The Official June 2016 Study Group Forum

[dvc5240]

Hey everyone, the June test will be a retake for me and I'm curious to see what advice everyone has.

I have done almost every practice test available and have gone through all Powerscore Bibles and Type Training Books. I studied 15 hours a week (starting August) on average and 25 a week for the few weeks before the test. My score was a 156 and my ultimate goal for June is a 165.

What are your suggestions in terms of a good class to take and/or new materials to be covering in terms of drilling? I'm not sure if I should go through all of the Powerscore material again or try something new.

Also, I met with a tutor for 1 month before the test, which was not very helpful for me.

[Dante181]

For anyone who is retaking and feeling disheartened by their previous score, I just want to drop by to say that I went from a 167 on the October test to a 179 on the December test so don't feel hopeless! Significant improvement can definitely be achieved.

[aghassemi91]

For anyone who is retaking and feeling disheartened by their previous score, I just want to drop by to say that I went from a 167 on the October test to a 179 on the December test so don't feel hopeless! Significant improvement can definitely be achieved.

Congrats on the huge improvement! Do you have any advice for us retakers? I've been stuck in the mid 60's since October & haven't been able to break into the 70s yet. I've gone through the trainer & have done easily over 25 PTs in the last few months.

[nutmeg116]

Hi everyone. Yet another retaker here. Ended up scoring in the low 160's on the Dec LSAT despite PTing around the 170-173 range. Seriously choked on LR despite it being my best section usually. Anyway, am finally coming out of lurkdom in the hopes that it might inspire me to study harder for June.

I only took full PT's last time so I think I'm going to give drilling sections a go this time. Do you guys find that drilling helps with speed? I was always really strict with time when studying so I was really surprised that my nerves slowed me down so much on the actual LSAT.

Also, RC tips would be much appreciated lol. I always have trouble finishing all 4 passages on the newer LSATs.

[Dante181]

For anyone who is retaking and feeling disheartened by their previous score, I just want to drop by to say that I went from a 167 on the October test to a 179 on the December test so don't feel hopeless! Significant improvement can definitely be achieved.

Congrats on the huge improvement! Do you have any advice for us retakers? I've been stuck in the mid 60's since October & haven't been able to break into the 70s yet. I've gone through the trainer & have done easily over 25 PTs in the last few months.

I started off with a significant advantage in RC, which seems to be the most difficult area to improve typically. Many of the RC passages reminded me of things that I would have read on my own, which made everything feel much more familiar and easier to hone in on the important parts. I don't really have much to say other than the usual advice of reading The Economist and other dense texts. Although not "studying" per se, reading dense material on a regular basis made it feel relatively easy. Reading something sciencey (maybe Scientific American) could also be helpful, since the science passages were the type I was most likely to lose points on due to being less familiar with science in general than with social sciences or humanities. On the occasion that I really wasn't able to understand what the author was talking about because of unfamiliar terminology, I was still usually able to get by just by focusing on how Thing A relates to Thing B and so on, even if I wasn't quite sure what Thing A or Thing B were. The LSAT writers love anthropology too, both in the RC passages and in LR, so that could be another reading area to focus on in everyday life.

I was doing very well on LR prior to the October test with typically no more than -5 between LR and RC on PTs, but did significantly worse on LR on the October test. What helped me improve between October and December was going through the Manhattan book with tests 41-50 divided up by type and drilling through those. This is something I probably should have done from the start and was a key change in my studying habits that helped me get from mostly 173/174s before the October test to mostly 180s before the December test. LR was another area in which I think my regular reading habits were helpful, but in this case I would recommend reading polemical texts, maybe philosophy or something else in which logical flow is emphasized.

LG was my most vulnerable area before the October test, which is unusual, and botching the third game rattled me for the fourth game as well and resulted in me losing a bunch of points on that section. But the common advice is right and this is the area in which you can most consistently go -0 with enough repetition before test day. I did logic games exclusively as full timed sections in the month I was studying prior to the December test as well as for some time leading up to the October test, which I think made me much more comfortable than doing random individuals or doing a bunch of the same type one after another--this was helpful early on, but left me easily shaken on PTs from having to quickly switch from one type of game to another. I think that doing every disclosed LG section timed, and exclusively the ones from LSAT 40 on between October and December since they're noticeably more similar to the current ones, made me much more confident in my ability to handle any assortment of games and prevented me from panicking during a very unusual game type that popped up on the December test and gave many trouble. I also watched the 7Sage video for any game that I made any mistakes on or took more than 7 or 8 minutes on. I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to study effectively between the October and December tests because I had done every logic game so many times by that point, but I actually found that it helped me when encountering a new game to be able to remember a specific similar old game with a similar setup. For example, although I was at a loss as to how to handle the third game on the October test, I wouldn't have had any trouble had I remembered a dual layer sequencing game from an older test involving a bunch of people riding bikes first and second that was best approached in a similar manner.

[ngogirl12]

For anyone who is retaking and feeling disheartened by their previous score, I just want to drop by to say that I went from a 167 on the October test to a 179 on the December test so don't feel hopeless! Significant improvement can definitely be achieved.

How did you do this? What did you do differently?

^^Nevermind.. currently reading your post above.

[ngogirl12]

Hi everyone. Yet another retaker here. Ended up scoring in the low 160's on the Dec LSAT despite PTing around the 170-173 range. Seriously choked on LR despite it being my best section usually. Anyway, am finally coming out of lurkdom in the hopes that it might inspire me to study harder for June.

I only took full PT's last time so I think I'm going to give drilling sections a go this time. Do you guys find that drilling helps with speed? I was always really strict with time when studying so I was really surprised that my nerves slowed me down so much on the actual LSAT.

Also, RC tips would be much appreciated lol. I always have trouble finishing all 4 passages on the newer LSATs.

I'm not a LSAT veteran or anything, was prepping for December but in November decided to take things slow and aim for June. My approach for LR is to drill by question type (untimed) after going through the corresponding lesson with 7sage and Trainer. I think going through the questions and really understanding them will increase my accuracy and thus speed.

[ngogirl12]

I noticed a few people on here said they are going to be drilling LR RC and LG this month with the Cambridge LSAT bundles. Would anyone be interested in reviewing the Cambridge LR bundle by type after doing the questions? i.e. do the questions, meet online through some sort of blackboard/skype forum and go over questions people got wrong?

yes. I'm all in with this. I've been compiling a list of LR questions I have struggled with or gotten wrong. This might be a great place to bring such questions together.

I've been doing this on my own but yeah I'm up to discuss

Awesome! I'm glad you guys are interested in this! So this is what I'm thinking, we could have scheduled dates where we skype or use blackboard where we review questions we got wrong and others explain. What do you guys think? I'm still doing MSS questions (I know, soo long, but the intense review and drilling has improved my accuracy and thinking with respect to the question type) and should be moving to the next question type by Sunday. I think it would be great if we could meet maybe twice or three times a week virtually to do this, since we're all in different locations.

Let me know what you guys think!!

[sephora_addict]

I noticed a few people on here said they are going to be drilling LR RC and LG this month with the Cambridge LSAT bundles. Would anyone be interested in reviewing the Cambridge LR bundle by type after doing the questions? i.e. do the questions, meet online through some sort of blackboard/skype forum and go over questions people got wrong?

yes. I'm all in with this. I've been compiling a list of LR questions I have struggled with or gotten wrong. This might be a great place to bring such questions together.

I've been doing this on my own but yeah I'm up to discuss

Awesome! I'm glad you guys are interested in this! So this is what I'm thinking, we could have scheduled dates where we skype or use blackboard where we review questions we got wrong and others explain. What do you guys think? I'm still doing MSS questions (I know, soo long, but the intense review and drilling has improved my accuracy and thinking with respect to the question type) and should be moving to the next question type by Sunday. I think it would be great if we could meet maybe twice or three times a week virtually to do this, since we're all in different locations.

Let me know what you guys think!!

Yessss totally down for this! Great idea

[patttt]

I noticed a few people on here said they are going to be drilling LR RC and LG this month with the Cambridge LSAT bundles. Would anyone be interested in reviewing the Cambridge LR bundle by type after doing the questions? i.e. do the questions, meet online through some sort of blackboard/skype forum and go over questions people got wrong?

yes. I'm all in with this. I've been compiling a list of LR questions I have struggled with or gotten wrong. This might be a great place to bring such questions together.

I've been doing this on my own but yeah I'm up to discuss

Awesome! I'm glad you guys are interested in this! So this is what I'm thinking, we could have scheduled dates where we skype or use blackboard where we review questions we got wrong and others explain. What do you guys think? I'm still doing MSS questions (I know, soo long, but the intense review and drilling has improved my accuracy and thinking with respect to the question type) and should be moving to the next question type by Sunday. I think it would be great if we could meet maybe twice or three times a week virtually to do this, since we're all in different locations.

Let me know what you guys think!!

Yessss totally down for this! Great idea

If you guys do this I'm down! I've found that reviewing questions with friends and forcing yourself to talk about / articulate the answer can be really helpful

[patttt]

Also, checking in from the shitshow December waiters thread.

I ended up acing the test but bombed the first section (RC) because of nerves. Any recommendations on how to not have that happen...? Thats the only thing we can't prep for in our houses and it hit me really hard on test day.

[sephora_addict]

Also, checking in from the shitshow December waiters thread.

I ended up acing the test but bombed the first section (RC) because of nerves. Any recommendations on how to not have that happen...? Thats the only thing we can't prep for in our houses and it hit me really hard on test day.

I feel your pain. I felt like I needed a Xanax back when I first took the test in Feb 2015. I was overthinking everything in the RC passages. It was horrible. Don't think I've ever been so anxious in my life. As for recommendations I hope someone on here can give us tips cause that's one thing I can't conquer yet.

[patttt]

Also, checking in from the shitshow December waiters thread.

I ended up acing the test but bombed the first section (RC) because of nerves. Any recommendations on how to not have that happen...? Thats the only thing we can't prep for in our houses and it hit me really hard on test day.

I feel your pain. I felt like I needed a Xanax back when I first took the test in Feb 2015. I was overthinking everything in the RC passages. It was horrible. Don't think I've ever been so anxious in my life. As for recommendations I hope someone on here can give us tips cause that's one thing I can't conquer yet.

Ugh. That's what happened on test day. I was rereading things I never have to reread, answering questions really slowly, and looking back when I never have to. Those thoughts were going through my head and it just got worse and worse the whole time. It sucks, especially when the RC section wasn't too hard overall and as soon as it was over, I did fine on the rest of the test. This is so frustrating.

I'm hoping that by virtue of a retake my test day nerves will subside a little and I'll be able to at least achieve somewhere near my pt average

[Binghamton1018]

I noticed a few people on here said they are going to be drilling LR RC and LG this month with the Cambridge LSAT bundles. Would anyone be interested in reviewing the Cambridge LR bundle by type after doing the questions? i.e. do the questions, meet online through some sort of blackboard/skype forum and go over questions people got wrong?

yes. I'm all in with this. I've been compiling a list of LR questions I have struggled with or gotten wrong. This might be a great place to bring such questions together.

I've been doing this on my own but yeah I'm up to discuss

Awesome! I'm glad you guys are interested in this! So this is what I'm thinking, we could have scheduled dates where we skype or use blackboard where we review questions we got wrong and others explain. What do you guys think? I'm still doing MSS questions (I know, soo long, but the intense review and drilling has improved my accuracy and thinking with respect to the question type) and should be moving to the next question type by Sunday. I think it would be great if we could meet maybe twice or three times a week virtually to do this, since we're all in different locations.

Let me know what you guys think!!

Yessss totally down for this! Great idea

Lets set a date for some review on Skype then! Tentatively, how does next Sunday night look? 1/17.

[Binghamton1018]

I noticed a few people on here said they are going to be drilling LR RC and LG this month with the Cambridge LSAT bundles. Would anyone be interested in reviewing the Cambridge LR bundle by type after doing the questions? i.e. do the questions, meet online through some sort of blackboard/skype forum and go over questions people got wrong?

yes. I'm all in with this. I've been compiling a list of LR questions I have struggled with or gotten wrong. This might be a great place to bring such questions together.

I've been doing this on my own but yeah I'm up to discuss

Awesome! I'm glad you guys are interested in this! So this is what I'm thinking, we could have scheduled dates where we skype or use blackboard where we review questions we got wrong and others explain. What do you guys think? I'm still doing MSS questions (I know, soo long, but the intense review and drilling has improved my accuracy and thinking with respect to the question type) and should be moving to the next question type by Sunday. I think it would be great if we could meet maybe twice or three times a week virtually to do this, since we're all in different locations.

Let me know what you guys think!!

I'm going to hit MSS this upcoming week for 2 hours per day, I look forward to discussing these with you!

[sephora_addict]

I noticed a few people on here said they are going to be drilling LR RC and LG this month with the Cambridge LSAT bundles. Would anyone be interested in reviewing the Cambridge LR bundle by type after doing the questions? i.e. do the questions, meet online through some sort of blackboard/skype forum and go over questions people got wrong?

yes. I'm all in with this. I've been compiling a list of LR questions I have struggled with or gotten wrong. This might be a great place to bring such questions together.

I've been doing this on my own but yeah I'm up to discuss

Awesome! I'm glad you guys are interested in this! So this is what I'm thinking, we could have scheduled dates where we skype or use blackboard where we review questions we got wrong and others explain. What do you guys think? I'm still doing MSS questions (I know, soo long, but the intense review and drilling has improved my accuracy and thinking with respect to the question type) and should be moving to the next question type by Sunday. I think it would be great if we could meet maybe twice or three times a week virtually to do this, since we're all in different locations.

Let me know what you guys think!!

Yessss totally down for this! Great idea

Lets set a date for some review on Skype then! Tentatively, how does next Sunday night look? 1/17.

Sounds good to me! I'm free Sunday nights so it works. Hope everyone else is too!

[chicharon]

Have medical stuff that weekend but if I'm feeling okay I will contribute via chat/text/posts

[patttt]

Next Sunday night works for me. I'll make sure to make a list of questions that I get caught up on while I retake/review PTs 53 and 54 this week so that I have something to bring to the table.

This should be fun

[Binghamton1018]

I wanted to share with everyone that I use the site listed below to warm up in the mornings that I do logic-games. I've been doing LG in 4 hour blocks straight, but when I wake up I usually hit the following website to get my brain moving. It's a logic-puzzle community, where you can play games. One of the fundamental things the site has taught me is an instinct of what can't go where in certain games. For instance, if there are days listed Monday-Saturday and you know that 2 objects (say appointments) follow a certain object then you can say with certainty that the object cannot go in Friday or Saturday (because doing so would force the 2 followers off the board.) This tells us certain inferences that have become very easy for me to spot, namely where is the earliest an object can go and where it can't go. I write these inferences down automatically on my master game board, sometimes the LSAT rewards this up-front work with questions like

[+] Spoiler

62-2-12

and it takes me less than 8 seconds to answer the question. Time is money on this test.

P.S. the site is free and I have no material interest in attracting traffic to the site. I'm merely showing the site to the followers of this thread to compliment their studies and hopefully score -0 on the LG section.


http://logic-puzzles.org/init.php

[Rigo]

Legit starting Monday morning.

[unodostres]

Legit starting Monday morning.

I'm the following week

Gl

[ngogirl12]

I noticed a few people on here said they are going to be drilling LR RC and LG this month with the Cambridge LSAT bundles. Would anyone be interested in reviewing the Cambridge LR bundle by type after doing the questions? i.e. do the questions, meet online through some sort of blackboard/skype forum and go over questions people got wrong?

yes. I'm all in with this. I've been compiling a list of LR questions I have struggled with or gotten wrong. This might be a great place to bring such questions together.

I've been doing this on my own but yeah I'm up to discuss

Awesome! I'm glad you guys are interested in this! So this is what I'm thinking, we could have scheduled dates where we skype or use blackboard where we review questions we got wrong and others explain. What do you guys think? I'm still doing MSS questions (I know, soo long, but the intense review and drilling has improved my accuracy and thinking with respect to the question type) and should be moving to the next question type by Sunday. I think it would be great if we could meet maybe twice or three times a week virtually to do this, since we're all in different locations.

Let me know what you guys think!!

Yessss totally down for this! Great idea

Lets set a date for some review on Skype then! Tentatively, how does next Sunday night look? 1/17.

Works for me. I'm so glad this is gaining traction! Maybe we can set a schedule on Sunday of when we will meet and what we will discuss! Also, where "virtually" are we meeting?

[ngogirl12]

I noticed a few people on here said they are going to be drilling LR RC and LG this month with the Cambridge LSAT bundles. Would anyone be interested in reviewing the Cambridge LR bundle by type after doing the questions? i.e. do the questions, meet online through some sort of blackboard/skype forum and go over questions people got wrong?

yes. I'm all in with this. I've been compiling a list of LR questions I have struggled with or gotten wrong. This might be a great place to bring such questions together.

I've been doing this on my own but yeah I'm up to discuss

Awesome! I'm glad you guys are interested in this! So this is what I'm thinking, we could have scheduled dates where we skype or use blackboard where we review questions we got wrong and others explain. What do you guys think? I'm still doing MSS questions (I know, soo long, but the intense review and drilling has improved my accuracy and thinking with respect to the question type) and should be moving to the next question type by Sunday. I think it would be great if we could meet maybe twice or three times a week virtually to do this, since we're all in different locations.

Let me know what you guys think!!

I'm going to hit MSS this upcoming week for 2 hours per day, I look forward to discussing these with you!

Awesome! I'm hoping to finish that question type today! First, I'm going to review a few MSS questions though

[ngogirl12]

I wanted to share with everyone that I use the site listed below to warm up in the mornings that I do logic-games. I've been doing LG in 4 hour blocks straight, but when I wake up I usually hit the following website to get my brain moving. It's a logic-puzzle community, where you can play games. One of the fundamental things the site has taught me is an instinct of what can't go where in certain games. For instance, if there are days listed Monday-Saturday and you know that 2 objects (say appointments) follow a certain object then you can say with certainty that the object cannot go in Friday or Saturday (because doing so would force the 2 followers off the board.) This tells us certain inferences that have become very easy for me to spot, namely where is the earliest an object can go and where it can't go. I write these inferences down automatically on my master game board, sometimes the LSAT rewards this up-front work with questions like

[+] Spoiler

62-2-12

and it takes me less than 8 seconds to answer the question. Time is money on this test.

P.S. the site is free and I have no material interest in attracting traffic to the site. I'm merely showing the site to the followers of this thread to compliment their studies and hopefully score -0 on the LG section.


http://logic-puzzles.org/init.php

Oh wow, this looks great. Thanks for sharing!

[ngogirl12]

I'm really glad that so many people are interested in reviewing Cambridge LR/LR questions together!! So, it looks like Sunday night is what we are moving towards, anyone know how we are going to meet virtually and what time works for everyone? Should we do 5pm PST, 8pm EST (or is that too late for east coast ppl?, my life is this exam currently so I'm ok with any time PST). Bing mentioned blackboard awhile back, otherwise we could just do a group skype call. I like the idea of blackboard though so we can diagram questions or illustrate our reasoning while we talk it through, with skype we are limited to typing and talking.

Thoughts?