Top Law Schools

d34dluk3 wrote:

kwais wrote:yikes, how did this guy get a 172 and two T6 admits?

There is no sarcasm on the LSAT.

true but there is reading comp which was a total fail in this case

youknowryan wrote:

bhan87 wrote:

youknowryan wrote:

EarlCat wrote:
Reusing PrepTests WILL NOT HURT YOU!

Reusing a test or specific sections is guaranteed to lower one's score.


You and your well reasoned and air-tight silly little arguments just are not fooling anyone.

Flame or not, shut up.

All test takers should listen to the OP. It always baffles me that people will complain about running out of tests to practice with when they haven't bothered redoing the ones they bombed during practice.

Perhaps law is not for you. Your post indicates an inability to comprehend even a simple bit of text. To clarify, in least common denominator language just for you: #1. I agree with the OP's points. All of them in every way. #2. I was ironically saying the same kind of stuff people who do not agree with him say. The irony part is that I shot my own point in the foot by noting that his arguments are, "well reasoned and air-tight". #3. For people like you, I even put a winking smilie face to further drive home that I was kidding around. If the above still leaves you befuddled, I have some colored letter blocks or "See Spot" like books that might amuse you. At the very least, they will make this forum a better place by keeping you busy and thus preventing you from posting.

Sorry if I offended you, but sarcastic or not, I felt your comment was unnecesary. Also, your sarcasm could be interpreted in more than one way.

d34dluk3 wrote:

kwais wrote:yikes, how did this guy get a 172 and two T6 admits?

There is no sarcasm on the LSAT.

Also, I reused plenty of my preptests

Though I agree I would've scored much lower if sarcasm was part of the test lol.

[/quote]

Sorry if I offended you, but sarcastic or not, I felt your comment was unnecesary. Also, your sarcasm could be interpreted in more than one way.[/quote]

No worries. (That is me being serious BTW.)

reusing preptests can make you think you are doing better than you are.

--ImageRemoved--

lakers3peat wrote:reusing preptests can make you think you are doing better than you are.

You missed the main point.

It is NOT about reusing preptests to take them again timed to see how many you get right in order to gauge your current score range. Of course your timed score will be inflated because you will remember stuff about the questions if you just use them for that purpose.

It IS about going over them again to analyze/review/dissect them in order to understand WHY the credited answers choices are correct and why the incorrect answers are wrong, logically. Meaning using them to make sure you understand the tested logic/concepts properly and understand HOW to get to the correct answer choice via logical analysis and application of appropriate strategies.

Getting good at the LSAT for test day is not just about playing 'pin the tail on the donkey' in terms of bubbling in the proper letter, it is about knowing how to properly pin the tail on the donkey more accurately and consistently so you do that on the day that matters.

EarlCat wrote:--ImageRemoved--

Which Transformer is that?

Jeffort wrote:Getting good at the LSAT for test day is not just about playing 'pin the tail on the donkey' in terms of bubbling in the proper letter, it is about knowing how to properly pin the tail on the donkey more accurately and consistently so you do that on the day that matters.

Are all the TLSers on this thread saying this as just something they feel, or from experience of scoring higher on a retake after re-using PTs?

jim-green wrote:

Jeffort wrote:Getting good at the LSAT for test day is not just about playing 'pin the tail on the donkey' in terms of bubbling in the proper letter, it is about knowing how to properly pin the tail on the donkey more accurately and consistently so you do that on the day that matters.

Are all the TLSers on this thread saying this as just something they feel, or from experience of scoring higher on a retake after re-using PTs?

So if you read the second post in this topic....

I would add to that that this has been my experience with my handful of retaking students, as well.

For TLSers who have retaken and even first timers, what proportion of time did you spend at first doing un-timed questions, and what proportion of time did you do timed PTs? My experience shows untimed practice is important: I did not do any untimed questions at all. I did all the PTs timed from the start, trying to pin the tail on the donkey, and hence may not have learnt some basic techniques. What is your thought?

NikaneOkie wrote:I took everything from 25-50 and retook everything from 40-50. I did very well, and I certainly think that retaking the tests actually helped me.

how well

jim-green wrote:For TLSers who have retaken and even first timers, what proportion of time did you spend at first doing un-timed questions, and what proportion of time did you do timed PTs? My experience shows untimed practice is important: I did not do any untimed questions at all. I did all the PTs timed from the start, trying to pin the tail on the donkey, and hence may not have learnt some basic techniques. What is your thought?

I'm taking it for the first time in June. But, I think this probably depends a lot on your skill set and how high of a score you're wanting.

For me, I feel like I need to slow down, so I'm currently working mostly untimed. I plan to get serious about time in a month or so. When I took my diagnostic before I had even so much as looked at a prep book, I had about 10 minutes left over on each section with the exception of LG which handed me my butt. Right now on LR and RC, I want accuracy. I know that I can move fast and well enough, but I don't want well enough. I want exceptional.

I'm starting to time myself on LG just to see where I'm standing. Not to force myself to move quicker, but just to give me a reality check.

jim-green wrote:For TLSers who have retaken and even first timers, what proportion of time did you spend at first doing un-timed questions, and what proportion of time did you do timed PTs? My experience shows untimed practice is important: I did not do any untimed questions at all. I did all the PTs timed from the start, trying to pin the tail on the donkey, and hence may not have learnt some basic techniques. What is your thought?

The usual thing to do is to do untimed practice until you can get just about every question right untimed. Then start gradually building up your speed. How long it takes to do this (and therefore the proportion of untimed to timed) varies materially from person to person.

tomwatts wrote:

jim-green wrote:For TLSers who have retaken and even first timers, what proportion of time did you spend at first doing un-timed questions, and what proportion of time did you do timed PTs? My experience shows untimed practice is important: I did not do any untimed questions at all. I did all the PTs timed from the start, trying to pin the tail on the donkey, and hence may not have learnt some basic techniques. What is your thought?

The usual thing to do is to do untimed practice until you can get just about every question right untimed. Then start gradually building up your speed. How long it takes to do this (and therefore the proportion of untimed to timed) varies materially from person to person.

I timed myself on every PT but made sure to not rush myself, assertive but not too aggressive. When I exceeded 35mins for a section I would note which questions had been answered at that point and continue the section. At the end of it, for sections where I did not finish in time I would have 2 scores(within 35min, and untimed). This seemed to work for me during my prep.

Excellent Post!

jim-green wrote:For TLSers who have retaken and even first timers, what proportion of time did you spend at first doing un-timed questions, and what proportion of time did you do timed PTs?

First time around I did a mix of timed and untimed, but reused hardly anything. I looked at questions I missed and if I totally blew a game I might have redone it. Second time around I did almost all untimed (a handful of timed tests in the months and weeks leading up to the test), but with TONS of repetition.

My experience shows untimed practice is important: I did not do any untimed questions at all. I did all the PTs timed from the start, trying to pin the tail on the donkey, and hence may not have learnt some basic techniques. What is your thought?

It sounds like you learned your lesson.

youknowryan wrote:

EarlCat wrote:
Reusing PrepTests WILL NOT HURT YOU!

Reusing a test or specific sections is guaranteed to lower one's score.


You and your well reasoned and air-tight silly little arguments just are not fooling anyone.

atfirstIwaslike:|butthenIlol'd.jpg

What you said is true - but remember that unused official PTs are a limited resource and once you are out you are out. They provide you with a kind of practice that you cannot get anywhere else.

I definitely wouldn't recommend blowing through all the PTs and doing nothing but reused material for a month leading up to the test.

Good point in general EC, but I would point out that reusing them can lead to glossing over things after seeing them several times. I think this would be worst in RC.

You should never run out of ways to drill yourself on the old material. After you have done a test, go through each and every question and look at each correct and incorrect answer choice. Under or beside each answer (correct or incorrect), record the reason for each answer's correctness or incorrectness using keywords, expressions and acronyms like these:

too strong/extreme (i.e. "ans. overreaches...not inferable"), beyscope or scopeshift (i.e. "ans. wrong b/c beyond scope"), revans (i.e. "reverse answer"), oppans ("i.e. ans. wrong b/c gives opposite"), suff v. nec (i.e. "mistakes one for the other"), correlcause (i.e. "mistakes correlation for causation"), str (i.e. "ans. strengthens when asked to weaken"), wkns (i.e. "ans. weakens when asked to strengthen"), noeffect (i.e. "ans. neither strengthens nor weakens"), circular (i.e. "ans. correct; flawed b/c stimulus employs circular reasoning"), cause w/o effect (i.e. "ans. weakens b/c shows that the cause doesn't lead to stated effect"), eff w/o cause (i.e. "ans. correct b/c shows that the effect can have other causes"), altcause (i.e. "ans. weakens b/c presents possibility of an alternate cause"), revrel (i.e. ans. weakens by presenting possibility of reverse relationship between stated cause and effect"), statprob (i.e. "ans. weakens b/c points to statistical problem in argument"), c>e (i.e. " ans. strengthens by increasing likelihood that the cause leads to stated effect"), e<c (i.e. " ans. strengthens by increasing likelihood that the effect results from cause"), elim. alt cause (i.e. "ans. strengthens by reducing/eliminating possibility of an alternate cause"), addrstatprob (i.e. "ans. strengthens by eliminating statistical problem"), elimrevrel(i.e. "ans. strengthens by making cause-effect relationship more likely...eliminates possibility of reversal"), addrscopeshift (i.e. "is correct assumption b/c it addresses scope-shift"), more paradoxical (i.e. "ans. makes stimulus MORE paradoxical"), irrelevant (i.e. "ans. irrelevant") notinferable/NI (i.e. "ans. could be true but incorrect b/c doesn't have to be true given the stimulus info...thus not a correct inference"), unflawed (i.e. "ans. incorrect b/c not flawed"), flawdiff (i.e. "ans. provides flaw different from that in stimulus"), patt-reas (i.e. "ans. gives different pattern of reasoning from stimulus...suff-nec v. causal, etc.").

There are more types of right and wrong answers, but you get my point.

After you have done the answers from all 66 tests, go back and take them all timed again. See how friggin' ready you are then. 180 dawg!

I like the ideas floating around. I think this could be particularly helpful for LR and LG. RC? Marginally, but still helpful.

*Edit: I mean that it could be a huge benefit doing this for LG and LR, at the very least.

Geetar Man wrote:I like the ideas floating around. I think this could be particularly helpful for LR and LG. RC? Marginally, but still helpful.

*Edit: I mean that it could be a huge benefit doing this for LG and LR, at the very least.

I agree! There's great value in learning to quickly identify wrong answers and to decipher "why" those answers are wrong. Anyone who tries this will begin to notice patterns, i.e. the specific wording of types of wrong answers within each question type.

As you have pointed out, the method I proposed above would likely have its greatest utility in LR...which accounts for half of one's score.

I also believe the method above can be effectively used in RC, because the test-makers like to re-use certain types of wrong answers in that section as well - although they are rarely the same types of wrong answers used in LR.

In LG, this exercize is not necessary. Instead, one should drill on setting up different types of games, choosing which question types to approach first (I arrack the "Orientation" and "Global-MBT" questions first, but others prefer doing local ones first) and the plug-in methods needed to get answers quickly.

Totally agree with OP. The sticking point in my prep came around 167-170. For a month or two, I just couldn't get past it--really frustrating. This may sound odd, but I would retake a couple of PTs. Ones that I didn't really remember, but had a familiarity with. I noticed that my score jumped 3-4 points on such tests. This gave me a sense of what it was like to "get it." It wasn't only that of course--I kept taking new tests--but just knowing what it felt like to see why an answer had to be credited was very helpful. Developing this intuition ultimately pushed me through to the 175+ zone.