The Official September 2014 Study Group Forum

blacklungz · Post by **blacklungz** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 4:08 pm

smccgrey wrote:
blacklungz wrote: I'm saying that if a Reported Score and a Percentile Rank is predetermined, it's almost next to impossible to have a predetermined curve (amount you can miss). They can certainly have a rough estimate, but if they adhere to the strict Score/Percentile relationship, they need to have the flexibility to adjust the curve after they see the results.

OOHHH ok - I think the issue we're all having getting this across is that the percentile that LSAC provides is a prediction/estimate based on their years of data, not a predetermined percentile that is connected to a certain scaled score.

If the percentile always equates perfectly to a specific scaled score why would they have a scaled score at all?

But it is according to this. It says this table will apply to all scores. http://i59.tinypic.com/zkoo5e.png

To answer your question, it allows them flexibility to change it every year, but not the year for which they have already set the Scaled Score/Percentile relationship for (see above).

Ehhh your explanation isn't that convincing.

Learn_Live_Hope · Post by **Learn_Live_Hope** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 4:11 pm

What happened to discussing studying-our progress?

Gray · Post by **Gray** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 4:15 pm

Irish11 · Post by **Irish11** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 4:21 pm

smccgrey wrote:
blacklungz wrote:
But it is according to this. It says this table will apply to all scores. http://i59.tinypic.com/zkoo5e.png

To answer your question, it allows them flexibility to change it every year, but not the year for which they have already set the Scaled Score/Percentile relationship for (see above).

Ehhh your explanation isn't that convincing.
Right, so looking at that exact chart, if you score a 176 on an exam between June 2014 to February 2015 (future tests) your percentile will be 99.7, meaning that you did better than 99.7% of people who took the test from 2011 to 2014.

And SORRY GUYS!!! I'll stop derailing the thread.... I'm really looking forward to drilling parallel/flaw this weekend. I honestly cannot wait to get to the library (it's been two weeks. ugh.)

So last year there was an article in the WSJ about how doctors' growth charts are outdated and because of that, some 20 percent of kids are now in the 95th percentile of weight that is defined by those charts.

For the same reason, it is possible for 20 percent of people to take the September LSAT and receive a 95th percentile score. Because, like SMCC said, it's based on past information.

I decided to take a one-day study break today, so this tangent was perfectly timed.

TX_UH · Post by **TX_UH** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 4:23 pm

Long-time lurker here. Just wanted to say how motivating reading this thread has been for the past couple of months. It's been extremely beneficial seeing that many have improved and how they have achieved their improvement.

I know this last month+ can become a demoralizing grind at times so if anyone is looking for some extra motivation, I highly recommend reading the threads regarding last cycle's application process for some of the schools you are interested in attending (SMU Example: http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewt ... +Methodist) as well as the "Class of..." threads (Texas Example: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 8&t=221505). When I have a rough study day (especially a RAGEquit

) these always help remind me of what I'm working toward.

Keep up the hard work, everyone!

blacklungz · Post by **blacklungz** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 4:31 pm

smccgrey wrote:
blacklungz wrote:
But it is according to this. It says this table will apply to all scores. http://i59.tinypic.com/zkoo5e.png

To answer your question, it allows them flexibility to change it every year, but not the year for which they have already set the Scaled Score/Percentile relationship for (see above).

Ehhh your explanation isn't that convincing.
Right, so looking at that exact chart, if you score a 176 on an exam between June 2014 to February 2015 (future tests) your percentile will be 99.7, meaning that you did better than 99.7% of people who took the test from 2011 to 2014.

And SORRY GUYS!!! I'll stop derailing the thread.... I'm really looking forward to drilling parallel/flaw this weekend. I honestly cannot wait to get to the library (it's been two weeks. ugh.)

Ahhh, I see your point. But I'm still not sure how that precludes them from determining the curve after the test, in order to maintain the same relative Scaled Score/Percentile Rank in the future. Sure it's possible that 20% get a 170+, but highly unlikely if the LSAT wants to maintain the pedigree it has.

Ok, back to studying for reals.

bound · Post by **bound** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 5:04 pm

blacklungz wrote:
smccgrey wrote:
blacklungz wrote:
But it is according to this. It says this table will apply to all scores. http://i59.tinypic.com/zkoo5e.png

To answer your question, it allows them flexibility to change it every year, but not the year for which they have already set the Scaled Score/Percentile relationship for (see above).

Ehhh your explanation isn't that convincing.
Right, so looking at that exact chart, if you score a 176 on an exam between June 2014 to February 2015 (future tests) your percentile will be 99.7, meaning that you did better than 99.7% of people who took the test from 2011 to 2014.

And SORRY GUYS!!! I'll stop derailing the thread.... I'm really looking forward to drilling parallel/flaw this weekend. I honestly cannot wait to get to the library (it's been two weeks. ugh.)
Ahhh, I see your point. But I'm still not sure how that precludes them from determining the curve after the test, in order to maintain the same relative Scaled Score/Percentile Rank in the future. Sure it's possible that 20% get a 170+, but highly unlikely if the LSAT wants to maintain the pedigree it has.

Ok, back to studying for reals.

you are not in competition with your other test-takers to set the curve. the curve has already been set. you simply fall somewhere on the predetermined bell curve.

I'm not good at details. but yeah, thats essentially it.

kevgogators · Post by **kevgogators** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 5:07 pm

When y'all drill, do you do it timed or untimed?

chimera · Post by **chimera** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 5:09 pm

schmelling wrote:in other news. I'm doing well on my drilling flaw/parallel flaw questions, but they are taking me FOREVER. Anyone else feel like these are some of the most time consuming LR questions?

I definitely found the difficulty-4 flaw questions in the Cambridge packet time consuming

hillz · Post by **hillz** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 5:23 pm

kevgogators wrote:When y'all drill, do you do it timed or untimed?

Untimed.

lsat_hopefull · Post by **lsat_hopefull** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 5:32 pm

I am relatively new to this forum and I am just amazed about the wealth of information available. I wanted to say thanks to everyone who provides such helpful advice on here.

berkeleynick · Post by **berkeleynick** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 5:34 pm

chimera wrote:
schmelling wrote:in other news. I'm doing well on my drilling flaw/parallel flaw questions, but they are taking me FOREVER. Anyone else feel like these are some of the most time consuming LR questions?
I definitely found the difficulty-4 flaw questions in the Cambridge packet time consuming

They are time-consuming, but I have found there are ways to quickly eliminate wrong answers and then pick the best choices by reading the first word of each sentence/taking an aerial view of the structure and finding the parallel. I kind of ignore the substance, which I think takes away time. They're now questions I never get wrong, which is great.

Now if only I could do the same with weaken questions...

Any tips on weaken questions? I'm all over the place and feel like I get twisted up in substance and argument.

Blockofcheese · Post by **Blockofcheese** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 6:10 pm

How do you guys get through hitting a wall with studying? I've tried taking a few days off, taking frequent breaks, trying to study other topics and nothing is working. I feel like I'm not retaining things and it's been tough to just wait it out. Anyone going through something similar?

berkeleynick · Post by **berkeleynick** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 6:13 pm

Blockofcheese wrote:How do you guys get through hitting a wall with studying? I've tried taking a few days off, taking frequent breaks, trying to study other topics and nothing is working. I feel like I'm not retaining things and it's been tough to just wait it out. Anyone going through something similar?

Are you studying in the same place? I've found switching up environments helps with motivation. Try a new coffee shop, new music? But I feel ya. I'm there right now. I am also always too exhausted from work to study after...I just wanna sleep.

hillz · Post by **hillz** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 6:16 pm

Drilling Strengthen questions today. The test seems so soon...

Learn_Live_Hope · Post by **Learn_Live_Hope** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 6:21 pm

hillz wrote:Drilling Strengthen questions today. The test seems so soon...

The whole packet?

hillz · Post by **hillz** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 6:27 pm

No no, I haven't had enough coffee for that.

probably closer to 1/4-1/2 of the packet. May sprinkle some LG in for good fun too.

ilikebaseball · Post by **ilikebaseball** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 6:38 pm

Freakin pumped. Did very well in RC passages today. I'm gonna take the next step and work through the "most difficult" passages that Cambridge allowed me to go back and access.

I've done about 10 PT's now, so now I'm just gonna do all 400 or so of the hardest LR questions and all of the hardest RC passages and see if there is a pattern. After I finish these up (I'm sure it'll take til the middle of next week) I'll start another PT

cavalier2015 · Post by **cavalier2015** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 8:02 pm

so I know LSAT blog sells LR explanations for all the latest ones, are there any other services that offer this that y'all have found helpful?

I like the manhattan forums, but sometimes it really isn't that helpful. I have about $100 i got from work savings to use on this.

thanks

sfoglia · Post by **sfoglia** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 10:08 pm

Dammit, I'm sick! Stupid, dirty, disgusting, diseases-on-the-subway-poles city! I don't have time for this!

Right now using my LSAT books to prop up my laptop while I browse Netflix in bed.

gnomgnomuch · Post by **gnomgnomuch** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 10:29 pm

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHH.

Just did the 4 games from PT 46.

BLAZED through games 1-3, making only 2 stupid mistake, in 22 minutes. I had 13 minutes for game 4, THIRTEEN, didn't know what the hell I was doing and ended up going -6 for the entire game.

Anyone else had problems with that game?

It was the three sub committee one.

mornincounselor · Post by **mornincounselor** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 11:17 pm

Post removed.

gnomgnomuch · Post by **gnomgnomuch** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 11:22 pm

mornincounselor wrote:
gnomgnomuch wrote:AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHH.

Just did the 4 games from PT 46.

BLAZED through games 1-3, making only 2 stupid mistake, in 22 minutes. I had 13 minutes for game 4, THIRTEEN, didn't know what the hell I was doing and ended up going -6 for the entire game.

Anyone else had problems with that game?

It was the three sub committee one.
I remember drawing out a bunch of sub game boards with M and P across the top line for the first couple questions. It has lots of conditional rules in the questions and choices but only 2 simple A-->/B rules. So super open-ended but it was quick to make sgb's.
I had the mechanics figured out by the end of question 18 and ran though the other questions pretty quickly afterwards.

J.Y. explains it very well on 7sage. http://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat ... -4-game-4/

I missed the first question.

J.Y explained it amazingly. It seems that every time I shore up one weakness in LG, another one springs up. For example, I was terrible at distribution games a couple weeks ago, got them down for the most part, now I'm terrible at open-ended games.

I need to find a list of the open-ended games and run through them a couple of times.

On the plus side, I want 38/40 on Main conclusion questions today, so that's something.

mornincounselor · Post by **mornincounselor** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 11:27 pm

Post removed.

gnomgnomuch · Post by **gnomgnomuch** » Thu Aug 14, 2014 11:32 pm

mornincounselor wrote:
gnomgnomuch wrote:
mornincounselor wrote:
gnomgnomuch wrote:AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHH.

Just did the 4 games from PT 46.

BLAZED through games 1-3, making only 2 stupid mistake, in 22 minutes. I had 13 minutes for game 4, THIRTEEN, didn't know what the hell I was doing and ended up going -6 for the entire game.

Anyone else had problems with that game?

It was the three sub committee one.
I remember drawing out a bunch of sub game boards with M and P across the top line for the first couple questions. It has lots of conditional rules in the questions and choices but only 2 simple A-->/B rules. So super open-ended but it was quick to make sgb's.
I had the mechanics figured out by the end of question 18 and ran though the other questions pretty quickly afterwards.

J.Y. explains it very well on 7sage. http://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat ... -4-game-4/

I missed the first question.
J.Y explained it amazingly. It seems that every time I shore up one weakness in LG, another one springs up. For example, I was terrible at distribution games a couple weeks ago, got them down for the most part, now I'm terrible at open-ended games.

I need to find a list of the open-ended games and run through them a couple of times.

On the plus side, I want 38/40 on Main conclusion questions today, so that's something.
I was horrible at open ended games for a long while. I would just freeze up or else try to come up with a million boards before going into the questions. There was one packet that had a number of very open ended games in a row which helped me learn to embrace the uncertainty, I don't recall which one (helpful I know…).

Good job on the main conclusion questions. I still miss way too many main point questions in RC.

Which btw is going poorly. I've made it through 8 passages in 2 days. Ugh.

LSATQA is showing me that i go 30% correct on MC in LR, and 100% in RC... I don't know what to make of that + the 38/40 on today's LR MC packet. I think its just individual questions that trip me up during the course of the test.

I know what you mean, I lose Mon-Wed entirely to classes, the later parts of Thursday to work and the entirety of Sunday to work.
So, I'm really only studying with any seriousness on Thur/Fri/Sat, and I've got other stuff to do as well.

I don't see it getting better when I go from 4 credits to 15 in a couple weeks either, though I'll be taking only 6 substantive credits. (Yay for being a senior taking classes with freshman.)

If you do remember the open-ended packet, I would be really grateful.