June 2011 Study Group Forum

[jim-green]

Thanks, Strange! That helps. Do you mean initial templates or hypos? i found this game needed 4 initial templates.
Nice essay, Eich.

Yeah Jim, one of the things I learned with the games is that making hypos for a lot of questions is the key (especially if the initial setup enables you to narrow everything down to a couple hypos).

[fastforward]

June test takers:

Here's an important addition to the ID requirement. Plan accordingly!

From http://www.lsac.org/JD/LSAT/day-of-test.asp

In addition, all candidates must attach to their ticket a recent photograph (taken within the last six months) showing only the face and shoulders. The photograph must be clear enough so there is no doubt about the test taker's identity, and must be no larger than 2 x 2 inches (5 x 5 cm) and no smaller than 1 x 1 inch (3 x 3 cm). Your face in the photo must show you as you look on the day of the test (for example, with or without a beard). The photograph will be retained by LSAC only as long as needed to assure the authenticity of test scores and to protect the integrity of the testing process.

If you do not present both acceptable identification and the required photograph, you will be denied entrance to the testing room.

[Strange]

Thanks, Strange! That helps. Do you mean initial templates or hypos? i found this game needed 4 initial templates.
Nice essay, Eich.

Yeah Jim, one of the things I learned with the games is that making hypos for a lot of questions is the key (especially if the initial setup enables you to narrow everything down to a couple hypos).

I wouldn't bother with initial templates. At least, I didn't. With the conditional in the game and the "or" condition with KMH, it makes initial templates cumbersome. I found 18-21 can be answered very quickly through basic inferences. 22 is the tricky one which will take some time to play around with, but you're just looking for the pieces to fit. Just got to try it out but the main thing is to do it with a purpose, methodically so youre not re-visiting old AC's. The hypo that helped me crack it was FLHGKM

And for 23, you can eliminate the AC's using that hypo and other hypos formed during the game. Very important to keep track of all your hypos for later use.

[Eichörnchen]

Thanks, Strange! That helps. Do you mean initial templates or hypos? i found this game needed 4 initial templates.
Nice essay, Eich.

Yeah Jim, one of the things I learned with the games is that making hypos for a lot of questions is the key (especially if the initial setup enables you to narrow everything down to a couple hypos).

Haha thanks Jim. I realized that it was a bit long after I sent it haha. All typed on my phone

[jim-green]

I wouldn't bother with initial templates. At least, I didn't. With the conditional in the game and the "or" condition with KMH, it makes initial templates cumbersome.

Thanks, this is very helpful. That's EXACTLY what I meant by saying I had to draw 4 initial templates that took 5 min or so to do. So I should have gone stright to hypos instead. Is there a good rule when not to waste time trying to make those cumbersome templates? The conditional and the "or" condition made the 4 templates balloon for me.

Would you do the same approach for PT51 G2 (hypos not templates)? i made 2 templates for this one.

Also, does "false" mean "unjustified"? I am talking about PT52 S1 #16. What is the difference between TCR A and D?

[jim-green]

No problem, I have enough material for my PS now.

Haha thanks Jim. I realized that it was a bit long after I sent it haha. All typed on my phone

[Strange]

I did PT51 on Sunday and got a -1 on the LG (careless mistake on #23). For G2, your initial template only needs to show which films have to be displayed last on each day, and the G/L and G/H restrictions. You should be able to work off hypos for the rest of the game quite easily. Again, that's what I did but I guess it would be different for some people.

With initial templates in general, if you see conditionals at all that's a good sign that you should just make a basic template and work through the problems. Generally extensive initial templates are only helpful if you're given a lot of restrictions, which isn't the case a lot of times. Nevertheless, for every standard grouping/sequencing game I always START making a template as soon as I work through the setup, just to get a feel for the game, that doesn't mean you need to spend a ton of time on it though

[Eichörnchen]

No problem, I have enough material for my PS now.

Haha thanks Jim. I realized that it was a bit long after I sent it haha. All typed on my phone

Haha happy to help! And I'm trying to do an RC section right now as I babysit - I don't know how you get anything done with a little one at home (if I remember correctly you have one...)

Gev and I are going to meet up at 3 (EST) to go over PT 2's RC and LR1 if anyone wants to join. (And if I can get it done before then with a baby crawling all over me)

We are in the Oct room actually - https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?passw ... 4B&sid=329

[mickeyD]

The usually calm mickeyD is STARTING TO FREAK OUT AHHHH!

Today:
1. Finish PT29 Review
2. Study for final tomorrow
3. Nap
4. Drill Flaw Questions
5. LG Section for Warm-up
6. PT31

only had 4 hours of sleep last night, so #3 is going to be key lol

[jim-green]

Strange, thanks. For PT51 G2, I am talking about the hotel suites game. I made 2 templates for this. Did you?

I did PT51 on Sunday and got a -1 on the LG (careless mistake on #23). For G2, your initial template only needs to show which films have to be displayed last on each day, and the G/L and G/H restrictions. You should be able to work off hypos for the rest of the game quite easily. Again, that's what I did but I guess it would be different for some people.

[coldshoulder]

On to PT 46 today, hopefully I can bounce back and recover from my outlier on 45. Heading to the library.

[Strange]

Strange, thanks. For PT51 G2, I am talking about the hotel suites game. I made 2 templates for this. Did you?

I did PT51 on Sunday and got a -1 on the LG (careless mistake on #23). For G2, your initial template only needs to show which films have to be displayed last on each day, and the G/L and G/H restrictions. You should be able to work off hypos for the rest of the game quite easily. Again, that's what I did but I guess it would be different for some people.

Oops haven't done 51 yet, was looking at 51.5 which is mislabeled for me I might do 51 this weekend, haven't decided yet

[pkpop]

So after about 4 or so PTs, I've been able to narrow down one of my issues in LR. What do you guys do when you get to questions that you cannot wrap your head around? The "WTF questions" as some of us in the group have called them. These seem to be the last few I'm getting wrong. Sometimes I can get lucky and eliminate the obvious wrongs to be able to find an answer that fits, but other times I can only get rid of one or two and have no idea. They also come in all question types, so it's not just a certain type I'm stumbling on - although they often have been science-y inference.

These are also questions I tend to need to read more than once. Any advice on these? Getting these last few should help with getting my total LR down to -4 or -5.

[Ginj]

26 DAYS

[Eichörnchen]

The usually calm mickeyD is STARTING TO FREAK OUT AHHHH!

Today:
1. Finish PT29 Review
2. Study for final tomorrow
3. Nap
4. Drill Flaw Questions
5. LG Section for Warm-up
6. PT31

only had 4 hours of sleep last night, so #3 is going to be key lol

Mickey you are the calming force of the group - if you're freaking out, something has gone wrong in the world That is a pretty hefty list though, I must admit. I think that would take me three days, but I know you can do it!

[theaether]

Finally getting around to reviewing my list of LR questions. Most of the questions in here are months old!

I found a gem in this list: PT45 S4 Q20. Could. Not. Figure out what the flaw was. I was surprised when I read the question stem and it asked me to find a similar FLAW. I'm just pointing this question out because I've never even seen a flaw based on the time frame of the results being too short to conclusively say anything.

Anyone else know any weird flaws to look out for in these questions? Like, not the standard fare ones of confusing nec. for suff. conditions, or mistakenly reversing conditions, etc etc.

[Manash]

Read that you can now withdraw from the test up until the day before the test and not have it show up on your record. This is pretty good, given that many people don't know with great confidence where they're at until the last week leading up to the test.

Just got the following email...doesnt appear to tally with what some of you have posted:

TEST DATE CHANGE, PARTIAL REFUND, AND WITHDRAW REQUESTS

If you are unable to take the June 2011 LSAT, you have three options that will remove the test date from your file.

* You may request a change to another date within the current testing year, which runs from June 2011 through February 2012.
* You may withdraw your registration before the refund-request deadline and obtain a partial refund.
* You may withdraw your registration after the refund-request deadline—there will be no refund for this option.

The test-date change deadline and the partial-refund deadline are approximately three weeks prior to each LSAT administration date. If you do not request a partial refund, change your test date, or withdraw your registration by the stated deadlines, and you do not take the test, your LSAC file will note "absent." If you received a fee waiver, you must request withdrawal of your test registration by the withdrawal deadline.

If you are registered to take the LSAT within the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean, on Monday, June 6, 2011 the following deadline dates apply:

* Deadline for test date change via mail, phone, or fax is May 13, 2011 (receipt deadline).
* Deadline for test date change online is May 15, 2011 (midnight ET).
* Deadline for partial refund request via mail or fax is May 13, 2011 (receipt deadline).
* Deadline for withdraw request online is June 5, 2011 (midnight ET).

[Eichörnchen]

So after about 4 or so PTs, I've been able to narrow down one of my issues in LR. What do you guys do when you get to questions that you cannot wrap your head around? The "WTF questions" as some of us in the group have called them. These seem to be the last few I'm getting wrong. Sometimes I can get lucky and eliminate the obvious wrongs to be able to find an answer that fits, but other times I can only get rid of one or two and have no idea. They also come in all question types, so it's not just a certain type I'm stumbling on - although they often have been science-y inference.

These are also questions I tend to need to read more than once. Any advice on these? Getting these last few should help with getting my total LR down to -4 or -5.

Hey PK - I know how you feel. I realized that a lot of the time, I get the WTF questions wrong, and they do not follow a pattern - unlike, for example, in the beginning of my prep I noticed I got parallel flaws wrong, or how I know (and you know I think haha) that I can really suck at nec assumptions- Some I got wrong for reasons unrelated to the question type. I saw this was said by a 180 scorer a while back and saved it in a doc on my computer. Hopefully it helps. I suggest looking at the ones you've gotten wrong and see if they fit any of these patterns:

A chronological list of LR mistakes

1. Not knowing what to do, what approach to take, or having a bad approach
2. Being bogged down by wordiness, parenthetical phrases, or unusual vocabulary (e.g. the word "obfuscate")
3. Having trouble visualizing an idea in the stimulus or in an answer choice (i.e. what they’re trying to say / get across; I found this common with physics/biology questions or other unfamiliar subject matter)
4. Having trouble carrying out a strategy (common problem with unusual or complicated conditional reasoning questions)
5. Not registering a reversal in the question stem (EXCEPT, LEAST, etc.), and looking for the opposite of what I should be
6. Seeing an attractive answer and then not reading or processing another answer that I would’ve found attractive enough to make me think twice
7. Picking an answer (possibly over other contenders) because it fits my gist of what the stimulus and question stem are asking for rather than what they’re actually asking for
8. Choosing an answer (possibly over other contenders) that would answer the question if not for a single word that I have glossed over [I think of this one as the “some/all error”]
9. (Having avoided all the previous mistakes) Being confronted with two or more answers that require a judgment call to choose between, and choosing incorrectly (This is very rare and IMO the result of a bad question.)
10. Choosing not to spend as much time on the question as you ought to
11. Not having enough time to spend on the question as you ought to because of the rest of the section (either difficult questions or choosing to spend more time on questions that you should have spent less time on)
12. Not marking the question as tricky so that you can give it a second look later

ps - I (accidentally) watched the game last night and thought of you and your tar haha

[theaether]

Read that you can now withdraw from the test up until the day before the test and not have it show up on your record. This is pretty good, given that many people don't know with great confidence where they're at until the last week leading up to the test.

Just got the following email...doesnt appear to tally with what some of you have posted:

TEST DATE CHANGE, PARTIAL REFUND, AND WITHDRAW REQUESTS



* You may request a change to another date within the current testing year, which runs from June 2011 through February 2012.
* You may withdraw your registration before the refund-request deadline and obtain a partial refund.


The test-date change deadline and the partial-refund deadline are approximately three weeks prior to each LSAT administration date. If you do not request a partial refund, change your test date, or withdraw your registration by the stated deadlines, and you do not take the test, your LSAC file will note "absent." If you received a fee waiver, you must request withdrawal of your test registration by the withdrawal deadline.

If you are registered to take the LSAT within the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean, on Monday, June 6, 2011 the following deadline dates apply:

* Deadline for test date change via mail, phone, or fax is May 13, 2011 (receipt deadline).
* Deadline for test date change online is May 15, 2011 (midnight ET).
* Deadline for partial refund request via mail or fax is May 13, 2011 (receipt deadline).

Just got this same email.

If you are unable to take the June 2011 LSAT, you have three options that will remove the test date from your file.
* You may withdraw your registration after the refund-request deadline—there will be no refund for this option.
* Deadline for withdraw request online is June 5, 2011 (midnight ET).

This is basically what I said before. Withdrawing your registration is one of the options that will REMOVE THE TEST from your file, meaning the law schools won't see it. It's just a matter of whether you care about getting your refund or not. If you don't, then you have until June 5th to withdraw!

[LessThan3]

Hey everyone,

Finally decided to join up on the LSAT frenzy online (also taking the test in June)

I kind of have a bit of a tough break since I'm studying for the LSAT while studying abroad (trying to avoid the distractions of Europe haha. Being broke helps I suppose?) Getting testing materials has also been kind of difficult over here, but I'm back in the states in like 2 days, so I plan on definitely adding to my PT arsenal as soon as I'm back

I started out the beginning of the semester doing some untimed tests and got to the point where I was averaging around a 175 and only going slightly over time on games... And then I got swamped with work over here and ended up basically taking a month off (stupid).

So now I've been back and doing practice tests for the past few weeks (this time all timed) and am having trouble not with individual sections, but with staying consistent. When I last left off, I was pretty consistently getting 0-1x on each LR section, mixed bag with RC, and getting killed on LG. Now that I'm "back on the horse" and doing timed tests I've been alternating between problems on LR and RC and doing pretty well on LG (0-2x) and seem to be stuck in the lower 170s after 7 timed tests. Anyone else have similar problems of inconsistent sections?

I was doing 2-3 tests per week, but have ramped it up to 5 now (I've noticed that doing the PTs seems to have helped me a lot more in the past than just reviewing specific sections). I'm kind of hoping that by really drilling the PTs I can get timed scores back to where my untimed ones were a month or so ago (especially since I'm really not having any real trouble with LG now which is what tripped me up before in terms of timing)

Starting full 5-section tests tomorrow... We'll see how it goes

[99.9luft]

26 25 DAYS

[judgekozinski]

Just finished PT 46 with a 170. Geez, there is no curve for this test!

RC: -2
LR1: -3
LR2: -3
LG: -1

Raw: -9 (90)
Scaled: 170

So mad I missed the tricky wording in the question stem of the LG question I got wrong! I thought the LR questions were tough. My pacing was good on this test and I'm happy that I finished all the sections with time to spare and go over some questions I circled to come back to. This is my highest score yet so I'm happy, but feel that I could have done a little better.

[coldshoulder]

Just finished PT 46 as well:

PT 46
LR: -2/-3
RC: -1
LG: -0
-6, 175.
That is a pretty damn rough curve, as said above.

[maxpower430]

can we all hope that june doesn't have a -8 curve? they are brutal, i'm looking at you pt i just did

PT 48
S1 LR1: -0 (been wanting a -0 for weeks now, happy that i finally made it happen)
S2 LG (E): -0 (was logic games section of pt 47, such a nice deviation from the superprep destruction haha)
S3 LG: -2 (made a dumb error in third game, and took way too much time b/c i misread my diagram, ugh. then had to rush through the last game leading to my other miss)
S4 RC: -3 (my worst reading comp in a while, missed two on the fetal polarity passage, and the one about inheritance from the poetry passage)
S5 LR2: -0 (color me shocked with my 2nd all time perfect lr score. should have known something would be up with the

Raw: 96 (new best raw score)
Scaled: 174

i just want to say that i love manhattan lsats method for open assignment games, really concise and while i don't think it's all that different from powerscore, i feel really comfortable with them now. if only i could get their in and out grouping to be that comfortable haha. but yea, boo -8 curves lol

[pkpop]

I saw this was said by a 180 scorer a while back and saved it in a doc on my computer. Hopefully it helps. I suggest looking at the ones you've gotten wrong and see if they fit any of these patterns:

3. Having trouble visualizing an idea in the stimulus or in an answer choice (i.e. what they’re trying to say / get across; I found this common with physics/biology questions or other unfamiliar subject matter)

11. Not having enough time to spend on the question as you ought to because of the rest of the section

I think it's a combination of these two factors. There are some questions where it's kind of hard to visualize the argument, or if I can visualize the argument, be able to see how TCR pertains to it. I'm just curious how solid LR scorers approach these questions and I'm wondering if it is because they zoom through the rest of the section with plenty of time they can go back and just solidify the question/argument.

ps - I (accidentally) watched the game last night and thought of you and your tar haha

Gotta love it. As much as playoff hockey is limiting some study time at night, I'll gladly choose the wings. This has been a great series. If anything my nerves are well tested for June 6th.