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

[theothercat]

Law schools needa stop emailing me every 5 seconds. Turning off my Gmail notifications until Sunday.

[34iplaw]

PT 78 LR is kind of obnoxious IMO.

[Mikey]

Law schools needa stop emailing me every 5 seconds. Turning off my Gmail notifications until Sunday.

"Good luck on your LSAT from Cooley law!"

[Alexandros]

Gonna start a panic scream train cos I think it'll be healthy to let dat pressure out a bit.

AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Good, feeling a bit better now.

+1

[Alexandros]

Lol slept in until 8:30. Spending today on games, passages, and chilling out. (and I *highly recommend* y'all do the latter.) Working on the writing sample and packing my gallon back this evening.

[20170322]

I just registered for the December LSAT, if that tells you anything about my current confidence level.

[Shemp]

This corrido lacks a despedida.

[youtube]KWqn0VORmvU[/youtube]

[appind]

I was fine, calm and confident the past 2 days about this weekend. But now I'm starting to freak out and worry

Oh my god

Have you been meditating? I know you talked about it before...if not, that might help. I think that a little bit of nerves is healthy and actually constructive for test day. You just want to get rid of the "freak out" feeling. the way I do that best is simply by distracting myself when I start feeling it. Meditation is a really healthy way to do that if it works for you

what exactly do you do to meditate? reading stuff out there to meditate only confuses because of the different ways everyone talks about it.

[Alexandros]

This corrido lacks a despedida.

[youtube]KWqn0VORmvU[/youtube]

[appind]

This one had an unusually large number of identify the conclusion/method of reasoning questions, which I'm normally able to answer pretty quickly on first readthrough. The two parallel questions were also pretty easy for me (one was a simple inference chain and the other confused numbers and proportions). I'd say I average about 25 minutes to do an LR section though, so here's my advice. A lot of it has to do with drilling so it might not be as relevant to September takers, but hopefully it will help someone!

1. I always read the question stem before the stimulus and then attack the question systematically based on what type of question it is. On flaw questions, for example, I primarily try to understand the argument and flaw then prephase an answer. But on main conclusion questions, I don't really care about understanding the argument and its strengths/weaknesses as long as I can find the conclusion. On early-section MC conclusion questions, for example, sometimes I don't even finish reading the stimulus if I've found the conclusion - and according to 7sage I have a 100% accuracy on MC questions across my last 20 practice tests.

2. Drill flaw questions until they're second nature to you and feel like "gimme" questions. They're the most common question type in LR, so a strong basis in them will really help your performance. For flaw questions in particular, prephrasing an answer really goes a long way since you can almost always prephrase exactly what the flaw is. I normally prephase them abstractly (confuses a necessary condition with sufficient, part to whole, appeal to authority, etc.) as opposed to prephasing them in the context of the question (Mickey mistakenly believes that something that ensures he will be a good student guarantees him being a good student), but I'm sure that either way is fine. You should also be able to identify SUPER quickly what all of the LSAT's abstract incorrect answer choices actually mean and can eliminate them very quickly. Formal/abstract language can slip a lot of people up but the LSAT only has so many ways of describing different flaws and it's normally very evident when one of these is not appearing in the argument.

3. Drill strengthen/weaken questions a ton until these are also second nature to you. There's normally ~7 combined strengthen/weaken questions per LSAT. Unlike flaw questions, it's a bit harder to prephase the exact answer (although definitely possible, especially on earlier questions in the section), but it should always be possible to think of what parts of the argument need to be bolstered/weakened. Imo, prephasing is the most important factor in my success on flaw/strengthen/weaken questions.

4. Necessary assumption questions normally have the correct answer be something that'll make you say "oh, of course the author thinks that..." and sufficient assumption questions normally link two portions of the stimulus. On NA questions, do a really quick runthrough of the answers to see if any of them jump out as "oh duh, obviously he thinks that..." If none of them jump out as that, then go through each of the answer choices more thoroughly. As a corollary, NA correct answers often have pretty weak language while SA correct answers normally have pretty strong language.

5. I don't read all the answer choices on the first 10-15 questions of each LR section. If I'm confident enough in my answer choice, I'll circle it and move on. I definitely wouldn't recommend this for everyone, but if you're consistently maybe -5 between the two LR sections, it might benefit you to be confident in your answers to the earlier questions so you can spend a bit more time considering the harder ones. If you EVER don't finish an LR section in time, then don't do this.

6. I skip all PR/PF/long principle questions and then come back to them at the end. I find that these questions disrupt my tempo throughout the exam. I finish more confidently and quickly if I skip these and then do them all at once at the end.

7. I circle every question that I don't feel 100% on but I think I got right and star every question that I'm unsure of. Once I finish my first runthrough of the section, I check my answers on all starred questions and then on all circled questions. If I have time, I'll then check the first ~10 questions to make sure that I didn't make any really dumb mistakes. Come up with a system to denote to yourself when you don't feel confident on an answer choice and to what degree.

thanks for writing this down, this is very helpful.

i had improved my LR to -3 total on the new tests over the summer, but I took a fresh pt-78 and went total -5, -2 mainly due to not having enough time for 26q section. i think rn the only way i can finish the section well is by not going through all choices for at least the main conclusion, NA, SA, and MBT/MSS questions.

[theothercat]

Law schools needa stop emailing me every 5 seconds. Turning off my Gmail notifications until Sunday.

"Good luck on your LSAT from Cooley law!"

Pretty sure I've "unsubscribed" from Barry Law School e-mails like 14 times... and yet they haven't stopped.

[34iplaw]

thanks for writing this down, this is very helpful.

i had improved my LR to -3 total on the new tests over the summer, but I took a fresh pt-78 and went total -5, -2 mainly due to not having enough time for 26q section. i think rn the only way i can finish the section well is by not going through all choices for at least the main conclusion, NA, SA, and MBT/MSS questions.

I wouldn't worry all that much. I, personally, felt LR78 had some somewhat bad questions - i.e. TBH, I felt LR3 #7 was a bad question.

[appind]

thanks for writing this down, this is very helpful.

i had improved my LR to -3 total on the new tests over the summer, but I took a fresh pt-78 and went total -5, -2 mainly due to not having enough time for 26q section. i think rn the only way i can finish the section well is by not going through all choices for at least the main conclusion, NA, SA, and MBT/MSS questions.

I wouldn't worry all that much. I, personally, felt LR78 had some somewhat bad questions - i.e. TBH, I felt LR3 #7 was a bad question.

LR3 is the one with 26q or 25q? if you're referring to the airport safety question, yeah that took me a bit of time as the flaw was stated very differently than prephrase.

[34iplaw]

thanks for writing this down, this is very helpful.

i had improved my LR to -3 total on the new tests over the summer, but I took a fresh pt-78 and went total -5, -2 mainly due to not having enough time for 26q section. i think rn the only way i can finish the section well is by not going through all choices for at least the main conclusion, NA, SA, and MBT/MSS questions.

I wouldn't worry all that much. I, personally, felt LR78 had some somewhat bad questions - i.e. TBH, I felt LR3 #7 was a bad question.

LR3 is the one with 26q or 25q? if you're referring to the airport safety question, yeah that took me a bit of time as the flaw was stated very differently than prephrase.

26 - I'm referring to the native islanders and the coffee ... the correct a/c is basically having you commit a correl = causation flaw.

The airport one was a POE one for me.

[Pozzo]

This corrido lacks a despedida.

[youtube]KWqn0VORmvU[/youtube]

Literally lol'd in the middle of my office when i saw this. Thanks Shemp.

[Hennessy]

ARE YOU READY KIDDOS

+170 OR BUST

+165 OR ILL BE UNDER YOUR BED

[appind]

thanks for writing this down, this is very helpful.

i had improved my LR to -3 total on the new tests over the summer, but I took a fresh pt-78 and went total -5, -2 mainly due to not having enough time for 26q section. i think rn the only way i can finish the section well is by not going through all choices for at least the main conclusion, NA, SA, and MBT/MSS questions.

I wouldn't worry all that much. I, personally, felt LR78 had some somewhat bad questions - i.e. TBH, I felt LR3 #7 was a bad question.

LR3 is the one with 26q or 25q? if you're referring to the airport safety question, yeah that took me a bit of time as the flaw was stated very differently than prephrase.

26 - I'm referring to the native islanders and the coffee ... the correct a/c is basically having you commit a correl = causation flaw.

The airport one was a POE one for me.

i think the use of "tends to" makes it a correlation

[34iplaw]

thanks for writing this down, this is very helpful.

i had improved my LR to -3 total on the new tests over the summer, but I took a fresh pt-78 and went total -5, -2 mainly due to not having enough time for 26q section. i think rn the only way i can finish the section well is by not going through all choices for at least the main conclusion, NA, SA, and MBT/MSS questions.

I wouldn't worry all that much. I, personally, felt LR78 had some somewhat bad questions - i.e. TBH, I felt LR3 #7 was a bad question.

LR3 is the one with 26q or 25q? if you're referring to the airport safety question, yeah that took me a bit of time as the flaw was stated very differently than prephrase.

26 - I'm referring to the native islanders and the coffee ... the correct a/c is basically having you commit a correl = causation flaw.

The airport one was a POE one for me.

i think the use of "tends to" makes it a correlation

Is that the case? The wording of that a/c sounds explicitly like causation but potentially a weak one.

[Mikey]

leave it to me being a duffus to leave my headphones at home. now wtf do i do for 3 hours? school work? fuck no. sit staring at the wall? sure

[Mikey]

since i have nothing to do, i've decided to do PT70's LG untimed for no reason

fite me

e: nevermind!

[Shakawkaw]

I just registered for the December LSAT, if that tells you anything about my current confidence level.

Where are you located, Sweet?

Also you're crazy.

Official Cooley model bunkbed desk:

https://smile.amazon.com/Cooley-Twin-Lo ... B003OYANTC

This has gone significantly underappreciated. I cannot stop laughing.

Good luck on Saturday bbz, I'll be silently stalking the Sept. waiters to see if I made the right move by withdrawing.

[Mikey]

Every building I go to on campus, they keep having fucking fire drills. Bro like stop, it's the second one this morning for me, it's so annoying

[Shakawkaw]

This one had an unusually large number of identify the conclusion/method of reasoning questions, which I'm normally able to answer pretty quickly on first readthrough. The two parallel questions were also pretty easy for me (one was a simple inference chain and the other confused numbers and proportions). I'd say I average about 25 minutes to do an LR section though, so here's my advice. A lot of it has to do with drilling so it might not be as relevant to September takers, but hopefully it will help someone!

1. I always read the question stem before the stimulus and then attack the question systematically based on what type of question it is. On flaw questions, for example, I primarily try to understand the argument and flaw then prephase an answer. But on main conclusion questions, I don't really care about understanding the argument and its strengths/weaknesses as long as I can find the conclusion. On early-section MC conclusion questions, for example, sometimes I don't even finish reading the stimulus if I've found the conclusion - and according to 7sage I have a 100% accuracy on MC questions across my last 20 practice tests.

2. Drill flaw questions until they're second nature to you and feel like "gimme" questions. They're the most common question type in LR, so a strong basis in them will really help your performance. For flaw questions in particular, prephrasing an answer really goes a long way since you can almost always prephrase exactly what the flaw is. I normally prephase them abstractly (confuses a necessary condition with sufficient, part to whole, appeal to authority, etc.) as opposed to prephasing them in the context of the question (Mickey mistakenly believes that something that ensures he will be a good student guarantees him being a good student), but I'm sure that either way is fine. You should also be able to identify SUPER quickly what all of the LSAT's abstract incorrect answer choices actually mean and can eliminate them very quickly. Formal/abstract language can slip a lot of people up but the LSAT only has so many ways of describing different flaws and it's normally very evident when one of these is not appearing in the argument.

3. Drill strengthen/weaken questions a ton until these are also second nature to you. There's normally ~7 combined strengthen/weaken questions per LSAT. Unlike flaw questions, it's a bit harder to prephase the exact answer (although definitely possible, especially on earlier questions in the section), but it should always be possible to think of what parts of the argument need to be bolstered/weakened. Imo, prephasing is the most important factor in my success on flaw/strengthen/weaken questions.

4. Necessary assumption questions normally have the correct answer be something that'll make you say "oh, of course the author thinks that..." and sufficient assumption questions normally link two portions of the stimulus. On NA questions, do a really quick runthrough of the answers to see if any of them jump out as "oh duh, obviously he thinks that..." If none of them jump out as that, then go through each of the answer choices more thoroughly. As a corollary, NA correct answers often have pretty weak language while SA correct answers normally have pretty strong language.

5. I don't read all the answer choices on the first 10-15 questions of each LR section. If I'm confident enough in my answer choice, I'll circle it and move on. I definitely wouldn't recommend this for everyone, but if you're consistently maybe -5 between the two LR sections, it might benefit you to be confident in your answers to the earlier questions so you can spend a bit more time considering the harder ones. If you EVER don't finish an LR section in time, then don't do this.

6. I skip all PR/PF/long principle questions and then come back to them at the end. I find that these questions disrupt my tempo throughout the exam. I finish more confidently and quickly if I skip these and then do them all at once at the end.

7. I circle every question that I don't feel 100% on but I think I got right and star every question that I'm unsure of. Once I finish my first runthrough of the section, I check my answers on all starred questions and then on all circled questions. If I have time, I'll then check the first ~10 questions to make sure that I didn't make any really dumb mistakes. Come up with a system to denote to yourself when you don't feel confident on an answer choice and to what degree.

Should be stickied. MODZ!

[34iplaw]

Every building I go to on campus, they keep having fucking fire drills. Bro like stop, it's the second one this morning for me, it's so annoying

Set a fire. Teach them a lesson about crying wolf too many times.

[Mikey]

Every building I go to on campus, they keep having fucking fire drills. Bro like stop, it's the second one this morning for me, it's so annoying

Set a fire. Teach them a lesson about crying wolf too many times.

haha, dude.. in all of the years that i've been in this freaking place, not once have they done a fire drill (at least the days I've been here)

i think the NY fire department mandated the school to do fire drills though cause there was an actual fire the other day in one of the buildings. still, a real fire, no one is going to calmly walk out, like that's what i've never understood about fire drills