June 2011 Study Group Forum

[mickeyD]

Second day of doing timed games sections, this time I picked PT 38 and went -2.

During the first two games I felt really good about how I was working through the problems but felt like I was eating up time. After finishing game 2 I looked at the clock and saw 17:30. So while I didn't get a perfect score, I am building confidence and feeling better/less intimidated.

About to start PT25, my last PT before I begin 47-62 and including experimentals. I took a peek and it's the worst order ever: RC LR LR LG.

Check back in a little, hope everyone is doing well!

[soj]

SuperPrep C
LG: -1
LR1: 0
RCe (PT39 S3): -5
LR2: -1
RC: -5
Raw: -7
Scaled: 176

Jeez, SPC's LG is even harder than SPB's. I guess they don't call them the hardest for nothing. Very happy with how I did in LR, but somebody please teach me how to read these stupid RC passages. In non-experimental RC, I straight up ran out of time before I got to the last three questions. I took a few minutes to do them, but got 'em wrong anyway. Both RCs felt extremely difficult (is this the level of difficulty I'm supposed to expect in newer tests? dayum), even though I'm pretty sure I'd done all of the passages in RCe somewhere before. So to get -5 on a second attempt is humiliating. I need to improve on RC somehow.

However, LR and LG are unqualified victories and I feel great about how I did overall on the SuperPrep series. On to more recent tests starting tomorrow.

[Eichörnchen]

SuperPrep C
LG: -1
LR1: 0
RCe (PT39 S3): -5
LR2: -1
RC: -5
Raw: -7
Scaled: 176

Jeez, SPC's LG is even harder than SPB's. I guess they don't call them the hardest for nothing. Very happy with how I did in LR, but somebody please teach me how to read these stupid RC passages. In non-experimental RC, I straight up ran out of time before I got to the last three questions. I took a few minutes to do them, but got 'em wrong anyway. Both RCs felt extremely difficult (is this the level of difficulty I'm supposed to expect in newer tests? dayum), even though I'm pretty sure I'd done all of the passages in RCe somewhere before. So to get -5 on a second attempt is humiliating. I need to improve on RC somehow.

However, LR and LG are unqualified victories and I feel great about how I did overall on the SuperPrep series. On to more recent tests starting tomorrow.

Jeeeeez nice job as always soj. Oh and if you ever use the word "humiliating" to describe any part of your performance on a 175+ PT again, I will have to hurt you

[jim-green]

Jeeeeez nice job as always soj. Oh and if you ever use the word "humiliating" to describe any part of your performance on a 175+ PT again, I will have to hurt you

Well, it *is* humiliating for me.

[soj]

@ above: my bad. I try to be hard on myself when I succeed, and more optimistic when I fail.

Soj,
I have a couple questions I would love to hear your explanations for. PT 9 LR 2 #23 and #25

PT9 LR2-23 MBT

Fact 1: The current farm management practices hurt animals more than other practices (that are more consistent with farm animals' behaviors) hurt animals.
Fact 2: The current farm management practices are less efficient than those same other practices.

Thus, you can tell that there are certain management practices (the ones that are more consistent with farm animals' behaviors) that are less hurtful and more efficient than the current ones. (E) is correct.

(A) Could be false. We don't know if management practices can change behavioral tendencies of animals. For all we know from the passage, we're trying to make do with what we got.

(B) Could be false. This answer reads too much into the narration of the stimulus. Knowledge of evolutionary history can inform us of animals' behavioral tendencies, but it's not necessary. You can know behavioral tendencies (or even just the right practices, regardless of any knowledge of evolution or tendencies) without knowing evolutionary history.

(C) Must be false. The current method is both hurtful and inefficient. There's no reason to believe the current method hits some sort of middle ground where you can't improve in one element without suffering in another. Quite the opposite--you can improve in both.

(D) Could be false. Just because the current method happens to be painful and inefficient, doesn't mean another method is both the least painful and the most efficient. Maybe the most efficient method inflicts a little bit more pain on animals than complete free-range farming does, which might be less efficient.

PT9 LR2-25 NA

My prephrase went something like this: "gee, way to be selfish and assume others are wrong just because their results are different from yours. maybe you're the one who's wrong." D came closest in matching that prephrase. If the replicators' own methods were crappy, how could they go around saying the original study had crappy methods? No one would believe them.

(A) Could be false. In fact, probably false. If the replicators actually believed this, then their case against the original study's measurements would be weakened because people would just attribute the difference in results to sloppy description of the experiment, not sloppy measurement.

(B) Could be false. The controversy might have fueled the replicator's decision to try to replicate the study, but the controversy alone doesn't make the results any more likely in error. The replicator's arguments are based on the inconsistency between results, not the controversy.

(C) The original study called theoretical principles into question? How do we know that? Even if it did, I don't see how it has anything to do with the replicator's argument. The replicators are interested in crapping on the original study's measurements, not the original study's discussion of theoretical principles.

(E) Could be false. If you believe, as the replicators do, that the original study used faulty methods, then you wouldn't care how many times the original researchers observed the results. You would just conclude that they got the same wrong results every time because they used the same wrong measurements every time. You'd just laugh at them for wasting their time.

[geverett]

Soj,
I'm so sorry man, I meant LR 1 which is section 2 in the test. My sincere apologies. If you are still willing I would love to hear your explanation though for PT 9 section 2 #25 it's an assumption question. Also we need to figure out a way to get you into the study rooms and going over questions with us so we can hear more of your thought process when dissecting this stuff.

[soj]

PT9 LR1-25 NA
This one is tricky. (A) is correct because it connects peer review with peer review by a medical journal. In other words, peer review by another institution (e.g. the researcher's home institution) is not good enough. The evidence for this limitation is in the first sentence.

(B) Could be false. Maybe some people not on a med review panel do have the necessary knowledge, but just don't participate in med review.

(C) Could be false. This AC would have more merit if it said the general public doesn't have access to research findings BEFORE they're peer reviewed. (And even that's not necessarily true--just because the journals don't make them public, doesn't mean the public can't access it in some other way.)

(D) Could be false. The word "customarily" should tell you this one's too strong. Note that perhaps not all med research goes through peer review, but this fact does not hurt (A), which discusses a limited situation that assumes peer review occurs (i.e. if peer review occurs, then medical research findings are brought to peer review by a med journal). Maybe the findings that aren't peer reviewed are the kind of garbage findings that are unpublishable.

(E) Could be false. If it were true, then the conclusion that peer review protects us from shoddy research is weakened. Certainly not a necessary assumption.

Isn't the study room in NYC? I live too far away from it.

[geverett]

the study group meets in an online chat room with a white board for explaining problems. PM me and I will send the link

[soj]

omg I had no idea

I don't know if I can do it regularly because my schedule varies a lot and is unpredictable, but I'll try it, it sounds fun.

[99.9luft]

What PT is everyone doing tomorrow?

I'm doing PT42. May even have time to go over it in the room if someone here is taking it also.

[xjykybl]

Hi all,

I am new to this thread. I have benefited a lot from this thread and this forum, and want to joint this thread to keep myself motivated.

I am now at pt45, done with pt 19-44.
just did pt 45 today:
LR1: -2
RC: -3
LG: 0
LR2: -2
Scaled: 175.

I basically do one practice test per day (starting around 1:30pm). The highest I have ever got to is 176 on PT31. Most of the time, I am stuck in 169-173 range. I was actually got stuck around 169 for the past few pt, and today's 175 is a breakthrough from the past 10 days.

I used to suck at LG, but after an intense drilling of LG, I got it around -3~0 per test.
Right now, I need to make sure my RC won't flunk.

[soj]

Hey, welcome and congrats on the great score!

How would you compare the levels of difficulty of each section in 20s, 30s, and early 40s? I've done the oughts, 10s, and the 30s, and I'm deciding which ones to do next. Should I go on with more recent PTs, or are there challenging LR/RC sections in the 20s and 40s (compared to the 30s, which is a useful point of comparison for me)?

[mickeyD]

I was waiting for this to happen.

Misbubbling and reading errors cost me this one.

PT25
RC: 25/26 (-1 for misbubble)
LR: 22/25 (-1 for misbubble, -1 for not knowing what "mitigate" means )
LG: 19/24 (-1 reading error, -3 for out of time)
LR: 21/26 (-1 for reading error)
Raw: 87 = 169

Would have had a 170 with proper bubbling, 173 if I read correctly too. Among my other mistakes were basic conditional reasoning, and a few questions I just flat out don't agree with, but I can live with those.

Still plenty of positives to take from this one.
-Dominated RC and had 4 minutes left, felt 100% about every answer.
-Had an absolutely awful start to LR1, only 10 questions in after 15 minutes, but stayed calm and rallied back to finish with 2 mins left.
-LG still a work in progress. Guess that's not a positive, but grounds for optimism?
-Compared to my last 3 PTs, it's a "bad test," but I'd rather score sub-170 because of misbubbling and misreading than because I couldn't get the right answers.
-made back the lost point for "mitigate" by guessing right on "posterity"

I guess I need to work on test management. I need to do a better job of marking questions I'm confused on so I know where to go if I have extra time. (Never had to do this in the past because, well, I've never had extra time before ) And obviously gotta check those damn bubbles!

I planned on taking about 15 PTs from April 1 to June 6 (just don't have the time all of you do). Test 4 was a dud, but maybe I'll grab that elusive -0 LG for the first time this Saturday.

(4/02) SPA: 171
(4/09) SPB: 175
(4/16) SPC: 173
(4/19) PT25: 169
(4/23) PT47: 180! (please?)

[xjykybl]

Hey, welcome and congrats on the great score!

How would you compare the levels of difficulty of each section in 20s, 30s, and early 40s? I've done the oughts, 10s, and the 30s, and I'm deciding which ones to do next. Should I go on with more recent PTs, or are there interesting or challenging LR/RC sections in the 20s and 40s?

I only did a few pt in 20s, so I cannot say for sure.
But pt 40s definitely have a different feel from pt 30s, especially for LR.
I was in the 170-172 range for the 19-30 pt, 171-174 range for pt 30s. But I got a couple of 169 and 168 for the pt in 2003, which are pt 40 41 42.
Plus LG seems to be easier in 40s, or maybe it's just thatI extensively practiced LG for the past few weeks before I started pt 40s.

I remember I got totally lost in one RC article, which is about Ronald Dworkin and legal positivism in PT 35.

[tmon]

Misbubbling and reading errors cost me this one.

What's your strategy for bubbling? I fixed a lot of my misbubbling problems when I switched transferring a whole page's answers over at one time. I kind of whisper the order to myself as I do it, and that somehow helps. The downsides of this are, of course, that you look mental...

I seem to be missing 1 or 2 easy questions on my LR, often misreading an answer choice or something...I think it might be me trying to push through the first 10 too fast. I'm going to try to slow down on my next test and understand everything a little better. I'm hoping that might actually help some timing issues as well...less misreading should equal less going back and rereading things I missed first time around.

[soj]

Oh yeah, Dorkin. The 30s were actually on a roll with passages that single-handedly ruined my RC scores:
32: multicultural education
33: nonexclusion principle
34: lamarckian evolution
35: legal positivism
36: vasopressin
38: historical sociology

I still haven't recovered from that and have been slumping in RC ever since. So nothing quite so bad as these in the 40s?

I think most people agree the LGs in the 30s are second only to SuperPrep ABC and the occasional random killer (dinosaurs, Zephyr airlines).

Interesting about the LR in the 40s. I think I'm going to do the deconstructeds next (43-45) and then finish up the 40s and early 50s, saving the late 50s and early 60s for D-14.

[geverett]

I was waiting for this to happen.

Misbubbling and reading errors cost me this one.

PT25
RC: 25/26 (-1 for misbubble)
LR: 22/25 (-1 for misbubble, -1 for not knowing what "mitigate" means )
LG: 19/24 (-1 reading error, -3 for out of time)
LR: 21/26 (-1 for reading error)
Raw: 87 = 169

Would have had a 170 with proper bubbling, 173 if I read correctly too. Among my other mistakes were basic conditional reasoning, and a few questions I just flat out don't agree with, but I can live with those.

Still plenty of positives to take from this one.
-Dominated RC and had 4 minutes left, felt 100% about every answer.
-Had an absolutely awful start to LR1, only 10 questions in after 15 minutes, but stayed calm and rallied back to finish with 2 mins left.
-LG still a work in progress. Guess that's not a positive, but grounds for optimism?
-Compared to my last 3 PTs, it's a "bad test," but I'd rather score sub-170 because of misbubbling and misreading than because I couldn't get the right answers.
-made back the lost point for "mitigate" by guessing right on "posterity"

I guess I need to work on test management. I need to do a better job of marking questions I'm confused on so I know where to go if I have extra time. (Never had to do this in the past because, well, I've never had extra time before ) And obviously gotta check those damn bubbles!

I planned on taking about 15 PTs from April 1 to June 6 (just don't have the time all of you do). Test 4 was a dud, but maybe I'll grab that elusive -0 LG for the first time this Saturday.

(4/02) SPA: 171
(4/09) SPB: 175
(4/16) SPC: 173
(4/19) PT25: 169
(4/23) PT47: 180! (please?)

Yea there should be a database of every vocab. word that the average person might not know that has been used in the lsat. Witness my loss a second ago by not knowing "inequitable" shame on me.

[geverett]

About to do an RC section on a hungry stomach and tired. This should be interesting.

[99.9luft]

About to do an RC section on a hungry stomach and tired. This should be interesting.

why would you do that? you're gonna burn out by June if you continue your daily prep overload. Speaking from personal experience.

[xjykybl]

Misbubbling and reading errors cost me this one.

What's your strategy for bubbling? I fixed a lot of my misbubbling problems when I switched transferring a whole page's answers over at one time. I kind of whisper the order to myself as I do it, and that somehow helps. The downsides of this are, of course, that you look mental...

I seem to be missing 1 or 2 easy questions on my LR, often misreading an answer choice or something...I think it might be me trying to push through the first 10 too fast. I'm going to try to slow down on my next test and understand everything a little better. I'm hoping that might actually help some timing issues as well...less misreading should equal less going back and rereading things I missed first time around.

About bubbling, I feel the same. It disrupts the flow if I bubble right after I am done with every question. Bubbling for the whole page is actually more efficient and more error proof.

I have the same problem with easy questions in the first 10 in LR. Either they are not that easy to begin with, or I just sacrifice accuracy for speed. So I tend to slow down and scan every answers before I move on to the next question.

The order I do LR is 1-15, then go to the last question and move back from there to 16.
Somehow I found the 16-20 tend to be the tricky ones.

[tmon]

Misbubbling and reading errors cost me this one.

What's your strategy for bubbling? I fixed a lot of my misbubbling problems when I switched transferring a whole page's answers over at one time. I kind of whisper the order to myself as I do it, and that somehow helps. The downsides of this are, of course, that you look mental...

I seem to be missing 1 or 2 easy questions on my LR, often misreading an answer choice or something...I think it might be me trying to push through the first 10 too fast. I'm going to try to slow down on my next test and understand everything a little better. I'm hoping that might actually help some timing issues as well...less misreading should equal less going back and rereading things I missed first time around.

About bubbling, I feel the same. It disrupts the flow if I bubble right after I am done with every question. Bubbling for the whole page is actually more efficient and more error proof.

I have the same problem with easy questions in the first 10 in LR. Either they are not that easy to begin with, or I just sacrifice accuracy for speed. So I tend to slow down and scan every answers before I move on to the next question.

The order I do LR is 1-15, then go to the last question and move back from there to 16.
Somehow I found the 16-20 tend to be the tricky ones.

I haven't really thought about mixing up the order of my LR, but maybe it's worth a shot. I just tried it with my last PT for RC actually, doing the last two passages, then the second, then the first and while I liked how it felt, I still got my usual -5. But I might stick with it. I just worry that it can mess with my timing and continuity, more so on LR because it's more obvious where you're at (2 passages done, versus 13 LR done).

[westinghouse60]

Update on the last few PTs I've taken:

PT# 38:

LR: 22/24
LG:14/24
RC:24/27
LR: 24/26
84 raw

167 scaled

PT# 19:
LG: 11/24
LR: 20/24
RC: 24/27
LR: 26/26
81 raw

164 scaled

PT# 20:
LR: 22/25
RC: 22/26
LG: 20/24
LR: 25/26
89 raw

170 scaled

I'm not sure I wrote that down right. I'm pretty sure I remember getting a 93 raw because I marked it as that in my book and posted in another thread about getting a 174. I'll have to go back and look and see if the actual # wrong on my answer sheet. Either way, broke 170 for the first time, hoping this is a break through and not an anomaly.

PT# 21:
LG: 20/24
Great start. Unfortunately, I had planned a few quiet hours to study, but my parents proceeded to call me ~5 times during the next section (I didn't pick up and tried to ignore it) to tell me they were coming up to visit me earlier than they had told me that morning, cutting into my study time. I tried to rush and hoped to get through the next sections quickly, but it went horribly, I got frustrated, and stopped.

PT# 22:
RC: 23/26
LR: 20/25
LG: 17/24
LR: 23/25
83 raw

165 scaled

A little background: I started studying last summer and have been on and off for the past year, but have recently started to spend more time on it. Probably took 9 official practice tests before this and consistently got in the low 160's (didn't have the foresight to write scores down in one consolidated place). Recently I've been improving quite a bit in the LG section (only got around half right, as my first 2 tests I wrote down demonstrate). What I'm aiming to do now is get more consistent -3's or less on RC/LR while hitting decent scores in LG (-4/6 or so tops, I figure this will only continue to improve). So getting a 165 today after the 170 (or 174) doesn't strike me as a huge step back, I just need to get LR and RC scores like I did on the first 2 prep tests I bothered to record while also improving in LG as I have been lately.

Why did it not occur to me to write this kind of stuff down earlier?

[jim-green]

Well, yet another drunken slobberknocker of a weekend. I actually think these help to free up my mind from thinking about this stuff all the time. Although the death of brain cells could be detrimental in the long run....hmmm.

frat, frat, frat. I'm a sigep. SO's an AXO. Just got removed from a position for not devoting enough time to it (aka lsat studying) - tfm

Eich, this is exactly why I thought Soj was a girl earlier.

[jim-green]

Deleted.

[soj]

hahahaha! don't steal my lunch money eich, or you'll hear about it at the C&F interview on the bar exam.

drink a beer and try to relax

I think you deserve it.