The Official June 2016 Study Group Forum

[pretzeltime]

^ If the real LG section doesn't have any annoying miscellaneous games, I think it's definitely possible for me to go -0 or -1 on the section.. Now if they give us an extremely hard/weird game that has 7 questions, I will have a mental breakdown.

same. i haven't gone over -1 in like eight tests. except for the dinosaurs. hnnggg.

There must be tons of theories about this on the interwebs, too lazy to dig around. But I feel like those super shitty hard games like dinos or in the Dec 15 test are almost always game 3. So I think on test day I will give game 3 a very skeptical eye and if it looks tough at all I'll go on to game 4. The biggest issue with those tough games is that they will screw up your timing for the rest of the section if you let them.

In Dec I had LR LR RC LR LG I think, which was miserable. But I think I would've have done **even worse** on that test if I had the LG section earlier as I was internally hyperventilating about how badly I did on LG. I was lucky that was the end.

Going in to my second take I feel like my strength will be that I know LSAC will try to fuck with me and I gotta refuse to freak out about it. Easier said than done but it feels a bit better this time around.

[Mikey]

^ If the real LG section doesn't have any annoying miscellaneous games, I think it's definitely possible for me to go -0 or -1 on the section.. Now if they give us an extremely hard/weird game that has 7 questions, I will have a mental breakdown.

same. i haven't gone over -1 in like eight tests. except for the dinosaurs. hnnggg.

There must be tons of theories about this on the interwebs, too lazy to dig around. But I feel like those super shitty hard games like dinos or in the Dec 15 test are almost always game 3. So I think on test day I will give game 3 a very skeptical eye and if it looks tough at all I'll go on to game 4. The biggest issue with those tough games is that they will screw up your timing for the rest of the section if you let them.

In Dec I had LR LR RC LR LG I think, which was miserable. But I think I would've have done **even worse** on that test if I had the LG section earlier as I was internally hyperventilating about how badly I did on LG. I was lucky that was the end.

Going in to my second take I feel like my strength will be that I know LSAC will try to fuck with me and I gotta refuse to freak out about it. Easier said than done but it feels a bit better this time around.

Yeah it's true that the tougher games are put as the third or fourth game. I've seen first games being tough ones though, but that's not really common, I believe. Best thing to do is just skip it and come back to it and hope that you some how figure it out or guess correctly lmao!

[Hennessy]

I'm gonna start doing 3 PT's per week.

[ayylmao]

I'm gonna start doing 3 PT's per week.

Let us know how it works out for you. Planning on trying that but wary of getting burned out.

[ayylmao]

Took a drive up to my test center yesterday. Highly recommend it, I now know the lay of the land and won't be scrambling to find the building.

Bought some instant oatmeal today. Planning on eating instant oatmeal and a banana for breakfast every day through the test. All about routine. I love coffee, but I've decided to stay off it through the test. If I kept drinking it I'd have to drink it on test day, but this way there's no chance it'll combine with test-day adrenaline and make me overhyped.

[proteinshake]

Took a drive up to my test center yesterday. Highly recommend it, I now know the lay of the land and won't be scrambling to find the building.

Bought some instant oatmeal today. Planning on eating instant oatmeal and a banana for breakfast every day through the test. All about routine. I love coffee, but I've decided to stay off it through the test. If I kept drinking it I'd have to drink it on test day, but this way there's no chance it'll combine with test-day adrenaline and make me overhyped.

if you get hungry often, make sure you throw in some fats and protein in that breakfast.

[ayylmao]

Took a drive up to my test center yesterday. Highly recommend it, I now know the lay of the land and won't be scrambling to find the building.

Bought some instant oatmeal today. Planning on eating instant oatmeal and a banana for breakfast every day through the test. All about routine. I love coffee, but I've decided to stay off it through the test. If I kept drinking it I'd have to drink it on test day, but this way there's no chance it'll combine with test-day adrenaline and make me overhyped.

if you get hungry often, make sure you throw in some fats and protein in that breakfast.

Any suggestions? Almonds? Eggs? Walnuts?

[Mikey]

Took a drive up to my test center yesterday. Highly recommend it, I now know the lay of the land and won't be scrambling to find the building.

Bought some instant oatmeal today. Planning on eating instant oatmeal and a banana for breakfast every day through the test. All about routine. I love coffee, but I've decided to stay off it through the test. If I kept drinking it I'd have to drink it on test day, but this way there's no chance it'll combine with test-day adrenaline and make me overhyped.

if you get hungry often, make sure you throw in some fats and protein in that breakfast.

Any suggestions? Almonds? Eggs? Walnuts?

Do you like peanuts? Maybe a granola bar?

[proteinshake]

Took a drive up to my test center yesterday. Highly recommend it, I now know the lay of the land and won't be scrambling to find the building.

Bought some instant oatmeal today. Planning on eating instant oatmeal and a banana for breakfast every day through the test. All about routine. I love coffee, but I've decided to stay off it through the test. If I kept drinking it I'd have to drink it on test day, but this way there's no chance it'll combine with test-day adrenaline and make me overhyped.

if you get hungry often, make sure you throw in some fats and protein in that breakfast.

Any suggestions? Almonds? Eggs? Walnuts?

Do you like peanuts? Maybe a granola bar?

a side of 2 eggs would be good. healthy fats and 12g of protein. and DO NOT forget to drink water.

[ayylmao]

Took a drive up to my test center yesterday. Highly recommend it, I now know the lay of the land and won't be scrambling to find the building.

Bought some instant oatmeal today. Planning on eating instant oatmeal and a banana for breakfast every day through the test. All about routine. I love coffee, but I've decided to stay off it through the test. If I kept drinking it I'd have to drink it on test day, but this way there's no chance it'll combine with test-day adrenaline and make me overhyped.

if you get hungry often, make sure you throw in some fats and protein in that breakfast.

Any suggestions? Almonds? Eggs? Walnuts?

Do you like peanuts? Maybe a granola bar?

a side of 2 eggs would be good. healthy fats and 12g of protein. and DO NOT forget to drink water.

your username gives you extra credibility. thanks!

[abcdefg1234567]

So had a really bad PT Friday and decided to throw in the towel. I went back and reviewed each question Saturday and that felt like positive way to boost morale and stay focused.

After waking up with a cold I decided to brute through PT 65 anyway just to stay consistent.

PT 65 + PT 46 section 4

168
LG -0 (experimental)
RC -6
LR -3
LG -0
LR -4

Had no issues with time, but damn, if I can knock out a couple more RC questions I would be scoring where I need to. Oh well.

[Hennessy]

So had a really bad PT Friday and decided to throw in the towel. I went back and reviewed each question Saturday and that felt like positive way to boost morale and stay focused.

After waking up with a cold I decided to brute through PT 65 anyway just to stay consistent.

PT 65 + PT 46 section 4

168
LG -0 (experimental)
RC -6
LR -3
LG -0
LR -4

Had no issues with time, but damn, if I can knock out a couple more RC questions I would be scoring where I need to. Oh well.

This is almost exactly how I'm scoring on every test. Except I'm not taking the five-parts...

[forum_user]

^ If the real LG section doesn't have any annoying miscellaneous games, I think it's definitely possible for me to go -0 or -1 on the section.. Now if they give us an extremely hard/weird game that has 7 questions, I will have a mental breakdown.

same. i haven't gone over -1 in like eight tests. except for the dinosaurs. hnnggg.

There must be tons of theories about this on the interwebs, too lazy to dig around. But I feel like those super shitty hard games like dinos or in the Dec 15 test are almost always game 3. So I think on test day I will give game 3 a very skeptical eye and if it looks tough at all I'll go on to game 4. The biggest issue with those tough games is that they will screw up your timing for the rest of the section if you let them.

In Dec I had LR LR RC LR LG I think, which was miserable. But I think I would've have done **even worse** on that test if I had the LG section earlier as I was internally hyperventilating about how badly I did on LG. I was lucky that was the end.

Going in to my second take I feel like my strength will be that I know LSAC will try to fuck with me and I gotta refuse to freak out about it. Easier said than done but it feels a bit better this time around.

Yeah it's true that the tougher games are put as the third or fourth game. I've seen first games being tough ones though, but that's not really common, I believe. Best thing to do is just skip it and come back to it and hope that you some how figure it out or guess correctly lmao!

If I may chime in on this, I'd strongly caution against expecting the test to be reliably one way or the other. I think it threw a lot of people off in December because one of the LR sections started with a handful of more difficult questions. And of course, there was Game 3. (Not to mention the possibility that you get a super hard experimental--which you obviously won't know for sure at the time, and that could also shake your confidence or throw you off.)

I think these idiosyncrasies stem from a common cause: LSAC knows that we know more about this test than ever before. Of course, I believe it has always been true that LSAC has to get ahead of its test takers--hence why the 60s RC feels more difficult, why the 70s LR feels more difficult, and now that we're almost in the 80s, I think LG will start being significantly less of a given for a lot of people--or at least it will become more unpredictable. I'd guess more miscellaneous/circle/pattern games, or even more typical sequencing/grouping games that are just worded really strangely.

Granted, the test is standardized, but you have to consider that PT 78 therefore needs to be just as hard for us as PT1 was for those takers.

TL;DR, winter is coming, the test is changing, expect the unexpected, and don't get rattled when the expected becomes the unexpected.

[pretzeltime]

^ If the real LG section doesn't have any annoying miscellaneous games, I think it's definitely possible for me to go -0 or -1 on the section.. Now if they give us an extremely hard/weird game that has 7 questions, I will have a mental breakdown.

same. i haven't gone over -1 in like eight tests. except for the dinosaurs. hnnggg.

There must be tons of theories about this on the interwebs, too lazy to dig around. But I feel like those super shitty hard games like dinos or in the Dec 15 test are almost always game 3. So I think on test day I will give game 3 a very skeptical eye and if it looks tough at all I'll go on to game 4. The biggest issue with those tough games is that they will screw up your timing for the rest of the section if you let them.

In Dec I had LR LR RC LR LG I think, which was miserable. But I think I would've have done **even worse** on that test if I had the LG section earlier as I was internally hyperventilating about how badly I did on LG. I was lucky that was the end.

Going in to my second take I feel like my strength will be that I know LSAC will try to fuck with me and I gotta refuse to freak out about it. Easier said than done but it feels a bit better this time around.

Yeah it's true that the tougher games are put as the third or fourth game. I've seen first games being tough ones though, but that's not really common, I believe. Best thing to do is just skip it and come back to it and hope that you some how figure it out or guess correctly lmao!

If I may chime in on this, I'd strongly caution against expecting the test to be reliably one way or the other. I think it threw a lot of people off in December because one of the LR sections started with a handful of more difficult questions. And of course, there was Game 3. (Not to mention the possibility that you get a super hard experimental--which you obviously won't know for sure at the time, and that could also shake your confidence or throw you off.)

I think these idiosyncrasies stem from a common cause: LSAC knows that we know more about this test than ever before. Of course, I believe it has always been true that LSAC has to get ahead of its test takers--hence why the 60s RC feels more difficult, why the 70s LR feels more difficult, and now that we're almost in the 80s, I think LG will start being significantly less of a given for a lot of people--or at least it will become more unpredictable. I'd guess more miscellaneous/circle/pattern games, or even more typical sequencing/grouping games that are just worded really strangely.

Granted, the test is standardized, but you have to consider that PT 78 therefore needs to be just as hard for us as PT1 was for those takers.

TL;DR, winter is coming, the test is changing, expect the unexpected, and don't get rattled when the expected becomes the unexpected.

Well, that's sort of what I mean. I am expecting there to be a part of the test meant to freak me out, and as I said I will do my best not to allow that. I think one can actually rely on the LSAT to be predictable in that it will insert elements that initially seem "unpredictable"/"atypical" but that are actually manageable if one moves past the panic stage.

That may mean a whacky third game (as I mention, it's just a hunch). It may not be. We may get a suuuuper chill, regular, game section. I would love if my hunch was incorrect!

[StopLawying]

LR and RC have gotten so difficult in the 70s that I think it compensates for a predictable/easy game section. Add a tough games section, together with the current difficulty of both LR and RC, and this test is torture.
I look back at some of the tests in the 40s and 50s and wish I was taking this test in the early 2000s. Students then had 40+ tests to work with, and all the sections seemed to be of medium-level difficulty. Plus, having 70+ tests to work with is overwhelming, and you feel like studying for this test is never-ending.
Seriously, imagine if this test is still around in 10 years. That means there will be around 100+ released practice tests that students can work with. To get through 40+ takes forever, I can't imagine feeling the pressure to get through more.

[StopLawying]

And with less than a month until test day this thread is really dead. I remember in past years the June thread being a lot more active. Would love to know how many people are signed up to take the test this June. Hopefully the amount of test takers is going down.

[forum_user]

LR and RC have gotten so difficult in the 70s that I think it compensates for a predictable/easy game section. Add a tough games section, together with the current difficulty of both LR and RC, and this test is torture.
I look back at some of the tests in the 40s and 50s and wish I was taking this test in the early 2000s. Students then had 40+ tests to work with, and all the sections seemed to be of medium-level difficulty. Plus, having 70+ tests to work with is overwhelming, and you feel like studying for this test is never-ending.
Seriously, imagine if this test is still around in 10 years. That means there will be around 100+ released practice tests that students can work with. To get through 40+ takes forever, I can't imagine feeling the pressure to get through more.

I guess my point in general is that the test absolutely is supposed to be hard. There's a reason only ~100 people get a perfect score each year out of 100,000 test takers. Maybe it doesn't seem small because TLS is so self-selecting, but like it's not supposed to be an easy thing to get 170+. We have the benefit of the internet and more than 7,500 previous LSAT questions. LSAC's advantage is that they're always playing defense and can pretty much do whatever they want. They've also had decades of practice and are continually honing their questions. After all, if the test never changed, scores would become meaningless. I don't necessarily disagree that the early 2000s tests seem easier, but I contend that it's largely because we have the benefit of hindsight and the mid- to late-2000s tests to compare them to. I bet for takers in the early 2000s, their test seemed weirder than before. I mean, comparative reading was introduced in 2007, which must've seemed like a massive curveball. Hell, TLS has only been around since 2005--can you imagine studying for the LSAT without TLS? I think the internet has actually had a substantial impact on the LSAT--I'd imagine it accelerated the nuclear arms race between test makers and test takers substantially.

Just my two cents, but I do very firmly believe the test is rapidly changing, and I think the wisest course of action is never to rely on the past to predict the future.

Also, I too am surprised that this thread is relatively dead--especially compared to Dec 2015, which was a zoo.

[Mikey]

By far my BIGGEST issue with LR isn't so much my accuracy, it's more of my timing. I've noticed a trend in which within the given 35 minutes I can usually only complete about 22 questions, leaving 3-4 to be left to guessing. Sometimes I do go over the time just to finish up the questions and try to understand them in a fast manner, but this is my issue and I can't seem to shake it off. If I go over time btw, I usually only go about 5 mins more. I try my best to complete the first 8ish questions as fast as I can but sometimes slip up with my accuracy and get at least 1 of them wrong due to this mentality that the 1-8/10 should be the fastest to do. Any advice?

[carasrook]

Just to chime in - I'm around, mostly lurking, only contributing when I have something to contribute

BUT yes, I was thinking - the test takers sitting for the exam where comparative reading was rolled out were likely totally blindsided. It's not unreasonable to think they'd introduce something completely new on our test either. It's discouraging, but you gotta respect the test.

Less than four weeks. On some level, I'm petrified because I haven't hit my target yet (and likely won't), but I'm also so ready to get it over with.

[abcdefg1234567]

By far my BIGGEST issue with LR isn't so much my accuracy, it's more of my timing. I've noticed a trend in which within the given 35 minutes I can usually only complete about 22 questions, leaving 3-4 to be left to guessing. Sometimes I do go over the time just to finish up the questions and try to understand them in a fast manner, but this is my issue and I can't seem to shake it off. If I go over time btw, I usually only go about 5 mins more. I try my best to complete the first 8ish questions as fast as I can but sometimes slip up with my accuracy and get at least 1 of them wrong due to this mentality that the 1-8/10 should be the fastest to do. Any advice?

Ever since I started forcing myself to understand conclusion, premise, and prephrase, I have finished under time and with better accuracy. I took what lawpro82 said to heart, be proactive NOT reactive. Try to predict the correct answer, not search for one. That's helped me so far.

[proteinshake]

By far my BIGGEST issue with LR isn't so much my accuracy, it's more of my timing. I've noticed a trend in which within the given 35 minutes I can usually only complete about 22 questions, leaving 3-4 to be left to guessing. Sometimes I do go over the time just to finish up the questions and try to understand them in a fast manner, but this is my issue and I can't seem to shake it off. If I go over time btw, I usually only go about 5 mins more. I try my best to complete the first 8ish questions as fast as I can but sometimes slip up with my accuracy and get at least 1 of them wrong due to this mentality that the 1-8/10 should be the fastest to do. Any advice?

make it your goal to finish the first 10 in 10 minutes. after you can do that, do 15 in 15 minutes. once I did that, I finished LR sections with 1-2 minutes left and -1-3 across both sections. the important thing here is that the first 10 are by far the easiest questions in the section, so you can get away with just circling the correct answer once you see it, rather than eliminating every wrong answer even after you are confident you know the right one.

[abcdefg1234567]

By far my BIGGEST issue with LR isn't so much my accuracy, it's more of my timing. I've noticed a trend in which within the given 35 minutes I can usually only complete about 22 questions, leaving 3-4 to be left to guessing. Sometimes I do go over the time just to finish up the questions and try to understand them in a fast manner, but this is my issue and I can't seem to shake it off. If I go over time btw, I usually only go about 5 mins more. I try my best to complete the first 8ish questions as fast as I can but sometimes slip up with my accuracy and get at least 1 of them wrong due to this mentality that the 1-8/10 should be the fastest to do. Any advice?

make it your goal to finish the first 10 in 10 minutes. after you can do that, do 15 in 15 minutes. once I did that, I finished LR sections with 1-2 minutes left and -1-3 across both sections. the important thing here is that the first 10 are by far the easiest questions in the section, so you can get away with just circling the correct answer once you see it, rather than eliminating every wrong answer even after you are confident you know the right one.

Great advice, but I want to add one thing. Don't assume the first 10 are easy. Often there are at least a couple of harder ones in there, and in at least a few instances most of them were difficult. While I totally agree with the 10 in 10, don't think that because you're at question 10 after 14 minutes means you are way behind pace...my two cents...time for PT

[proteinshake]

By far my BIGGEST issue with LR isn't so much my accuracy, it's more of my timing. I've noticed a trend in which within the given 35 minutes I can usually only complete about 22 questions, leaving 3-4 to be left to guessing. Sometimes I do go over the time just to finish up the questions and try to understand them in a fast manner, but this is my issue and I can't seem to shake it off. If I go over time btw, I usually only go about 5 mins more. I try my best to complete the first 8ish questions as fast as I can but sometimes slip up with my accuracy and get at least 1 of them wrong due to this mentality that the 1-8/10 should be the fastest to do. Any advice?

make it your goal to finish the first 10 in 10 minutes. after you can do that, do 15 in 15 minutes. once I did that, I finished LR sections with 1-2 minutes left and -1-3 across both sections. the important thing here is that the first 10 are by far the easiest questions in the section, so you can get away with just circling the correct answer once you see it, rather than eliminating every wrong answer even after you are confident you know the right one.

Great advice, but I want to add one thing. Don't assume the first 10 are easy. Often there are at least a couple of harder ones in there, and in at least a few instances most of them were difficult. While I totally agree with the 10 in 10, don't think that because you're at question 10 after 14 minutes means you are way behind pace...my two cents...time for PT

agreed! it's a rule that should be followed somewhat loosely for sure.

[proteinshake]

And with less than a month until test day this thread is really dead. I remember in past years the June thread being a lot more active. Would love to know how many people are signed up to take the test this June. Hopefully the amount of test takers is going down.

new tweet by Spivey confirms that the number of June takers are up.

[ponderingmeerkat]

PT 65 (w/ PT 34 S3 for 5th section):

-4/-4/-4/-4 (-3 "experimental") for a 168.

At this point it feels like I'm going to need a statistically unusual day to go 170+ during the June writing. I got a 170 last week but this isn't the norm by any stretch. Trying to temper my expectations for a "one and done" LSAT experience.

The silver lining: for the first time in a while, I didn't go "on tilt" during one LR section. -4/-4 isn't great but it's not freakishly volatile either, which I view as an improvement.