The Official September 2014 Study Group Forum

[sashafierce]

I just realized that they specifically said that I was selected because I downloaded their app.. (which is pretty useful/informative..their blog is great stuff imho)

They gave away free watches on July 4th so you can keep an eye out for them, I am sure they will have more give aways soon enough...I follow them on instagram thats how I know about alll the free shit...I am not affiliated with them in any way..lol

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Edit: 4th of July not Labor Day

[CatchingFire]

Is it too late to start studying for this test? I try to do practice questions at work, with the hopes of going home and drilling into my PS Bibles, but I'm always exhausted. How bad would it be in terms of admission if I postpone to December? I'm looking at Part Time programs FYI.

[chimera]

Is it too late to start studying for this test? I try to do practice questions at work, with the hopes of going home and drilling into my PS Bibles, but I'm always exhausted. How bad would it be in terms of admission if I postpone to December? I'm looking at Part Time programs FYI.

It depends on your goals really. What school(s) do you want to attend? What are your PT scores? I would advise against taking the December LSAT unless it is for Fall '16, or you are scoring very high. Getting your application in early is just too important, however, a high LSAT score will sometimes negate the disadvantage of applying mid/late in the cycle.

[gnomgnomuch]

Just took PT 42.

LG - 6 (5/5, 6/7, 3/6, 3/5)
LR#1 - -7
RC - -4 (1 wrong on each passage, at least I'm consistent)
LR#2 - -3.

Overall score: 81/101
Scaled score: 164.

Once again, I've broken through my highest score (4 times in a row), and once again, I've shown inconsistency on LR (-7/-3 is a pretty big disparity) and poor LG skills.

Anyone have any tips on what I could do to shore up my weaknesses?

I'm missing questions all over the map on LR, and a single weird LG game can throw me off entirely - for example if I have problems diagramming a game, or don't understand a rule, I tend to freeze up and tank that game, potentially wasted time and screwing myself for further games, which was what happened today.)

I'm more or less pleased with my results, and I hope that the 2 months we've got until September will be enough for me to start hitting the 170's consistently, but I also feel that my studying isn't as effective as it used to be.

All thoughts would be very appreciated.

[gnomgnomuch]

Is it too late to start studying for this test? I try to do practice questions at work, with the hopes of going home and drilling into my PS Bibles, but I'm always exhausted. How bad would it be in terms of admission if I postpone to December? I'm looking at Part Time programs FYI.

It depends on your goals really. What school(s) do you want to attend? What are your PT scores? I would advise against taking the December LSAT unless it is for Fall '16, or you are scoring very high. Getting your application in early is just too important, however, a high LSAT score will sometimes negate the disadvantage of applying mid/late in the cycle.

In previous cycles I would agree, but schools are so starved for high LSAT's that they still be likely to take the applicant if his numbers are high. If he/she has everything ready - deans letter, LOR's, PS/DS, Transcript - and just needs to send schools an LSAT, that shouldn't be too problematic.

It's better to apply earlier, but I'd rather apply 2 months later than most people with a 17x, than on the first day with a 16x.

[Straw_Mandible]

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to share my big breakthrough with you all. Last weekend I took PT61, and had my highest score yet. Here's the breakdown:

RC Exp (PT 59): -7 (-4)
RC: -2 (-0)
LR: -3 (-1)
LG: -4 (-0)
LR: -0
Scaled: 172

So obviously I'm thrilled with the score, and I'm especially thrilled with that -2 on the real RC. That ties for my best performance on any RC section. But I recognize that a celebration would be woefully premature, since that sweet -2 followed a disastrous -7 experimental by a matter of minutes. Consider me as lucky as I am inconsistent.

One important take-away, which I've noticed in the past, and which last weekend confirmed: I always do better later in the test than I do when I'm "fresh." In other words, I need a serious warm up before my brain gets into that LSAT state of flow, and fatigue is not my problem (note the -0 fifth section LR). So, on test day, I should be sure to work in at least 35 mins' worth of LR/LG/RC questions as a warm up. That should work out to around 1-2 passages, 1-2 games, and around 10 LR questions.

Section recap:

Exp. RC was tough. I chose to skip the comparative passages (5 questions) after spending too much time on passage 1. I think it's mostly because that was the first real, hard thinking I did that morning. Like I mentioned above, my brain needs time to shake off the cobwebs.
Real RC was where I finally hit my stride.

No surprises in LR; I was within my typical scoring range (-0/-3).

LG was borderline. I understood all of the games well enough to go -0. The -4 was spread out across the section, all careless mistakes/misreading questions. I was rushing through the section because I have had trouble with time on LG in the past. It would have been tough, of course, to predict that all of these games would be manageable for me, and that I didn't have to rush. I guess I just need to drill more LG and practice working carefully but efficiently to get through a section in time. If I had just been able to keep calm and cautious, and check all of my work, I could have ended up with a 177. There's a lesson in this.

All in all, it was a good day for me. I finally broke into my goal range. (My highest PT before this was a 170--breakdown: LG -0, LR -0, RC -10. So I've come a long way from there, in terms of RC skill.) I'm taking PT62 tomorrow. Here's hoping I can ride this momentum into the mid 170s!

Regards,

The Jaw of Straw

[sfoglia]

I have been spending my every free moment studying for three straight weeks now, like, three or four hours every single day. And I'm just not getting any better at ANYTHING.

Last Friday's PT: 164 (#38)
LR: -2, -4
RC: -2
LG: -14

Todays PT: 162 (#35)
LR: -4, -4
RC: -5 (!!!!!)
LG: -11

I don't understand. I get almost everything correct when I do drills, but my PT scores have been hovering in the low 160s since my diagnostic. How can I not be showing the slightest improvement since I started studying in the beginning of June?

My spirit is definitely starting to break. Excuse me while I spend the rest of my night sobbing in a corner.

[Learn_Live_Hope]

Is it too late to start studying for this test? I try to do practice questions at work, with the hopes of going home and drilling into my PS Bibles, but I'm always exhausted. How bad would it be in terms of admission if I postpone to December? I'm looking at Part Time programs FYI.

It all depends on how much time you have, and are willing to put in. Most perspective students did not start studying until about a month ago. A decent amount of them did not pick up a book until a couple of weeks ago. I do not see why you couldn't manage to prep for September LSAT.

[fra]

Finally finished another PT. It seems almost impossible to find three consecutive hours in a day to sit down and take one of these.

PT 37
LR1: -1
RC: -1
LG: -0
LR2: -0

I was so psyched to put my scores on lsatqa and see that 180 pop up .... and it's a 179. Seriously PT37 99/101 gives a 179. This is the first PT that I've seen with such a tough curve. Any other ones come to mind with such a hard curve?

I'm going to have three hours tomorrow, 180 is going to happen. PT38 - I'm coming for you.

[valen]

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to share my big breakthrough with you all. Last weekend I took PT61, and had my highest score yet. Here's the breakdown:

RC Exp (PT 59): -7 (-4)
RC: -2 (-0)
LR: -3 (-1)
LG: -4 (-0)
LR: -0
Scaled: 172

So obviously I'm thrilled with the score, and I'm especially thrilled with that -2 on the real RC. That ties for my best performance on any RC section. But I recognize that a celebration would be woefully premature, since that sweet -2 followed a disastrous -7 experimental by a matter of minutes. Consider me as lucky as I am inconsistent.

One important take-away, which I've noticed in the past, and which last weekend confirmed: I always do better later in the test than I do when I'm "fresh." In other words, I need a serious warm up before my brain gets into that LSAT state of flow, and fatigue is not my problem (note the -0 fifth section LR). So, on test day, I should be sure to work in at least 35 mins' worth of LR/LG/RC questions as a warm up. That should work out to around 1-2 passages, 1-2 games, and around 10 LR questions.

Section recap:

Exp. RC was tough. I chose to skip the comparative passages (5 questions) after spending too much time on passage 1. I think it's mostly because that was the first real, hard thinking I did that morning. Like I mentioned above, my brain needs time to shake off the cobwebs.
Real RC was where I finally hit my stride.

No surprises in LR; I was within my typical scoring range (-0/-3).

LG was borderline. I understood all of the games well enough to go -0. The -4 was spread out across the section, all careless mistakes/misreading questions. I was rushing through the section because I have had trouble with time on LG in the past. It would have been tough, of course, to predict that all of these games would be manageable for me, and that I didn't have to rush. I guess I just need to drill more LG and practice working carefully but efficiently to get through a section in time. If I had just been able to keep calm and cautious, and check all of my work, I could have ended up with a 177. There's a lesson in this.

All in all, it was a good day for me. I finally broke into my goal range. (My highest PT before this was a 170--breakdown: LG -0, LR -0, RC -10. So I've come a long way from there, in terms of RC skill.) I'm taking PT62 tomorrow. Here's hoping I can ride this momentum into the mid 170s!

Regards,

The Jaw of Straw

Congrats on the score! I am envious of your LR. What are you studying out of? My RC is fine but my LR suffers.

[chimera]

Good to see progress being made by some of you! For others, it's definitely normal to have some lower than usual scores on occasion. No worries!

I'm taking tomorrow off from everything LSAT related(except perhaps TLS ). I need a break from drilling and review. If I'm up to it I'll take a fresh PT Sunday or Monday and go from there. Ten weeks!

[diiggidy]

Finally finished another PT. It seems almost impossible to find three consecutive hours in a day to sit down and take one of these.

PT 37
LR1: -1
RC: -1
LG: -0
LR2: -0

I was so psyched to put my scores on lsatqa and see that 180 pop up .... and it's a 179. Seriously PT37 99/101 gives a 179. This is the first PT that I've seen with such a tough curve. Any other ones come to mind with such a hard curve?

I'm going to have three hours tomorrow, 180 is going to happen. PT38 - I'm coming for you.

Fra,

Congrats on the high scores. I've been on this thread since about May and have noticed your posts a few times. If I remember correctly, you're an engineering or STEM major right? If so, I was wondering if you had any advice for improving on the rc section for a fellow engineer. I'm naturally a pretty strong reader, but can't seem to get into the LSAT mindset. I try reading for scale and everything, but it never seems to come together into high rc scores. Perhaps this is because it's so different from the reading I've had to do as an engineering major, but has nonetheless because frustrating. If you don't mind me asking where did you start score wise on rc, and how exactly did you drill and actually improve on rc?

[alexK_]

Hey guys, checking in.

Took my first PT since my test (October 2012). Scored 172, which is exactly my score from Oct2012. Pretty happy that I haven't lost it, whatever "it" is.

Anyway I'll be hanging out and posting my progress. I've also taken the test and done reasonably well before, so if you have any questions let me know.

[ilikebaseball]

Finally finished another PT. It seems almost impossible to find three consecutive hours in a day to sit down and take one of these.

PT 37
LR1: -1
RC: -1
LG: -0
LR2: -0

I was so psyched to put my scores on lsatqa and see that 180 pop up .... and it's a 179. Seriously PT37 99/101 gives a 179. This is the first PT that I've seen with such a tough curve. Any other ones come to mind with such a hard curve?

I'm going to have three hours tomorrow, 180 is going to happen. PT38 - I'm coming for you.

dude. teach me.

[alexK_]

Finally finished another PT. It seems almost impossible to find three consecutive hours in a day to sit down and take one of these.

PT 37
LR1: -1
RC: -1
LG: -0
LR2: -0

I was so psyched to put my scores on lsatqa and see that 180 pop up .... and it's a 179. Seriously PT37 99/101 gives a 179. This is the first PT that I've seen with such a tough curve. Any other ones come to mind with such a hard curve?

I'm going to have three hours tomorrow, 180 is going to happen. PT38 - I'm coming for you.

Are you gunning for 180 on the test as well? If so I think we're in the same boat.

[ilikebaseball]

Finally finished another PT. It seems almost impossible to find three consecutive hours in a day to sit down and take one of these.

PT 37
LR1: -1
RC: -1
LG: -0
LR2: -0

I was so psyched to put my scores on lsatqa and see that 180 pop up .... and it's a 179. Seriously PT37 99/101 gives a 179. This is the first PT that I've seen with such a tough curve. Any other ones come to mind with such a hard curve?

I'm going to have three hours tomorrow, 180 is going to happen. PT38 - I'm coming for you.

Are you gunning for 180 on the test as well? If so I think we're in the same boat.

i think everyone guns for a 180 man

[alexK_]

Finally finished another PT. It seems almost impossible to find three consecutive hours in a day to sit down and take one of these.

PT 37
LR1: -1
RC: -1
LG: -0
LR2: -0

I was so psyched to put my scores on lsatqa and see that 180 pop up .... and it's a 179. Seriously PT37 99/101 gives a 179. This is the first PT that I've seen with such a tough curve. Any other ones come to mind with such a hard curve?

I'm going to have three hours tomorrow, 180 is going to happen. PT38 - I'm coming for you.

Are you gunning for 180 on the test as well? If so I think we're in the same boat.

i think everyone guns for a 180 man

Haha I guess so. But you know what I mean.

[fra]

Fra,

Congrats on the high scores. I've been on this thread since about May and have noticed your posts a few times. If I remember correctly, you're an engineering or STEM major right? If so, I was wondering if you had any advice for improving on the rc section for a fellow engineer. I'm naturally a pretty strong reader, but can't seem to get into the LSAT mindset. I try reading for scale and everything, but it never seems to come together into high rc scores. Perhaps this is because it's so different from the reading I've had to do as an engineering major, but has nonetheless because frustrating. If you don't mind me asking where did you start score wise on rc, and how exactly did you drill and actually improve on rc?

I am in engineering! Unfortunately I don't know how much advice I can give you on RC as I spend a TON of time reading academic journals - which I think are very similar in structure to RC passages.
I started out at -3/-4 in RC, and am now at -1 in RC.
I always read with 'What is the author trying to say?' in mind. Basically I figure that the author includes every sentence/phrase for a specific reason. If I can figure out why the author included each sentence then most of the questions (main point, what is the purpose of phrase X, what is the structure of the passage, etc...) are easy to answer.
I didn't use any books for RC, so I think that my (minimal) progress in RC just comes from practicing actual RC sections.

Are you gunning for 180 on the test as well? If so I think we're in the same boat.

I am trying for a 180!
I'd like to get to a point where I can consistently go -0 on preptests. I think that it's doable.
Good luck with your studying!


I'm about to start PT 38 now.

[fra]

Just finished PT 38- got my 180!
LR1: -0
LG: -1 (stupid mistake, but it seems like that's always the case with LG mistakes! The games in this PT seemed very difficult, took me much longer than usual to solve - I barely finished in the 35 minutes.)
RC: -1
LR2: -0


The last game in PT38 was a huge pain, it took me forever to figure out the right inferences.

Hope everyone else's studying goes well today!

[diiggidy]

After you say that I suppose there are some similarities between the passages and academic journals. I just finished my undergrad thesis and had to read through countless papers, so maybe looking at the passages like this will help. When you're reading through passages you're obviously finding a purpose for each sentence, but do you take the time after every paragraph for a short summary and figuring out where it fits into the passage as a whole? I can usually figure out a lot of the "pieces" of the passage, but rarely put them together into a solid understanding of the whole thing.

Also, if you don't mind me asking, what were your initial diagnostic scores and how long have you been studying for the test? I assume you're intending on doing patent law with your engineering background? I'd be happy to talk more about patent law or engineering things if you're interested! Thanks for the advice!

Fra,

Congrats on the high scores. I've been on this thread since about May and have noticed your posts a few times. If I remember correctly, you're an engineering or STEM major right? If so, I was wondering if you had any advice for improving on the rc section for a fellow engineer. I'm naturally a pretty strong reader, but can't seem to get into the LSAT mindset. I try reading for scale and everything, but it never seems to come together into high rc scores. Perhaps this is because it's so different from the reading I've had to do as an engineering major, but has nonetheless because frustrating. If you don't mind me asking where did you start score wise on rc, and how exactly did you drill and actually improve on rc?

I am in engineering! Unfortunately I don't know how much advice I can give you on RC as I spend a TON of time reading academic journals - which I think are very similar in structure to RC passages.
I started out at -3/-4 in RC, and am now at -1 in RC.
I always read with 'What is the author trying to say?' in mind. Basically I figure that the author includes every sentence/phrase for a specific reason. If I can figure out why the author included each sentence then most of the questions (main point, what is the purpose of phrase X, what is the structure of the passage, etc...) are easy to answer.
I didn't use any books for RC, so I think that my (minimal) progress in RC just comes from practicing actual RC

[sfoglia]

Just finished PT 38- got my 180!
LR1: -0
LG: -1 (stupid mistake, but it seems like that's always the case with LG mistakes! The games in this PT seemed very difficult, took me much longer than usual to solve - I barely finished in the 35 minutes.)
RC: -1
LR2: -0


The last game in PT38 was a huge pain, it took me forever to figure out the right inferences.

Hope everyone else's studying goes well today!

Oh my gosh, congratulations!! I hope you have a bottle of champagne set aside for the occasion! Such an accomplishment!

My update for today: I just did an untimed section of LR, with only -1. Was very conscientious, writing down my rationale for any question that gave me trouble, explaining my logic in arriving at the answer choices that I did. Now going to go back to yesterday's PT and review my errors with the same practice, figure out why I'm having so much difficulty putting my knowledge to practice (ha!) on the practice tests. Wish me luck!

[fra]

After you say that I suppose there are some similarities between the passages and academic journals. I just finished my undergrad thesis and had to read through countless papers, so maybe looking at the passages like this will help. When you're reading through passages you're obviously finding a purpose for each sentence, but do you take the time after every paragraph for a short summary and figuring out where it fits into the passage as a whole? I can usually figure out a lot of the "pieces" of the passage, but rarely put them together into a solid understanding of the whole thing.

Also, if you don't mind me asking, what were your initial diagnostic scores and how long have you been studying for the test? I assume you're intending on doing patent law with your engineering background? I'd be happy to talk more about patent law or engineering things if you're interested! Thanks for the advice!

I don't pause after each paragraph to see how it relates to the main point, but I do kind of do that mentally as I'm reading. At the very least I mentally file each point into 'supports conclusion' and 'defends conclusion'. On tricky passages it can be difficult to categorize points beyond delineating between supporting and defending.

My initial diagnostic was 172, and I've been studying for almost exactly a month.

Your assumption of patent law is correct! I'd love to talk about engineering/patent law with you!


On another note - has anyone else found lsat question knowledge creeping into their everyday life?

I saw an advertisement for this commemorative stamp at the post office the other day:

https://store.usps.com/store/browse/pro ... ive-stamps

and I thought to myself 'I hope that they are keeping the original away from UV light' and I felt like a huge nerd.
(PT 52, S3, Q1 - in case you're interested)

[Straw_Mandible]

Just saw snakes and lizards for the first time. I'm pretty underwhelmed--definitely not as difficult as it was cracked up to be. I just solved for the distributions first, and everything fell into place very quickly. I watched the 7sage video, and it was one of those rare cases when I felt that J.Y.'s solution was less efficient than my own. I owe a debt of gratitude to the Blueprint LG chapter on "playing the numbers." Those drills (which I did back in January) really stuck with me. I recommend the later chapters of that book to anyone who often gets stumped by the harder games in a section.

[Learn_Live_Hope]

Just finished 25 RC passages!

[Calbears123]

PT 43 168
PT 44 170

now if only I can hit these numbers on game day, anyways no internet for a week, so it just me and the trainer + drilling, no more PT for good week