June 2011 Study Group Forum

[mickeyD]

Help?

PT33 LR1 #17
I picked B, answer is C. No really good answers here, but I don't get why a single instance where the conclusion isn't true weakens the argument that much. The conclusion doesn't say "a single drop ALWAYS stains much less," and I thought that the LSAT usually trusts studies that are done well. (In this case, multiple trials in controlled circumstances, with consistent results). I picked B, it gives a reason to "undermine the value" of the evidence, whereas C is just a single outlier.

PT19 LR2 #10
I was between A and C, A is correct and I picked C. The stem asks what would "seriously limit the effectiveness of adopting the recommendation." A) limits its effectiveness because it presents a possible situation in which the strategy could backfire. But C) makes the strategy completely irrelevant and limits its effectiveness because it says that the speech in general won't help him win. I also found C) to be stronger because it addressed the part about winning votes. The conclusion says that candidates who want to win votes should adopt the strategy, and answer C) says that the recommendation won't even affect what people really vote for.

Weaken has definitely proven to be, no pun intended, a weakness for me. Trying to drill a lot between now and Saturday's PT.

[soj]

PT40
LRe (PT39 LR2): 0
LR1: -1
LG: -2
LR2: -2
RC: -2
Raw: -7
Scaled: 173

PT39 composite
LG (4/15): 0
LR1 (4/17): -2
RC (4/18): -5
LR2 (4/20): 0
Raw: -7
Scaled: 175

PT40 LG is actually harder than SuperPrep ABC LG, IMO. Of course, if I'd approached PT40 LG with the same level of intensity with which I approached SP LG, which I knew would be hard, then I might have done better and not found PT40 LG as hard as I did. And it's not just the Zephyr Airlines game, either (though that certainly was difficult!). Game 2 was the big timesuck for me. Game 4 wasn't too difficult, but it was also a time-consuming IN/OUT game, and I just didn't have enough time to get the right answers in the 2 Qs I got wrong. What a mess!

Fortunately, I'm on a roll with LR and I did well in RC. Could this possibly be signs of the long-awaited improvement in RC?!?

[Eichörnchen]

99- awesome job on that 171!

And soj, what can I even say...may your slaughter of the LSAT continue unabated all the way to test day

[geverett]

Help?

PT33 LR1 #17
I picked B, answer is C. No really good answers here, but I don't get why a single instance where the conclusion isn't true weakens the argument that much. The conclusion doesn't say "a single drop ALWAYS stains much less," and I thought that the LSAT usually trusts studies that are done well. (In this case, multiple trials in controlled circumstances, with consistent results). I picked B, it gives a reason to "undermine the value" of the evidence, whereas C is just a single outlier.

PT19 LR2 #10
I was between A and C, A is correct and I picked C. The stem asks what would "seriously limit the effectiveness of adopting the recommendation." A) limits its effectiveness because it presents a possible situation in which the strategy could backfire. But C) makes the strategy completely irrelevant and limits its effectiveness because it says that the speech in general won't help him win. I also found C) to be stronger because it addressed the part about winning votes. The conclusion says that candidates who want to win votes should adopt the strategy, and answer C) says that the recommendation won't even affect what people really vote for.

Weaken has definitely proven to be, no pun intended, a weakness for me. Trying to drill a lot between now and Saturday's PT.

The 2nd question I was also stuck between A and C. It appears to me that C actually strengthens the argument and this is why: If by presenting the other sides view the candidate made himself out to be fair minded and trustworthy then that would constitute a candidate's character and would in turn influence character minded voters to cast their votes for that candidate.

[mickeyD]

The 2nd question I was also stuck between A and C. It appears to me that C actually strengthens the argument and this is why: If by presenting the other sides view the candidate made himself out to be fair minded and trustworthy then that would constitute a candidate's character and would in turn influence character minded voters to cast their votes for that candidate.

Great point, I didn't make the connection between "character" in answer C and the mention of "fair-minded and trustworthy" in the stimulus. Thanks!

[FloridaCoastalorbust]

PT 25

RC 23/26
LR1 22/25
LG 24/24
LR2 23/26

Raw 92 Scaled 173

Best score yet. Mildly surprised. Hope it's not an outlier

Edit: LG score

[soj]

PT 25

RC 23/26
LR1 22/25
LG 22/24
LR2 23/26

Raw 92 Scaled 173

Best score yet. Mildly surprised. Hope it's not an outlier

I'd hate to be a downer , but your raw score doesn't seem to add up from your individual section scores. Maybe you had a typo in one of your section scores?

But it's a great score, congrats. You'll improve even more and hit that 175+ on test day, I'm sure!

[Eichörnchen]

PT 25

RC 23/26
LR1 22/25
LG 22/24
LR2 23/26

Raw 92 Scaled 173

Best score yet. Mildly surprised. Hope it's not an outlier

I'd hate to be a downer , but your raw score doesn't seem to add up from your individual section scores. Maybe you had a typo in one of your section scores?

But it's a great score, congrats. You'll improve even more and hit that 175+ on test day, I'm sure!

Oh Soj, you and your "math". I don't touch the stuff personally. And Florida, even if it were a 170 or whatever the correct math would make it, congrats on the sweet score! And if it is just a typo and you really did just get a 173 that is amazing. I would freak if I were you

[FloridaCoastalorbust]

PT 25

RC 23/26
LR1 22/25
LG 22/24
LR2 23/26

Raw 92 Scaled 173

Best score yet. Mildly surprised. Hope it's not an outlier

I'd hate to be a downer , but your raw score doesn't seem to add up from your individual section scores. Maybe you had a typo in one of your section scores?

But it's a great score, congrats. You'll improve even more and hit that 175+ on test day, I'm sure!

Oh Soj, you and your "math". I don't touch the stuff personally. And Florida, even if it were a 170 or whatever the correct math would make it, congrats on the sweet score! And if it is just a typo and you really did just get a 173 that is amazing. I would freak if I were you

lemme double check

Edit: LG was 24/24! I just looked back at the LR1 accidentally and put 22

[soj]

That's fantastic!!

[Eichörnchen]

Dayyuuummmmm boyyyyyyyyyy whatchu been doin? Good work!

[Darko86]

Hey guys. I'm thinking about ordering a RC guide, and I wanted to get a final input from y'all. Should I go with Atlas or MLSAT? I've heard a lot of people say good things about the latter in this thread, so I'm curious if people are generally starting to prefer it over Atlas.

Thanks for the assistance!

[FloridaCoastalorbust]

Dayyuuummmmm boyyyyyyyyyy whatchu been doin? Good work!

We'll call it luck for now that RC was -3 and LG was -0. My RC is usually -5to6. On a non-lucky note I was stoked with what felt like a realistic 88 raw a few days ago (despite going -6 on RC fml)

[FloridaCoastalorbust]

Hey guys. I'm thinking about ordering a RC guide, and I wanted to get a final input from y'all. Should I go with Atlas or MLSAT? I've heard a lot of people say good things about the latter in this thread, so I'm curious if people are generally starting to prefer it over Atlas.

Thanks for the assistance!

Same thing. Atlas changed to MLSAT

[soj]

Just finished analyzing PT40 RC Q27, writing mini-explanations for why my chosen AC is wrong and why another AC is TCR.

And then I realized I actually got 27 right, it was 26 that I got wrong.


This is why I can't have nice things. I can "justify" any answer in RC if I think it's correct.

[Eichörnchen]

hahahaha so basically clean your mind of everything you just "learned". But that is soo true - the more you (over)think ACs unnecessarily, the more you start to feel like they could all be right.

And Florida, nice improvements! Keep it up. I hope I start to PT around 173 very soon. As in a couple weeks ago ideally.

[geverett]

164 on PT 51. I don't know what the breakdown is exactly because i just wrote all the answers on a separate sheet of paper, calculated how many I got wrong and checked it out. I am going to use the method Mickey suggested of re-doing the test untimed to see where my mistakes are and write thorough explanations out. Hope springs eternal. Upward and onward!

[OhOkay]

Received the MLSAT logic games guide this morning, worked through about 2/3 of it. I can't tell if the in-out strategy is worth it... it could be a magical time saver for a few questions (the hypothetical "if" q's, it seems), but I dunno, it takes forever to make the diagram, and it's kind of confusing. Also, sort of easy to mess up the connections. I directed an arrow to the wrong variable on one game, and proceeded to get every single question wrong because of that!

I guess I'll drill some more in-out/binary games and see if this method gets more intuitive to me. Do any of you guys use it?

[geverett]

I thought it looked like a pinball machine.

[OhOkay]

Lol, but do you use it? Or just make the normal linear chains of conditional inferences?

[FloridaCoastalorbust]

I just have to say, if at least one of you doesn't end up at the same school as me in Aug of 2012 I'll be heartbroken

[geverett]

Florida, I'm tryin' man. haha. I seem to have hit some kind of wall though. Not sure what is happening. For some reason I think I have experienced some kind of atrophy in assumption questions. They just don't feel like they are clicking the way they used to. Something has definitely happened to my performance in LR. Could be because I worked on RC for too long. Either way I am going over all my test extensively in the AM. I leave tomorrow for a few days w/ my wife in San Diego for a friends wedding. I will take my Manhattan LR guide with me and start going over it one more time.

[Eichörnchen]

I just have to say, if at least one of you doesn't end up at the same school as me in Aug of 2012 I'll be heartbroken

I know! That's why we all need to get 180s mmk? And I've thought about this before- I think at admitted students weekends we'll have to wear nametags that say "Florida", "Eich" etc so we can locate one another. Plus then everyone else will know who the cool kids are

[mickeyD]

I decided to do some timed games sections in an attempt to improve, so I picked the 30s, which I heard were some of the hardest.

PT30: -1
PT31: -4
PT32: -0
PT33: -1 (picked right answer, wrote down wrong one..)
PT34: -2
(-8 over 5 sections)

I had seen a lot of the games on these sections before, so it's not exactly accurate. Still not where I want to be in LG, but I'm trying to work on managing my time/composure during the 35 minute section. Gonna review all of these, my goal is to get -5 over the next 5 sections.

I'm done letting games hold back my scores. I usually do pretty well in RC, so I know that if I get games down I'll be able to consistently hit 170s and let my LR performance decide my score, which I can definitely live with.

Congrats to everyone who hit 170+ recently (Florida, soj, luft, Eich)! Hope I can say the same soon..

[soj]

Good job on LG30! That wasn't easy.

And wasn't Game 2 (CDs) in LG31 just the dearest?

If you're continuing with 35-39, you've got a few tough ones coming up, though LG40 is arguably tougher than any of the 30s, except 31, of course. The CD crap alone makes 31 the hardest of the 30s.