June 2011 Study Group Forum

[FloridaCoastalorbust]

These are questions from the powerscore virtual class books.

Gev I'll be in around 830 CST. Thought I posted this earlier but my phone must've messed up

[Yeags]

anyone finished PT 51 on here? the RC passage on Late Heavy Bombardment was so confusing @_@

[Darko86]

Do y'all have any preference as to which section shows up first when you're taking PTs? Personally, I greatly dislike a RC section being first. I seem to do significantly worse on RC when it is first. I think I like to be more warmed up before tackling the dense paragraphs. I think I would most prefer LR first, but I can live with LG.

[law_can]

anyone finished PT 51 on here? the RC passage on Late Heavy Bombardment was so confusing @_@

I would say take a deep breath. I have personally experienced that one passage can be read three different ways and there is only one certain way, by which, you can get the the right choice so read it with clear distinction of other two interpretations.

[law_can]

Do y'all have any preference as to which section shows up first when you're taking PTs? Personally, I greatly dislike a RC section being first. I seem to do significantly worse on RC when it is first. I think I like to be more warmed up before tackling the dense paragraphs. I think I would most prefer LR first, but I can live with LG.

Disliking RC with ambition of law school and attorney career is like disliking run way and planning to be runner.

[Eichörnchen]

I also prefer to have RC later, but not because I dislike it. I just sometimes see it as a "breather" of sorts. Not that it's easier per se, but just because it is reading which I enjoy (not that I always enjoy the LSAT topics ) and which I know how to do. Plus, sometimes I think that having LR before RC helps me to be a more critical reader.

[soj]

anyone finished PT 51 on here? the RC passage on Late Heavy Bombardment was so confusing @_@

Yeah, I just wrote a post on PT51 on the previous page. That was definitely a tough passage. I thought Q11 and 13 were the toughest.

[Yeags]

anyone finished PT 51 on here? the RC passage on Late Heavy Bombardment was so confusing @_@

Yeah, I just wrote a post on PT51 on the previous page. That was definitely a tough passage. I thought Q11 and 13 were the toughest.

Q11 and Q13 were definitely tough, I got both of those wrong I think it's mainly because I didn't understand what the hell LHB was all about. The question what the theories agree on was definitely subtle. Still, congrats on your -7 raw/176!

[geverett]

These are questions from the powerscore virtual class books.

Gev I'll be in around 830 CST. Thought I posted this earlier but my phone must've messed up

Hey man I went out to eat with family. if you are around i am in the room right now.

[geverett]

PT 49 S2 Q 17. Explanations. Go!

[privatemf]

PT 49 S2 Q 17. Explanations. Go!

I have the Kaplan answer.

17. (A) Assumption
The author’s central assumption must link the key
terms in the conclusion to the key terms of the
evidence.
If we step back from the stimulus, we can recognize
that the author’s purpose is to consider the question,
“Do nonhuman animals possess consciousness?” And
while she doesn’t have a definitive answer, she does,
in her conclusion, stake out a definite position: she
believes that you cannot just prove that nonhuman
animals are intelligent, and automatically conclude that
they also possess consciousness. Her evidence is
sentence 1 plus the necessary assumption that will be
the correct answer.
Since she believes that the mere establishment of
intelligence is not sufficient to demonstrate
consciousness, she must be making some kind of
assumption that links intelligence—a term that
appears only in the conclusion—to the unique term in
the evidence, “exhibiting complex, goal-oriented
behavior.” The only choice making that linkage is (A),
so you would be right to gravitate toward it and happy
to realize that it’s correct.
Here’s how the logic works. Human beings, according
to sentence 1, can lack consciousness at the same
time that they demonstrate complex, goal-oriented
behavior. If, as (A) asserts, a necessary condition for
that kind of behavior is intelligence, then what human
beings represent are intelligent beings that (at times)
lack consciousness. See that? Thus the conclusion
does follow: you cannot simply establish a nonhuman
animal’s intelligence and immediately jump to the
conclusion that it has consciousness, because as
human beings demonstrate, one can possess the
former trait but not the latter.
(B) is the inverse of the conclusion, which gets us
nowhere. We need to connect the mismatched terms
“intelligence” and “complex, goal-oriented behavior.”
(C) says that a necessary condition of conscious
behavior is intelligence, but the question at hand is,
“Do nonhuman animals have consciousness?,” not
“Are they intelligent?” In essence the argument is
trying to reason toward consciousness, while (C) is
reasoning from it.
(D) directly contradicts the conclusion: if possessing
intelligence entails possessing consciousness, then
establishing the former in nonhuman animals would
establish the latter as a nonhuman trait. Certainly the
author isn’t assuming this statement to be true,
because it denies her conclusion.
(E) draws an irrelevant distinction between “complex”
and “goal-oriented.” Moreover, we need to connect (as
correct choice (A) does) the very terms that choice (E)
is determined to drive a wedge between.

[privatemf]

I was doing well with the Logic Games and now I am back to horrible doing the sections timed. I don't get it. This test is making me feel stupid.

[geverett]

The kaplan explanation is a bunch of hullaballoo.

[geverett]

Also PT 49 Section 4 #16. I have checked the manhattan lsat explanations on both of these and i am still not making sense of them.

[Darko86]

Disliking RC with ambition of law school and attorney career is like disliking run way and planning to be runner.

Well, thank you for the terrific insight; however, I did not say that I dislike RC. Indeed, I said that I dislike having RC first. Thanks for the input.

[Strange]

Process games are killing me. Are these kinds of games common on the newer LSATS?

[mickeyD]

Went on a weeklong, drunken spring break cruise last week and then had trouble focusing this week as my brain had forgotten how to work. Recovered around Thursday and did some light studying before taking SuperPrep A today.

LR: 23/25
RC: 27/27
LG: 20/24 (skipped two questions)
LR: 23/25
Raw: 93/101 = 171

Huge relief to know that my spring break didn't ruin my momentum. I start my Testmasters course on Monday and am hoping that I come out of it able to perfect games. In this particular instance, one more raw point would have given me a 173.

Good luck to everyone, it's really time to start getting focused- I feel like the next 30 days are going to blow by and before we know it, it'll be crunch time!

[soj]

Just did PT31. Ecstatic about how I did on the four sections, but extremely displeased with how I did on the "experimental":

Experimental LR (PT29 S1): -5
LG: -2
LR1: 0
LR2: -1
RC: -2
Raw: -5
Scaled: 178

I'll spare you the wall of text since I'm planning on doing another PT today. Just quick reactions:

The experimental LR felt a little awkward. I felt like I was choosing ACs that I wasn't 100% satisfied with, but couldn't eliminate. And I'd eliminated all the other ACs. I'll be autopsying this section later on for sure.

I was a little surprised by how much I struggled with the second game in LG, which I had to skip mid-game and return to at the end. I also had to rush through games 3-4 to make sure I had enough time to complete 2, which could have resulted in silly errors in games 3-4 (but thankfully didn't). I didn't have time to do Q11-13, and I was lucky to guess correctly on one of them. This is the first time LG gave me more trouble than any other section. I will definitely be redoing this game at least twice. I believe I could have had these two points if I'd simply read all the rules and processed them a little before starting to diagram--my initial diagram was totally off in this game and for some reason I decided to try to solve it anyway even when I realized I should have done an IN/OUT setup.

LR1 felt really, really good. My pacing was great, and answers jumped out at me. Yay for a -0.

LR2 felt harder, though not as hard as the experimental. There were 3 questions I felt unsure about, and I managed to revisit them all, but only briefly and cursorily. Very happy with the -1.

RC felt great. I'd never felt quite so confident throughout an entire RC section (must be the lack of a legal passage), so I'm a little disappointed with the -2, though I'm certainly not losing any sleep over this.

tl;dr -- the first two sections felt the hardest. Maybe I need more of a warm-up than a sudoku puzzle.

[soj]

Huge relief to know that my spring break didn't ruin my momentum. I start my Testmasters course on Monday and am hoping that I come out of it able to perfect games. In this particular instance, one more raw point would have given me a 173.

Good luck to everyone, it's really time to start getting focused- I feel like the next 30 days are going to blow by and before we know it, it'll be crunch time!

So you ended up taking the diag, huh? Good for you. Told you it won't be a bad idea. Now you know you need to focus on LG, and since you already appear to be in great shape for RC, I think you'll do really well with lots of prep!

[jim-green]

I'll see u guys in the room tonight at 8 pm EST. I haven't taken the PTs for the 1 pm mtg so do not want to ruin it for myself.

[geverett]

Will be a bit late to the afternoon session. just now starting pt 47. go!

[Eichörnchen]

Just did PT31. Ecstatic about how I did on the four sections, but extremely displeased with how I did on the "experimental":

Experimental LR (PT29 S1): -5
LG: -2
LR1: 0
LR2: -1
RC: -2
Raw: -5
Scaled: 178

I'll spare you the wall of text since I'm planning on doing another PT today. Just quick reactions:

The experimental LR felt a little awkward. I felt like I was choosing ACs that I wasn't 100% satisfied with, but couldn't eliminate. And I'd eliminated all the other ACs. I'll be autopsying this section later on for sure.

I was a little surprised by how much I struggled with the second game in LG, which I had to skip mid-game and return to at the end. I also had to rush through games 3-4 to make sure I had enough time to complete 2, which could have resulted in silly errors in games 3-4 (but thankfully didn't). I didn't have time to do Q11-13, and I was lucky to guess correctly on one of them. This is the first time LG gave me more trouble than any other section. I will definitely be redoing this game at least twice. I believe I could have had these two points if I'd simply read all the rules and processed them a little before starting to diagram--my initial diagram was totally off in this game and for some reason I decided to try to solve it anyway even when I realized I should have done an IN/OUT setup.

LR1 felt really, really good. My pacing was great, and answers jumped out at me. Yay for a -0.

LR2 felt harder, though not as hard as the experimental. There were 3 questions I felt unsure about, and I managed to revisit them all, but only briefly and cursorily. Very happy with the -1.

RC felt great. I'd never felt quite so confident throughout an entire RC section (must be the lack of a legal passage), so I'm a little disappointed with the -2, though I'm certainly not losing any sleep over this.

tl;dr -- the first two sections felt the hardest. Maybe I need more of a warm-up than a sudoku puzzle.

Soj, you are an absolute beast. Was this under strict test-like conditions?

[pinkstark]

what is "the room"? i'm confused. where do people "meet"?

[geverett]

On my break. Feeling good. Feeling better about RC. Had my wife throw in the experimental somewhere unexpected and ended up doing 2 RC sections in a row. Hoorah!

[amols]

Disliking RC with ambition of law school and attorney career is like disliking run way and planning to be runner.

Well, thank you for the terrific insight; however, I did not say that I dislike RC. Indeed, I said that I dislike having RC first. Thanks for the input.

Sometimes when I'm practicing I feel myself slipping into this. Then I have to remind myself that I have no idea what it will be like on the actual test, so I better get used to it now.

I've also found that doing some practice questions before can help with not feeling this way.