Blueprint Online Course--October 2012 LSAT Forum

[bp shinners]

I am working hard to do 4 hour sessions, and I can really feel my concentration fall off at about the 2 hour mark. I am hoping that will improve soon as it is hard to keep going that last 2 hours. In the homework I can really feel it the most.

If your concentration drops at 2 hours, don't keep forcing it. Take a short break, eat some brain food, maybe go for a jog (or watch some trashy TV). Then, come back to it. Each day, force yourself to go another 10-15 minutes before taking a break.

[lovelyspotlight]

Do you guys go over each lesson until you get 100% correct before you move forward? How do you know when to go forward?

If I miss questions, I definitely go over them before moving forward. Otherwise, how do you learn from the practice?

Ay yi yi, I'm having major issues here. I had surgery for a deviated septum Friday. I've been taking pain meds, which make me super loopy and really, really tired. Every time I try to do ANY prep work at all, I get like 15 minutes done before I feel like I need to conk out. Then I come to moments like now, when I wonder whether I should push through pain so that I'm coherent enough to do prep...or take the meds, accept that I can't do prep right now and get super down and dirty when I'm better. This constant back and forth is driving me nuts.

[jared6180]

Take care of yourself and remember that you can't "cram" for this test. The idea of getting super down and dirty seems like cramming. I would be careful and possibly just put it off until December. If I was on a pain med I would just relax and recover as I am supposed to and just prep as possible. Do one game every time you get one of those 15 minute sections you can think straight.

I go over every question I miss, and understand most of it, but I didn't master lesson 1 until i started lesson 2.

[lovelyspotlight]

Take care of yourself and remember that you can't "cram" for this test. The idea of getting super down and dirty seems like cramming. I would be careful and possibly just put it off until December. If I was on a pain med I would just relax and recover as I am supposed to and just prep as possible. Do one game every time you get one of those 15 minute sections you can think straight.

I go over every question I miss, and understand most of it, but I didn't master lesson 1 until i started lesson 2.

Just curious: How do you gauge mastery for yourself?

I know cramming isn't an option. I've been studying since early June and will indeed be taking the October test. It's definitely a skills-based test. I've got the skills; it's just a matter of honing them for the specific purpose of these question types, etc. When I talk about getting down and dirty, I mostly mean not letting any further vacation get in the way of my studying before I go back to teaching mid-August. I should be back on my feet by the end of this week. And that's a good idea, to do a game or a handful of LR questions every time I can muster up that mental wherewithal. That'll at least help me feel like I'm not completely abandoning prep while I'm conked out...

[sama]

Do you guys think studying 4 hours is enough? Too little? Or right on target? I feel like I should be doing more

[jared6180]

Do you guys think studying 4 hours is enough? Too little? Or right on target? I feel like I should be doing more

I have this same feeling, however for everything to sink in you have to give your brain time. We are not computers where once we take in info it is there easily accessible forever. We have to write the files, build the filing cabinet, cut down the trees to make the papers and folders to put the info on, and then we MIGHT retain half of what we learned.

[bp shinners]

Do you guys think studying 4 hours is enough? Too little? Or right on target? I feel like I should be doing more

4 hours is what we recommend (give or take a bit).

[mac35352]

Hello everyone! I am retaking a 158 from June 11'(miss-bubbling disaster ). I followed a self-study plan last year and I feel that this time around I need more guidance and organization. I don't have as much time to study as I did last year so the structure of the online class helps me take advantage of the time I do have since it's all planned out.
I got the books on Tuesday and I'm on lesson 2. I am dividing the lessons in two, marking all the sections I want to review later on. The videos are supper funny and motivating.
Good luck to everyone!

[Joeshan520]

Just got done with lesson one for the live class (bought the online upgrade). Gotta say the methods are awesome and SO intuitive if you truly do EXACTLY what they tell you (like step by step for the logic games pg. 28) . Went from -3 to -1 or 0 on the last few ordering games. Not too many wrong on LR at all.

[jared6180]

Started Lesson 7 today, and I feel like I have hit a brick wall. ordering was going well and now grouping has destroyed my confidence. This test is a major pain. I will be so happy to have this part out of the way come October.

Any hints for grouping?

I plan to re-watch the lesson in the morning, and see if I get any clearer on it.

[bp shinners]

Any hints for grouping?

Grouping's hard for two reasons:
1) You've practiced a lot of ordering games, so you're comparing your abilities on grouping games that you're just learning to ordering games that were built on a foundation over a period of weeks. Grouping games are going to appear harder because of that.
2) Ordering games have a visual/spatial element that most people find easier to deal with than the conceptual basis for grouping games. In ordering games, you've got a beginning and an end. In grouping games, you just have a few groups.

For grouping games, the most important thing to do is to memorize those 4 relationships. Know them better than you know your girlfriend's birthday. Every grouping game comes down to being completely familiar and comfortable with conditionals/those 4 big rules. If you can read a rule, see that it negates only the sufficient condition, and automatically think 'at least one', then you're golden here.

After getting those rules down, just practice. Ordering games you can 'see' the order; grouping games are more reliant on trusting your work. As you get better, you'll build up confidence, which will make you feel a lot better about the games.

[Joeshan520]

I'm having a really difficult time with games in general. Just the initial deductions for unbalanced ordering games.

[bp shinners]

Just the initial deductions for unbalanced ordering games.

Those can be hard. Step 1 is always to find a principle of distribution; you'll usually end up with 2 of them:
1) A minimum for how many times someone can go/how many people can be in one slot
2) A maximum for the same
3) A specific limit on how many times 1 player can go/how many players can fill one slot

There are others, but those are the main ones. Also, the most common situation is 1+2, but sometimes 3 will replace either 1 or 2 (usually 2). Be careful, also, because sometimes they sneak a maximum in with another rule (the most common being "No one can go on consecutive days" which limits the people to the number of slots divided by 2, rounded down).

After you get the distributions, spend some time seeing if you can combine rules - if there are any slots or players that show up in more than one rule. If you can, do so. If you can't, the big deductions are going to come from playing the numbers.

[jared6180]

playing the numbers just confuses me further.

[AAyala]

So where is everyone at in the course? How are you feeling?

[AAyala]

Any updates??