The Official June 2015 Study Group Forum

gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 3:09 am

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Rigo · Post by **Rigo** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 3:10 am

RZ5646 · Post by **RZ5646** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 1:06 pm

You have to hand it to Mike Kim, the Trainer is by far the prettiest LSAT prep book out there.

NL2424 · Post by **NL2424** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 1:43 pm

Motivator9 · Post by **Motivator9** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 5:43 pm

zacboro wrote:
RZ5646 wrote:You have to hand it to Mike Kim, the Trainer is by far the prettiest LSAT prep book out there.
But if you buy all three of the bibles and put them up on a shelf next to each other they look really elite

I disagree there. The Bibles preach strategies, Manhattan seems to focus on fundamentals, and The Trainer seems to be a good middle ground.

NL2424 · Post by **NL2424** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 5:48 pm

RZ5646 · Post by **RZ5646** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 6:08 pm

Stem first or stim first? Powerscore and the Trainer are at odds on this.

NL2424 · Post by **NL2424** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 6:09 pm

gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 6:11 pm

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Motivator9 · Post by **Motivator9** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 6:30 pm

Ya I really haven't been convinced of reading the stimulus first, and I have tried it. It really puts you at a disadvantage from the way I see it.

gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 6:44 pm

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Motivator9 · Post by **Motivator9** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 7:29 pm

gamerish wrote:How so?

Lol I meant the stimulus. Reading the stimulus first puts you at a disadvantage because it doesn't allow you to focus on the aspects of the stimulus that are important in relation to the question being asked. It would be useless to focus on evaluating the reasoning of a Main Conclusion question when you've already spotted the conclusion.

ChoboPie · Post by **ChoboPie** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 7:35 pm

On the issue of stim vs. stem first, I've found that stem first makes a lot of questions go really, really smoothly.

It's usually obvious without reading q-stem whether or not there was an argument, and just recognizing the important parts of the stim allows me to have a solid enough grasp to read the q-stem and then be able to comfortably answer in quick succession.

I find that on questions where I read the q-stem then stim, I don't really use a process different from what I would have had I just read stim first (except in maybe some really rare cases). Though for some people, I'm sure reading q-stem first allows them to have a clearer idea of exactly what they might expect.

I'm not 100% set on either method yet, though I'm convinced each has its own advantages.

karmago · Post by **karmago** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 7:40 pm

Dirigo wrote:
gamerish wrote:God I hate Necessary and Sufficient questions...
Necessary are easy, sufficient are tricky.

I find it to be the other way around. SA questions tend to have visible gaps between premise and conclusion so it's easier to pre-phrase the correct answer choice to fill that gap. NA answer choices are a lot less predictable because they can hit you from any angle. The negation test works wonders when you're down to 2 answer choices, but what are your strategies for tackling difficult NA questions?

gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 7:52 pm

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Rigo · Post by **Rigo** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 8:27 pm

RZ5646 · Post by **RZ5646** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 9:56 pm

Ok so instead of those game drills I decided to take an old PT, PT 10.

Scaled: 174
LR: -1
LG: -4
RC: -1

I think I did well because this one had some really weird games, but hey, I'll take it.

edit: I used the stim first method for this, but I definitely see how stem first might have helped me. I'll have to try it out next time.

gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 10:03 pm

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RZ5646 · Post by **RZ5646** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 10:17 pm

gamerish wrote:Well hot damn. Congrats.

I haven't even started drilling yet and I want to take a PT so bad to see how I've progressed since my diagnostic but I know if I do I will score way, way under my goal and want to kill myself.

Thanks. I think I got lucky with an easy LG section lol... 7sage gives a lot of the questions only one star of difficulty. There was also this strange game about word games that doesn't seem to match any of the usual game types.

Still, it feels good. And now that I know I'm capable of getting a good score, I'll be motivated to work harder to ensure I actually do that on test day.

gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 10:24 pm

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179orBust · Post by **179orBust** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 10:28 pm

RZ5646 wrote:
gamerish wrote:Well hot damn. Congrats.

I haven't even started drilling yet and I want to take a PT so bad to see how I've progressed since my diagnostic but I know if I do I will score way, way under my goal and want to kill myself.
Thanks. I think I got lucky with an easy LG section lol... 7sage gives a lot of the questions only one star of difficulty. There was also this strange game about word games that doesn't seem to match any of the usual game types.

Still, it feels good. And now that I know I'm capable of getting a good score, I'll be motivated to work harder to ensure I actually do that on test day.

Congrats! No doubt you'll be able to achieve a 175+ by June. Maybe consider taking in Feb?

Also, I just did that LG section a few weeks ago and found it relatively easy. Word game especially, loved it.

And, how are you already scoring that high in LR? Did you drill? Would love to know some of your strategies.

And lastly, I haven't done shit in the last few days(NFL playoffs).Glad I'm a part of this forum because it holds me accountable. All you guys make me feel like crap when I see you studied for 5+ hours. Have to really get moving. I have a very high GPA and the LSAT is really the only thing in my way.

mds6d · Post by **mds6d** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 10:59 pm

My copy of the LSAT Trainer just arrived! Excited to start on it, along with the LG Bible which I plan to go over in tandem with the Trainer (in place of the Trainer's LG).

For those of you who are using the Trainer as your primary study source, at least for LR, how do you recommend we study? Read a few chapters, drill from Cambridge packets for that particular question type, review, repeat, move on?

Thanks!

gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 11:01 pm

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Hazel · Post by **Hazel** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 11:18 pm

179orBust wrote:
RZ5646 wrote: Thanks. I think I got lucky with an easy LG section lol... 7sage gives a lot of the questions only one star of difficulty. There was also this strange game about word games that doesn't seem to match any of the usual game types.

Still, it feels good. And now that I know I'm capable of getting a good score, I'll be motivated to work harder to ensure I actually do that on test day.
Congrats! No doubt you'll be able to achieve a 175+ by June. Maybe consider taking in Feb?

Also, I just did that LG section a few weeks ago and found it relatively easy. Word game especially, loved it.

And, how are you already scoring that high in LR? Did you drill? Would love to know some of your strategies.

And lastly, I haven't done shit in the last few days(NFL playoffs).Glad I'm a part of this forum because it holds me accountable. All you guys make me feel like crap when I see you studied for 5+ hours. Have to really get moving. I have a very high GPA and the LSAT is really the only thing in my way.

Don't worry. I'm not going to start until February or March. As I tend to get bored easily and as my cold diagnostic placed me within a range I'm satisfied with, I'm putting it off until that 3 month period

Motivator9 · Post by **Motivator9** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 11:24 pm

mds6d wrote:My copy of the LSAT Trainer just arrived! Excited to start on it, along with the LG Bible which I plan to go over in tandem with the Trainer (in place of the Trainer's LG).

For those of you who are using the Trainer as your primary study source, at least for LR, how do you recommend we study? Read a few chapters, drill from Cambridge packets for that particular question type, review, repeat, move on?

Thanks!

There is TLS tread for The Trainer that has a wealth of great information on studying with it. Mike Kim, the author of the book, has number of great study schedules that you can incorporate in you studies while going through the book. The book really stresses the importance of learning skills and translating them into habits, and not going through your studies with the typical one question type at a time approach. It's always a good idea to incorporate drilling in your LR studies, but make sure you throw in plenty of mixed review, typically with individual sections, so that you don't forget how to approach one type of question while spending two weeks working on another. I'm confident that the Trainer will be a great addition to your studies!

http://www.thelsattrainer.com/