The Official September 2016 Study Group - WAKE ME UP WHEN SEPTEMBER ENDS Forum

[thatlawlkid]

Anyone have any suggestions on staying organized regarding prep? Retakers especially. Tracking what you've done, what you're panning on doing for the week. anything like that. I have access to almost every prep test(taken about half of them. Mostly 40s-60s), the cambridge packets and the powerscore LGbundles for 21-40 and maybe 1-20.

Thanks!

[galeatus]

Anyone have any suggestions on staying organized regarding prep? Retakers especially. Tracking what you've done, what you're panning on doing for the week. anything like that. I have access to almost every prep test(taken about half of them. Mostly 40s-60s), the cambridge packets and the powerscore LGbundles for 21-40 and maybe 1-20.

Thanks!

I just make up a really simple spreadsheet, nothing fancy, only with PT number, PT results and BR results, and a few graphs here and there just to keep me sane.

I don't track my Cambridge packets as I just do them until I feel confident, so tracking doesn't really help much, but I guess you can add a sheet to the spreadsheet for those.

[ngogirl12]

I don't know how you all prep in cafe's. I tried it out yesterday, didn't work out so well. Let's just say almost ALL the questions I did at the cafe I got wrong (all the conversations that were surrounding me didn't help either..).

I just finished MBF questions, went -2 on the remaining 7 questions. One was a stupid mistake, once I identified what I thought was the false answer I didn't leave room in my brain for a potential false choice. When I looked at the answer though and came up with a resulting scenario, I realized my mistake. The other question, I can see why the one I chose is wrong (I was choosing between the correct answer choice and the one I went with), but no idea why the right one is correct.

So, I'll be spending the next two hours doing heavy review. Never doing LSAT prep in a cafe again lol.

[thatlawlkid]

PT 54 with an exp LR as soon as my warm up is over. Leggo

[20170322]

I've decided that for the next 2 and a half weeks, since my job has started, I'll drill in the morning and evening, doing 1 LG, 1 RC, and 1 LR per day.

[Alexandros]

Aaannd again.

PT 57:
LG: -1
LR experimental: 0
LR1: -3
LR2: -2
RC: -1
Raw: 94
Scaled: 174

Same exact raw score on the last 4 PTs now. I guess at least I'm showing uh... consistency? I mean, I'm glad it didn't dip down at least, because I wasn't feeling great about this one.

-5 on LR is way too low. This is a problem. Briefly checked them and 2 were obvious misreading/misdiagramming, the other 3 I'm going to have to look at more.

(side note -- does anyone get else hella anxious marking PTs? got such bad heart palpitations marking this one I about had to stop. jfc.)

[Mikey]

Anyone have any suggestions on staying organized regarding prep? Retakers especially. Tracking what you've done, what you're panning on doing for the week. anything like that. I have access to almost every prep test(taken about half of them. Mostly 40s-60s), the cambridge packets and the powerscore LGbundles for 21-40 and maybe 1-20.

Thanks!

For each PT/section I do, i just keep note of it in a word document. I guess using a spreadsheet would be more organized, but it works fine for me.

[Alexandros]

I don't know how you all prep in cafe's. I tried it out yesterday, didn't work out so well. Let's just say almost ALL the questions I did at the cafe I got wrong (all the conversations that were surrounding me didn't help either..).

I just finished MBF questions, went -2 on the remaining 7 questions. One was a stupid mistake, once I identified what I thought was the false answer I didn't leave room in my brain for a potential false choice. When I looked at the answer though and came up with a resulting scenario, I realized my mistake. The other question, I can see why the one I chose is wrong (I was choosing between the correct answer choice and the one I went with), but no idea why the right one is correct.

So, I'll be spending the next two hours doing heavy review. Never doing LSAT prep in a cafe again lol.

I am terrible with distractions too. General far-away background noises are okay but I had to move during the last PT because the people near me in the library were whispering really intensely. (idk if that's cheating.)
Going to have to gauge of how much distractions are going to factor into things on test day. I'm hoping not too much because closed room and all that but you never know.

[Mikey]

Aaannd again.

PT 57:
LG: -1
LR experimental: 0
LR1: -3
LR2: -2
RC: -1
Raw: 94
Scaled: 174

Same exact raw score on the last 4 PTs now. I guess at least I'm showing uh... consistency? I mean, I'm glad it didn't dip down at least, because I wasn't feeling great about this one.

-5 on LR is way too low. This is a problem. Briefly checked them and 2 were obvious misreading/misdiagramming, the other 3 I'm going to have to look at more.

(side note -- does anyone get else hella anxious marking PTs? got such bad heart palpitations marking this one I about had to stop. jfc.)

174 is pretty good, but I remember you saying that your goal is higher. At this point, I think your points off are just from mistakes because you clearly know your shit, so I would just advise being more careful with it. This is obviously easier said than done, but you just gotta keep at it bro.

I get nervous as fuck when I mark ONE QUESTION lol. Even if it's a question that I know I destroyed and got 100% right, there's always that feeling that I got everything that I do wrong, lmao.

[Alexandros]

Aaannd again.

PT 57:
LG: -1
LR experimental: 0
LR1: -3
LR2: -2
RC: -1
Raw: 94
Scaled: 174

Same exact raw score on the last 4 PTs now. I guess at least I'm showing uh... consistency? I mean, I'm glad it didn't dip down at least, because I wasn't feeling great about this one.

-5 on LR is way too low. This is a problem. Briefly checked them and 2 were obvious misreading/misdiagramming, the other 3 I'm going to have to look at more.

(side note -- does anyone get else hella anxious marking PTs? got such bad heart palpitations marking this one I about had to stop. jfc.)

174 is pretty good, but I remember you saying that your goal is higher. At this point, I think your points off are just from mistakes because you clearly know your shit, so I would just advise being more careful with it. This is obviously easier said than done, but you just gotta keep at it bro.

I get nervous as fuck when I mark ONE QUESTION lol. Even if it's a question that I know I destroyed and got 100% right, there's always that feeling that I got everything that I do wrong, lmao.

Yeah, I think you're right. I do feel like my potential is higher (knockonwoodknockonwood) but I haven't been able to hit it. I'm not sure if the best approach here would be more drilling or more PTs or what. I guess we'll see.

Yeah, I have to look at a chunk of questions ahead, see that they're all consistent with my answers, and then convince myself to keep marking

[34iplaw]

My apologies, I haven't read the past 188 pages of this thread and just skimmed what was on this page before posting. Clearly I need a little work on my reading comprehension skills.

Best of luck with the 180. I wouldn't get disheartened. Anything above a 176-177 or so has a slight hint of luck to it. You start to get penalized so heavily for a question that you could lose a point just from not reading a "the", a "only", etc.

Anywho... finished most of my macro that automatically writes my questions to a word document. About the only thing I could improve upon is finding a way to check whether the most recently typed question would break columns, and, if so, insert a column break before it so that it fits two or more questions per column when possible. If anyone knows that, hit me up...using a typetext method...it's kind of funny to watch it type really fast. If anyone decides to make a spreadsheet of questions they missed, feel free to use a variant of this to plug it to word... made some note next to where you need to modify it

[+] Spoiler

Public Sub copypasta()

'@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
'@@@@@@@@@@@@@@SETTING UP THE DOCUMENT@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
'@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

'@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@CREATING DOC AND APP@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Dim newWord As Object
Dim newDoc As Object

Set newWord = CreateObject("Word.Application")
Set newDoc = newWord.Documents.Add("C:\###############################.dotx")

'##########Set "C:\ to the location of a word template with 2 columns and narrow margins and font and all...macro should do this....

newWord.Visible = True
newWord.WindowState = 1

Set wordSelection = newWord.Selection

'@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@TEXT AND SUCH@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

With wordSelection
.Font.Bold = False
.Font.Name = "Times New Roman"
.Font.Size = 10
.ParagraphFormat.Alignment = wdAlignParagraphLeft
'.ParagraphFormat.Alignment = wdAlignParagraphJustify #####if you rather it justify to margins like a newspaper
End With

'@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
'@@@@@@@@@@FINISHED SETTING UP THE DOCUMENT@@@@@@@@@@@@@
'@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Dim mySheet As Worksheet

Set mySheet = Sheet2

Dim myQuestions As Range
Dim myRows As Range
Dim myOffset As Integer

myOffset = 0

Set myQuestions = mySheet.Range("A3:A52")
'############this is the base row... think of each of these as being a row with all info pertaining to a question
For Each myRows In myQuestions

For myOffset = 0 To 15
'########## change 15 to the number of rows in yours....mine is higher because it has a bunch of information from LSAT and TM source...if you just did stimulus, prompt, a, b, c, d, e 15 should be = to 7 ... alternatively you should be able to just have blanks in columns A-I or delete the typetexts and set it to goto skipthecell

'skip the clrf for columns A-G and skip the cell for H-I
'testmasters homework #
If myOffset = 0 Then
wordSelection.TypeText "TM HW#"
wordSelection.TypeText myRows.Offset(0, myOffset).Text
GoTo SkipTheCLRF
End If
'testmasters question#
If myOffset = 1 Then
wordSelection.TypeText " Q#"
wordSelection.TypeText myRows.Offset(0, myOffset).Text
GoTo SkipTheCLRF
End If
'testmasters question type
If myOffset = 2 Then
wordSelection.TypeText " TYPE "
wordSelection.TypeText myRows.Offset(0, myOffset).Text
GoTo SkipTheCLRF
End If
'LSAT month
If myOffset = 3 Then
wordSelection.TypeText " ||| LSAT "
wordSelection.TypeText myRows.Offset(0, myOffset).Text
GoTo SkipTheCLRF
End If
'LSAT year
If myOffset = 4 Then
wordSelection.TypeText " "
wordSelection.TypeText myRows.Offset(0, myOffset).Text
GoTo SkipTheCLRF
End If
'LSAT LR section
If myOffset = 5 Then
wordSelection.TypeText " LR"
wordSelection.TypeText myRows.Offset(0, myOffset).Text
GoTo SkipTheCLRF
End If
'LSAT Question
If myOffset = 6 Then
wordSelection.TypeText " #"
wordSelection.TypeText myRows.Offset(0, myOffset).Text
GoTo SkipTheCLRF
End If
'selected answer
If myOffset = 7 Then GoTo SkipTheCell
'correct answer
If myOffset = 8 Then GoTo SkipTheCell

' newDoc.Content.InsertAfter vbNewLine
wordSelection.TypeText vbNewLine

SkipTheCLRF:

'stimulus
If myOffset = 9 Then
wordSelection.TypeText myRows.Offset(0, myOffset).Value
End If
'prompt
If myOffset = 10 Then
wordSelection.TypeText myRows.Offset(0, myOffset).Value
End If
'answer choice a
If myOffset = 11 Then
wordSelection.TypeText " ( A ) "
wordSelection.TypeText myRows.Offset(0, myOffset).Value
End If
'answer choice b
If myOffset = 12 Then
wordSelection.TypeText " ( B ) "
wordSelection.TypeText myRows.Offset(0, myOffset).Value
End If
'answer choice c
If myOffset = 13 Then
wordSelection.TypeText " ( C ) "
wordSelection.TypeText myRows.Offset(0, myOffset).Value
End If
'answer choice d
If myOffset = 14 Then
wordSelection.TypeText " ( D ) "
wordSelection.TypeText myRows.Offset(0, myOffset).Value
End If
'answer choice e
If myOffset = 15 Then
wordSelection.TypeText " ( E ) "
wordSelection.TypeText myRows.Offset(0, myOffset).Value
End If

SkipTheCell:

Next myOffset

wordSelection.InsertBreak Type:=1

Next

Set newWord = Nothing
Set newDoc = Nothing

End Sub

Damn you are the man! You do coding, LSAT, and are an incredible writer!

That is so awesome! Thank you so much for this

Haha thanks.

If interested I can send you the workbook sans questions. It has mildly improved code so you don't need to into VBA to adjust be ranges anymore and it will do it automatically.

I really want to find out a way to find out if the question splits. I think I can probably get around it in a less than ideal fashion.

It also has a sheet that displays one question at a time with the answer hidden but you can reveal it. Either in order or randomly. I could add a filter by type but I'm not going to use that so I probably won't. Made for current excel but should work in all versions.

Anywho. Taking today easy. Diag tomorrow. Also did not sleep well last night. Maybe do one or two RC passages.

Sample sale (maybe for myself maybe to sell) and dinner with friends.

[Mikey]

Been going at some high level difficulty LR questions from the cambridge book today. Did 2/3 from each Q type of the hardest difficulty and have been reviewing them for a bit. Feeling good today about the LSAT so decided to do something for it instead of waiting another day. Also did that LG section this morning -3 (34:50)

[ngogirl12]

I don't know how you all prep in cafe's. I tried it out yesterday, didn't work out so well. Let's just say almost ALL the questions I did at the cafe I got wrong (all the conversations that were surrounding me didn't help either..).

I just finished MBF questions, went -2 on the remaining 7 questions. One was a stupid mistake, once I identified what I thought was the false answer I didn't leave room in my brain for a potential false choice. When I looked at the answer though and came up with a resulting scenario, I realized my mistake. The other question, I can see why the one I chose is wrong (I was choosing between the correct answer choice and the one I went with), but no idea why the right one is correct.

So, I'll be spending the next two hours doing heavy review. Never doing LSAT prep in a cafe again lol.

I am terrible with distractions too. General far-away background noises are okay but I had to move during the last PT because the people near me in the library were whispering really intensely. (idk if that's cheating.)
Going to have to gauge of how much distractions are going to factor into things on test day. I'm hoping not too much because closed room and all that but you never know.

Yeah, I'm definitely guilty of doing that. The whole point of a library is to be quiet not sit and whisper or chat about your life lol.

I'm actually going to take all my PT's at the library just to get used to hearing the movement/rustling of papers, pen/pencils on paper etc.

You should google simugator and your lsat test center so something like "simugator mcgill university lsat test center rating" (I'm saying McGill bc I remember you saying your from Canada). They have reviews for all the test centers and Wikipedia has one too. I know they have reviews for most of the centers in the U.S., if that doesn't work you could always post a topic here. But, yeah I am hoping those reviews are accurate lol.

[Alexandros]

.

[Alexandros]

Think I'm gonna spend a few hours looking at books for my hopefully law-related senior thesis. RC practice!

[Rupert Pupkin]

Another copy of the Economist showed up. Going to try the memory method on them, or at least timed reading with LSAT style notation.

Yeeeeaaaahhh booooiiiii

Been doing this great advice!!! easiest way for me to get some LSAT related studying in at work too, low-key.

I have been working late nights ~10-11PM which is-12 - 14.5 hr days, but ive gotten in a decent amt of studying/drilling. Not as much as I would like but im almost done and can be full-time studying again real soon. Monday night was the only day I got <1 hr in. The Grind is real but thats what its all about

that's impressive. somehow my around 8-9 hr work is more than i can chew. what's your work?

i think i'd prefer taking lsat while full time studying during a semester than lsat with any kind of job

Yeah luckily its just an internship and this upcoming week is my last week. Its in the finance industry. Its been real tough, but luckily I have no obligations until Sept when school starts up again for me.

[ngogirl12]

I don't know how you all prep in cafe's. I tried it out yesterday, didn't work out so well. Let's just say almost ALL the questions I did at the cafe I got wrong (all the conversations that were surrounding me didn't help either..).

I just finished MBF questions, went -2 on the remaining 7 questions. One was a stupid mistake, once I identified what I thought was the false answer I didn't leave room in my brain for a potential false choice. When I looked at the answer though and came up with a resulting scenario, I realized my mistake. The other question, I can see why the one I chose is wrong (I was choosing between the correct answer choice and the one I went with), but no idea why the right one is correct.

So, I'll be spending the next two hours doing heavy review. Never doing LSAT prep in a cafe again lol.

I am terrible with distractions too. General far-away background noises are okay but I had to move during the last PT because the people near me in the library were whispering really intensely. (idk if that's cheating.)
Going to have to gauge of how much distractions are going to factor into things on test day. I'm hoping not too much because closed room and all that but you never know.

Yeah, I'm definitely guilty of doing that. The whole point of a library is to be quiet not sit and whisper or chat about your life lol.

I'm actually going to take all my PT's at the library just to get used to hearing the movement/rustling of papers, pen/pencils on paper etc.

You should google simugator and your lsat test center so something like "simugator mcgill university lsat test center rating" (I'm saying McGill bc I remember you saying your from Canada). They have reviews for all the test centers and Wikipedia has one too. I know they have reviews for most of the centers in the U.S., if that doesn't work you could always post a topic here. But, yeah I am hoping those reviews are accurate lol.

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to do too. And mornings-ish. Those factors alone can make a huge difference.

I don't think simugators has schools in Canada? Unless I'm deeply mistaken... A few irl people have told me some things though, and I've gathered that there are different rooms and rooms and buildings vary.

This one has Canada ratings: http://lsatcenters.wikia.com/wiki/LSAT_Test_Center_Wiki, and so does 7Sage.

[Alexandros]

.

[appind]

Another copy of the Economist showed up. Going to try the memory method on them, or at least timed reading with LSAT style notation.

Yeeeeaaaahhh booooiiiii

Been doing this great advice!!! easiest way for me to get some LSAT related studying in at work too, low-key.

I have been working late nights ~10-11PM which is-12 - 14.5 hr days, but ive gotten in a decent amt of studying/drilling. Not as much as I would like but im almost done and can be full-time studying again real soon. Monday night was the only day I got <1 hr in. The Grind is real but thats what its all about

that's impressive. somehow my around 8-9 hr work is more than i can chew. what's your work?

i think i'd prefer taking lsat while full time studying during a semester than lsat with any kind of job

Yeah luckily its just an internship and this upcoming week is my last week. Its in the finance industry. Its been real tough, but luckily I have no obligations until Sept when school starts up again for me.

if it's only internship it shouldn't be too bad. mostly it's if you've been working full time for a while it begins to take it's toll and i think at least also wears down one's academic acuity if you will.

may not hold for everyone, but i think being student full time during a semester makes one kinda more ready for any type of intellectual tests like lsat

[20170322]

Decided not to PT again until test day. In order to avoid burnout and to balance other obligations, I'll be doing 1 full section of each subject each day until the test. So, 3/5 of a PT per day. I think it will keep me fresh and take some pressure off prep.

[appind]

Okay, I'm throwing my hat in the ring. I hope that everyone else who studied for the February 2015 test has since gone on to bigger and better things and forgotten all about me. I got a 175 then and was really pretty disappointed by it. I'm aware how douchey that seems, but my preptest results really were indicating that I was capable of scoring higher. I haven't systematically studied LSAT since then, but I do logic games pretty frequently for fun. I love tests and the LSAT is definitely my favorite one. I'm going to really try for 180 in September and possibly December also. I still haven't talked myself into law school, but if I can get a 180 then I might not be able to resist.

I see someone a couple posts above this saying that the secret to reading comp is to read as fast as possible. I don't think that's the case at all. When I read something in real life I cruise along at somewhere around 400-500 wpm, but on a reading comp passage I try to imagine either Obama, Bill Clinton, or JFK speaking the words in my head. This slows me down enough to get a much better understanding of what I'm reading. If you're on the other end of the political spectrum maybe try reading it in Reagan's voice or anyone else who has a distinctive oratory style that's easy for you to imagine. It doesn't work for me to read it in my own voice because I trained myself out of that years ago in order to read faster. In the case of reading comp, I think that taking three minutes to read and digest a passage is way better than taking a minute and a half to fly through it with poor comprehension.

holy moly

shemp's back!

[Mikey]

Oh god, so since i was doing 2 or 3 highest level difficulty questions from each Q type in the cambridge book, there was this 1 flaw question that I could not for the life of me understand. I understood the argument, and the right answer was phrased in a way that I would NOT have expected it to be, even though my pre-phrase was accurate, but NONE of the answer choices made any sense and I spent so much time on that questions. After reading explanations, I still couldn't get it, and then finally, *light bulb* i had that "ooooooooh" moment as to why the A/C was worded the way it was and why it was right.

[YupSports]

Drilled the Cambridge Sufficient Assumption packet over the past 2 days - feeling much more confident in my skills.

Focusing on the Necessary Assumption packet this entire upcoming week, as it is much larger.

[proteinshake]

I'm really surprised I got all the questions in the "Chinese Talk-Story" passage correct, that one was tough!

[appind]

I see someone a couple posts above this saying that the secret to reading comp is to read as fast as possible. I don't think that's the case at all. When I read something in real life I cruise along at somewhere around 400-500 wpm, but on a reading comp passage I try to imagine either Obama, Bill Clinton, or JFK speaking the words in my head. This slows me down enough to get a much better understanding of what I'm reading. If you're on the other end of the political spectrum maybe try reading it in Reagan's voice or anyone else who has a distinctive oratory style that's easy for you to imagine. It doesn't work for me to read it in my own voice because I trained myself out of that years ago in order to read faster. In the case of reading comp, I think that taking three minutes to read and digest a passage is way better than taking a minute and a half to fly through it with poor comprehension.

i think slowing down has helped me improve a little bit on RC as well. but slowing down on an RC passage for me means like 4.5 to 5.5 min reading the passage instead of usual 3-3:30 min. that's clearly not like slowing down from 1:30 min to 3 or 3:30 mins to read the passage. naturally that leaves me not enough time to do the questions fully as doing 7 questions in 3 mins is almost impossible even if you've read the passage very well.

how did you train to not read in your own voice and in someone else's? do you mean no subvocalization? i thought it wasn't possible to have no subvocalization.