The Official September 2016 Study Group - WAKE ME UP WHEN SEPTEMBER ENDS Forum

[34iplaw]

On LR and RC, I tend to circle stuff that I'm 95% sure makes it wrong, but, perhaps, it could be some weird paraphrase. If I find it suspicious but not enough to eliminate, I underline. If I'm absolutely certain it's wrong on th read through, I sort of zigzag over the text so that if I need to re-read choices I do not waste any time reading a word of the choice. It also weirdly builds confidence and makes me take the test more assertively which I feel is important.

[Barack O'Drama]

Got a solid day of prep in despite having a migraine! The medication I have for them generally just makes me more nauseous, so I think I'm going to see if something like a cool shower will help.

Read the Assumptions chapters in MLSAT LR and then drilled 25 Sufficient Assumption and 25 Necessary Assumption questions from the Cambridge packets. Starting to feel a bit more confident on these. I would like to do another 25 of each before I go to bed, but we will see how I feel.

Also, did about 4 ordering games and 4 grouping games to get my practice in with those. I'm going to review those with 7Sage and then eat some dinner.
If I can get my logic games down to a -3 or so, the sky will be the limit for September! They are holding me back because I need to put in so much time into getting better at them that I have ended up neglecting LR/RC. I've decided to spend 2.5 hours a day on LR and LG. I am hoping doing so will result in my LSAT skills rounding out a bit more. Then I'm going to use another hour or so to review. 6 hours total. That feels like a comfortable amount. I was doing 8 hours for a few weeks and the burn out was real, haha!

[BlackCanary]

Y'all have been busy on here while I've been away. Finally back home and back to my normal study routine, but now with all my books and PTs.

[proteinshake]

I think the 1.5 weeks off from LG really helped me. I've been speeding through these grouping games today and going well under time! practice on LG really is key.

[MyNameIsntJames]

This is probably obvious advice, but if this applies to you and you've had the same issue on LR then hopefully it helps:


I just finished a LR section, timed. First one in a few months and got 21/26 on it, so not really too good. However, when I analyzed the questions I got wrong and the markings I made on it, 3/5 of those wrong questions were a result of me moving from what I initially thought was the right answer to another one that I talked myself into thinking is better.

This has consistently plagued me on LR and I'm getting to the point where I'm about to just say fuck it and as soon as I think I have the answer correct, I'm circling and moving on. I feel like if you look at a LR question long and hard enough, other answers that are clearly wrong start to seem a little more plausible and you start creating arguments for why C might be able to kinda sorta possibly work instead of B and that transforms into 'C is definitely the right answer' and you cross out B and screw yourself out of a point. If it was just this one instance, I probably wouldn't worry but the fact that this has been a consistent theme among LR and even RC sometimes to an extent has convinced me that there's something about your initial impression that you should yield heavy credence to.

Someone tell me if I'm wrong? Or if they've experienced this? I know its conventional test logic to not switch your answer unless you KNOW you fucked up... but this seems to be 20x as true on the LSAT than with anything else

Yep, going with your gut feeling and second guessing yourself is what you're talking about, and I agree. There are times in which I choose an A/C that I know for sure is the right answer, but there is sometimes another A/C that I just can't eliminate. So during BR, I tend to question myself and sometimes I switch my original correct answer to the one I couldn't get rid of, which is usually wrong. This has become less of a habit for me during actual timed sections though. I guess just being more familiar with trap answer choices and blatantly wrong ones through repetition is key. I may be wrong but this is all I have to explain it in my scenario.

As for choosing an A/C and moving on, you want to be careful with that, especially on the harder questions. I was just talking about this the other day, and for the easier questions, it can be an OK method of just picking an A/C and moving on, but you should at least quickly glance over the remaining A/C's if you're going to do that. With the harder questions, you should read all A/C's since they tend to have more trap/tempting A/C's.I know that's what you want to avoid (not being stuck with 2 or so A/C's and second guessing yourself), but like I said before, become more familiar with wrong/trap/tempting answer choices when you BR. Then as time goes by, you should see this issue becoming less and less of an actual issue.

You're absolutely right. And because of the LSAT's tendency to put trap answers right ahead of correct ones, I've started going from E to A on some problems instead of A-E in hopes that I would run across the right answer before the trap answer in that case. I could be overthinking this though.

[imran.malek]

Is anyone here up for maybe putting together a Google Hangouts study group that meets every few days to go through PT questions or something like that? I'd love to have some people to bounce some question solutions off of!

[YupSports]

Drilled Advanced Logic, Harder Must Be True questions, and began the Flaw/Descriptive Flaw 7Sage unit.

I think the Google Hangout is a good idea, although I'm not sure how much I'll be able to participate.

[SunDevil14]

Making Progress.

Took a time PT last week

167

LR 1: -4
LR 2: -2
RC: -4
LG: -6

I was a bit bummed out, since I think I could have hit a 170. I made a stupid mistake and misrepresented a rule in the first game. It cost me several minutes, and thus had to really rush the final game in the section, as well as the other games to a lesser extent.

If you occasionally make small errors in representing the initial rules, is it better to re-read and check the rules after diagramming all the rules or after each rule? I do not make this mistake too often, but once every few game sets is troubling since my goal is a 170+

[Alexandros]

There are not enough hours in the day, this is ridiculous.
Going to do another set of LG then will have to quit for tonight because I'm too bloody tired for this.
Thus far - 1 RC this morning, mlsat lr ch 6, logic game set of 5, mlsat lr ch 11, lr set.
Doesn't seem like very much at all.

(Lol like why did the one time I'm offered a surprise not-to-be-turned-down full time position have to be the summer I'd set aside for chill LSAT studying. Also this 24 cycle thing is frankly a terrible design.)

[proteinshake]

Making Progress.

Took a time PT last week

167

LR 1: -4
LR 2: -2
RC: -4
LG: -6

I was a bit bummed out, since I think I could have hit a 170. I made a stupid mistake and misrepresented a rule in the first game. It cost me several minutes, and thus had to really rush the final game in the section, as well as the other games to a lesser extent.

If you occasionally make small errors in representing the initial rules, is it better to re-read and check the rules after diagramming all the rules or after each rule? I do not make this mistake too often, but once every few game sets is troubling since my goal is a 170+

this is a great place to be. fix your LG and you'd have a 170+!

[SunDevil14]

Making Progress.

Took a time PT last week

167

LR 1: -4
LR 2: -2
RC: -4
LG: -6

I was a bit bummed out, since I think I could have hit a 170. I made a stupid mistake and misrepresented a rule in the first game. It cost me several minutes, and thus had to really rush the final game in the section, as well as the other games to a lesser extent.

If you occasionally make small errors in representing the initial rules, is it better to re-read and check the rules after diagramming all the rules or after each rule? I do not make this mistake too often, but once every few game sets is troubling since my goal is a 170+

this is a great place to be. fix your LG and you'd have a 170+!

Thanks man. I usually do well on the games just a stupid costly mistake.

[34iplaw]

Just got back from class.

I'm going to read through Manhattan LSAT on grouping and in-out then watch the lecture from Singh. They have some notation strategies that I'm not totally sold on. They seem somewhat counterintuitive to me.

I'm going to try to do all the LR homework and a round on the games before I go away for the weekend.

[appind]

anyone know


where one could get


pt-78?

[Rupert Pupkin]

There are not enough hours in the day, this is ridiculous.
Going to do another set of LG then will have to quit for tonight because I'm too bloody tired for this.
Thus far - 1 RC this morning, mlsat lr ch 6, logic game set of 5, mlsat lr ch 11, lr set.
Doesn't seem like very much at all.

(Lol like why did the one time I'm offered a surprise not-to-be-turned-down full time position have to be the summer I'd set aside for chill LSAT studying. Also this 24 cycle thing is frankly a terrible design.)

You're not alone! Ive been working "more-than" full-time this past month in NY Finance ( an incredible opportunity) and It's been extremely difficult to rack in the right LSAT hours. Im learning consistency is key and utilize your weekends! Haha

Every week Im getting in more of groove and able to accomplish more and more- we can make it through this summer together!

[Alexandros]

Definitely BR-ing every LR section here on out. The points will come, eventually... We will get there.
Tomorrow - hopefully can make time for both LG and RC before work. Going to quickly photocopy all the games I've done in the 50s. Keep drilling, drilling, drilling. And another chapter or two of MLSAT LR.

Hoping my books will manage to arrive tomorrow or the day after

[Alexandros]

There are not enough hours in the day, this is ridiculous.
Going to do another set of LG then will have to quit for tonight because I'm too bloody tired for this.
Thus far - 1 RC this morning, mlsat lr ch 6, logic game set of 5, mlsat lr ch 11, lr set.
Doesn't seem like very much at all.

(Lol like why did the one time I'm offered a surprise not-to-be-turned-down full time position have to be the summer I'd set aside for chill LSAT studying. Also this 24 cycle thing is frankly a terrible design.)

You're not alone! Ive been working "more-than" full-time this past month in NY Finance ( an incredible opportunity) and It's been extremely difficult to rack in the right LSAT hours. Im learning consistency is key and utilize your weekends! Haha

Every week Im getting in more of groove and able to accomplish more and more- we can make it through this summer together!

YES. WE CAN DO THIS.

Also shit that sounds like an amazing opportunity but stressful af! I'm glad you're getting in groove. Agreed - consistency and weekends are key. time management! We've got this

When are you doing your PTs? I haven't managed to do a proper one on a workday yet, but that may have to change. (Somehow...)

[Dodocogon]

Fuck Ethicists, really.

In other news, PT tonight went pretty well; BR'ing it tomorrow which has been very beneficial thus far; I'm only missing 4/5 star difficulty (7sage ratings) for the most part at this point, and having 3 months or so to work those down will hopefully leave me at a great place to be.

[mwells56]

Got a solid day of prep in despite having a migraine! The medication I have for them generally just makes me more nauseous, so I think I'm going to see if something like a cool shower will help.

Read the Assumptions chapters in MLSAT LR and then drilled 25 Sufficient Assumption and 25 Necessary Assumption questions from the Cambridge packets. Starting to feel a bit more confident on these. I would like to do another 25 of each before I go to bed, but we will see how I feel.

Also, did about 4 ordering games and 4 grouping games to get my practice in with those. I'm going to review those with 7Sage and then eat some dinner.
If I can get my logic games down to a -3 or so, the sky will be the limit for September! They are holding me back because I need to put in so much time into getting better at them that I have ended up neglecting LR/RC. I've decided to spend 2.5 hours a day on LR and LG. I am hoping doing so will result in my LSAT skills rounding out a bit more. Then I'm going to use another hour or so to review. 6 hours total. That feels like a comfortable amount. I was doing 8 hours for a few weeks and the burn out was real, haha!

I've been getting migraines since I was 12, although I've only had one or two that were serious enough for prescription strength meds. My doc told me that caffeine helps a lot. It was a long time ago now, but I remember him saying it has to do with arteries opening up. I think he said something like migraines happen when too much blood goes to the head, and the body doesn't know to shrink the veins/arteries. Caffeine overloads the body with vein/artery-opening stuff, and then the body basically goes "oh shit somethings going on here better shrink those down".

The 12 year old me was very excited to hear that eating chocolate would help. Years of trial and error has proven this pretty helpful. I've beaten several migraines with a pack of M&M's and a cold soda.

[Barack O'Drama]

Got a solid day of prep in despite having a migraine! The medication I have for them generally just makes me more nauseous, so I think I'm going to see if something like a cool shower will help.

Read the Assumptions chapters in MLSAT LR and then drilled 25 Sufficient Assumption and 25 Necessary Assumption questions from the Cambridge packets. Starting to feel a bit more confident on these. I would like to do another 25 of each before I go to bed, but we will see how I feel.

Also, did about 4 ordering games and 4 grouping games to get my practice in with those. I'm going to review those with 7Sage and then eat some dinner.
If I can get my logic games down to a -3 or so, the sky will be the limit for September! They are holding me back because I need to put in so much time into getting better at them that I have ended up neglecting LR/RC. I've decided to spend 2.5 hours a day on LR and LG. I am hoping doing so will result in my LSAT skills rounding out a bit more. Then I'm going to use another hour or so to review. 6 hours total. That feels like a comfortable amount. I was doing 8 hours for a few weeks and the burn out was real, haha!

I've been getting migraines since I was 12, although I've only had one or two that were serious enough for prescription strength meds. My doc told me that caffeine helps a lot. It was a long time ago now, but I remember him saying it has to do with arteries opening up. I think he said something like migraines happen when too much blood goes to the head, and the body doesn't know to shrink the veins/arteries. Caffeine overloads the body with vein/artery-opening stuff, and then the body basically goes "oh shit somethings going on here better shrink those down".

The 12 year old me was very excited to hear that eating chocolate would help. Years of trial and error has proven this pretty helpful. I've beaten several migraines with a pack of M&M's and a cold soda.

Exactly! Couldn't be more right. My go-to is an iced coffee light & sweet and a fruity candy. Unfortunately I don't like chocolate (odd, right?) It always helps a bit with the pounding and intensity of the migraine. I find that if you get some caffeine in your system right as you feel it coming on (my vision gets blurry and my sensitivity to light increases) then it works a lot better than waiting until you already have a full-blown migraine. Sometimes if I'm not near a Dunkin, a can of Dr. Pepper does the trick! I've also found a cold shower helps, which is probably related to the shrinking of arteries and veins from the cold.

And that must have been awesome as a kid to hear that your medicine is essentially chocolate!

I actually just tried a cold shower, an iced coffee, and a small pack of sour patch kids. I'm feeling better! I've had this thing going on 2 days, but I welcome any relief! The trade off is now I'll be up all god damn night, haha.

Thanks for the tips and info!


ETA: I was going to say the reason I didn't get some caffeine sooner and opted for the shower first was because bad migraines make me so nauseous if I drink anything I will certainly vomit. Does this ever happen to you? I feel like once it gets to that level I am screwed

[mwells56]

Got a solid day of prep in despite having a migraine! The medication I have for them generally just makes me more nauseous, so I think I'm going to see if something like a cool shower will help.

Read the Assumptions chapters in MLSAT LR and then drilled 25 Sufficient Assumption and 25 Necessary Assumption questions from the Cambridge packets. Starting to feel a bit more confident on these. I would like to do another 25 of each before I go to bed, but we will see how I feel.

Also, did about 4 ordering games and 4 grouping games to get my practice in with those. I'm going to review those with 7Sage and then eat some dinner.
If I can get my logic games down to a -3 or so, the sky will be the limit for September! They are holding me back because I need to put in so much time into getting better at them that I have ended up neglecting LR/RC. I've decided to spend 2.5 hours a day on LR and LG. I am hoping doing so will result in my LSAT skills rounding out a bit more. Then I'm going to use another hour or so to review. 6 hours total. That feels like a comfortable amount. I was doing 8 hours for a few weeks and the burn out was real, haha!

I've been getting migraines since I was 12, although I've only had one or two that were serious enough for prescription strength meds. My doc told me that caffeine helps a lot. It was a long time ago now, but I remember him saying it has to do with arteries opening up. I think he said something like migraines happen when too much blood goes to the head, and the body doesn't know to shrink the veins/arteries. Caffeine overloads the body with vein/artery-opening stuff, and then the body basically goes "oh shit somethings going on here better shrink those down".

The 12 year old me was very excited to hear that eating chocolate would help. Years of trial and error has proven this pretty helpful. I've beaten several migraines with a pack of M&M's and a cold soda.

Exactly! Couldn't be more right. My go-to is an iced coffee light & sweet and a fruity candy. Unfortunately I don't like chocolate (odd, right?) It always helps a bit with the pounding and intensity of the migraine. I find that if you get some caffeine in your system right as you feel it coming on (my vision gets blurry and my sensitivity to light increases) then it works a lot better than waiting until you already have a full-blown migraine. Sometimes if I'm not near a Dunkin, a can of Dr. Pepper does the trick! I've also found a cold shower helps, which is probably related to the shrinking of arteries and veins from the cold.

And that must have been awesome as a kid to hear that your medicine is essentially chocolate!

I actually just tried a cold shower, an iced coffee, and a small pack of sour patch kids. I'm feeling better! I've had this thing going on 2 days, but I welcome any relief! The trade off is now I'll be up all god damn night, haha.

Thanks for the tips and info!

No problem, anytime!

And yeah, I have the same tell-tale signs. Whenever I'm trying to read something and all of a sudden I realize I can only read half a word at a time, I know one's coming, immediately pop 2 Motrin (I always have a bag in my wallet) and either take a nap or get some caffeine.

Keep chugging!

[Barack O'Drama]

Got a solid day of prep in despite having a migraine! The medication I have for them generally just makes me more nauseous, so I think I'm going to see if something like a cool shower will help.

Read the Assumptions chapters in MLSAT LR and then drilled 25 Sufficient Assumption and 25 Necessary Assumption questions from the Cambridge packets. Starting to feel a bit more confident on these. I would like to do another 25 of each before I go to bed, but we will see how I feel.

Also, did about 4 ordering games and 4 grouping games to get my practice in with those. I'm going to review those with 7Sage and then eat some dinner.
If I can get my logic games down to a -3 or so, the sky will be the limit for September! They are holding me back because I need to put in so much time into getting better at them that I have ended up neglecting LR/RC. I've decided to spend 2.5 hours a day on LR and LG. I am hoping doing so will result in my LSAT skills rounding out a bit more. Then I'm going to use another hour or so to review. 6 hours total. That feels like a comfortable amount. I was doing 8 hours for a few weeks and the burn out was real, haha!

I've been getting migraines since I was 12, although I've only had one or two that were serious enough for prescription strength meds. My doc told me that caffeine helps a lot. It was a long time ago now, but I remember him saying it has to do with arteries opening up. I think he said something like migraines happen when too much blood goes to the head, and the body doesn't know to shrink the veins/arteries. Caffeine overloads the body with vein/artery-opening stuff, and then the body basically goes "oh shit somethings going on here better shrink those down".

The 12 year old me was very excited to hear that eating chocolate would help. Years of trial and error has proven this pretty helpful. I've beaten several migraines with a pack of M&M's and a cold soda.

Exactly! Couldn't be more right. My go-to is an iced coffee light & sweet and a fruity candy. Unfortunately I don't like chocolate (odd, right?) It always helps a bit with the pounding and intensity of the migraine. I find that if you get some caffeine in your system right as you feel it coming on (my vision gets blurry and my sensitivity to light increases) then it works a lot better than waiting until you already have a full-blown migraine. Sometimes if I'm not near a Dunkin, a can of Dr. Pepper does the trick! I've also found a cold shower helps, which is probably related to the shrinking of arteries and veins from the cold.

And that must have been awesome as a kid to hear that your medicine is essentially chocolate!

I actually just tried a cold shower, an iced coffee, and a small pack of sour patch kids. I'm feeling better! I've had this thing going on 2 days, but I welcome any relief! The trade off is now I'll be up all god damn night, haha.

Thanks for the tips and info!

No problem, anytime!

And yeah, I have the same tell-tale signs. Whenever I'm trying to read something and all of a sudden I realize I can only read half a word at a time, I know one's coming, immediately pop 2 Motrin (I always have a bag in my wallet) and either take a nap or get some caffeine.

Keep chugging!

YES! I always notice it when I'm reading or watching a video or something on my laptop. Awful.
Haha! Amen. I should start keeping some Motrin or Excedrin in my wallet.

[Barack O'Drama]

Definitely BR-ing every LR section here on out. The points will come, eventually... We will get there.
Tomorrow - hopefully can make time for both LG and RC before work. Going to quickly photocopy all the games I've done in the 50s. Keep drilling, drilling, drilling. And another chapter or two of MLSAT LR.

Hoping my books will manage to arrive tomorrow or the day after

That's the attitude I need to adopt. Working while studying for the LSAT sucks. The only upside is that when I do study I find myself at near-100% efficiency. I literally use a timer to keep track of every minute I study. I try to get in 2.5 hours before work. And 2.5 hours after work. Lately I've been working from home, so I have had the freedom to kind of structure my work around my studying.

But there aren't enough hours in the day sometimes!

What books did you order??

[theboringest]

Joining in this thread, been lurking for a while...started studying in June with a 159 practice, I've been focusing exclusively on logic games since that section was an absolute bloodbath. My most recent PT scores were 168 and 169 respectively. It seems like I've milked all the low hanging improvement out of logic games, my biggest issue now is time, I never finish all the questions in the allotted amount of time. Just gotta drill I guess. LG Bible followed by drilling games and watching the 7Sage video has been hugely helpful for me, especially in getting my brain to a place where I can see the underlying concepts behind a game. I'll start mixing in LR studying this week as that's where the other missed points are coming from...seems like there isn't as much of a consensus on the best LR prep material as there is on LG.

[mwells56]

Joining in this thread, been lurking for a while...started studying in June with a 159 practice, I've been focusing exclusively on logic games since that section was an absolute bloodbath. My most recent PT scores were 168 and 169 respectively. It seems like I've milked all the low hanging improvement out of logic games, my biggest issue now is time, I never finish all the questions in the allotted amount of time. Just gotta drill I guess. LG Bible followed by drilling games and watching the 7Sage video has been hugely helpful for me, especially in getting my brain to a place where I can see the underlying concepts behind a game. I'll start mixing in LR studying this week as that's where the other missed points are coming from...seems like there isn't as much of a consensus on the best LR prep material as there is on LG.

Yeah, that's because LG is more "mathematical" than LR. You can approach LR in this way, but it is often more nuanced. I'm using 7sage, but if you want their LR stuff you gotta at least buy their starter pack ($180). I've heard great things about the LRB, PowerScores a great prep company and you should be fine with them. The LSAT Trainer and Manhattan are also supposed to be very good. From my understanding RC is the toughy to improve on.

Also, that's a great diagnostic, mine was about the same (157). Last test I took was a 160 (163 after BR) after a week of studying. Assuming you're also in the 170+ camp, you're almost there with a lot of time left. If you've only focused on games at this point, then you're in even better shape because once you start you'll see a lot of improvement. Good luck.

[Mikey]

Morning! Off to my internship, might be a bit late but I don't really give a shit, haha. Brought my drilling Cambridge book with me so that way during my lunch break I can work on something.