June 2011 Study Group Forum

[amols]

I just realized earlier I don't have PT 40 (for our LG). So I might not come through tonight. Is our regular moderator in town? If so, I may have to be absent so I can get some work done.

Even though the email said PT 40, I think we are actually on the PT 37 "Books on shelves" game. Didn't we do the bus seat game last week? Also, the LRs that we were supposed to go over tonight were all ones we did last week (unless there was another game with dioxins.) We pretty much covered a few of those questions to death.

Considering that there is glorious weather outside, and the "books on shelves" game is relatively simple compared to some of the other tough games we've done, I think tonight will be light review. I'll be in the room if anyone wants to go over any games or questions, but I'm gonna check out at 9, grab a few beers and relax for the night.

Ohhhh. For some reason I thought we were doing a mapping game. Oh well. Hope the session went well for everyone!

[geverett]

back in the saddle team. Went to Oregon on business for the weekend, and just arrived home. going to bed now so i can wake up to drill LG and RC. Planning on taking 2 PT's this week.

[Manhattan LSAT Noah]

Just did PT 55, was a lot harder than 45 which I did yesterday, at least it felt that way. LG tripped me up a bit and couldnt finish the last game. RC seemed harder too but I scored better than on 45. LR sections about the same

LR1 LR 2 combined: -9
LG: -3
RC: -1

Score: 167, Raw is 87. I scored a 169 with a raw of 86 on PT45. Hoping that two months is enough time to get me safely to that 170 benchmark

Strange, you sent me a pm, but when I tried to reply, it says you've disabled replies. e-mail me at my noah(@)manhattanlsat.com (apparently, if you type in e-mails into public forums, you get a lot of spam)

[maxpower430]

There are no consistent Q types that cause me trouble in individual PTs, but over multiple PTs there's a consistent weakness in Flaw, MSS, and Strengthen/Weaken. (In other words, sometimes I'll have no problem with these questions, but other times I'll get several of them wrong in a section.) There's the occasional PR and PF error, and I'm making more and more Necessary Assumption and MoR (which used to be gimmes for me) errors. MoR and MSS errors are the most disappointing because they almost always result from choosing the wrong one of two ACs I haven't eliminated. In Flaw/S+/W-/NA/PF/PR, the problem is eliminating ACs too quickly and being left with unsatisfactory answers from which to choose.

I still sometimes make silly mistakes like misbubbling or misreading, but those mistakes are getting fewer and fewer.

I'm usually strong in MBT, MBF, Main Idea, Resolve, Explain, Principle, and Sufficient Assumptions.

I think it's about time I went over the >100 LR Qs I've gotten wrong since the last time I did an intensive analysis of LR mistakes.

For what it's worth, here's a history of my PT LR raw scores, in the order I took them:
PT1 -4
PT2 -3
PT3 -2
PT4 -3
PT5 -6
PT6 -4
PT7 -8
PT8 -8
PT9 -5
PT10 -2
honeymoon starts here
PT51.5 -4
PT11 -4
PT12 -3
PT13 -2
PT14 -4
PT15 -3
PT16 0
PT17 0
PT18 -3
PT19 -2
PT20 -3
PT51 -5
PT31 -1
PT32 -3
PT33 -3
honeymoon ends here
PT29 -8
PT34 -5
PT35 -5
PT36 -5
PT37 -4
PT30 -5 (completed only 1 LR section so far)

this is of course anecdotal, but for w/e it is worth, those used to be my biggest problem questions types as well (can throw in nec assumptions as well), but after the manhattan lsat guide, i've been much stronger at them, and could even call them a strength now. i really think you'll see some quick improvement after going through the assumption part of the guide. i too was going -6-9 per two sections of LR, and recently my individual sections have pretty consistently been -1-2. so def try and spend some time going through the guide, it worked wonders for me.

[Eichörnchen]

First game of the night...9 minutes into it and I was on #2 with no idea. I turned off the stopwatch and reveled in my stupendous level of fail and then Beck's "lost cause" started playing. Thanks Beck.

I think something like this happened to me a few weeks ago when I was trying to do a timed LG section while flying on a plane in the middle of the night! I could not pick one out of two ACs. Thankfully, I moved on to the next game early enough to tackle it later (with a clearer view of the time and some more confidence under my belt from doing the later games well).

My advice: skip the game. Draw a line on your answer sheet between the last question of that game and the first question of the next one (so you're very clear about that distinction and don't make any bubbling errors). Empty your mind of that game (this emptying is an important skill for all sections, imo). Move on to the next game. Try to hustle through some of the others (depending on what you think the issue was), and come back to that game that you skipped. Don't try and pound through it if you're seriously not getting it.

Yea forgetting the question(s) you skipped when you move on is key. In this case though, I was just doing a game that I printed for practice and I just couldn't even do it Grr... I plan on doing 3 basic lin, 3 advanced lin, and 3 redos from old preptests today. I think I'll keep up the 3, 3, and 3 redos for the next week and see if there is any improvement.

And good tip about how to use extra time - I do that in LR and RC. However, if I ever have extra time left over after feeling 100% about all my answers in games, I should probably also expect to see a unicorn pass by my window.

[Yassig]

And good tip about how to use extra time - I do that in LR and RC. However, if I ever have extra time left over after feeling 100% about all my answers in games, I should probably also expect to see a unicorn pass by my window.

Haha, you and me both! Good luck with the drilling!

[OhOkay]

Hi. I'm new, and sort of started studying just last week. No money so I'm self-studying, plus those courses seem kinda scammy. Eight weeks is not a lot of time, I know, but I can devote most of my day to studying now as I just cut down my work hours massively specifically for this purpose. I thought it would be a good idea to motivate myself by posting my daily study plan and progress, as I am a terrible procrastinator, and have very little stamina when it comes to this stuff. Perhaps I can help others by sharing any tips I learn too. I hope I'm in the right thread... don't mean to interrupt anything.

Last week I read the non-drill portions of the LG and LR Bibles (didn't want to ruin actual PTs since they include a lot of recent stuff in the drills). I honestly didn't think they were too helpful... especially the LG classifications. Am I just missing something? Aren't these books supposed to like, induce epiphanies? I'm still confused about what to call games that involve matching one variable set to another (6 people each pick one of 4 foods, etc.). That to me does not seem linear since there's no ordering involved, but it's not exactly dividing things into groups. Any help? I almost feel like I should just keep practicing and see what diagramming patterns I pick up on by myself, and organically create my own classification system, I guess.

So far, I've practiced on some sections from the pre-20 PTs. I'm good with accuracy on LGs, but terrible with speed (tend to need 45 mins to finish a section). I'm good with speed on LR and RC (as in, I finish comfortably within 35 mins) but I want to get faster since I have accuracy issues (usually about -1 to -4 per section) and think it would be good if I got to the end of the section in 25 minutes and then returned to hard questions I skipped or tentatively answered earlier.

Here's my game plan for the next 8 weeks: I will do a 5 section PT every other day for the next two weeks, and then start with 6 section PTs for the third week, and by the fourth week try to do 6 section PTs with 30 mins per section. I know that ideally I wouldn't be jumping straight into PTs, but it's sort of down to crunch time. After taking each PT I plan to review the whole thing before scoring my answers, ideally the same day. By reviewing the whole thing, I mean reviewing every question no matter how easy it seemed (but also, of course, focusing extra hard on ones I marked as difficult while taking the timed PT), and thinking through why each answer was wrong and why the correct answer was correct. The reason I'm going to postpone scoring answers until after reviewing is so I don't feel tempted to just focus on the ones I got wrong, as this is what I was doing last week, and it wasn't helping me improve at all. Plus, I feel 90% of mastering this test is just familiarizing oneself with the questions, and reviewing so thoroughly is a good way to force myself to do that.

Yesterday was day 1 of the plan. I took PT 40, with a fifth section from PT 22. Wasn't able to finish LG -- skipped two questions entirely, and didn't spend a comfortable amount of time on many others. Didn't get a chance to review the PT yet, but will do that today. Tomorrow will be PT 50 with a fifth section. I'll report back then .

[maxpower430]

i think you're doing yourself something of a disservice if you don't do the drills, as that reenforces what the books are teaching you. i can only speak for myself, but i never really experienced an epiphany with logic games b/c of the bibles. for me, it got me familiar with the game types/setups/how to tackle the rules, but the real improvement comes from lots of practice (including redoing games, which is part of why i don't think you'd ruin the pt's by doing the drills. i used to think that too, but redoing games really helps you get a better feel for the sorts of questions and traps you'll run into, and as long as you wait a reasonable amount of time you shouldn't remember what the answers were.) that being said, you should have plenty of time to drill logic games, which will bring your time down a lot. also for that example, you'd want to make the foods the base and assign people to the various foods. oh also, i'd recommend checking out lsatblog's posts on logic games, they are rather brief but generally pretty helpful, and they helped me find a strategy that feels comfortable for each game type. hth.

[pinkstark]

Hi. I'm new, and sort of started studying just last week. No money so I'm self-studying, plus those courses seem kinda scammy. Eight weeks is not a lot of time, I know, but I can devote most of my day to studying now as I just cut down my work hours massively specifically for this purpose. I thought it would be a good idea to motivate myself by posting my daily study plan and progress, as I am a terrible procrastinator, and have very little stamina when it comes to this stuff. Perhaps I can help others by sharing any tips I learn too. I hope I'm in the right thread... don't mean to interrupt anything.

Last week I read the non-drill portions of the LG and LR Bibles (didn't want to ruin actual PTs since they include a lot of recent stuff in the drills). I honestly didn't think they were too helpful... especially the LG classifications. Am I just missing something? Aren't these books supposed to like, induce epiphanies? I'm still confused about what to call games that involve matching one variable set to another (6 people each pick one of 4 foods, etc.). That to me does not seem linear since there's no ordering involved, but it's not exactly dividing things into groups. Any help? I almost feel like I should just keep practicing and see what diagramming patterns I pick up on by myself, and organically create my own classification system, I guess.

So far, I've practiced on some sections from the pre-20 PTs. I'm good with accuracy on LGs, but terrible with speed (tend to need 45 mins to finish a section). I'm good with speed on LR and RC (as in, I finish comfortably within 35 mins) but I want to get faster since I have accuracy issues (usually about -1 to -4 per section) and think it would be good if I got to the end of the section in 25 minutes and then returned to hard questions I skipped or tentatively answered earlier.

Here's my game plan for the next 8 weeks: I will do a 5 section PT every other day for the next two weeks, and then start with 6 section PTs for the third week, and by the fourth week try to do 6 section PTs with 30 mins per section. I know that ideally I wouldn't be jumping straight into PTs, but it's sort of down to crunch time. After taking each PT I plan to review the whole thing before scoring my answers, ideally the same day. By reviewing the whole thing, I mean reviewing every question no matter how easy it seemed (but also, of course, focusing extra hard on ones I marked as difficult while taking the timed PT), and thinking through why each answer was wrong and why the correct answer was correct. The reason I'm going to postpone scoring answers until after reviewing is so I don't feel tempted to just focus on the ones I got wrong, as this is what I was doing last week, and it wasn't helping me improve at all. Plus, I feel 90% of mastering this test is just familiarizing oneself with the questions, and reviewing so thoroughly is a good way to force myself to do that.

Yesterday was day 1 of the plan. I took PT 40, with a fifth section from PT 22. Wasn't able to finish LG -- skipped two questions entirely, and didn't spend a comfortable amount of time on many others. Didn't get a chance to review the PT yet, but will do that today. Tomorrow will be PT 50 with a fifth section. I'll report back then .

"I want to get faster since I have accuracy issues (usually about -1 to -4 per section) and think it would be good if I got to the end of the section in 25 minutes and then returned to hard questions I skipped or tentatively answered earlier."

sign. people start at totally different levels...on LR I start with -4 to -7 now -10 per section..And I feel more and more comfortable when i'm doing it. Apparently, not in a right way.

[Ginj]

For those who have taken PT 54:

Did the first LR section kick your ass as much as it kicked mine? Whyyyyyyyyyy??

[OhOkay]

i think you're doing yourself something of a disservice if you don't do the drills, as that reenforces what the books are teaching you. i can only speak for myself, but i never really experienced an epiphany with logic games b/c of the bibles. for me, it got me familiar with the game types/setups/how to tackle the rules, but the real improvement comes from lots of practice (including redoing games, which is part of why i don't think you'd ruin the pt's by doing the drills. i used to think that too, but redoing games really helps you get a better feel for the sorts of questions and traps you'll run into, and as long as you wait a reasonable amount of time you shouldn't remember what the answers were.) that being said, you should have plenty of time to drill logic games, which will bring your time down a lot. also for that example, you'd want to make the foods the base and assign people to the various foods. oh also, i'd recommend checking out lsatblog's posts on logic games, they are rather brief but generally pretty helpful, and they helped me find a strategy that feels comfortable for each game type. hth.

Thank you for the tip, I appreciate it. It makes sense that re-doing LGs probably won't inflate my scores so long as I wait long enough after doing the drills. I guess I was being kind of paranoid, but it was silly because I have more PTs than I even have time for at this point. I'll try to do the drills on my non-PT days. Anyway, thanks.

[forps]

PT 34
RC: -10
LR1: -9
LR2: -8
LG: -1
Raw: 73 Score: 159
====================
Ahhhhhh, what should I do with this..

LR kills me as well as RC.

RC I usually miss one passage set. Timing issue.

For LRs I attempt about 20~22 , guessing rest of them.

LG.. fun.

Any advice how to conquer LR secs?!

[geverett]

Jeez... the LG games on PT 27 are some of the hardest I've done so far

Also I wanted to join the study group but never got a response to my PM

Just went -1 on this. Would be more then happy to go over it with you in one of the study rooms. Just PM me if you want.

[geverett]

Going to take my dog for a quick walk then start PT 57. Wish me luck. I'm hoping this is my day to break 170.

[Eichörnchen]

Going to take my dog for a quick walk then start PT 57. Wish me luck. I'm hoping this is my day to break 170.

Good luck! This one's gotta be your 170. I bet you won't misdiagram

[JG7773]

Hope everyone is well! I am sorry I missed the Sunday session last night. I had a family emergency to tend to and had to drive from Boston to Indianapolis last night. I am looking forward to joining you all on Thursday where we will have a lesson from Matt on Incorrect Answers in the RC sections. I am going to be developing agendas for the week and sending it out soon. If you have any questions, let me know!

[geverett]

Hope everything is okay Justin. I'm on my break from PT 57. I feel like I am having my ass handed to me. Mauve dinosaurs kicked my ass, and I didn't even have time to finish the first section of LR which is highly unusual to me since LR has been my strongest section. I am worried that my weekend break killed my mojo. We shall see what happens.

[Hunterrhoid]

My advice if you finish a section early: check to make sure you bubbled everything and did so correctly.

I finished a LG section 2 minutes early today, so I decided to go back through and check my bubbles. While checking, I came across a question with NO ANSWER bubbled. It was actually a question that I struggled with a little bit when I first came across it. Then I marked it right in the book but not on the sheet. I of course bubbled it in after seeing it. And I ended up getting -0! Yay! But if I hadn't checked, I would have gotten a question that I knew I had the right answer to wrong. Checking the bubbles kept me from losing the easiest type of point.

Just throwing out my two cents after seeing it help me (obviously there are other things you should do if you have time left over, but checking the bubbles really paid off in that section!).

This is why I bubble at the end, at the 5 minute mark. It gives you a quick review, and I don't accidentally bubble the letter of the last AC I just crossed off (which I used to do). Bubbling at the end lets me make sure I haven't skipped any questions, and if I have, I don't have to erase an entire section in a quick panic to get the ordering right (rare, but fatal). Finally, given that I finish early (50% of the time) I can re-read my choices, and make sure they trigger my memory.

[ElvisAaron]

Hi All,
Joining the June group today, just decided to retake and bought a seat. Eff it, what do I have to lose.
If anyone needs any study materials, I have pretty much anything you could want from my last time (PTs, Cambridge by type, etc) except PT 62 (which I'd like to trade for)
I didn't notice anything on this forum about the newer LG questions where they ask about substituting a rule..I think I got one of those wrong last go-round. Has anyone put together a method of attack for those?

[Eichörnchen]

Hope everything is ok with the family Justin! And good luck Gev hope you get that 170 soon.

[Yassig]

Sorry to hear that JG, I hope all is okay.

Gev, good luck hitting that 170!

So, I'm supposed to be drilling LR. And yet, I have so many excuses to not to. Where is my motivation? :/ Where is soj and the insane scores to keep me motivated?

[geverett]

So upset right now. Can't believe these dismal results:

LG -6 17/23
LR -4 22/26
RC -7 20/27
LR -7 18/25

Raw Score 77/101 Scaled 161

Unbelievable. I haven't scored this low in 6 months.

Exp. 30.2 -3 23/26

[FloridaCoastalorbust]

So upset right now. Can't believe these dismal results:

LG -6 17/23
LR -4 22/26
RC -7 20/27
LR -7 18/25

Raw Score 77/101 Scaled 161

Unbelievable. I haven't scored this low in 6 months.

Exp. 30.2 -3 23/26

Gev, ignore the anger from the score. I went Raw 76 a few weeks ago and was devastated for a few hours and (somewhat) walked it off. You know you have what it takes to go 170+ - consider this PT as an outlier. I'm sure you'll be able to pinpoint your errors when you review

[geverett]

Is it just me or are these tests harder than the ones in the 30s? Maybe I am just not doing well after taking a break for the weekend. I am in the chat room if anyone wants to join me.

[geverett]

http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/ls ... print.html

Did not know this.