The Official June 2014 Study Group Forum

[rebexness]

The big bundle that they are referring to has the drilling stuff broken down by section and then Q type, and the PTs as full PTs.

[famousblueraincoat]

Thanks for the help, everyone! Downloading the Ultimate Bundle and reviewing the relevant Trainer chapters. How do you all decide how many problems to do?

[withoutapaddle]

Just ordered:

Manhattan reading comprehension
Powerscore LG types (20 LSATs in order by game)
Powerscore LR types
Powerscore RC types

Have:

Logical reasoning bible
Logic Games bible
A lot of LSAT's


Here we go!

[Louis1127]

Withoutapaddle, you a retaker, correct? If you don't mind, would you share things that you are going to do differently this time? I feel like you could provide me (and hopefully others, which I why I am asking you on the forum instead of a PM) alot of insight because there may be things that we first-timers think will work that didn't work for you.

If you don't feel comfortable sharing, that's totally fine. But I do feel like you can help us alot!

[withoutapaddle]

Hey Louis

I decided to take the LSAT because I always wanted to be a lawyer and hated my cubicle job that didn't require me to think (Basically an over glorified paper pusher)

I decided to take the LSAT in February on November 30th. I went against the general wisdom on TLS that you can't cram for this test (Anyone who tells you this is 100% correct).

By the end of the first week of December I finished the LG bible and LR bible. I knew the structures of the arguments and learned neat little tricks to attack LR. But I made one of the dumbest study habit errors of never timing myself. I could easily go -2 or -3 on the games because I gave myself all the time in the world. It wasn't until the middle of January that I discovered 7sage that explained all the games in detail .I also made one of the biggest mistakes given a certain rare game type on the February LSAT. I figured I didn't need to learn it because the chances if it showing up weren't great. I was wrong.

I also never took the time to FULLY grasp conditional reasoning and to spot inferences in the logic games. I also loathed RC passages so much that I kept putting off studying it until I was doing PT's. Even then I never timed my RC passages figuring that when test day came I would be able to fly through it given all the practice I had been doing.

Probably the biggest mistake I made though was never reviewing my answers. Since I started studying late I felt that I needed to cram 30 PT's into two months in order to do well on the test. This was stupid. I also never blind reviewed (review the questions untimed before checking the answers.And since I'm an impatient shit I was checking my answers every seven questions.

What I'm doing differently:

Blind review
Timing myself (This is a bitch on the real thing/ You'll be under pressure and you need to practice being under pressure)
Focus on the fundamentals (I could go 21/22 out of 25 on every LR section because I could narrow the answer down to the final 2/ But I didn't FULLY know why my answer was correct and the other one was wrong)
Drilling the same game until I know can do it in my sleep (Doing the 7sage method)

Another thing I'm doing is reading art history material on Wikipedia. I hated art history class and my hate for art history RC passages might be greater (As everyone in the February study group knew)

I 100% believe that this test is learn-able and that you just need to put the time in/ Is everyone going to get a 180? No. But I think anyone can drastically improve their initial diagnostic.

Lastly what I'm doing different is looking for structure instead of memorizing material.Whether you understand what abstract art is or not is irrelevant to what the test takers are looking for (They're looking for ability to connect the dots)

Example:

Dan is famous for his abstract art. All abstract art is considered great. Therefore Dan must be a great artist.
- You don't need to know who Dan is. You don't need to know what abstract art is. You just need to see the flaw in the argument (Just because Dan is famous for his abstract art doesn't make him a great artist)

Also for a must be true question the answer would probably be:
A. Dan's abstract art is great art

About the games. I started out taking 20 minutes for 1 game. I was awful at them . By the end of the two month period I was able to go through most games in 5 minutes.

Sorry about the wall of text but I realized I made a lot of mistakes in my initial prep.

[CocoSunshine]

Does anyone heard of Manhattan's new 4th edition guides? It will be released on March 25. Do they make big changes to the guides?

[jmjm]

Checking in for retake in June.

I'd be interested in finding a dedicated in-person study partner in Sf bay area. I have invested a decent amount of time in this test and am scoring near 170 in the PTs. But it can be useful to drill each other on sticking points in order to improve. I'm looking to find someone to meet with once a week to discuss lsat.
If interested in giving this a try, send me a pm and we can coordinate.

[paglababa]

I'm tutoring my first client today woop!

I'm going to go over ch 1, 2 of LG bible, go over the mechanics of setting up linear games, effective notation, and then drill a few questions. She has no experience. You guys think this will be effective? Aiming for a 1.5 hour lesson.

[Louis1127]

Hey Louis

I decided to take the LSAT because I always wanted to be a lawyer and hated my cubicle job that didn't require me to think (Basically an over glorified paper pusher)

I decided to take the LSAT in February on November 30th. I went against the general wisdom on TLS that you can't cram for this test (Anyone who tells you this is 100% correct).

By the end of the first week of December I finished the LG bible and LR bible. I knew the structures of the arguments and learned neat little tricks to attack LR. But I made one of the dumbest study habit errors of never timing myself. I could easily go -2 or -3 on the games because I gave myself all the time in the world. It wasn't until the middle of January that I discovered 7sage that explained all the games in detail .I also made one of the biggest mistakes given a certain rare game type on the February LSAT. I figured I didn't need to learn it because the chances if it showing up weren't great. I was wrong.

I also never took the time to FULLY grasp conditional reasoning and to spot inferences in the logic games. I also loathed RC passages so much that I kept putting off studying it until I was doing PT's. Even then I never timed my RC passages figuring that when test day came I would be able to fly through it given all the practice I had been doing.

Probably the biggest mistake I made though was never reviewing my answers. Since I started studying late I felt that I needed to cram 30 PT's into two months in order to do well on the test. This was stupid. I also never blind reviewed (review the questions untimed before checking the answers.And since I'm an impatient shit I was checking my answers every seven questions.

What I'm doing differently:

Blind review
Timing myself (This is a bitch on the real thing/ You'll be under pressure and you need to practice being under pressure)
Focus on the fundamentals (I could go 21/22 out of 25 on every LR section because I could narrow the answer down to the final 2/ But I didn't FULLY know why my answer was correct and the other one was wrong)
Drilling the same game until I know can do it in my sleep (Doing the 7sage method)

Another thing I'm doing is reading art history material on Wikipedia. I hated art history class and my hate for art history RC passages might be greater (As everyone in the February study group knew)

I 100% believe that this test is learn-able and that you just need to put the time in/ Is everyone going to get a 180? No. But I think anyone can drastically improve their initial diagnostic.

Lastly what I'm doing different is looking for structure instead of memorizing material.Whether you understand what abstract art is or not is irrelevant to what the test takers are looking for (They're looking for ability to connect the dots)

Example:

Dan is famous for his abstract art. All abstract art is considered great. Therefore Dan must be a great artist.
- You don't need to know who Dan is. You don't need to know what abstract art is. You just need to see the flaw in the argument (Just because Dan is famous for his abstract art doesn't make him a great artist)

Also for a must be true question the answer would probably be:
A. Dan's abstract art is great art

About the games. I started out taking 20 minutes for 1 game. I was awful at them . By the end of the two month period I was able to go through most games in 5 minutes.

Sorry about the wall of text but I realized I made a lot of mistakes in my initial prep.

That was very helpful. I am happy you included the part about your improvement on games, as I am very slow at them right now. Thanks again, and I look forward to traveling on interstate 180 with you.

ps yea circular sequencing games are a bitch

[FlyingNorth]

I'm tutoring my first client today woop!

I'm going to go over ch 1, 2 of LG bible, go over the mechanics of setting up linear games, effective notation, and then drill a few questions. She has no experience. You guys think this will be effective? Aiming for a 1.5 hour lesson.

Yeah, I think so. She might not be ready to attack questions immediately though, considering the unfamiliarity with different Q types within Logic Games (i.e. must be true, could be true, could be false, max/min, etc..)

[paglababa]

I'm tutoring my first client today woop!

I'm going to go over ch 1, 2 of LG bible, go over the mechanics of setting up linear games, effective notation, and then drill a few questions. She has no experience. You guys think this will be effective? Aiming for a 1.5 hour lesson.

Yeah, I think so. She might not be ready to attack questions immediately though, considering the unfamiliarity with different Q types within Logic Games (i.e. must be true, could be true, could be false, max/min, etc..)

I hadn't thought about that. You're right, I should review basic question types too, and global/local, ect for someone completely new. Thanks!

[FlyingNorth]

I'm tutoring my first client today woop!

I'm going to go over ch 1, 2 of LG bible, go over the mechanics of setting up linear games, effective notation, and then drill a few questions. She has no experience. You guys think this will be effective? Aiming for a 1.5 hour lesson.

Yeah, I think so. She might not be ready to attack questions immediately though, considering the unfamiliarity with different Q types within Logic Games (i.e. must be true, could be true, could be false, max/min, etc..)

I hadn't thought about that. You're right, I should review basic question types too, and global/local, ect for someone completely new. Thanks!

No problem. I think the LG Bible briefly covers those in the first few chapters anyway, so you should be on the right track.

[Cambridge LSAT]

Does anyone heard of Manhattan's new 4th edition guides? It will be released on March 25. Do they make big changes to the guides?

Manhattan should be releasing details of the update fairly soon.
http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewt ... 6&t=224196

[withoutapaddle]

As soon as we get our scores in July I have to start studying the GMAT. Going to apply to JD/MBA programs

[paglababa]

How hard's the gmat in comparison? I haven't done any non-excel math in ages.

[withoutapaddle]

You need to know geometry algebra and other business mathematics concepts

I would say the critical reasoning portion is probably easier then the LSAT
The verbal and sentence correction isn't that difficult

If you're good at math you should be fine

Manhattan has amazing prep for the GMAT

[jmjm]

How hard's the gmat in comparison? I haven't done any non-excel math in ages.

Gmat is a cakewalk compared to lsat. If you are a high scorer on lsat, there is no reason you wouldn't do extremely well on gmat. Why're you considering gmat?

[CocoSunshine]

How hard's the gmat in comparison? I haven't done any non-excel math in ages.

Gmat is a cakewalk compared to lsat. If you are a high scorer on lsat, there is no reason you wouldn't do extremely well on gmat.

What I love most about GMAT is that it's computer based, and your score is on the screen immediately after the test

[CocoSunshine]

Does anyone heard of Manhattan's new 4th edition guides? It will be released on March 25. Do they make big changes to the guides?

Manhattan should be releasing details of the update fairly soon.
http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewt ... 6&t=224196

Thanks

[withoutapaddle]

paglababa wrote:
How hard's the gmat in comparison? I haven't done any non-excel math in ages.


Gmat is a cakewalk compared to lsat. If you are a high scorer on lsat, there is no reason you wouldn't do extremely well on gmat. Why're you considering gmat?

Someone that's bad at the GMAT can do well on the LSAT and vis versa

If you're good at reading and comprehension you'll do well at the LSAT
If you suck at math you'll do bad on the GMAT

You'd be surprised how many liberal arts grads can't do y=mx+b

[alexrodriguez]

I'm in trouble guys.

After three days of slowly doing bits and pieces of PT 41 I finally finished and scored a 157.

Some of you guys did this test timed and scored like ten points higher. I'm in trouble

LR -9
LG -4
LR -10
RC -7

LR is killing me. I just need to keep drilling.

[alexrodriguez]

So after marking all the wrong answers I went back and did each question again.

LR -1
LG -2
LR -7
RC -4 (two of these I didn't change)

Comes to a 168....

kind of a boost in confidence even though it's nowhere near a true 168

[WaltGrace83]

I'm in trouble guys.

After three days of slowly doing bits and pieces of PT 41 I finally finished and scored a 157.

Some of you guys did this test timed and scored like ten points higher. I'm in trouble

LR -9
LG -4
LR -10
RC -7

LR is killing me. I just need to keep drilling.

I also thought that there was a really hard section in LR41. I did poorly on it also. It was the section with the monster movies. The fact that you were able to go back and get the right answers is promising. I do believe one day this will all just "click" for you. I still think you have little to worry about BUT you absolutely need to keep working as hard as you can.

What happened on LG? Was it one game or were the wrong answers scattered across the board?
What happened on RC? Was it one passage or scattered?
What about LR? Certain question types?

Another thing that is important to is asking if you've been eating, sleeping, exercising right for an appropriate amount of time? My terrible section on PT41 came after I failed to work out that morning like I usually do and with little sleep. I have only done a handful (like 4 or 5) of LR sections since then and I am scoring -4/-5. Not where I want to be but it is DEFINITELY an improvement from the -11/-14 I got on my diagnostic haha.

[famousblueraincoat]

So after marking all the wrong answers I went back and did each question again.

LR -1
LG -2
LR -7
RC -4 (two of these I didn't change)

Comes to a 168....

kind of a boost in confidence even though it's nowhere near a true 168

I beg to differ! If you can eventually arrive at the right answers you can definitely train yourself to do so within the allotted time, thus earning a great and "true" score.

*goes back to not studying*

[WaltGrace83]

One of my favorite quotes:

"Compare where you are to where you want to be and you'll get nowhere."

If you are aiming for that 170+ and you can't break a certain threshold, you'll never get there with an incorrect mindset. Don't think, "I still have so many points to go!." Instead think, "I have come so far!"