165+/Retake Study Partner? Forum

[Jack Smirks]

I'm about to take PT 52. Wish me luck. Also where did you guys purchase your PT's? Did you buy the 10 actuals and if so where from? I'm studying on a budget here so if you know anywhere cheap I can purchase them let me know.

[hulahoop]

Ok, I gotta go out of town this weekend so Im not sure I can do a preptest. I am starting to wonder if anyone is still interested tho. Are you guys still on board with this? What happened?

naterj, they are dirt cheap on amazon, half.com, even ebay. Just do some searching, people sell stuff on forums a lot too.

[Jack Smirks]

I took PT 52 and reviewed it yesterday, I also wrote brief explanations of why my incorrect answers were wrong. Overall, I'm pretty happy with my performance since I haven't taken a full length test since my June test date. I scored a 171 (this is the highest score I've PT'd at and the second time I've cracked 170). I can post my explanations if anybody wants me to so you can refer to them if/when you guys take 52. I'm back to the bibles today and plan on PTing again on Saturday or Sunday.

[deadhipsters]

I am getting killed at work w/ a new project. Not sure if how much I will be contributing in the next week. If you guys keep it alive I'll be in/out (yes, that was LG reference).

[Jack Smirks]

There were 100 questions on PT 52 and I missed 10 to get a 171. -3 LR/ -2 LG/ -2 LR/ -3 RC
I won't post the logic games answers but here are explanations to everything else:

LR
#19. Justify the principle. TCR is E because the argument concerns itself with procedural matters i.e. direct vote vs. elections and concludes that elections determine policy more so than direct voting would. Therefore, organizational procedures should maximize the power of each member of the organization. Also, the language in the answer I chose is too strong and the stim does not support the claim that an organization should not make a decision unless a majority supports it.

#21. Weaken. From my notation it looks like I couldn't decide between three answers. A. is wrong because it could be argued that the hyms attributed to Homer are also not the work of Homer because of their differences. E. is wrong because it could be argued that the process of oral composition involving other poets actually strengthens the argument that he did not write the Illiad and the Odyssey because the process itself would have been the real authors. C is TCR because it shows a situation in which poems differ in like ways to those described in the stim from authors in modern times, where we are sure of the poem's origins.

#24. Strengthen. C. is wrong because the language is too strong, it claims that more of the juice's flavor is retained "than any other" pasteurized citrus juices. E is TCR because intensive pasteurization is the most effective process for eliminating bacteria and McElligotts does not go through this process.

RC

#14. The author mentions Galapagos tortoises most likely in order to... although B is true, it is not why the example is used. E is TCR because the first paragraph is explaining the traditional theory and the the tortoises are used to exemplify the traditional theory's rationale.

#19. The primary purpose of the passage is to... A is TCR because while B is correct it ignores the mention and contrast of the traditionalist approach. A. is correct because the overall purpose of the passage is to present an alternative to the traditional approach.

#22. The author's stance regarding...can be most accurately described as one of... A. claims "ardent approval" and this is too strong of language to capture the author's attitude. He simply defends the theory from two common sense objections, nowhere in the passage does he strongly seem to approve of the overall theory.

LR
#6. Weaken. I hate when I miss questions this early in the section and after review I'm still not sure if I quite grasp the reasons behind TCR. This is a tough question that requires paying close attention to the specifics in the stim. Notice the stim talks about the taxes in the city reducing smoking (not specifically in the city) and then says surveys show sales of cigs drops substantially in cities. SO it qualifies its statement to cities, then switches to a generalization and then qualifies the claim again. TCR addresses this (b) does not. Also, B only claims consumers are "more likely" to continue purchasing cigs while (c) claims purchases increase substantially. B's phrasing is more pertinent in this case as far as it weakens its own assertion.

#18. Strengthen. This is a very obvious answer and I cannot believe that I missed it. C is wrong because the stim mentions that Stuart's contemporaries were not influenced by West's terminology, not that they were not influenced at all by him (shell game answer). D is correct becuase it just makes a very broad claim that Stuart's work was not entirely free from West's influence and TITCR.

Overall not too shabby but I shouldn't have missed a few of those. I'm cracking the bibles back open and will PT again this weekend. Hope all is well with my fellow study buddies.

[hulahoop]

PT 45 Wrong answers and explanations.

NATERJ, which tests do you have right now? flight got cancelled (again. fml) so I am going to try to take a test today or tomorrow. what is the earliest one youv got and we can both do the same and compare. I have the superpreps too if you want to do one of thos.


PT 45 LR 1:
25. Got this one right, but I was not as sure as I would have liked to be. I had it down to a choice between A and C, picked C (correct). Can someone diagram it out for me b/c I could not figure out how to diagram them into the same logical form.

for the prompt I got:
V-some->PHA (some visitors to park engage in practices which harm animals)
PHA-->~K (if you engage in those practices you dont know it harms animals)
V -some-> ~K (some visitors dont know those practices harm animals)

for A:
PW-some->F (some people who work on project will be fired)
TD-> PW (if you were in this department you worked on this project) *** except, I just realized that playing an important part in that project is not necessarily the same as working on it. it does not include the whole group b/c you could work on it w/o playing an important role. hmmm. think I just figured out why this is wrong.
TD -some->F (some ppl in this department will be fired

for C:
PP-some->LOC (some people polled live outside city limits)
LOC--> ~V (if you live outside city you cannot vote)
PP -some-> ~V (some ppl polled cannot vote)

huh. Well it is glaringly obvious when I have to slow down my thought process enough to type it out, haha. Hopefully this helps someone so I will leave it up.

RC:
26: Chose A, correct answer is E
I guess going back and looking at it I cannot argue that the court's ruling directly contravened the language of the reforms, b/c it didn't it just interpreted that language too harshly (at least that is how I read it from the author's opinion). E just struck me as too supportive of the court's decision, since he was obviously pretty pissed off about the ruling. I got all the other questions about this passage right, I think I was just rushing by this one and didn't read as carefully as I should have.

LG:
22. Just like in RC, guess my concentration started going towards the end of this section. Guess that tells me I really gotta work on my stamina. Got the very last question wrong, which makes me really mad b/c I wasn't rushing, I was just over it. haha. Will go back and do this game again when I have time and see if I make the same stupid mistake.

LR:
18. Chose C, A is correct. Now that I look at it again, I see that if decentralization always permits more realistic planning, then duh a corporation that is not decentralized cannot have maximally realistic planning. Skimmed over the ALWAYS in the prompt the first time around.

20. Chose D, A is correct. Could not really figure this one out. Is it an error of too small a sample size? B/c then I get it, but that somehow seemed too simple/easy to my mind at the time.

22. Chose C, E is correct. Was simply too lazy to diagram each one. Damn.

prompt:
WSP --> CD (if it will sell well enough to be profitable, then it is transferred to CD)
J-some(opp of few)-> ~R (few jazz recordings are played on radio)
J-some(most will not)-> ~CD ( so most jazz recordings will not make it to CD)
so we need R --> WSP (if its on the radio, then it will sell enough to be profitable)

- that looks like C to me, unless i got turned around in there somewhere. or is C properly diagrammed as WSP-->R ?

E is R --> WSP. ugh fail.

OK, so what I have learned from this test is that my attention span decreases exponentially at the end of each section and closer to the end of the test overall. As soon as I see this trend get better I will start adding in an experimental section. That means more timed full PTs for me tho, so cmon guys lets do this!

Oh, and if I had -5 but one was removed from scoring, does that make this a 177 or 178?

[Jack Smirks]

I just bought the Superprep tonight but I think we should take another test to work out the answers together since SP already has the answers in them. I have 53-59 but I won't be able to take another PT until sometime next week. Let me know what you want to do.

[Jack Smirks]

I just bought the Superprep tonight but I think we should take another test to work out the answers together since SP already has the answers in them. I have 53-59 but I won't be able to take another PT until sometime next week. Let me know what you want to do.

Actually fuck it we can do Superprep, but I still can't do it until next week sometime.

[hulahoop]

Just did Superprep A, got a 174. Anyone still alive out there?

I have been sicker than all hell, so I had no energy to leave the house today and ended up forcing myself to crack the Superprep. Getting back into study mode now tho, I plan on having no social live for the next month and doing at least one test a week until Oct. Am I on my own here?

[amkid100]

Just wondering if anyone out there was in the same boat: trying to get above 170, who would be interested in following a study schedule and going over the questions online together. I originally took the LSAT in June 2008, scored a 169. My upper range of practice before that test was around 175, which is where I am aiming this time around. Just starting to take full sections again after going through both bibles (most of which I honestly didn't remember). Games killed me the last time, so I have been trying to really zero in on those while hoping I haven't lost my knack for RC and LR. Anyway, just wondering if anyone on here was in a similar position who would like to team up. I did all self-study the first time around, going over each preptest in a forum that was all following the same schedule, and it helped me out immensely. Where I am in my scoring now as well as the fact that I am retaking puts me in a bit of a rare position compared to many people, so I thought I would put this out there in case someone else was feeling the same way.

Anyone interested is welcome (Especially retakers- lack of original material sucks)! I was going to set up a schedule for preptests and then we could share difficulties/questions/tips via PM after each one/section as time permits.

Eh?

hi! i just saw this post and am looking for someone to study with for october. have you set a study group up? i'm hoping to do 45-60 or just 50-60 in the time before the test.

[hulahoop]

amkid, what range are you at right now? you are welcome to study with me, I was thinking of doing close to the same .