December 2012 Re-takers Forum

[GabeQuixote]

Started drilling LR again today with Cambridge bundles. I did 90 questions of different types (10 or 5 depending on how many questions there were for each type) and went -5 and 3 of the 5 were on strengthening questions which has been a problem for me in the past. I'm not really sure why though because I feel like making an argument stronger should be pretty easy. I have 10 more question types that I didn't get to today so I'll do them tomorrow and hopefully my Manhattan books will be here by then so I can get started on those!

My Manhattan books came in 60 seconds.

Kindle/iPad/Fire.

[enidwexler]

That's probably pretty smart for a lot of people who only have a month with a lot of ground to cover.

Starting to get a little nervous about how little time we have. How much progress are we all thinking we can make in four weeks?

[Alorain]

Sugar, do I have permission to shave my beard?

I thought you took the Black? You're on the Wall. No shaving on the Wall.

Ser Gabe, I am not Jon Snow.

[Alorain]

Sugar, do I have permission to shave my beard?

Absolutely not.

But its getting to be too substantial!

[Lenahan3]

That's probably pretty smart for a lot of people who only have a month with a lot of ground to cover.

Starting to get a little nervous about how little time we have. How much progress are we all thinking we can make in four weeks?

I'm confident one month is enough time to fix your problems, as long as you apply yourself/have enough spare LSAT time to do so.

I do, so I'm not worried.

Those with jobs...yeah, that may be a different story.

[Psib337]

Started drilling LR again today with Cambridge bundles. I did 90 questions of different types (10 or 5 depending on how many questions there were for each type) and went -5 and 3 of the 5 were on strengthening questions which has been a problem for me in the past. I'm not really sure why though because I feel like making an argument stronger should be pretty easy. I have 10 more question types that I didn't get to today so I'll do them tomorrow and hopefully my Manhattan books will be here by then so I can get started on those!

My Manhattan books came in 60 seconds.

Kindle/iPad/Fire.

I thought about it but I wanted a physical book, for actual learning I prefer it...my Kindle was great when I needed to see what all the fuss was about for 50 shades of grey though.

[99.9luft]

Feedback greatly appreciated, guys - thought to share my tentative study plan:

1. Drill 90s RC sections (to practice summarizing in 3-5 words after each paragraph)
2. Drill those 15 games from Aug/Sep on which i didn't get -0.
3(a). M-F after work, do 3 back-to-back sections (both LRs and RC) mainly from PT50-66 (doing the LG is secondary, since i got -0 on most of them)
3(b). Sat-Sun, PT at exactly 9am, having woken up at 6 and eaten the goddamn eggs as on test day
4. Re-do PT 67 over Thanksgiving

LR: Basically trying to emphasize drilling over PTs. In Oct i missed a derpy array of question types. the bolded are especially troublesome (some of the others I simply didn't get to because of time): Most Strongly Supported, Principle Strengthen, Disagree, Parallel, Weaken, Flaw, Explain, Parallel Flaw, Necessary Ass.

LG: will try to be more flexible and not to be a derpy hypo whore

RC: see #1

[Lenahan3]

Feedback greatly appreciated, guys - thought to share my tentative study plan:

1. Drill 90s RC sections (to practice summarizing in 3-5 words after each paragraph)
2. Drill those 15 games from Aug/Sep on which i didn't get -0.
3(a). M-F after work, do 3 back-to-back sections (both LRs and RC) mainly from PT50-66 (doing the LG is secondary, since i got -0 on most of them)
3(b). Sat-Sun, PT at exactly 9am, having woken up at 6 and eaten the goddamn eggs as on test day
4. Re-do PT 67 over Thanksgiving

LR: Basically trying to emphasize drilling over PTs. In Oct i missed a derpy array of question types. the bolded are especially troublesome (some of the others I simply didn't get to because of time): Most Strongly Supported, Principle Strengthen, Disagree, Parallel, Weaken, Flaw, Explain, Parallel Flaw, Necessary Ass.

LG: will try to be more flexible and not to be a derpy hypo whore

RC: see #1

I like where you're putting PT 67. Thereabouts is probably where mine will land as well.

[TomThompson]

What's the best way to study LR? They are my weak points...especially the wordy questions.

If you aren't already using LSATqa.com I would start. It's incredibly useful for picking out your weak spots. Also check out 7sage video about active review. It helped to correct some of my earlier study methods.

[CardozoLaw09]

Decided against retaking. If my cycle doesn't go well I'm gonna start prepping for next June around February. Down to my last take already. Good luck, guys!

Smart. There's no way in hell I would risk taking the December test after seeing my dismal October score. I'd be lying if I said my confidence wasn't shaken after that. Going to be hard waiting until June for redemption, though.

[Lenahan3]

I'm not sure if anybody has mentioned it, and I'm not looking (sue me), but if you're having trouble with games then go do OLD games. 90's games and early 2000's contain some of the most difficult games in existence and they always don't fit the so called "norm" oftentimes. They'll make you learn to think in a fast, different manner, at least compared to recent games.

[Mrs. Frizzle]

Got !Kunged something fierce in October (4 points worse than any previous PT) so I'll be popping in here from time to time. Ya'll are awesome though and provide me considerably more motivation than my jackass roommates - best of luck this December!

[Lenahan3]

Got !Kunged something fierce in October (4 points worse than any previous PT) so I'll be popping in here from time to time. Ya'll are awesome though and provide me considerably more motivation than my jackass roommates - best of luck this December!

I went through my first LSAT completely alone. Having online companions is a nice addition, I must say.

[Sugar Lumps]

Got !Kunged something fierce in October (4 points worse than any previous PT) so I'll be popping in here from time to time. Ya'll are awesome though and provide me considerably more motivation than my jackass roommates - best of luck this December!

I went through my first LSAT completely alone. Having online companions is a nice addition, I must say.

Sup.

[Lenahan3]

Speaking of, I"m not sure what PT people are considering taking tomorrow (if any), but I'm taking PT 56 in the A.M. and reviewing it later that evening. If anybody interested in joining, we can TinyChat the results.

[beautyistruth]

Took that test yesterday. (Retake)

Games: -1
LR 1: -1
LR 2: -1
RC: -0

179.

(What-the-hell-happened-in-October-I-don't-even.)

[gguuueessttt]

That's probably pretty smart for a lot of people who only have a month with a lot of ground to cover.

Starting to get a little nervous about how little time we have. How much progress are we all thinking we can make in four weeks?

I'm confident one month is enough time to fix your problems, as long as you apply yourself/have enough spare LSAT time to do so.

I do, so I'm not worried.

Those with jobs...yeah, that may be a different story.

yeah I think if you don't have a lot of time to study in the next month, you might want to consider not re-taking in December. I don't want to be a downer, but I've heard of several people doing worse on a re-take when they didn't have enough time to study/didn't dedicate as much time because they thought they were still prepared from the previous test.

[GabeQuixote]

Given it's the last chance, I'm pondering the February LSAT. Any others thinking the same way?

[Lenahan3]

Given it's the last chance, I'm pondering the February LSAT. Any others thinking the same way?

Nope.

[Clarity]

Given it's the last chance, I'm pondering the February LSAT. Any others thinking the same way?

As in taking February instead of December? Or taking December and February?

[GabeQuixote]

Given it's the last chance, I'm pondering the February LSAT. Any others thinking the same way?

As in taking February instead of December? Or taking December and February?

Feb instead of December

[Clarity]

Given it's the last chance, I'm pondering the February LSAT. Any others thinking the same way?

As in taking February instead of December? Or taking December and February?

Feb instead of December

Do you currently have a score that will get you into a school you would want to get into or at least a wait list that February could get you off of? If you don't then I would consider December and February rather than just February.

[GabeQuixote]

Given it's the last chance, I'm pondering the February LSAT. Any others thinking the same way?

As in taking February instead of December? Or taking December and February?

Feb instead of December

Do you currently have a score that will get you into a school you would want to get into or at least a wait list that February could get you off of? If you don't then I would consider December and February rather than just February.

Most people here have already taken the test twice.

[enidwexler]

I'm confident one month is enough time to fix your problems, as long as you apply yourself/have enough spare LSAT time to do so.

I do, so I'm not worried.

Those with jobs...yeah, that may be a different story.

yeah I think if you don't have a lot of time to study in the next month, you might want to consider not re-taking in December. I don't want to be a downer, but I've heard of several people doing worse on a re-take when they didn't have enough time to study/didn't dedicate as much time because they thought they were still prepared from the previous test.

Current plan is PT every other day & review/drilling on the off days. I'm thinking I can devote ~3 hours per day on weekdays and ~5 on weekends. I guess it would really depend on the person, but that's what I did for a month before June and jumped from a 152 diagnostic to a 160. Hoping another month can get me the same jump - to a 168.

[londonsportsguy]

What's the best way to study LR? They are my weak points...especially the wordy questions.

I agree with Alorain.

I'll also just tell you my strategy for answering LR questions because I think it works very well.

I always read the question first and then read the passage. There are people who think this is a bad idea, but I personally have worked exponentially faster since I started doing this. This is because when I read the passage, I have the question in mind, so I make a prediction about what the correct answer will be while I read. I think this method saves time because I can make my predictions accurately without needing to remember anything, rather than having to try to recall the details afterwards. (Edit: another implied tip here is to always make predictions about what the answer will be as you read. I find that around 90% of the time, my predictions closely match the correct answer, and knowing what I'm searching for speeds me up. Your prediction can be vague, such as "the answer will be something that makes ____ less likely").

Another tip is to remember that in LR there are always 4 wrong answers and 1 right answer. You're not picking the answer that's the best out of several answers that work, you're picking the ONLY choice that answers the question at hand. So if your prediction doesn't match any of the choices, try to find the wrong answers first and cross them off rather than just searching for the right answer. Correct answers in LR sometimes seem out of left field, and if you're only searching for something that matches your prediction for the right answer, you might never find it. So crossing off the 4 wrong answers instead of searching for the correct answer can save time.

I also try to work quickly by not taking too long on any given question, so I can usually end up finishing with ~8-10 minutes to spare. As I do the questions, I box the entire question if I am somewhat unsure of my answer and circle the question if I am completely unsure. Then, when I get to the end of the section, I go back to the questions that are circled first and then to the ones that are boxed. Then I go back through every question starting at #1 and make sure I didn't miss any EXCEPTs or anything else.

I also then go back from #1 and make sure the choice I circled in the booklet is the same as the choice I bubbled on my scantron, but I'm neurotic.

Thanks you two. I did this and it looks like: Role Played, Flaw, and Assumed are the tough ones...here I go to tackle!