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PTs in the 30s and LG are ridiculous
Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 5:37 pm
by honestabe84
For some reason I can't get these. The more recent LG is just nothing compared to LG in the 30s. I'm surprised each of these tests didn't have a curve of -16 or something.
I seem to be doing good on the more recent LGs, but should I be concerned that I suck at LG in the 30s. Is it normal that I find those ridiculously hard?
Re: PTs in the 30s and LG are ridiculous
Posted: Mon May 03, 2010 4:11 pm
by scuzle
The test as the whole has changed. If you look at the LR from then and now, the current LRs are totally harder. I think they changed the strategy on LG. They used to give you 4 pretty hard ones, with one f'd rule, in my opinion. Now they give you 3 decently easy games and one terrible one! But, I agree for the most part.
Re: PTs in the 30s and LG are ridiculous
Posted: Mon May 03, 2010 4:21 pm
by honestabe84
scuzle wrote:The test as the whole has changed. If you look at the LR from then and now, the current LRs are totally harder. I think they changed the strategy on LG. They used to give you 4 pretty hard ones, with one f'd rule, in my opinion. Now they give you 3 decently easy games and one terrible one! But, I agree for the most part.
I agree with everything you said about the games, but I think LR has stayed about the same. In fact, I've heard many people say that they think LR has become more straight forward.
Edit: I did do the games on PT 35, and I must say that I found them very manageable, especially compared the game from PT 30-34.
Re: PTs in the 30s and LG are ridiculous
Posted: Mon May 03, 2010 4:28 pm
by scuzle
honestabe84 wrote:scuzle wrote:The test as the whole has changed. If you look at the LR from then and now, the current LRs are totally harder. I think they changed the strategy on LG. They used to give you 4 pretty hard ones, with one f'd rule, in my opinion. Now they give you 3 decently easy games and one terrible one! But, I agree for the most part.
I agree with everything you said about the games, but I think LR has stayed about the same. In fact, I've heard many people say that they think LR has become more straight forward.
I feel that that could be true in part, but simply false in another. If you look at the questions which are predicated on formal logic they are filled with a tremendous amount of "noise." They are elliptical and have information which does not pertain to the argument. So where the questions were to the point of connecting necc and suff conditions, now its about navigating the hurdles the test creates. I think the flaw questions are infinitely harder as well. It might be easier to diagnose the flaw, I would concede that, however the answer choices are muddled and confusing. However, I would say that weakeners and paradox as a whole are quite easy to navigate and havent deviated from the former construct.
Re: PTs in the 30s and LG are ridiculous
Posted: Mon May 03, 2010 4:41 pm
by honestabe84
scuzle wrote:honestabe84 wrote:scuzle wrote:The test as the whole has changed. If you look at the LR from then and now, the current LRs are totally harder. I think they changed the strategy on LG. They used to give you 4 pretty hard ones, with one f'd rule, in my opinion. Now they give you 3 decently easy games and one terrible one! But, I agree for the most part.
I agree with everything you said about the games, but I think LR has stayed about the same. In fact, I've heard many people say that they think LR has become more straight forward.
I feel that that could be true in part, but simply false in another. If you look at the questions which are predicated on formal logic they are filled with a tremendous amount of "noise." They are elliptical and have information which does not pertain to the argument. So where the questions were to the point of connecting necc and suff conditions, now its about navigating the hurdles the test creates. I think the flaw questions are infinitely harder as well. It might be easier to diagnose the flaw, I would concede that, however the answer choices are muddled and confusing. However, I would say that weakeners and paradox as a whole are quite easy to navigate and havent deviated from the former construct.
That's weird, because I think the flaw questions are really easy, but weaken questions are hard.
On another note, I think that the creators of the LSAT are trying their best to stay one step ahead of prep companies so that we can't get comfortable with patterns.
Re: PTs in the 30s and LG are ridiculous
Posted: Mon May 03, 2010 7:45 pm
by scuzle
honestabe84 wrote:scuzle wrote:honestabe84 wrote:scuzle wrote:The test as the whole has changed. If you look at the LR from then and now, the current LRs are totally harder. I think they changed the strategy on LG. They used to give you 4 pretty hard ones, with one f'd rule, in my opinion. Now they give you 3 decently easy games and one terrible one! But, I agree for the most part.
I agree with everything you said about the games, but I think LR has stayed about the same. In fact, I've heard many people say that they think LR has become more straight forward.
I feel that that could be true in part, but simply false in another. If you look at the questions which are predicated on formal logic they are filled with a tremendous amount of "noise." They are elliptical and have information which does not pertain to the argument. So where the questions were to the point of connecting necc and suff conditions, now its about navigating the hurdles the test creates. I think the flaw questions are infinitely harder as well. It might be easier to diagnose the flaw, I would concede that, however the answer choices are muddled and confusing. However, I would say that weakeners and paradox as a whole are quite easy to navigate and havent deviated from the former construct.
That's weird, because I think the flaw questions are really easy, but weaken questions are hard.
On another note, I think that the creators of the LSAT are trying their best to stay one step ahead of prep companies so that we can't get comfortable with patterns.
I think that is just evidence of how some people are mentally geared to succeed in different parts of the test. However, it is interesting that weakeners are essentially pointing to a flaw in an argument and flaws are pointing them out. I think I just have trouble with organization with flaws. If you need help with weakeners just holler.
Re: PTs in the 30s and LG are ridiculous
Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 12:37 am
by edinbourgh
I've been skipping around in my choice of preptests, and just started doing pt's in the early thirties last week. Thanks to the more generous curve that they had, I haven't been THAT burned by them score-wise, but they still made me feel as if I had suddenly gotten a botched lobotomy.
I'm glad it wasn't just me. And yes. The LG's on these are pretty painful.
Re: PTs in the 30s and LG are ridiculous
Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 1:49 am
by BigA
weird. I'm just kinda depressed about how much harder I'm finding RC in the forties. I've never been great at RC but I could pull off decent scores like -3 a couple times. I've gone through nearly all the PTs but now that I'm into the 40s I'm actually scoring worse than ever, even pulling a -12 and -13 on my last two.
Anyone else experience this? It's devastating, and just when I have made a lot of progress in my games. So yeah, I'd say games are easier, LR is about the same and RC is way harder for me on the more recent ones. This isn't counting past 48 or so. I haven't gotten to those yet.
Re: PTs in the 30s and LG are ridiculous
Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 1:59 am
by honestabe84
BigA wrote:weird. I'm just kinda depressed about how much harder I'm finding RC in the forties. I've never been great at RC but I could pull off decent scores like -3 a couple times. I've gone through nearly all the PTs but now that I'm into the 40s I'm actually scoring worse than ever, even pulling a -12 and -13 on my last two.
Anyone else experience this? It's devastating, and just when I have made a lot of progress in my games. So yeah, I'd say games are easier, LR is about the same and RC is way harder for me on the more recent ones. This isn't counting past 48 or so. I haven't gotten to those yet.
Yes, that's entirely accurate. I don't know why the creators of the LSAT decided to make RC harder, but they did. I seriously have no idea how people are able to get -2 or -3 on the new tests.
Re: PTs in the 30s and LG are ridiculous
Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 2:20 am
by BigA
And I don't suppose there's anything I can really do about it, huh? I mean I generally go over each passage when I'm done with explanations, and try to understand where I've gone wrong... but it seems like a big waste. Actually, the only progress I made practicing RC came early on when I made the jump from 3 passages to all four. But now I'm scoring worse than I was then. I still have time issues.
Re: PTs in the 30s and LG are ridiculous
Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 3:45 am
by honestabe84
BigA wrote:And I don't suppose there's anything I can really do about it, huh? I mean I generally go over each passage when I'm done with explanations, and try to understand where I've gone wrong... but it seems like a big waste. Actually, the only progress I made practicing RC came early on when I made the jump from 3 passages to all four. But now I'm scoring worse than I was then. I still have time issues.
Same. Reviewing LR and LG helps, but reviewing RC seems pretty much worthless (to a certain extent).
I'm missing about 10 per RC section, and I considered only doing three passages, but that would mean that I would HAVE to get nearly every other question on the other passages correct. I don't think I can do that.
Re: PTs in the 30s and LG are ridiculous
Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 4:27 am
by PLATONiC
YES. Unlike you, I actually did the practice tests in chronological order. I did fairly well on the LG sections, with -2 at most, and then when I hit the 30s, I dropped down to -5 to -6 consistently. I was freaking out : ( Now I'm in the forties, and I think I'll be encountering brighter pastures after reading this post.
Re: PTs in the 30s and LG are ridiculous
Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 3:41 pm
by TOMaHULK
I was noticing this last night.
The older test seem to have a MUCH tougher LG section. I did awesome on the RC section, which "kindda" made up for the LG section. All 4 games seems tough to me with no "gimme" game. Does everyone feel that the LR sections are pretty much solid throughout?
Re: PTs in the 30s and LG are ridiculous
Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 8:30 pm
by PLATONiC
LR sections seemed to be more "attuned" to the way I think. I think it all depends on what kind of person you are. I suddenly jumped from -3/-4 per LR section to -1/-2 on the newer PTs.
Re: PTs in the 30s and LG are ridiculous
Posted: Thu May 13, 2010 1:24 am
by Sandro
Older LG sections are insane. I took PT 54's and got a -4, then took PT7's and went back to -11. Night and day. The 4 mistakes on PT 54? Couple careless, missed a rule or two. PT 7s? I guessed on an entire question because it was insane and no time for all 4.
Re: PTs in the 30s and LG are ridiculous
Posted: Thu May 13, 2010 1:27 am
by jarofsoup
THEY ARE AWESOME. Because you get to the recent tests and they are a breeze. I have been doing the best in LG I have ever done because those games screw me sooo much?
Re: PTs in the 30s and LG are ridiculous
Posted: Thu May 13, 2010 2:47 pm
by scuzle
The last 2 tests december and sept (excluding february) have had rediculously easy games. Retaking in June, hopefully they came back with a vengance in Feb and go back to their easy ways come June!