Mike's Trainer Thread Forum

All Star · Post by **All Star** » Sat Oct 12, 2013 1:41 pm

Thanks Mike, thanks for the reply. I just looked through my materials and found quite a few games with Minor question types.

I also found your drills to cover literally all of the issues that one encounters in rule change and all other minor questions. Your drill was tougher than most of those question types that I've seen so far and really helped me a lot. I look back now at minor questions that I struggled with (like the rule change question in the fruit stand game) and now see exactly why the correct answer is correct. Thanks again Mike!

-dasein- · Post by **-dasein-** » Sun Oct 13, 2013 9:56 am

monadologist · Post by **monadologist** » Sun Oct 13, 2013 6:24 pm

Read this thread, learned that you used to be with MLSAT, so I bought your book. Excited to use it

Dr. Dre · Post by **Dr. Dre** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 3:41 am

hey mike, what type of font did you use for the trainer? i really like it

SecondWind · Post by **SecondWind** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 8:21 am

monadologist wrote:Read this thread, learned that you used to be with MLSAT, so I bought your book. Excited to use it

Effective marketing.

The LSAT Trainer · Post by **The LSAT Trainer** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 12:02 pm

-dasein- wrote:Hi Mike,

Just wanted to say I love the book. It arrived this week off Amazon and it just blew me away. I've been studying for about 8 months now (while working full-time) and like to think I've seen a lot of the different approaches but I found your approach to be really refreshing. I have little doubt that this is going to become one of the top selling LSAT books in the years to come.

I have a couple of questions about how I should use your book. My approach to date has been the 1+1+1 you describe in the introduction. With it, I have been somewhat successful (plateaued @ 163-165), but am not yet where I need to be(170+). I have been closely tracking where I go wrong and this is how I look:

RC: I am comfortable with this and usually go -1 to -2

LG: -4 to -6. It's usually me running out of time and thus getting the last 4 wrong. Sometimes I make silly mistakes along the way and lose an extra 1 to 2 points. I have been using the 7sage/pithypike technique of making many copies and redoing over and over. I feel with this one I just need to keep drilling?

LR: -10 to -13 (total). This is where I am hurting the most right now. Over the last 5 preptests, the overwhelming majority of my wrong questions have come from about 6 -7 types, but here is the total % breakdown:
Code: Select all
TYPE  PERCENTAGE
FITR	15.8%
A	13.7%
MSS	11.6%
PR	11.6%
PRI	11.6%
JTC	9.5%
W	7.4%
MBT	6.3%
RTP	6.3%
MOR	2.1%
MP	2.1%
CBT	1.1%
S	1.1%
*PRI = principle, FITR = flaw, PR = parallel reasoning

Before getting your book I was just going to focus on each type and drill like a mad man. However, I'm intrigued by your bottom up approach to learning and I think I will be stronger overall after going through it. What I wanted to know though, was given that we have 55 days till December (and I work a lot), do you have any thoughts on how I should tackle my study so as to get the most out of your book.?

Any other insights you have after seeing where my weaknesses are would be much appreciated. Same goes for anyone else in the thread!

Hi there -- happy to hear that you like the book so far --

Reading into your %'s a bit (and obviously I can't be too accurate here, so please ignore whatever doesn't apply) -- it seems like two big keys for you for raising your LR score could be --
- 1) getting better at seeing flaws in arguments. Recognizing what's wrong with the reasoning in the argument/seeing the gap between support and conclusion is the most significant reasoning task that you have on the entire exam. Your two weakest q types are flaw and assumption (which, you should split up into different subtypes, btw), and your understanding of the flaw has a significant impact on many, many other question types. Just based on the %'s above, it seems your reading skills are already there. My strong suspicion is that once you get better at seeing flaws, you're going to see a significant bump across the board for many different LR, and so I strongly recommend you emphasize this in your studies.
- 2) your understanding of conditional logic, something essential for principle and suff assumption q's -- conditional statements are so important to the LSAT that you really need to get to a point where translating or understanding any one of them is automatic and intuitive. Not sure if you are there yet, but if don't quite feel that way, I encourage you to focus on that as well.

In terms of how to use the trainer during your remaining time, I would encourage you to
a) use the trainer earlier in the process, rather than later &
b) make sure you save significant time for lots and lots of drill work and pts --

Roughly speaking, I suggest you think about your 55 (now fewer) days in three overlapping phases:
Phase 1: mostly work in the trainer, making sure you've got all the understanding and strategies down (with enough drill work etc. to feel comfortable applying what you are learning).
Phase 2: drill work on question types, with a little bit of mixed work (in the form of PT's and sections) -- I would suggest you start Phase 2 when you start getting to individual q types in the trainer (which begins in lesson 16).
Phase 3: primary focus on pt's -- ideally, I suggest you start going into phase 3 when you feel really comfortable with your drill sets (however, I do of course understand there are some time limits, so you'll have to make some decisions).

I have a feeling that the beginning of the trainer (especially the first set of LR lessons) will be a key for you -- and again, I think if you sharpen your ability to find fault with arguments (and it may just be a matter of changing your mindset), that's going to be a driver of improvement for you.

Rambled for a bit! Hope that helps, and please don't hesitate to get in touch if you need anything else. Good luck!

- Mike

The LSAT Trainer · Post by **The LSAT Trainer** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 1:45 pm

SecondWind wrote:
monadologist wrote:Read this thread, learned that you used to be with MLSAT, so I bought your book. Excited to use it

Effective marketing.

What's MLSAT?

tofuspeedstar · Post by **tofuspeedstar** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 1:45 pm

The LSAT Trainer wrote:
SecondWind wrote:
monadologist wrote:Read this thread, learned that you used to be with MLSAT, so I bought your book. Excited to use it

Effective marketing.
What's MLSAT?

Manhattan LSAT guides.

The LSAT Trainer · Post by **The LSAT Trainer** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 1:51 pm

tofuspeedstar wrote:
The LSAT Trainer wrote:
SecondWind wrote:
monadologist wrote:Read this thread, learned that you used to be with MLSAT, so I bought your book. Excited to use it

Effective marketing.
What's MLSAT?

Manhattan LSAT guides.

Yes - bad joke on my part.

-dasein- · Post by **-dasein-** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 7:41 pm

Thanks Mike, appreciate the detailed response! Since I put up that post I've been through set one for LR and definitely picked up a lot.

I will let you know how things go!

roranoa · Post by **roranoa** » Sat Oct 26, 2013 5:43 am

Hey Mike,

I was just wondering about how to differentiate Main points and Authors View.

Are opinions in a passage supposed to be considered as main points of the passage or are main points something more broad like.....for example...if the passage is talking about Historians' views about evolution, is the Main point "historical views about evolution" or is the Main point the specific views of those historians?
(As I'm writing this I thinking I'm equating subject matter with Main Point. So the latter is right?)

It seems like in your book Main Points are those specific views or opinions(if there are any) that the author brings up.

Hope you can clear this up for me.

P.S Btw can you help me with pt29 rc passage 1 Q6 answer choice D? Where does it say that works of art had the ability to anticipate later artists?

SecondWind · Post by **SecondWind** » Sat Oct 26, 2013 7:57 am

The LSAT Trainer wrote:
SecondWind wrote:
monadologist wrote:Read this thread, learned that you used to be with MLSAT, so I bought your book. Excited to use it

Effective marketing.
What's MLSAT?

No worries. Your reputation precedes you. I bought both the Trainer and MLSAT. I like the "clean" design and deliberateness of your book.

P.S. I got the joke. No offense intended tofuspeedstar (You're pretty cool, I like you), but it was funny you didn't get it as you have 4,000+ posts.

PourMeTea · Post by **PourMeTea** » Sat Oct 26, 2013 10:23 am

Post removed.

SecondWind · Post by **SecondWind** » Sat Oct 26, 2013 11:52 am

PourMeTea wrote:
SecondWind wrote: No worries. Your reputation precedes you. I bought both the Trainer and MLSAT. I like the "clean" design and deliberateness of your book.

P.S. I got the joke. No offense intended tofuspeedstar (You're pretty cool, I like you), but it was funny you didn't get it as you have 4,000+ posts.
The reasoning in the bolded statement above is flawed in that it:

I could really care less. I think nothing less of tofuspeedstar for not knowing that Mike co-created MLSAT and then "divested" and wrote The Trainer. I just figured tofus would have seen it somewhere in the forums since he's fairly active. I think it's okay to laugh at the small things ex. I walked right in to the ladies restroom one time by accident. I think that's funny.

Edit: Realistically Tea, this isn't the place for you to take shots at me. You can do it all day here: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 6&t=217598

PourMeTea · Post by **PourMeTea** » Sat Oct 26, 2013 12:00 pm

Post removed.

The LSAT Trainer · Post by **The LSAT Trainer** » Sat Oct 26, 2013 12:17 pm

roranoa wrote:Hey Mike,

I was just wondering about how to differentiate Main points and Authors View.

Are opinions in a passage supposed to be considered as main points of the passage or are main points something more broad like.....for example...if the passage is talking about Historians' views about evolution, is the Main point "historical views about evolution" or is the Main point the specific views of those historians?
(As I'm writing this I thinking I'm equating subject matter with Main Point. So the latter is right?)

It seems like in your book Main Points are those specific views or opinions(if there are any) that the author brings up.

Hope you can clear this up for me.

P.S Btw can you help me with pt29 rc passage 1 Q6 answer choice D? Where does it say that works of art had the ability to anticipate later artists?

Hi there --main point and author's opinion are certainly related -- you can think of both as being different ways of asking about the purpose of the passage.

Most LSAT passages are about juxtaposing ideas -- so, let's imagine we had a passage about whether you should read LR q stems first, or stimulus first. The author can write it so that it's completely objective (say, gives +/- of each, no true verdict about which one is better, and gives no hint of personal opinion), so that her opinion is subtle or hidden (the passage seems 95% objective, but there are just a few words that hint at author's opinion -- maybe just one line that says "Fortunately, there are some signs this trend is no longer pervasive."), or the author can write it so that the opinion is front and center ("Certain people say read stimulus first, but reading Q stem first is better because of X, Y, Z.") Depending on where the passage lies on that scale, you might get main point answers that range describing the passage as being more objective, or more opinion driven; the author's view is his or her opinion on the matter being discussed; again, depending on the passage, this is either non-existent (a minority of cases), subtle, or more obvious -- making that judgment is a significant part of the task presented in any particular q. To summarize -- main point and opinion are related but not the same;the overlap is dependent on how important the author's opinion is to the overall structure/purpose of the passage.

Two related thoughts --

1) Don't expect the main point to be contained in one sentence or one idea. Keep in mind that, primarily speaking, main point q's are designed to test your ability to bring things together.

2) Keep in mind that there are various types of opinions that are asked about -- author's general opinion on the passage, author's specific opinions on certain aspects of the passage, the opinions of others mentioned, etc -- make sure you recognize and utilize these differences.

In terms of the specific q --

Justification can be found using this line -- "are often credited with having anticipated not just subsequent developments in the arts" + this one --"But the forward-looking quality attributed to these artists should instead be credited to their exceptional aesthetic innovations "

HTH, and hope you are enjoying the book -- Mike

The LSAT Trainer · Post by **The LSAT Trainer** » Sat Oct 26, 2013 12:36 pm

happycitrus · Post by **happycitrus** » Sat Oct 26, 2013 2:16 pm

The LSAT Trainer wrote:hi everyone --

this is going to be up on my website in a few days (with better picture quality) but I thought some of you who are using the trainer might appreciate getting it a few days early -- it's a basic breakdown of past logic games based on the trainer system --

http://i.imgur.com/C86qEvk.jpg

hope you find it useful -- enjoy! -- mike

Awesome, thanks Mike!

The LSAT Trainer · Post by **The LSAT Trainer** » Sat Oct 26, 2013 2:21 pm

&, since I haven't wasted your time with any non-LSAT-related stuff in a while, here's a great 3 minute read about Nikola Tesla --

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla

(well, 99% non-lsat-related -- you may recognize the ball-lightning reference) --

LSAT RC would definitely be more fun if they included passages like the above. Then we could get q's like "Each of the following is given as an example of Edison's douchebaggery EXCEPT"

neprep · Post by **neprep** » Sat Oct 26, 2013 2:25 pm

The LSAT Trainer wrote:&, since I haven't wasted your time with any non-LSAT-related stuff in a while, here's a great 3 minute read about Nikola Tesla --

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla

(well, 99% non-lsat-related -- you may recognize the ball-lightning reference) --

LSAT RC would definitely be more fun if they included passages like the above. Then we could get q's like "Each of the following is given as an example of Edison's douchebaggery EXCEPT"

I love this! And I can easily imagine an LSAT RC or LR passage starting "People usually credit Thomas Edison as the Father of the Electric Age, however…" in the near future.

roranoa · Post by **roranoa** » Sun Oct 27, 2013 3:12 am

Thabks for the detailed response!Really appreciate it!

Just a quick questions with the specific q I brought up. What does "the ability to anticipate later artists" mean exactly? (answr choice D) Does it mean the works of the pre wwi painters anticipated later artists? So paintings anticipated artists(people)? How does that work? I just don't inderstand the sentence there.

And the places you pointed out as reference don't seem to say that works anticipate artists but rather anticipate trends in art.

Hope you can help!

The LSAT Trainer · Post by **The LSAT Trainer** » Mon Oct 28, 2013 1:54 pm

roranoa wrote:Thabks for the detailed response!Really appreciate it!

Just a quick questions with the specific q I brought up. What does "the ability to anticipate later artists" mean exactly? (answr choice D) Does it mean the works of the pre wwi painters anticipated later artists? So paintings anticipated artists(people)? How does that work? I just don't inderstand the sentence there.

And the places you pointed out as reference don't seem to say that works anticipate artists but rather anticipate trends in art.

Hope you can help!

Hey Roranoa -- an artist is typically defined by her work, so a phrase like "the ability to anticipate later artists" can be talking about the work of these later artists -- mike

The LSAT Trainer · Post by **The LSAT Trainer** » Mon Oct 28, 2013 2:12 pm

Hi everyone --

The download-quality version of the Logic Games breakdown infographic is now on my site -- please check it out if you are interested-- http://www.thelsattrainer.com/articles/ ... from-29-69 -- I'll be putting up Part 2 of it probably in a week or so -- Mike

objection_your_honor · Post by **objection_your_honor** » Wed Oct 30, 2013 5:18 pm

I studied for my 3rd take using only the LSAT Trainer and PTs and ended up with a 172. I had exhausted other content (Powerscore, Manhattan), and I feel the drills in LSAT Trainer definitely contributed to my success on test day. My RC score had the most dramatic improvement, although LR improved as well.

Just wanted to say thanks to Mike for the excellent book.

The LSAT Trainer · Post by **The LSAT Trainer** » Thu Oct 31, 2013 2:09 am

objection_your_honor wrote:I studied for my 3rd take using only the LSAT Trainer and PTs and ended up with a 172. I had exhausted other content (Powerscore, Manhattan), and I feel the drills in LSAT Trainer definitely contributed to my success on test day. My RC score had the most dramatic improvement, although LR improved as well.

Just wanted to say thanks to Mike for the excellent book.

I was wondering how you did -- glad to hear about the killer score -- congrats!!! -- you are very, very welcome, and thank you so much for being one of the first supporters of the book -- couldn't be happier it turned out so well for you.