The Official June 2015 Study Group Forum

gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 1:06 am

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RZ5646 · Post by **RZ5646** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 1:15 am

gamerish wrote:I just really "got" the whole linking conditionals into one big chain when given multiple conditions

I love this. My favorite games are the grouping games that just give you a big "conditional tree" of all the rules connected together.

gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 1:28 am

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RZ5646 · Post by **RZ5646** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 1:47 am

Do you guys write out the contrapositives like the books recommend? I started out doing that but stopped because it made my paper cluttered and didn't seem to actually make things easier. (Exceptions: if both terms are negated, or if doing the contrapositive lets me link the rule to another one.)

gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 1:50 am

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179orBust · Post by **179orBust** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 3:58 am

Did some light work today. Read a little bit in the Manhattan LR book and began the drilling process for the first time.

Started with main conclusion questions. Split up the questions (instead of going in order) so that I can get questions from all levels of difficulty.

Really pissed at my results. These are supposed to be easiest type of questions and I struggled both with timing and accuracy. Took me 51 minutes to complete 26 questions, around 2 minutes per question which is inexcusable. Got 23/26 when I did them timed, and 25/26 after thoroughly reviewing the problems. I also forgot to add that my 3 mistakes were all from Level 1 questions. What the hell?

Anyway, gotta figure out how I'm gonna resolve these timing issues. My accuracy thus far has been pretty good, however, my timing is way off for all 3 sections.

NL2424 · Post by **NL2424** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 9:05 am

gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 11:44 pm

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peppermint · Post by **peppermint** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 11:57 pm

RZ5646 · Post by **RZ5646** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 11:58 pm

I also did zero prep today, being busy with other things. Tomorrow I'm planning on hitting my advanced linear games a second time and seeing how much I've improved.

I say drill while you're reading. I don't think that just reading the prep books really teaches you much. You have to apply the skills they describe and learn by doing.

NL2424 · Post by **NL2424** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 11:59 pm

gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 12:07 am

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RZ5646 · Post by **RZ5646** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 12:16 am

I'd study by section and focus on one book for each section as a primary resource, since there's going to be a ton of overlap between the books. For example, I'm currently reading and drilling with the LGB, and I'm going to read the Trainer later to see if it has anything extra to add, but I'm mostly trusting in Powerscore to get the job done. Drilling with one book and then starting from scratch with another book is probably a waste of time because the first book will have already taught you most of what you need to know. So if I were you, I'd read / drill with the Bible, and then once you've finished it just read Manhattan LG for a new perspective on problem areas.

179orBust · Post by **179orBust** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 12:29 am

RZ5646 wrote:I'd study by section and focus on one book for each section as a primary resource, since there's going to be a ton of overlap between the books. For example, I'm currently reading and drilling with the LGB, and I'm going to read the Trainer later to see if it has anything extra to add, but I'm mostly trusting in Powerscore to get the job done. Drilling with one book and then starting from scratch with another book is probably a waste of time because the first book will have already taught you most of what you need to know. So if I were you, I'd read / drill with the Bible, and then once you've finished it just read Manhattan LG for a new perspective on problem areas.

Definitely agree with this. Also, just note that the Trainer isn't too great for LG. The book is invaluable though for LR & RC.

And thanks for answering my question on the other thread. Yes, I'm probably over-thinking things. I'm so focused on getting the questions correct that I'll often spend way too much time analyzing the other, incorrect choices. Also, I often re-read the stimulus which is something I have to stop doing.Accuracy is high though which I guess is encouraging.

ChoboPie · Post by **ChoboPie** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 12:33 am

RZ5646 wrote:I'd study by section and focus on one book for each section as a primary resource, since there's going to be a ton of overlap between the books. For example, I'm currently reading and drilling with the LGB, and I'm going to read the Trainer later to see if it has anything extra to add, but I'm mostly trusting in Powerscore to get the job done. Drilling with one book and then starting from scratch with another book is probably a waste of time because the first book will have already taught you most of what you need to know. So if I were you, I'd read / drill with the Bible, and then once you've finished it just read Manhattan LG for a new perspective on problem areas.

^Agreed. Went through PS + Manhattan a while ago, and the overlap is pretty huge. The 2 differences I recall off the top of my head from LG:

1. Manhattan > PS for basic sequencing (Suppose A is before B is before C. Then PS writes it as: A > B > C. Meanwhile Manhattan simply uses a line, so it's A -- B -- C. As you might imagine, once you get X and Y are before A, it's a LOT easier to diagram this with the simple line rather than the ">" symbol.

2. PS > Manhattan for In and Out games. Manhattan does some really weird ass shit here. Though if you can do this method enough times to get really good at it, I suppose you could go through these games extremely quickly...

Judge for yourself, but besides these two differences, I can't recall anything else major between PS and Manhattan for LG.

The LR also felt super similar between the two, the only major differences I can recall being:

1. Manhattan (slightly) recommends reading q-stem first, but tells you to just read stimulus if that way feels more comfortable, while PS strongly advises stim first. Honestly, I have no idea which way is better and it probably depends on individual...

2. Manhattan focuses a lot more on recognizing argument core, though they both classify the question categories in the same spirit iirc.

Feel free to correct me on this stuff though.

gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 12:39 am

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Motivator9 · Post by **Motivator9** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 11:33 am

Guys I've been focusing solely on LR for this past month. I need to get back to LG and RC. It's so hard to balance the three while working full time.

NL2424 · Post by **NL2424** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 3:20 pm

GMasters5 · Post by **GMasters5** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 6:33 pm

Hey everyone I'm looking for an LSAT study partner. Message me if you go to UGA or live close to the Athens area and are interested.

RZ5646 · Post by **RZ5646** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 9:39 pm

Well guys, there were some ups and downs today. I did 7 new advanced linear games and on many of them I did quite well. 4/7 I did in under 9 minutes, and in one case I only missed the 7sage guy's recommended time by 45 seconds. Also, I only missed one question until I got to the last game. But then the last game was a total disaster. I made a simple mistake that threw me off and made me think I didn't understand the stimulus, and I struggled for 27 minutes before giving up and guessing on the rest of the questions. It was a very disappointing end to practice and pretty much wiped out any confidence I felt from the earlier successes.

Still, it's clear that I'm making some improvement, which when I first started LG seemed impossible, so that's something I guess. Tomorrow I'm going back to grouping games and we'll see how that goes.

179orBust · Post by **179orBust** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 10:25 pm

RZ5646 wrote:Well guys, there were some ups and downs today. I did 7 new advanced linear games and on many of them I did quite well. 4/7 I did in under 9 minutes, and in one case I only missed the 7sage guy's recommended time by 45 seconds. Also, I only missed one question until I got to the last game. But then the last game was a total disaster. I made a simple mistake that threw me off and made me think I didn't understand the stimulus, and I struggled for 27 minutes before giving up and guessing on the rest of the questions. It was a very disappointing end to practice and pretty much wiped out any confidence I felt from the earlier successes.

Still, it's clear that I'm making some improvement, which when I first started LG seemed impossible, so that's something I guess. Tomorrow I'm going back to grouping games and we'll see how that goes.

Which game?

RZ5646 · Post by **RZ5646** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 10:36 pm

PT 21 game 3. It wasn't a very difficult game but the stimulus had some confusing language and then I made a mistake that led me to think two answer choices were both correct, and that wtf moment was the last straw for my already tenuous grasp of the game. I guess it was somewhat unusual in that it was more about counting how many items must be in a certain region of the diagram instead of actually placing them in positions on the diagram, and that combined with the confusing setup and stupid mistake really threw me.

But I see now where I went wrong and should be able to attack similar games with greater success in the future.

RZ5646 · Post by **RZ5646** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 11:11 pm

Oh wow I just got my first law school recruitment email. Apparently WUSTL doesn't even wait for you to take the LSAT before they start sending you stuff.

gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 11:18 pm

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