a short period.

Same score in june. -9 in RC. For me the worst part is not knowing how to fix it as I have already done the books.

gnomgnomuch · Post by **gnomgnomuch** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 5:41 pm

I'm working 30 hours in a 3 day span (on day two, currently)....and all i want to do is to drill and review.

=(

chimera · Post by **chimera** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 6:28 pm

Just got home after traveling all over New England this weekend... Signed up for two free practice exams--one next Thursday, the other in mid-August. As for this week I plan on drilling more RC and LR. I'd like to take a PT from the 50s Thursday or Friday if anyone wants to review.

The Natural Sciences packet had me coming up with a new strategy. Typically I'm good an synthesizing and understanding what I'm reading and don't have to return to the text too often, but now if I get the sense that the passage will be dense, and especially when it is scientific, I'll focus more on simply getting through the passage asap (without skimming, of course) while focusing mostly on the structure. This gives me extra time to approach the questions by returning to the text more frequently than I usually do. Basically I've learned that anticipating difficulty and knowing when or if to change your strategy is something I should be more actively practicing. FWIW PT28-S4-P2 (Volcano/Climate connection, El Nino) is a good example of where I'd use this.

ilikebaseball · Post by **ilikebaseball** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 7:11 pm

appind wrote:
JakethaSnake wrote: Much worse, lower then I have ever done including my cold diagnostic. And yes they were. They were 50 and 52 so not super recent. I have done 60-71 but plan to rewrite them in August/September. I prepped for 4 weeks so every PT I did was just crammed together in a short period.
Same score in june. -9 in RC. For me the worst part is not knowing how to fix it as I have already done the books.

idk why, but the bible is helping me so much in RC. You just have to somewhat follow the tone of each paragraph. Like when I read, I'm starting to read with the mindset "okay this is a critics perspective and its negative." or "this is the author and he likes the idea." That little thing right there answers about half of the questions on its own. Just write to the side of the paragraph "+" or "-" and write the perspective. Just doing that right there has boosted my score a little bit. Then, the rest of the questions are usually specific and refer you to a specific paragraph or line. I'm finishing passages and questions from 6 30-7 minutes now each. IDK how much that'll work for everyone, but its done wonders for me.

mornincounselor · Post by **mornincounselor** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 9:07 pm

Post removed.

ilikebaseball · Post by **ilikebaseball** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 9:11 pm

lol... the infamous bus game

wsag826 · Post by **wsag826** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 9:50 pm

Hi all - I'm new here but have been lurking for a bit and will be taking the September 2014 test. I was initially registered for the June test but delayed because I was simply not ready. I've finally finished reading all of the bibles except the RC - and I'm going to see how the RC goes as I start doing a lot more practice tests - but I'm particularly worried about time. Not finishing anything, or really even coming close. I've done about 3-4 LR and LG practice tests and have finished, at most, 16 questions on the LR section and 12 questions on the LG section. So I definitely have my work cut out for me. What frequently happens is I'll see a hard question, try to work through it, and stumble, so I'll move on and then encounter another hard question. So skipping and coming back hasn't exactly worked for me.

Kind of stuttering as to what I should do re: time because it feels like quite the obstacle to overcome and I feel like for as formulaic as LG and LR feel when I'm reading about them, each question turns into a different beast when I'm actually taking different practice tests. Is anyone else severely behind on time and doing anything that has proven helpful with regards to cutting the amount of time you spend on problems?

Louis1127 · Post by **Louis1127** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 11:10 pm

choward014 wrote:lol... the infamous bus game

There were two (to my current knowledge, which may incomplete) games about buses, and both of them were two of the hardest games of all time. Why does LSAC hate buses so much?

Louis1127 · Post by **Louis1127** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 11:28 pm

NotASpecialSnowflake wrote:
Oskosh wrote:I mean, let's be honest guys....

What is the likelihood that the December 2013, the June 2014, AND the September 2014 test will have a -13 curve??
It makes sense in light of declining admissions. If people get higher scores thanks to an easier curve, more people will go to law school and schools can keep their medians high.

I don't think it works like that

mornincounselor · Post by **mornincounselor** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 11:52 pm

Post removed.

Louis1127 · Post by **Louis1127** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 11:57 pm

mornincounselor wrote:
Louis1127 wrote:
choward014 wrote:lol... the infamous bus game
There were two (to my current knowledge, which may incomplete) games about buses, and both of them were two of the hardest games of all time. Why does LSAC hate buses so much?
I wouldn't call this bus game (4 people getting off on different stops from 55) super hard. It was just weird I'm sure if I spent another 12 minutes on it I would have it easily figured out. If it would have been four people getting on a bus at different stops than it would have lined up with games we normally play so it was kinda standard just backwards I'm sure JY will have some crazy way of making it look so intuitive.

well all games aren't that hard if you give me 24 minutes lol

ilikebaseball · Post by **ilikebaseball** » Mon Jul 07, 2014 12:00 am

Starting to rethink even retaking this test. I'm almost guaranteed BL in Dallas. Not for sure, but still. So it might just be a lot less stressful to apply to SMU and OU and then just seeing if I can get into UT with my current GPA. It doesnt really matter where I go I guess, it just matters more for me to graduate with as little debt as possible.

vracovino · Post by **vracovino** » Mon Jul 07, 2014 12:02 am

NotASpecialSnowflake wrote:
Oskosh wrote:I mean, let's be honest guys....

What is the likelihood that the December 2013, the June 2014, AND the September 2014 test will have a -13 curve??
It makes sense in light of declining admissions. If people get higher scores thanks to an easier curve, more people will go to law school and schools can keep their medians high.

I wish the flaws in reasoning were this apparent in the actual LR questions

gavaga1 · Post by **gavaga1** » Mon Jul 07, 2014 12:24 am

alexrodriguez · Post by **alexrodriguez** » Mon Jul 07, 2014 12:33 am

This will be my last post on TLS until after the September exam.

82 days left to study.

Work hard.

pcph · Post by **pcph** » Mon Jul 07, 2014 8:29 am