The Official June 2014 Study Group Forum

[dardardelight]

Just clinched my first 170+ ! (Not saying this to brag, but to give myself no excuses for the future-- and forcing myself to work harder as to not embarass myself in this thread by getting a 164 on the real thing)

PT42 - 171

LG -3
LR -2
RC -3
LR -2 although I cheated in this section and gave myself an extra minute in a half : /

Overall feeling good, but still uncomfortable with timing my LR . Something in my head is telling me I could get mess up and get low 160's tomorrow on PT 43. And nothing is telling me I could get a 175+ right now because I still feel shaky. And I know some of you are having the same somewhat insecure feeling with your scores right now. It's okay though! We're just in that phase in our prep where we're still working things out!

[10052014]

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[dardardelight]

Yeah I am. I like the back-to-back strategy. My PT schedule is similar to yours for the month of May.. But I suppose I'll try and spread it out a bit more throughout the week since I'll be done with finals and have nothing else to do.

[givemea180]

165 on PT40 today

LR:-5
LG:-3
LR:-5
RC:-4

I've only lightly drilled a few of the different question types in LR, so my next priority is drilling LR heavily and finishing out the question types. I also have a weird problem with finishing LR and RC around 8 minutes early so I guess drilling full sections will help me to sort out those timing issues.

Feeling confident about getting that 175 on test day

[tfinndogm]

LG rule substitution is the bane of my existence. Every time I go back through and just THINK I end up getting it right. The moment the timer is counting down, my brain melts over these Q types.

[10052014]

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[BillPackets]

JY, the 7sage dude, uses a logic chain... is that the same thing as Manhattans?

No. This is the Manhattan logic chain. JY just writes out a bunch of conditionals and links them up. Same concept; but IMO Manhattan's chain will absolutely crush most games.

I started out with manhattan's method for in/out, then switched to the 7sage way. Both work. JY's method can seem a little daunting at first, I think, bc it is a long chain of conditional logic. IMO manhattan's in/out method gets more overwhelming though with 79 arrows going every which way, and it's easy to misrepresent biconditionals using manhattan's method too.

But in the end it's whatever you can diagram and make sense of in the most efficient manner.

[akechi]

Finally got around to blind-reviewing my diagnostic June '07 PT (Note: there was a 2 week filled gap of drilling in-between taking the PT and reviewing it)

Initial Breakdown:
LG: (-7) 16/23
LR1: (-13) 12/25
LR2: (-11) 14/25
RC: (-9) 18/27

Raw: 60; Scaled: 150

Blind Review Breakdown:
LG: (-0) 23/23
LR1: (-3) 22/25
LR2: (-4) 21/25
RC: (-3) 24/27

Raw: 90; Scaled: 168

My understanding of the material is definitely getting better, but the time-pressure is killing me. I think I have to start weening myself off of untimed drilling. Although it is incredible for developing an understanding of the material and underlying concepts, it is detrimental to my ability to perform on PT's. I think I will fully commit to limiting my time to 1:20 per question during my drills and then blind review them immediately afterwards. That way I can get some speed practice and delve into a deep analysis with each question - double the utility!

Shoutout to Christine from MLSAT for suggesting the method.

Also, for those of you who have trouble staying interested during RC passages, how do you force your brain into remaining engaged with the text? I do noticeably better on RC passages that actually pique my interest, compared to the more boring passages.

[politibro44]

Took my first legit timed 5-section PT today (#61): 163

LR1: -8
LR2: -7
RC: -4
LG: -2

Feel really luck with my score. Was rushed on every section and had to guess on some questions. I'm even more lucky because my experimental was another RC where I went -12 The inconsistency on that is scary! The experimental was my third section and I was just not absorbing any information.

I plan to blind review, but overall am pretty happy.

[dardardelight]

Just Finished PT 43 (Verdict: Something must have been hard about this test, given its generous curve)

Score: 168

RC -6
LR -4
LR -3
LG -2 lucky, considering I misdiagramed a rule in a sequencing game : /

I feel like if the first section of the June test is RC, I'm going to be in deep water. I really need to warm up and get my mind going so I can focus -- LR does a good job of that when it's the first section -- because it usually starts out with easier questions that have the "warm up" effect. I guess a 1 to 1 linear game can do the same. But damn -- I got like 3/6 on the first passage of the test :

Don't get too high or too low, guys ! We got this

[dardardelight]

Yeah I am. I like the back-to-back strategy. My PT schedule is similar to yours for the month of May.. But I suppose I'll try and spread it out a bit more throughout the week since I'll be done with finals and have nothing else to do.

Me too, I will have nothing to do except lsat in may.

So, how does your sched look like? (PTs per day, etc)

Um so far I've done PT's {46-49 , and 39 - 43} -- which leaves me 24 more tests to go. So I have really long weekends off class, but am swarmed with work Mon-Wed, so all of my PT'ing so far has been from Thu-Sun.

Apr 10th to Apr 13th : PT 44 and PT 45
-------
Apr 17th to Apr 20th: PT 50,51,52

Last Weekend of April: PT 53, 54, 55

And then once May comes, I'm going to continue to take 3 PT's a week, but spread it out Mon / Thu / Sat or something like that.

Which leaves me 4 fresh tests that I'll take from June 1st to June 8th, every other day -- treating them like the real thing, hopefully even in the same classroom I'll be taking the real test in.

I know you kind of got started on PT'ing early, so you might have to be more strategic about when to take the PT's so as to hit your prime going into June 9th

Edit : I'm prob not going to go through with the "back-2-back" idea of literally taking 2 PT's in the same day, unless I could find some older tests. I just don't feel comfortable wasting new tests when I know my stamina might be worn out and that's not how I"m gonna be taking the test on June 9th

[agalfano]

Sufficient Assumption level 3 and 4 kicked my butt today... not feeling too good about it

[withoutapaddle]

my reading comp score is all over the place

I either get -0 or -1 on a RC section

or I get -3 on a RC section

Getting -3 on one RC section is really shitty considering I have three more to do

[10052014]

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[Louis1127]

Jaylawyer,

I have a question for you. I know you did your drilling phase of LR by type from PT 1-40 twice over a break period. You obviously improved a ton by working really hard over this time frame. I know you mentioned that you drilled/studied for about 40 hours a week.

I may have the opportunity to study full-time this summer, like you did 9-5, 5 or 6 days a week.

So I guess my question is: How did you study 9-5 every day without going crazy? Obviously, I want to do well on the LSAT so the last thing I want to happen is to burn out.

Sorry if this question is not really answerable, any insight on your intense studying will be beneficial for at least me, and probably others as well.

[Louis1127]

Sufficient Assumption level 3 and 4 kicked my butt today... not feeling too good about it

What do you mean by that, Agalfano? Are you hitting like 80 percent of them or like 50 percent?

[10052014]

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[alexrodriguez]

63 days running scared

[FSUHopeful]

63 days running scared

Me too. Don't have money right now to order materials, only working off of PTs and 2 Princeton review books. I have a full time job as a school teacher, wife and kids. Finding time to study is hard. I usually do 2-3 hours a night after the kids are in bed.

[alexrodriguez]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sOsE0OlR00

"Practice"

This guy and Allen Iverson know something

[alexrodriguez]

Tempted to tell these people in the library to shut up.

I mean, they are in the "quiet zone."

[santoki]

Tempted to tell these people in the library to shut up.

I mean, they are in the "quiet zone."

similarly tempted to tell the attorneys in this office to do the same and stop giving me assignments so i can drill

[agalfano]

Sufficient Assumption level 3 and 4 kicked my butt today... not feeling too good about it

What do you mean by that, Agalfano? Are you hitting like 80 percent of them or like 50 percent?

I'd say more like 65%, but those SA questions for difficulty 3 and 4 were extremely difficult and I haven't drilled SA questions for awhile now... I just had a hard time with the jumbled stimulus being able to prephrase my answers, so I almost went into the answer choices expected nothing in particular. Some questions I felt a little bit rushed and I didn't even notate the conclusion or the support! I think I was just in a funk (hoping actually) and I need to get back and look over the basics and go over the steps for different types of questions

[santoki]

Sufficient Assumption level 3 and 4 kicked my butt today... not feeling too good about it

What do you mean by that, Agalfano? Are you hitting like 80 percent of them or like 50 percent?

I'd say more like 65%, but those SA questions for difficulty 3 and 4 were extremely difficult and I haven't drilled SA questions for awhile now... I just had a hard time with the jumbled stimulus being able to prephrase my answers, so I almost went into the answer choices expected nothing in particular. Some questions I felt a little bit rushed and I didn't even notate the conclusion or the support! I think I was just in a funk (hoping actually) and I need to get back and look over the basics and go over the steps for different types of questions

I feel you, I finished NA questions recently and got destroyed. I'll consider it a reality check when I was beginning to get cocky...motivation to work harder!

[agalfano]

Sufficient Assumption level 3 and 4 kicked my butt today... not feeling too good about it

What do you mean by that, Agalfano? Are you hitting like 80 percent of them or like 50 percent?

I'd say more like 65%, but those SA questions for difficulty 3 and 4 were extremely difficult and I haven't drilled SA questions for awhile now... I just had a hard time with the jumbled stimulus being able to prephrase my answers, so I almost went into the answer choices expected nothing in particular. Some questions I felt a little bit rushed and I didn't even notate the conclusion or the support! I think I was just in a funk (hoping actually) and I need to get back and look over the basics and go over the steps for different types of questions

I feel you, I finished NA questions recently and got destroyed. I'll consider it a reality check when I was beginning to get cocky...motivation to work harder!

Exactly! instead of feeling down and upset I just know that I need to work that much harder! nothing wrong with a reality check every once in a while!