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

[34iplaw]

Docket for today; Blueprint RC book and revisit some games that I marked as redo.

Also, submit LR questions I missed from previous homework. Granted, I went 96/100, so it should go fairly quickly ! Only those ones I missed (one I won't since it was careless) and one or two that took awhile to submit.

[Alexandros]

PT 20.3.3 (the one about the strand of beads) - I've done this game so many times and still can't for the life of me figure out why B and E on q 17 are not both correct.

[34iplaw]

PT 20.3.3 (the one about the strand of beads) - I've done this game so many times and still can't for the life of me figure out why B and E on q 17 are not both correct.

I'm not sure which question that is off the top of my head... but I can (almost?) guarantee that...

[+] Spoiler

you forgot the part where it says the thing about every color must being present in every eight beads...the strand is nine beads in the question which puts further constraints on slots one and nine.

That is a super *nasty* game (or that question is), as it has part of a rule that is completely irrelevant except for one question... it makes you think it's just saying every strand must have one of each color... it's kind of saying that...but it's saying more.

[Alexandros]

PT 20.3.3 (the one about the strand of beads) - I've done this game so many times and still can't for the life of me figure out why B and E on q 17 are not both correct.

I'm not sure which question that is off the top of my head... but I can (almost?) guarantee that...

[+] Spoiler

you forgot the part where it says the thing about every color must being present in every eight beads...the strand is nine beads in the question which puts further constraints on slots one and nine.

That is a super *nasty* game (or that question is), as it has part of a rule that is completely irrelevant except for one question... it makes you think it's just saying every strand must have one of each color... it's kind of saying that...but it's saying more.

I think only G and O are missing in this case, and there are three spots to be filled. I managed to set it up where it (seemed) like it would work for either B (8th bead Green) or E (9th bead yellow).

I should really have just 7sage'd this a long time ago but I kept thinking I'd figure it out one of these days.

I thought maybe I was missing that it had to be circular or something but that doesn't make sense.

[34iplaw]

PT 20.3.3 (the one about the strand of beads) - I've done this game so many times and still can't for the life of me figure out why B and E on q 17 are not both correct.

I'm not sure which question that is off the top of my head... but I can (almost?) guarantee that...

[+] Spoiler

you forgot the part where it says the thing about every color must being present in every eight beads...the strand is nine beads in the question which puts further constraints on slots one and nine.

That is a super *nasty* game (or that question is), as it has part of a rule that is completely irrelevant except for one question... it makes you think it's just saying every strand must have one of each color... it's kind of saying that...but it's saying more.

I think only G and O are missing in this case, and there are three spots to be filled. I managed to set it up where it (seemed) like it would work for either B (8th bead Green) or E (9th bead yellow).

I should really have just 7sage'd this a long time ago but I kept thinking I'd figure it out one of these days.

I thought maybe I was missing that it had to be circular or something but that doesn't make sense.

[+] Spoiler

we're told...

P..Y.._..P..Y.._.._.._.._
1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9

the first rule gives us.. (PY -> RPYR and YP -> RYPR)

P..Y..R..P..Y..R.._.._.._
1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9

At this point... we only have two slots for O and G to satisfy the condition that *every* eight consecutive beads must have at least one of each color. This is why this rule is obnoxious. Combined with the fact that O cannot be next to R, we know that G is in 7, and, by extension, O must be in 8.

P..Y..R..P..Y..R..G..O.._
1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9

If G was in 8, you can't have O in 7 due to the O not adjacent to R rule. Without O in 7, you wouldn't have all five colors present in the *first* consecutive eight beads.

[Mikey]

So i usually don't read my horoscope or even pay it any mind, but I just mine for today. I felt like it was talking about the struggle of doing well on the LSAT that I'm having, and it said some shit like "you look up at the mountain and you get discouraged, but just keep going and every bit you go up, is a bit more you're almost there, and your motivation grows stronger". Idk, I felt like I could relate it to this bullshit ass test, and although I don't really care for horoscope stuff (or even believe in it), I feel like I could use that as slight motivation, lol.

[34iplaw]

So i usually don't read my horoscope or even pay it any mind, but I just mine for today. I felt like it was talking about the struggle of doing well on the LSAT that I'm having, and it said some shit like "you look up at the mountain and you get discouraged, but just keep going and every bit you go up, is a bit more you're almost there, and your motivation grows stronger". Idk, I felt like I could relate it to this bullshit ass test, and although I don't really care for horoscope stuff (or even believe in it), I feel like I could use that as slight motivation, lol.

-TheMikey

[Mikey]

So i usually don't read my horoscope or even pay it any mind, but I just mine for today. I felt like it was talking about the struggle of doing well on the LSAT that I'm having, and it said some shit like "you look up at the mountain and you get discouraged, but just keep going and every bit you go up, is a bit more you're almost there, and your motivation grows stronger". Idk, I felt like I could relate it to this bullshit ass test, and although I don't really care for horoscope stuff (or even believe in it), I feel like I could use that as slight motivation, lol.

-TheMikey

omg xD

[Alexandros]

PT 20.3.3 (the one about the strand of beads) - I've done this game so many times and still can't for the life of me figure out why B and E on q 17 are not both correct.

I'm not sure which question that is off the top of my head... but I can (almost?) guarantee that...

[+] Spoiler

you forgot the part where it says the thing about every color must being present in every eight beads...the strand is nine beads in the question which puts further constraints on slots one and nine.

That is a super *nasty* game (or that question is), as it has part of a rule that is completely irrelevant except for one question... it makes you think it's just saying every strand must have one of each color... it's kind of saying that...but it's saying more.

I think only G and O are missing in this case, and there are three spots to be filled. I managed to set it up where it (seemed) like it would work for either B (8th bead Green) or E (9th bead yellow).

I should really have just 7sage'd this a long time ago but I kept thinking I'd figure it out one of these days.

I thought maybe I was missing that it had to be circular or something but that doesn't make sense.

[+] Spoiler

we're told...

P..Y.._..P..Y.._.._.._.._
1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9

the first rule gives us.. (PY -> RPYR and YP -> RYPR)

P..Y..R..P..Y..R.._.._.._
1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9

At this point... we only have two slots for O and G to satisfy the condition that *every* eight consecutive beads must have at least one of each color. This is why this rule is obnoxious. Combined with the fact that O cannot be next to R, we know that G is in 7, and, by extension, O must be in 8.

P..Y..R..P..Y..R..G..O.._
1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9

If G was in 8, you can't have O in 7 due to the O not adjacent to R rule. Without O in 7, you wouldn't have all five colors present in the *first* consecutive eight beads.

Holy crap, thank you. I was missing the *first* eight consecutive beads part, thinking so long all colors were present somewhere in a strand of 8 beads or greater it was fine. (so O in 9.) That makes so much more sense now.

[UtopianCitizen]

Any advice of flaw questions? Those seem to be the ones I'm missing the most.

[34iplaw]

Any advice of flaw questions? Those seem to be the ones I'm missing the most.

If flawed methods, go over every answer choice to try to get what it means. The answer choices will be right for other questions. What I did is that every time I saw an A/C that seemed to describe circular reasoning, I'd make a little note and count that as a "mini" question. Same for other common ones like Incorrect reversal, eye. It's imports to try to understand what the A/C means even if wrong on these types (and how those flaws would look.)

Other advice: it's not often ad hominem, equivocation, etc. these two are almost always one of the choices, and they are rarely right. If it's ad hominem, it *must* be part of the reasoning and it will rarely, if ever, be subtle.

Edit: added advice. You can't really spend too much time on this question type. It will benefit all others, as strengthening, weakening, parallel, etc. are ALL, more or less, asking about exploiting the flaw.

Holy crap, thank you. I was missing the *first* eight consecutive beads part, thinking so long all colors were present somewhere in a strand of 8 beads or greater it was fine. (so O in 9.) That makes so much more sense now.

NP - it's a super nasty question IMO.

I'm going to do the next lessons game before class. I looked ahead and it's the "killer games" so I wanted to see how I'd do by myself. Toy Dino's -0 in 13 min on first try. That said, it wasn't in a comfortable way. It was more in an intuitive like this mauve crap is super restrictive and I basically honed in on answers that concerned that and ignored any answer on the MBTs that had the ones that had to be g/y. Not the best strategy, but it certainly worked.

[Mikey]

Any advice of flaw questions? Those seem to be the ones I'm missing the most.

I remember you made a thread on whether or not to get 7sage. If you did, they have a nice list of the most commonly used flaws (19 I believe) that the LSAT has. Go over those and you should start seeing the patterns in questions, at least that's what helped me a bit.

Other advice that may seem obvious but should be of some benefit is to just see what the conclusion is, and HOW/WHY the argument believes from it's premises that the conclusion is right.

Example argument:

___(some introduction context crap about the LSAT and scoring)____. In a recent study, 4 students took a proctored LSAT without having done any prep and scored above a 170. 1 additional student who studied for the LSAT for 1,000 years and took the exam in the same room as the others, scored above a 170. Therefore, one does not need to prep for the LSAT in order to break 170.

The argument sucks not only because it itself sucks (lol) but because of the many flaws it has. you can't conclude that you don't need to study just because of some stupid small sized study.
1. the sample is unrepresentative. maybe all 5 students are all smarter than the average student or population as a whole.
2. it fails to consider that maybe the 4 students literally all just got lucky

there's more flaws you can probably pick out but those are 2 that stand out to me.

also, the best thing you can do for flaw questions is to try your best to always pre-phrase. not only will this save you time, but it will also save you from falling into any trap answer choices

[tofuspeedstar]

Any advice of flaw questions? Those seem to be the ones I'm missing the most.

I remember you made a thread on whether or not to get 7sage. If you did, they have a nice list of the most commonly used flaws (19 I believe) that the LSAT has. Go over those and you should start seeing the patterns in questions, at least that's what helped me a bit.

Other advice that may seem obvious but should be of some benefit is to just see what the conclusion is, and HOW/WHY the argument believes from it's premises that the conclusion is right.

Example argument:

___(some introduction context crap about the LSAT and scoring)____. In a recent study, 4 students took a proctored LSAT without having done any prep and scored above a 170. 1 additional student who studied for the LSAT for 1,000 years and took the exam in the same room as the others, scored above a 170. Therefore, one does not need to prep for the LSAT in order to break 170.

The argument sucks not only because it itself sucks (lol) but because of the many flaws it has. you can't conclude that you don't need to study just because of some stupid small sized study.
1. the sample is unrepresentative. maybe all 5 students are all smarter than the average student or population as a whole.
2. it fails to consider that maybe the 4 students literally all just got lucky

there's more flaws you can probably pick out but those are 2 that stand out to me.

also, the best thing you can do for flaw questions is to try your best to always pre-phrase. not only will this save you time, but it will also save you from falling into any trap answer choices

This.

That list of 19 flaws helped so much.

[Alexandros]

Got that sleep app y'all recommended.

First 5 days are in... three days @ 75% and two days @ 100%. I'm a sleep quality champ it seems. Do they have rankings? Can I compete against other sleepers to see who is the best sleeper of them all?

I would support the addition of this feature. (TLS September study group sleep quality competition?)

Managed to get up at 6am most mornings this week without being drastically sleep-deprived. Hopefully changing that to 5am this weekend.

[proteinshake]

what do y'all plan on eating during the break?

[Mikey]

what do y'all plan on eating during the break?

last time i took a granola bar and some pretzels. didn't get around to eating the granola bar until i was on my way home, but i did have some pretzels, which I think I might take again

[Alexandros]

what do y'all plan on eating during the break?

Something compact and transportable with a lot of calories, so probably granola bars / energy bars. I don't want to get hungry during the test.

[appind]

what do y'all plan on eating during the break?

Half to three-fourth of a banana, six to nine almonds and cashews each, 3-4 sips of water

[dietcoke1]

what do y'all plan on eating during the break?

larabar

[34iplaw]

what do y'all plan on eating during the break?

larabar

Probably a twix or snickers if I'm hungry. I'm just going to go with what I feel like.... It's what is in the vending machine where I take class, so I'm kind of accustomed to and I don't subsequently crash.

[Alexandros]

what do y'all plan on eating during the break?

Half to three-fourth of a banana, six to nine almonds and cashews each, 3-4 sips of water

Not to question your judgement, appind, but I think seven to ten almonds may be a wiser choice in this situation.

[34iplaw]

what do y'all plan on eating during the break?

Half to three-fourth of a banana, six to nine almonds and cashews each, 3-4 sips of water

Not to question your judgement, appind, but I think seven to ten almonds may be a wiser choice in this situation.

You probably need to ascertain a consistent range for the girth and length of said banana. Without proper ranges, a half banana could be far more filling than three-fourths of a shorter and less girthy banana.

[appind]

what do y'all plan on eating during the break?

Half to three-fourth of a banana, six to nine almonds and cashews each, 3-4 sips of water

Not to question your judgement, appind, but I think seven to ten almonds may be a wiser choice in this situation.

You probably need to ascertain a consistent range for the girth and length of said banana. Without proper ranges, a half banana could be far more filling than three-fourths of a shorter and less girthy banana.

been working on that. just like pt scores, one needs to collect data to come to an optimal break food for oneself.

[New_Spice180]

Hey guys, I'm just checking up on how every is doing with LR timing? I'm dreading timing right now! Currently, I can't get a section finished in under 35 mins, and I'm just getting stuck on irrelevant facts that bog my timing down. Those who, at one point, had timing issues and are now finishing in under the allotted time, how were you able to get timing down, when did you start seeing improvement?

Thanks

[proteinshake]

Mastermind Watch is here, gonna do an RC section with it to test it out!