The Official December 2014 Study Group Forum

[mist4bison]

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[GreenTee]

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[Rigo]

[Shakawkaw]

I'd do insanely naughty things for a 180.
Heck I'm super easy. Give me a 170 for the same nefarious deeds.

Accurate. If only I could find some T-14 deans of admissions. Need to creep.

whitedude.jpg

Mods don't like pictures of law school figures, or test prep company founders, as my 'tar learned the hard way...

ETA - nice double entendre, Rigo.

[mist4bison]

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[Hand]

Mods don't like pictures of law school figures, or test prep company founders, as my 'tar learned the hard way...

It's the man's own tar on here, I'm sure he doesn't mind

[Rigo]

[koala-fy]

Apologies if this has been answered already, but how do you guys decide that you've "mastered" a question type while drilling? When you've gotten X out of X correct, or you just feel it, or what?

[Rigo]

[Christine (MLSAT)]

Apologies if this has been answered already, but how do you guys decide that you've "mastered" a question type while drilling? When you've gotten X out of X correct, or you just feel it, or what?

At some point your mistakes will stop being about the question type itself, and will start simply being about the density of language, the logical complexity, or classic argument structures (conditional logic issues, causation correlation, percents/absolute numbers, etc).

You should be looking for that in your (extensive) review - WHY did I miss this question (or WHY was I not confident on this question)? If that is partially answered by "I wasn't clear on my task", then you haven't 'mastered' the question type. If you WERE clear on your task, but got snowed by the above mentioned things, then you've graduated to a more holistic LR analysis and review.

[koala-fy]

It all depends on what your goals are. A 98 percentile scorer will have zero tolerance for missed questions. A 160 scorer might give themselves a little more leeway.
If untimed, I think you should be pretty close to perfect.
Timed, maybe allow yourself a little more slack.

Thank you!! I obviously would love to be at the 98th percentile (and have scored even higher, just not on the actual thing sadly ) so looks like I'm going for close to perfect.

At some point your mistakes will stop being about the question type itself, and will start simply being about the density of language, the logical complexity, or classic argument structures (conditional logic issues, causation correlation, percents/absolute numbers, etc).

You should be looking for that in your (extensive) review - WHY did I miss this question (or WHY was I not confident on this question)? If that is partially answered by "I wasn't clear on my task", then you haven't 'mastered' the question type. If you WERE clear on your task, but got snowed by the above mentioned things, then you've graduated to a more holistic LR analysis and review.

I think this is where I'm at now. It's usually not the task, it's something in the specific language or something that didn't click. And I can't tell you how many times on a second glance (whether it be during BR or even just going back during a timed section) the correct answer seems SO obvious. Ugh it gets so frustrating.

[shootingforthestars]

Apologies if this has been answered already, but how do you guys decide that you've "mastered" a question type while drilling? When you've gotten X out of X correct, or you just feel it, or what?

It all depends on what your goals are. A 98 percentile scorer will have zero tolerance for missed questions. A 160 scorer might give themselves a little more leeway.
If untimed, I think you should be pretty close to perfect.
Timed, maybe allow yourself a little more slack.

Hi Diringo! How many questions do you typically miss? And do you have tolerance for that ?

[GreenTee]

Why would anyone willingly "tolerate" missed questions? That just seems like bad practice, no matter what your skill level and goals are.

[Smallville]

Why would anyone willingly "tolerate" missed questions? That just seems like bad practice, no matter what your skill level and goals are.

"ehh I get like 13/25 question right on avg... I don't need them all right to get my target score so ill go ahead and be okay with only 13"... sounds legit

[nlee10]

Why would anyone willingly "tolerate" missed questions? That just seems like bad practice, no matter what your skill level and goals are.

"ehh I get like 13/25 question right on avg... I don't need them all right to get my target score so ill go ahead and be okay with only 13"... sounds legit

I once came across a #lsat instagram post where the OP was asking for advice and one of the commenters pretty much said "let me know if you need help, I got a 150 on the real thing"

[Rigo]

[j907]

Why would anyone willingly "tolerate" missed questions? That just seems like bad practice, no matter what your skill level and goals are.

"ehh I get like 13/25 question right on avg... I don't need them all right to get my target score so ill go ahead and be okay with only 13"... sounds legit

I once came across a #lsat instagram post where the OP was asking for advice and one of the commenters pretty much said "let me know if you need help, I got a 150 on the real thing"

Hi! What's the best possible way to avoid missing questions while PTing, I do alright while I am practicing under timed conditions but not PTing, like I have a pretty good when I do individual sections but whenever I am in the PT mode, I sort of start freaking out by the 15th LR question even when I have 15 minutes to go and would end up missing 5-6 questions. Same with the games. Just a month left and I am really anxious

[Shakawkaw]

Hi! What's the best possible way to avoid missing questions while PTing, I do alright while I am practicing under timed conditions but not PTing, like I have a pretty good when I do individual sections but whenever I am in the PT mode, I sort of start freaking out by the 15th LR question even when I have 15 minutes to go and would end up missing 5-6 questions. Same with the games. Just a month left and I am really anxious

Sometimes, when I hit question 15, I like to skip around and go to question 20 and do 20-25/25. I usually only do this when I'm having difficulty with the middle questions. Otherwise, when I hit 20, I like to go to the last question and work backwards.

Also, by question 15, I try to be at 15 minutes, not have 15 minutes remaining. That might be why you're getting anxious?

[nlee10]

Hi! What's the best possible way to avoid missing questions while PTing, I do alright while I am practicing under timed conditions but not PTing, like I have a pretty good when I do individual sections but whenever I am in the PT mode, I sort of start freaking out by the 15th LR question even when I have 15 minutes to go and would end up missing 5-6 questions. Same with the games. Just a month left and I am really anxious

Sometimes, when I hit question 15, I like to skip around and go to question 20 and do 20-25/25. I usually only do this when I'm having difficulty with the middle questions. Otherwise, when I hit 20, I like to go to the last question and work backwards.

Also, by question 15, I try to be at 15 minutes, not have 15 minutes remaining. That might be why you're getting anxious?

I too try to pace myself for the "15 in 15" without sacrificing accuracy. As of late, I rarely miss more than 1 or 2 in the first 15 now (which is unbelievable compared to diag).

How many PT's have you done? Taking a few more will help you gain confidence for a PT-setting.

[j907]

Hi! What's the best possible way to avoid missing questions while PTing, I do alright while I am practicing under timed conditions but not PTing, like I have a pretty good when I do individual sections but whenever I am in the PT mode, I sort of start freaking out by the 15th LR question even when I have 15 minutes to go and would end up missing 5-6 questions. Same with the games. Just a month left and I am really anxious

Sometimes, when I hit question 15, I like to skip around and go to question 20 and do 20-25/25. I usually only do this when I'm having difficulty with the middle questions. Otherwise, when I hit 20, I like to go to the last question and work backwards.

Also, by question 15, I try to be at 15 minutes, not have 15 minutes remaining. That might be why you're getting anxious?

I see your point, usually questions 16-20 do eat up a lot of my time, I guess I need to make sure I dont give more than a minute for each of the first 15. Doing questions which appear later sounds like a good strategy too, shall try it in the next PT I take. Thanks Any tips for saving time on the games?

[Shakawkaw]

Hi! What's the best possible way to avoid missing questions while PTing, I do alright while I am practicing under timed conditions but not PTing, like I have a pretty good when I do individual sections but whenever I am in the PT mode, I sort of start freaking out by the 15th LR question even when I have 15 minutes to go and would end up missing 5-6 questions. Same with the games. Just a month left and I am really anxious

Sometimes, when I hit question 15, I like to skip around and go to question 20 and do 20-25/25. I usually only do this when I'm having difficulty with the middle questions. Otherwise, when I hit 20, I like to go to the last question and work backwards.

Also, by question 15, I try to be at 15 minutes, not have 15 minutes remaining. That might be why you're getting anxious?

I see your point, usually questions 16-20 do eat up a lot of my time, I guess I need to make sure I dont give more than a minute for each of the first 15. Doing questions which appear later sounds like a good strategy too, shall try it in the next PT I take. Thanks Any tips for saving time on the games?

Also, for the Sept. prep, I was reading stim to stem. For today's PT, I read from question stem to stimulus, and I felt like that saved some time too. I think I'll be doing this from now on. Granted, I'm still dragging out BR, so I don't know if that actually helped, but I felt focused approaching the question because it caused me to read for specifics, versus reading broadly and potentially having an idea of what the stem will be asking.

Games - just drill types. For most games, the set up is pretty similar, so once you have the basics down, you'll be able to make the appropriate inferences which will shave time from your sets.

[j907]

Hi! What's the best possible way to avoid missing questions while PTing, I do alright while I am practicing under timed conditions but not PTing, like I have a pretty good when I do individual sections but whenever I am in the PT mode, I sort of start freaking out by the 15th LR question even when I have 15 minutes to go and would end up missing 5-6 questions. Same with the games. Just a month left and I am really anxious

Sometimes, when I hit question 15, I like to skip around and go to question 20 and do 20-25/25. I usually only do this when I'm having difficulty with the middle questions. Otherwise, when I hit 20, I like to go to the last question and work backwards.

Also, by question 15, I try to be at 15 minutes, not have 15 minutes remaining. That might be why you're getting anxious?

I too try to pace myself for the "15 in 15" without sacrificing accuracy. As of late, I rarely miss more than 1 or 2 in the first 15 now (which is unbelievable compared to diag).

How many PT's have you done? Taking a few more will help you gain confidence for a PT-setting.

I am actually retaking the test. Got a 161 last December with no serious prep whatsoever, I believe I just got lucky. Now that I have actually spent a little over a month actually learning the strategies and deconstructing various question types, I am having timing issues. Have taken 3 PTs so far, and have been scoring below that 161 mark.

[nlee10]

I am actually retaking the test. Got a 161 last December with no serious prep whatsoever, I believe I just got lucky. Now that I have actually spent a little over a month actually learning the strategies and deconstructing various question types, I am having timing issues. Have taken 3 PTs so far, and have been scoring below that 161 mark.

It's alright, I'm sure with a couple more PT's and review, you'll be seeing increases.

[MEAhrnsbrak]

Hi! What's the best possible way to avoid missing questions while PTing, I do alright while I am practicing under timed conditions but not PTing, like I have a pretty good when I do individual sections but whenever I am in the PT mode, I sort of start freaking out by the 15th LR question even when I have 15 minutes to go and would end up missing 5-6 questions. Same with the games. Just a month left and I am really anxious

Sometimes, when I hit question 15, I like to skip around and go to question 20 and do 20-25/25. I usually only do this when I'm having difficulty with the middle questions. Otherwise, when I hit 20, I like to go to the last question and work backwards.

Also, by question 15, I try to be at 15 minutes, not have 15 minutes remaining. That might be why you're getting anxious?

I pretty much do the same thing. I do the first two pages, then turn to page 4, and then go back to page 3. Typically I spend the most time on page three, so I found myself not rushing through the easy ones and giving myself ample time for the middle questions that can be a bit more thought provoking.

[Yeezus]

Does anyone have experience with the Cambridge Most Difficult packet for LR? Does it have a good mix in terms of the types of questions? I'm thinking of getting this, hoping that it will cover all the bases. Too cheap to buy all the questions by type.