The Official October 2015 Study Group Forum

flash21 · Post by **flash21** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 6:55 pm

204Wpg wrote:
mist4bison wrote:
flash21 wrote:as a Canadian I feel bad for you Americans right now.. the fact a high 160 score is disappointing to you is crazy. Most Canadians schools require low 160 scores ..
Maybe I should move to Canada. I could probs get the SO to agree
It's really funny how up here I'd say a 168 would let you take your pick of any school (at least w/ a competitive GPA), I keep trying to not get distracted by that fact 'cause I would like the chance to shoot for a T-14. But it's so tempting to just sit back and say screw it, I'll stay in Canada haha.

why are you considering the states? just curious

gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 7:00 pm

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gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 7:23 pm

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PatriotP74 · Post by **PatriotP74** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 7:28 pm

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Zel · Post by **Zel** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 7:33 pm

Why is RC the worst thing ever. My average is -4, and it's really bringing me down. Done ~30 PTs and my average is 172....urgh. I want a 173+ but I keep hitting 171-172 over and over and over, and considering most people say they go down on test day...

169 here I come most likely!

173 on today's PT73 though. 172 on two day's ago PT74. Only PT75, 71 and 72 to go....then RT76.

Edit: I self-studied all the way.

RZ5646 · Post by **RZ5646** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 7:35 pm

PatriotP74 wrote:Did anyone here take classes or is everyone self studying?

I think at least a couple people did an online course like 7sage or Velocity

204Wpg · Post by **204Wpg** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 7:43 pm

flash21 wrote:
204Wpg wrote:
mist4bison wrote:
flash21 wrote:
why are you considering the states? just curious

Well, mainly because I want to get out of my hometown (Winnipeg), there's really not a lot going on here as you may be able to imagine. I've loved the big-city feel of Toronto while I've spent significant time there for work, and that's always been where I wanted to end up; but more because I didn't have any realistic avenue of taking my career to the states than any love for Canada.

Until I decided I might be applying to law and after realizing I could (hopefully) do quite well on the LSAT and have a very competitive GPA (especially when taking the A+ s down to the 4.0 scale) and at that point I got more intrigued by it. It's by no means a certain I want to go down there, I'm not even certain I'll ever apply to a law school haha, but I'm hoping to give myself the option.

appind · Post by **appind** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 8:35 pm

Zel wrote:Why is RC the worst thing ever. My average is -4, and it's really bringing me down. Done ~30 PTs and my average is 172....urgh. I want a 173+ but I keep hitting 171-172 over and over and over, and considering most people say they go down on test day... 169 here I come most likely!

173 on today's PT73 though. 172 on two day's ago PT74. Only PT75, 71 and 72 to go....then RT76.

Edit: I self-studied all the way.

it matters if -4 average is on old rc or new. it's likely it's on new considering these scores. post how you do on pt-72 as it would help know if it's or not a much different pt than the rest 70s you have done.

appind · Post by **appind** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 8:42 pm

gamerish wrote:Something one of the manhattan instructors on their forum said about modern RC sections that helped me pin down what was different about them and I found it helpful so I thought I'd share

To rephrase that old cliche:
Don't expect that the correct answer is 100% provable. There are a handful of correct answers in every RC section these days that would have been "too big a leap" on old school RC. But they are still the BEST of the available choices.

Don't get me wrong, most RC answers are still very provable from available text, but on modern tests I find that I sometimes have to plug my nose and pick the best of the available options rather than having that same verifiable confidence I used to with every answer choice on older tests.
https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/foru ... t8175.html

that may not be the only difference as the new rc also probably has a higher proportion of analogies questions and inference questions that require synthesizing from multiple places in the text. i did 34 RC yesterday at -2 but am being destroyed by the new rc. the older rc has some similar questions but not in that high proportion.

Mint-Berry_Crunch · Post by **Mint-Berry_Crunch** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 9:16 pm

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nlee10 · Post by **nlee10** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 9:36 pm

Taking PT 75 (took it for real) tomorrow so I only did 30 LR questions and just read a lot of news articles as well as watch 2 movies. Treating it like the real thing.

dominicanguy12 · Post by **dominicanguy12** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 9:53 pm

I just got my lowest PT in 2 months. I really wish I hadn't saved all the most recent PTs for last seeing how much trickier they feel.

appind · Post by **appind** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 9:56 pm

i got the beta blocker 20 mg med from the doctor. anxiety during last test cost me a lot on some sections so i am thinking for trying this but not sure how it may affect the sharpness. anyone take this?

Mint-Berry_Crunch wrote:165 on PT73.
Not even sure what my name is anymore.
-8 on RC
-4 on LR1
-4 on games
-3 on LR2
Worst part is that I thought I did well. Looking back I just didn't do any of my methods.

are you sure you are not burning out? you may have been doing too many pts. i feel burnt out for a full week after doing a pt.

Mint-Berry_Crunch · Post by **Mint-Berry_Crunch** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 9:57 pm

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Mint-Berry_Crunch · Post by **Mint-Berry_Crunch** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 10:05 pm

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TheProdigal · Post by **TheProdigal** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 10:33 pm

appind wrote:i got the beta blocker 20 mg med from the doctor. anxiety during last test cost me a lot on some sections so i am thinking for trying this but not sure how it may affect the sharpness. anyone take this?

I'd be very leery of starting anything new this close to test day.

seashell.economy · Post by **seashell.economy** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 10:42 pm

dominicanguy12 wrote:I just got my lowest PT in 2 months. I really wish I hadn't saved all the most recent PTs for last seeing how much trickier they feel.

I just did #74 and I feel like LR was a lot harder. Didn't seem to have the usual 10-12 "easy" questions first. It's like it just jumped in with medium-hard LR. I really think the tests are getting harder, despite what others say.

appind · Post by **appind** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 11:59 pm

looking up hotels for the night before the game day and all seem expensive over $140 a night. anyone stay at extended stay america know how good/bad they are?

TheProdigal wrote:
appind wrote:i got the beta blocker 20 mg med from the doctor. anxiety during last test cost me a lot on some sections so i am thinking for trying this but not sure how it may affect the sharpness. anyone take this?
I'd be very leery of starting anything new this close to test day.

yeah, one has to try it before the real thing and i think there may still be time to try it a couple of times before oct. the real thing always feel way more anxiety inducing than any pt i do.

gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 12:23 am

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STL2014 · Post by **STL2014** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 1:12 am

Really need help on RC. I drilled old RCs and got really good at them, but still missing 4-7 questions on the post-PT70 RCs. This is literally preventing me from writing comfortably in the 170s.
7 days to go. Haven't cracked open PT70, 72. What do I do? Can anyone shed light on a possible last-minute RC improvement?

The breakthrough I had yesterday was I didn't feel the time pressure in LRs. I keep telling myself that as long as I am concentrated and have a solid reading of the stimuli, I will have a clear sense of the flaw in each question and I can finish a LR section in 33min, including bubbling time. What I am drilling now is to use the extra 2min wisely and reread the questions that I am not sure.

STL2014 · Post by **STL2014** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 7:29 am

STL2014 wrote:Really need help on RC. I drilled old RCs and got really good at them, but still missing 4-7 questions on the post-PT70 RCs. This is literally preventing me from writing comfortably in the 170s.
7 days to go. Haven't cracked open PT70, 72. What do I do? Can anyone shed light on a possible last-minute RC improvement?

The breakthrough I had yesterday was I didn't feel the time pressure in LRs. I keep telling myself that as long as I am concentrated and have a solid reading of the stimuli, I will have a clear sense of the flaw in each question and I can finish a LR section in 33min, including bubbling time. What I am drilling now is to use the extra 2min wisely and reread the questions that I am not sure.

I review several RC questions in PT71 and realized that I did not pay enough attention to the question types. For high level readers, the question types on RC are not that important, because they are going to conquer every question no matter what. I think the question types are important for me, problem-solving process wise, given that I gained a lot confidence in LR after I have a solid grasp of the question types. I am still rereading some chapters of LSAT Trainer and trying to gain some insights. There is still hope.

RZ5646 · Post by **RZ5646** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 8:27 am

Jesus... I'm going to ignore this thread for a while because it's bringing me down and shaking my confidence.

Dexter97 · Post by **Dexter97** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 9:25 am

Im just going to do some grouping games today and then watch Suits this evening - have to treat it like its next week. Taking PT 72 tomorrow morning!

redfred22 · Post by **redfred22** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 9:29 am

appind wrote:i got the beta blocker 20 mg med from the doctor. anxiety during last test cost me a lot on some sections so i am thinking for trying this but not sure how it may affect the sharpness. anyone take this?

Mint-Berry_Crunch wrote:165 on PT73.
Not even sure what my name is anymore.
-8 on RC
-4 on LR1
-4 on games
-3 on LR2
Worst part is that I thought I did well. Looking back I just didn't do any of my methods.
are you sure you are not burning out? you may have been doing too many pts. i feel burnt out for a full week after doing a pt.

This is what I'm wondering about myself - the burnout. My PT average, which are PTs not in the high 60s/low 70s, is around 168/169 with a few 170+s. Now that it's closer to game day and I'm looking at the newer ones, I'm intimidated. But I'm wondering if part of it could just be that I'm so done with this test and all of the stress associated with it. I've been studying for a long time, and while I haven't studied the intense 6+ hours a day every day for the past few months, I'm just so done with this test. And it's so discouraging and frustrating that I've made SOOO much progress but that now the newer tests are giving me pause. I'm wondering if giving myself more than a day or two of rest and NOTHING LSAT before Saturday would be beneficial.

I honestly think that a lot of it has to do with hearing/reading/expecting that the newer tests are harder and different, but there are still some clear changes. Of course, the newer tests have scales that are consistently larger than their earlier PT counterparts (for instance, a lot of the 40s to 50s are -9, -10 and the more recents are -12, -13, one -14, etc. Surely these newer sections and questions were tested as experimental sections/questions during other PTs, so the scale will be pretty indicative of that performance. As with the other poster, I'm wishing I had started looking at the newer ones sooner. These next couple days will be some intense review of the tougher questions, reading manhattan, LSAT hacks, etc.

One thing I've found about the newer ones is that the answers conceal the type of flaw that you're looking for. For example, some of the newer tests will have a flaw or strengthen/weaken question (which are the types that I think are much harder now) that have an answer choice that absolutely addresses the prephrase but does it in a way that makes you skip over it during the first read through the choices. I've been slowed down on several questions like those and missed some because I recognized the flaw, but the answer I was expecting wasn't there in the way that I expected it to be worded.

Anyway, I know I went a little bit off in a tangent there, but just wanted to get some stuff off my chest. Somewhat stressing that all of the months of study I've done to be down to -2 on average for LR and -0 LG and between -4 and -8 on RC is going to be all for nothing. But then again, I took December 2013 (PT71) as an actual take, and I didn't study hardly at all and only took a couple PTs from the teens and gave myself some leeway on those even. Ended up scoring in December 2013 right at what those couple of PTs had been at.

TheProdigal · Post by **TheProdigal** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 9:30 am

RZ5646 wrote:Jesus... I'm going to ignore this thread for a while because it's bringing me down and shaking my confidence.

At least leave us with a new poll, OP.