June 2011 Study Group Forum

[iphone7]

.....

PT 50
RC -6
LR -3
LG -4
LR -1
-14=167

This is miserable. I went to Borders and was very distracted the entire time. I can't fully blame it on the distractions and I need to be able to handle anything on test day, but this is still disheartening. I know I can do better than this and I think this might be the kick in the butt to get me focused, back on track, and not taking anything for granted. I reviewed the test and made several completely idiotic mistakes which I need to eliminate. I could have easily gotten -0 on games if I had been focused to the normal level. I guess this is why people say to take tests in bad environments and I know this will be an outlier. Tomorrow I'm going to review my mistakes on this and several other tests in the morning and then destroy a pt in the afternoon. I'm motivated never to have this feeling again.

[boosk]

That is exactly what I want! -8 for 175 would be like a guaranteed 170.

I think they're talking about the June 07 LSAT where the max ?s wrong for a 170 was 8...

Speaking of June 07, I just took it today. For some reason I never actually prepped this at the beginning.

LG: -1 Dumb mistake, like all my LG wrong answers. Mental farts...
RC: -2 Super easy passages, 3/4 difficult questions.
LR1: -5 Finished question 25 with 5 minutes left and 6 questions that I left unaswered/had to review... way too many. Plus FedEx showed up at my door halfway through the section.
LR2: -2

168 for -10 overall is pretty brutal.

Yeah the June 07 curve is dumb

[imbored25]

010101010101

[pkrtbx]

Looking over the last few days of this thread it seems like most people are -1/-0 on LG and the problems are in RC/LR. I am the opposite, I am generally -1/-0 on RC and LR but my timing on games remains shit. If I sit there and take 15 minutes for a game I can figure the whole thing out with no errors, but I just cannot seem to spot the non-obvious inferences or do hypos in a timely manner at all. Does anyone have speed tips for LG? The biggest troublemakers for me seem to be sequencing games or complex linear games but it is really an issue across the board.

[gaud]

Looking over the last few days of this thread it seems like most people are -1/-0 on LG and the problems are in RC/LR. I am the opposite, I am generally -1/-0 on RC and LR but my timing on games remains shit. If I sit there and take 15 minutes for a game I can figure the whole thing out with no errors, but I just cannot seem to spot the non-obvious inferences or do hypos in a timely manner at all. Does anyone have speed tips for LG? The biggest troublemakers for me seem to be sequencing games or complex linear games but it is really an issue across the board.

Are you re-doing all of the games? How many have you done so far?

The reason I ask is that for me speed improved with repetition. I've done almost every game (barring the tests I've yet to take) about 3 times. I guess you become more 'used' to seeing rules and how to attack games and inferences, the speed naturally follows.

[pkrtbx]

Looking over the last few days of this thread it seems like most people are -1/-0 on LG and the problems are in RC/LR. I am the opposite, I am generally -1/-0 on RC and LR but my timing on games remains shit. If I sit there and take 15 minutes for a game I can figure the whole thing out with no errors, but I just cannot seem to spot the non-obvious inferences or do hypos in a timely manner at all. Does anyone have speed tips for LG? The biggest troublemakers for me seem to be sequencing games or complex linear games but it is really an issue across the board.

Are you re-doing all of the games? How many have you done so far?

The reason I ask is that for me speed improved with repetition. I've done almost every game (barring the tests I've yet to take) about 3 times. I guess you become more 'used' to seeing rules and how to attack games and inferences, the speed naturally follows.

I have only started re-doing them recently, after a tutor recommended it. My problem I think is with diagramming. Most of the examples in the LGB were easy enough that I could diagram one way or another. But some games I have come across (like PT31 Game 4, which is sitting in front of me as we speak) seem so unapproachable that I don't even know where to start. So given enough time I can work out hypos and answer the questions, but obviously that is not a realistic strategy for the actual test, and re-doing the games isn't seeming to help that much unless I can figure out or have someone show me a better setup after my first attempt.

[UnamSanctam]

I'm with you PK. I can finish LR/RC with 5+ minutes to spare and, worst case scenario, get -3. Usually -1/-2, and always either due to misreading or picking the wrong answer on a 50/50 shot. But LG, oh LG. Today I missed 3 in a row on the mulch-stone game from PT60. That was such an easy game, too. Missed 3 due to stupid mistakes. Worse, there always seems to be a question or two per LG section that trip me up for a few minutes. I'm too stubborn to just move on, so I find myself sometimes not being able to finish LG. It's terrible. Just gotta drill drill drill those LG until game day.

[gaud]

Looking over the last few days of this thread it seems like most people are -1/-0 on LG and the problems are in RC/LR. I am the opposite, I am generally -1/-0 on RC and LR but my timing on games remains shit. If I sit there and take 15 minutes for a game I can figure the whole thing out with no errors, but I just cannot seem to spot the non-obvious inferences or do hypos in a timely manner at all. Does anyone have speed tips for LG? The biggest troublemakers for me seem to be sequencing games or complex linear games but it is really an issue across the board.

Are you re-doing all of the games? How many have you done so far?

The reason I ask is that for me speed improved with repetition. I've done almost every game (barring the tests I've yet to take) about 3 times. I guess you become more 'used' to seeing rules and how to attack games and inferences, the speed naturally follows.

I have only started re-doing them recently, after a tutor recommended it. My problem I think is with diagramming. Most of the examples in the LGB were easy enough that I could diagram one way or another. But some games I have come across (like PT31 Game 4, which is sitting in front of me as we speak) seem so unapproachable that I don't even know where to start. So given enough time I can work out hypos and answer the questions, but obviously that is not a realistic strategy for the actual test, and re-doing the games isn't seeming to help that much unless I can figure out or have someone show me a better setup after my first attempt.

I think that those problems will definitely improve with re-doing the games. Try diagramming each game in at least 2 different ways and deciding from there which of the two is the most time efficient. Also check out..http://www.manhattanlsat.com/lsat-test-explanations.cfm...
within their LG explanation sections there are diagrams for some of the problems to help you with the set-ups (often what I try and do if I feel that my personal diagrams aren't up to par).

[pkpop]

PT 62 (Dec 2010) is a really tough test. I finally went over it again timed and pretty much the only good thing about it is the curve. I had a much better handle on the games, but I had my worst raw score in a long time. The LR, for whatever reason, just wasn't clicking for me. A lot of questions I had a hard time grasping. I'll be going over it again nice and slow and see if the wording was tricky or if it was something else. Good luck to anyone taking this one in the near future but if you see a drop in raw score, I honestly think the test itself was just a beast. Looking to redeem myself on 58 in a few days.

[Strange]

WOOOO!!!! I just took PT57. For context the last PT I took last weekend I got a 169 on, and the five consecutive PT's taken before that I got a 168.

PT57:

LG: -1
LR1: -2
LR2: -3
RC: -2
RC(exp): -2

Missed: -8
Raw score: 93
Scaled: 173

Notes:

- First time breaking through into the 170's. Since my goal is 170/171, I'm pretty ecstatic.
- I've had a general uptick in raw scores in the past couple weeks. After averaging 88 for awhile, I got a 90 on PT51.5 and a 92 on PT48, but because of the rough curves I still ended up below 170 on those.
- The dinosaur game lived up to its expectations as tricky, but I was able to handle it. The fourth game was equally tricky IMO. Ironically, the only miss was a careless mistake on the first gimme game. D'oh!
- I found this RC section VERY difficult to comprehend. I am really surprised I only got two wrong.
- Changing attitude has been big for me. On past PT's I would stress over easy to moderately difficult questions that I really don't need to stress over. I've been trying to be more confident, and to only worry about TRULY hard headscratchers. This has definitely helped me with timing and performance overall.

PT61 is next on the list, attacking that one tomorrow and hoping to see a similar result

[theaether]

PT48 with 24.3 (LR) today
LR1: -1
LRe: -3
LG: 0
RC: -1
LR2: -1
Raw/total-->scaled: 98/101-->177

The 3 I got wrong I changed from the right answer as time for the section winded down. Unfortunate. But it's good that LR and RC came together on the same today, instead of 1 always being bad. The first RC passage on cave paintings was among the easiest I've ever seen, but the middle 2 passages about female literature and something else made up for that. LG was done in 22 minutes. I've got to say that I think the curve of the test is highly correlated with the difficulty of LG. LR difficulty changes very little, if at all, and RC varies only slightly.

[soj]

Anyone else having trouble with the forums on Chrome? The tab keeps crashing whenever I scroll down.

Congrats on the scores, strange and theaether.

Strange, good job on the dinosaurs LG. I felt the same way about RC. I mentally prepared myself for another one of my typical RC meltdowns (-5 or worse) and was pleasantly surprised when I realized I got -2, and especially -0 in Willa Cather.

Theaether, I think we got the same score on that test, down to every section. I agree with you about the different levels of consistency. LR is usually more consistent, though some sections do have more tough questions. RC doesn't vary that much but my performance does. LG definitely varies the most in difficulty, but I'm not afraid of it. I do think I've improved in RC since the beginning of my studies. I read the cave paintings passage in the RCB early on and thought it was pretty tricky, but when I encountered it again a few months later in a PT, I thought it was a breeze.

I redid the entire PT60 RC section, which I didn't review since taking PT60 yesterday. I got all five of the questions I got wrong yesterday right, but I got two others wrong. And these were tricky questions that I actually grappled with and came up with the correct reasoning for 24 hours ago. Oh well.

[UnamSanctam]

Ugh, a 165 on PT60. Not where I wanted to be. The RC started off so easily, and I was wondering why everyone said it was so hard. Then I hit the later questions, and I ended up -6. Absolutely brutal. On top of that, the EASY LG sent me for a loop and I missed 3 in a row there. Ended up -6 in that section. Then, once again, nearly every time I came down to two choices in LR, I didn't choose the CR. I was under the impression that 50/50 shots would mean that I would, at least once in a while, guess the CR. This is utterly frustrating, but it's all about perspective. It's been ~2/3 months since my diagnostic, where I scored a 151. On top of that, actual PT taking didn't start until this month. The mid-high 160s isn't bad objectively, but it's just not good enough.

[mickeyD]

Well, this sucks.

PT11
LG: -2
LR1: -5
RC: -1
LR2: -5
Raw: -13
Scaled: 168

Worst LR total since February. I know that LR in the really early PTs is supposedly different, but there's no way that -10 can be justified by that. After scanning my wrong answers on LR I don't even get why 8 of the 10 right answers are right. I thought I was past this.

Really second-guessing myself now. Throughout all of April and May I may not have had any crazy -2 total raw scores, but I have been extremely consistent in what I've been scoring. I thought that even if I never reached that elite high 170s level, I would be confident that I would be able to score within whatever range I had achieved, and not be one of those "test-day drop" victims. Especially since my total range has been so small, between -4 and -8 over like 15 tests. Now I see that I'm fully capable of bombing the whole thing.

My LRs this month have been:
-5, -3, -1, -3, -3, -3, -7, -10

The last two have been in the past two days. Maybe I need a break. The worst part is that I don't feel tired or mentally burnt out at all, and I thought I aced both sections. I can't even tell when I'm doing bad.

[iphone7]

Today was a little better.

PT 51
LR1 -0
RC -2
LGe (PT 15) -0
LR2 -3
LG -5
Raw -10
Scaled 171

It's some improvement over the tests from the past couple of days. I got tripped up on the final game (complex sequencing) and I was simultaneously losing focus entirely. I'm dedicated to getting my LG scores back to where they were previously, and I'm going to review as many games as possible between now and test day to do so. Some good news is that I added up the four experimental sections from pt 15 and got a 174.

And Mickey, you'll do fine. We all have bad days even when we feel fine.

[minnbills]

For you first time takers, I wanted to throw this up as a cautionary tale.

Heading into the first time I took the LSAT, my LG scores started to drop, and I started struggling a bit more with LR than I had in the past. My reaction was to throw as much time as possible into the test, I took 1 PT per day for maybe two weeks, and burned out. I also got frustrated with my lack of progress. I underperformed on test day.

If any of you are feeling down about how things are going, or you're frustrated, or maybe you're starting to ramp up your prep in response to lagging scores; take it down a notch. At this point, if you've been studying for a while, you know what you need to know. The single biggest factor to success on test day is going in with confidence and an all-around good mindset.

Just my 2c

[imbored25]

How much variation are you guys seeing in your pt scores. in 7 test ive scored between 160-167

[soj]

PT11

Don't be too discouraged. I think all of us hit a wall at least once during our prep. Each time I got worse than -10 (29, 30, 38, 44, etc.) I've bounced back. I'm sure you will too. Review your answers, take tomorrow off, and you'll be back at your normal level in no time.

[Strange]

Anyone know off-hand how many "-9 curves" there are?

[lameslice57]

First time poster and I'm also taking the June LSAT. I took practice test 60 today and I did fairly well on LGs, messed up timing a bit on RCs, but missed 3 on LGs and struggled with timing. I just started studying for the LSAT two weeks ago, but what would be the best method for speeding up my LGs? Theaether posted that he/she finished her LG section in 22 minutes and it would obviously be nice to even get most of the LG sections done within 30 minutes by test day. Should I just keep drilling them? Presumably the games will become easier as my understanding of deductions and the game forms themselves improve but are there any other methods?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[soj]

First time poster and I'm also taking the June LSAT. I took practice test 60 today and I did fairly well on LGs, messed up timing a bit on RCs, but missed 3 on LGs and struggled with timing. I just started studying for the LSAT two weeks ago, but what would be the best method for speeding up my LGs? Theaether posted that he/she finished her LG section in 22 minutes and it would obviously be nice to even get most of the LG sections done within 30 minutes by test day. Should I just keep drilling them? Presumably the games will become easier as my understanding of deductions and the game forms themselves improve but are there any other methods?

I don't think there's anyone who could have finished PT60's LG in 22 minutes. It partly has to do with the level of difficulty, which tends to vary quite a bit in LG from test to test. Make sure you're doing lots of games--make sure you're getting all the critical inferences, and don't be afraid to repeat games. Speed will come naturally--it might take a lot of practice, but it'll come.

[bball1997]

I figured I'd join in on the "fun" with just a couple of weeks to go. I took PT 48 a couple of days ago and got a personal best 178 (99/101). I've been having big jumps in my PT's from low to high 170's on a fairly regular basis and am just hoping to gain some consistency over the next couple weeks.

[jim-green]

Strange and disconcerting. Took PT56 yesterday, which in the recent past, I have stated several times on TLS that it is the easiest PT ever, because I got my highest ever PT score last year on PT56. Well not yesterday I got 165, that is 1 point below my PT average. Yesterday, I found the PT56 LR particularly tough, missed 3-7 each on LR alone. Anyone had a similar experience with PT56 or another PT? Trying not to panic.

[Manhattan LSAT Noah]

Hey All, the 4:30 group (the one that meets in the other room, the MLSAT self study room) will work on these questions:

LR
PT30, S2, Q7
PT29, S1, Q12
PT30, S4, Q16

RC
PT30, S3, Passage 3

LG
PT35, S3, G3

If anyone has e-mailed MLSAT over the last few days, we're in the midst of a huge e-mail outage (the internet connection to half our block in NYC is out - my god are we hostage to the internet), so apologies for any silences. Site still up...

[minnbills]

Is the cambridgelsat site down for anyone else?