December 2011 LSAT Study Group Forum

[Maye]

164 after 172/173 avg. I need to pull it together for December. Let's go team!

I don't like this post

Checking in. Got a 171 for this oct test. It's going to be really hard to get over this miserable feeling to start studying again, but fuck, whatever. I don't even fucking know anymore. I don't know...go study group?

or this one

+1

[LSAT Blog]

After receiving Oct. score:

1. threw laptop
2. cried for an hour
3. went shopping
4. stopped being a whiny loser and got over it
5. signed up for Dec.
6. win. (hopefully)

So what are other re-takers using for study materials? I pretty much used up everything I had thinking I wouldn't have to re-take. I guess there's a creative study tips thread around here somewhere...

Most of them will likely be blurry to you. Even for those that you do recall having completed, you're not looking to simply measure your performance - you're looking to actually learn from the material.

Don't worry. You can learn a great deal from studying these exams.

Some more thoughts on studying for a retake.

[lhess218]

164 after 172/173 avg. I need to pull it together for December. Let's go team!

I don't like this post

Checking in. Got a 171 for this oct test. It's going to be really hard to get over this miserable feeling to start studying again, but fuck, whatever. I don't even fucking know anymore. I don't know...go study group?

or this one

+1

I support this.

[geverett]

I would rename this the December 2011 Study Group. ~Embrace the tradition~

Best of luck in your prep!

Definitely Agree with this here. If the mod could make this happen then that would rock.

[JamMasterJ]

tell Olive to get on it

[tmon]

Seeing a bunch of familiar faces in here after yesterday, so I figure I'll say hi. Had a pretty good 170+ average after many many PTs going into test day and ended up with >20 wrong. Still not really sure what my deal was. Nothing to do at this point but get back to work. Registered for December and am printing out 64 as I type. I'm probably not going to frequent this thread as much as I did the October one, but I'll be around now and then I'm sure.

If this was already asked/answered, what are the retakers doing in the next 30+ days? I'm thinking of doing a little basic work reviewing concepts along with drilling and then ramping up to full timed stuff with lots of review. Thoughts?

Best of luck everyone, especially Gev and Moops, and others of you who I already know can kill this thing

[jrthor10]

Can anyone recommend what, they consider to be, the best resources/strategies for grouping lg? I have used the bibles and had a testmasters class, but I am hoping someone can give me a superior method. I just seem to be spending way too much time on LG which caused my downfall on the Oct. test.

[SA1928]

Seeing a bunch of familiar faces in here after yesterday, so I figure I'll say hi. Had a pretty good 170+ average after many many PTs going into test day and ended up with >20 wrong. Still not really sure what my deal was. Nothing to do at this point but get back to work. Registered for December and am printing out 64 as I type. I'm probably not going to frequent this thread as much as I did the October one, but I'll be around now and then I'm sure.

If this was already asked/answered, what are the retakers doing in the next 30+ days? I'm thinking of doing a little basic work reviewing concepts along with drilling and then ramping up to full timed stuff with lots of review. Thoughts?

Best of luck everyone, especially Gev and Moops, and others of you who I already know can kill this thing

Welcome to the December group!

I'm not technically re-taking because I withdrew the night before the October test, but sort of in a similar situation since I used a lot of my materials in preparation for the October test. Once I withdrew, I decided to sort of go back to the beginning and work on the concepts some more. I felt that I was having a hard time nailing down a strategy I could actually use while taking the test. I am hoping that by re-learning concepts and prepping with the patterns I pick up, I will increase speed while also maintaining accuracy (timing is always my killed on every timed section/test I have taken). I am sort of mixing the study schedule for the December group and my LSAT blog study schedule, so I am doing the MLSAT chapters a little faster, and through November, I am just going to be doing 3-4 timed tests a week for the 4 weeks leading up to the test with heavy review. I also plan on taking at least one day a week to dedicate towards hitting my problem areas like specific LR question types that I am still struggling with.

Anyone else want to share their study plans for the next 5 and a half weeks or have any suggestions?

[barneytrouble]

I've got a few sections of Kaplan LR left to do (30 for 30 on the Main Points yesterday though, woop woop) as well as getting down Formal Logic. Should take me around 10 days for all that I think... Then I have 10 PTs that I will take for sure, and maybe a few more depending on how I feel about timing/endurance... Gonna go with the "Day 1: PT, Day 2: review, Day 3: review" to start, probably getting rid of more day 3s as I go along and just doing random RC sections instead. Few days before the test gonna close all the books and just relax. Post-test gonna get drunk and have an LSAT material sponsored bonfire.

[Eichörnchen]

Seeing a bunch of familiar faces in here after yesterday, so I figure I'll say hi. Had a pretty good 170+ average after many many PTs going into test day and ended up with >20 wrong. Still not really sure what my deal was. Nothing to do at this point but get back to work. Registered for December and am printing out 64 as I type. I'm probably not going to frequent this thread as much as I did the October one, but I'll be around now and then I'm sure.

If this was already asked/answered, what are the retakers doing in the next 30+ days? I'm thinking of doing a little basic work reviewing concepts along with drilling and then ramping up to full timed stuff with lots of review. Thoughts?

Best of luck everyone, especially Gev and Moops, and others of you who I already know can kill this thing

Just kiddin. Soo for all of us who have been studying for....ever, do you guys have a strategy yet? I'm thinking back to basics and doing the guide books for LR and RC (I only did them for LG) and drilling.

[tmon]

[img]

Just kiddin. Soo for all of us who have been studying for....ever, do you guys have a strategy yet? I'm thinking back to basics and doing the guide books for LR and RC (I only did them for LG) and drilling.

Of course you too!
I thought you weren't taking in December though, or have you not decided for sure yet?

I'm going to come up with some sort of tentative 30ish day plan after I go through 64 and laugh at/selfhate on myself some more.

[Eichörnchen]

[img]

Just kiddin. Soo for all of us who have been studying for....ever, do you guys have a strategy yet? I'm thinking back to basics and doing the guide books for LR and RC (I only did them for LG) and drilling.

Of course you too!
I thought you weren't taking in December though, or have you not decided for sure yet?

I'm going to come up with some sort of tentative 30ish day plan after I go through 64 and laugh at/selfhate on myself some more.

Alright you're off the hook - I think I am taking in Feb I just don't think I can squeeze in everything by Dec.

[iamrobk]

I took the October test (got a 171 which I am extremely proud of, so I'm not taking the LSAT again fortunately), just popping in here to say good luck to every one taking it in December. It may be tough, but you can do better on the real thing than you do on PT's. My highest PT's were 170 (the last 5 or 6 tests I took before the LSAT were consistently 169-170), and I did a point better than that on the October one. So don't give up hope!

Many thanks!

Do you think you could give us some advice that you thought helped you on test day? Nerves, timing, routine, etc?

Good luck with your cycle.

Hm. Well for nerves, I gotta say I was pretty lucky in that I didn't really have any, for whatever reason. I was really calm leading up to the test, and only got nervous when I actually started the first section. I just kinda told myself "CHILL OUT!" and, well, I did. Honestly, by the break I didn't even want to stop, I wanted to keep going and finish the damn thing since I was really in the zone (has anyone even used that expression in 5 years? ). For timing, I was helped a bit since I had taken a Kaplan class over the summer, so I was used to sitting down and doing a full 6 section test with only my watch and a 15 minute break. All the other PT's I took I just timed with a countdown timer on my computer (until the day before, when I put that on in the background and did a full LSAT timing with my watch), aiming to do 15 questions in 15 minutes, 20 in 20, and ideally 25 in 25 (realistically, 28-30 minutes) for LR and RC, and trying to finish all the games in about 32 or 33 minutes so I could quickly look over them.

Something I think helped me break the 170 barrier (albeit barely), was that a few days before the test, I decided to change from finishing 25 questions in 25 minutes to doing 25 in 30 minutes. That is, on the few that inevitably stumped me on LR and RC, I told myself to just take an extra minute and try to get it right. I think that working on my speed for so long then slowing down a bit and letting myself take extra time on the questions that needed it helped me. I ended up with -0 on LG, -5 on LR1, -3 on LR2, and -4 on RC, FWIW.

[moopness]

[img]

Just kiddin. Soo for all of us who have been studying for....ever, do you guys have a strategy yet? I'm thinking back to basics and doing the guide books for LR and RC (I only did them for LG) and drilling.

Of course you too!
I thought you weren't taking in December though, or have you not decided for sure yet?

I'm going to come up with some sort of tentative 30ish day plan after I go through 64 and laugh at/selfhate on myself some more.

Alright you're off the hook - I think I am taking in Feb I just don't think I can squeeze in everything by Dec.

+1, I totally didn't realize that we have so little time left until the next test But hey, on the bright side some of the old gang (Hey Tmon! Gev! Jam! Eich! Anyone else I missed!) gets to study together again (...I guess that's not such a great thing actually, since we shouldn't have to AGAIN). It is what it is though, but this time we're all getting 180s!!! Like, for serious. Anyone with a 179 is gonna have to retake

Checking in. Got a 171 for this oct test. It's going to be really hard to get over this miserable feeling to start studying again, but fuck, whatever. I don't even fucking know anymore. I don't know...go study group?

*whispers* Moops?

Feel better. <3

um Moopness, 171 is making you miserable because..??

I've been getting a lot of negative messages about this, so let me explain. On my first ever practice test (my diagnostic) I had a 172. On my second ever test I got a 180. In the last couple of weeks before the official test, I got 9 straight 180s. I felt very confident about my performance on the actual test, so while I still scored relatively high, I basically spent a ton of time studying for a test only to score lower than I did without any prep. That's a pretty horrible feeling. I REALLY want to go to Columbia, and with my abysmal gpa I needed a much higher lsat. Hope that explains it. I wasn't trying to be a dick or anything, it's just honestly devastating.

[JDndMSW]

Checking in as a retaker, like Tmon not sure what happened... although I know I could have studied more I scored 6 points below my average. RC was a nightmare (it was my last section) I missed 8 of the last 9 questions.

I am completely let down and feeling pretty crappy. I was so excited to start applying to schools this week and now I will need to hold off. It also sucks becuase EVERYONE had been asking about the test and it felt like shit to tell them how I underperformed.

As for my strategy I am gonna start from square one with my Blueprint prep materials. I don't have any explanations for answers anymore so I may need to use this a bit more. I am taking tonight off as well and diving into it tomorrow. Good luck everyone!

[Maye]

Hey guys, I'll be at the study session tonight. Starts in about half an hour. See you there!

[happyshapy]

Checking in as a retaker, like Tmon not sure what happened... although I know I could have studied more I scored 6 points below my average. RC was a nightmare (it was my last section) I missed 8 of the last 9 questions.

I am completely let down and feeling pretty crappy. I was so excited to start applying to schools this week and now I will need to hold off. It also sucks becuase EVERYONE had been asking about the test and it felt like shit to tell them how I underperformed.

As for my strategy I am gonna start from square one with my Blueprint prep materials. I don't have any explanations for answers anymore so I may need to use this a bit more. I am taking tonight off as well and diving into it tomorrow. Good luck everyone!

I think on this test, especially on RC, there were a lot of questions that had really attractive wrong answer choices. I left the test feeling okay about it and ended up -8 in RC which I thought I might have gone -2 at most and -14 in LR total which I have never come close to getting. I'm focusing on crossing out the word in the answer choice that makes it wrong since I got tricked really badly on this one.

[SA1928]

Hey! We're all in the MLSAT room ready to get the study session going! Come on in

[paulshortys10]

hey everyone, I'll be joining this group for my retake (3rd time)

I got a 161 in OCT (-7,-7 LR, -2LG -10 RC), and i completely feel I underperformed.
I'll be starting PT 39 tomorrow, along with drilling by type LR's and working on my obvious RC weakness(prob as experimentals)

So i guess I'll use this group for some moral support and motivation.

[GoldenGloves]

So, it's time to get real folks.

[Olive]

I would rename this the December 2011 Study Group. ~Embrace the tradition~

Best of luck in your prep!

Definitely Agree with this here. If the mod could make this happen then that would rock.

I am not sure I understand what you are saying. Is it not already named so? I just added in the LSAT part...

[ss3825]

I would rename this the December 2011 Study Group.

Best of luck in your prep!

Definitely Agree with this here. If the mod could make this happen then that would rock.

I am not sure I understand what you are saying. Is it not already named so? I just added in the LSAT part...

I think they mean they want you to add the last words "~Embrace the tradition~" to the title as well.

[Eichörnchen]

I would rename this the December 2011 Study Group.

Best of luck in your prep!

Definitely Agree with this here. If the mod could make this happen then that would rock.

I am not sure I understand what you are saying. Is it not already named so? I just added in the LSAT part...

I think they mean they want you to add the last words "~Embrace the tradition~" to the title as well.

haha no. I think it is that it should be named "December 2011 Study Group" not "December 2011 LSAT Study Group".

[ss3825]

I think they mean they want you to add the last words "~Embrace the tradition~" to the title as well.

haha no. I think it is that it should be named "December 2011 Study Group" not "December 2011 LSAT Study Group".[/quote]

Oh...got it! My bad!

[hobojarpen]

Not here to study with you guys, but wanted to wish all of you luck. Having studied on my own for my first two LSATs, I finally broke through on my third retake this month and got a 170. Find a study method that works for you, stick to it, be disciplined, and just push forward.. good luck to all of you!