Looking for Advice Forum

[agentK]

...or kind of.
First, i am sorry for my question to be too abstractive and unfitting in forum's format. Therefore this section is most correct, i guess, for this message.
I'm foreign student, stumbled by LSAT while making my research about USA Law Schools. Without prolonging, i quickly took first example test available: July's 2007 ( http://www.lsac.org/jd/LSAT/Prep/FreeSa ... index.html ). I'd set up timer, took paper, pen, and started. Logical games, the first part, was done without mistakes, both surprising and encouraging myself. Get me right: I had no doubt of making decisions which answer to pick, but i was prepared for 2-3 mistakes, the "hidden stones" which normally exist in every test. However, next sections chopped me off a lot. I guided through only by "feel" what is correct and logical, thus unable to get logical basis for my answer.
Here's an example:
Question 2 http://www.lsac.org/jd/LSAT/Prep/FreeSa ... tion2.html

All Labrador retrievers bark a great deal. All Saint Bernards bark infrequently. Each of Rosa's dogs is a cross between a Labrador retriever and a Saint Bernard. Therefore, Rosa's dogs are moderate barkers.

Which one of the following uses flawed reasoning that most closely resembles the flawed reasoning used in the argument above?

I picked A
All students who study diligently make good grades. But some students who do not study diligently also make good grades. Jane studies somewhat diligently. Therefore, Jane makes somewhat good grades.
My logic was next:
dog A barks + frequently students A study + diligently
dog B barks + infrequently students B study + not diligently
dog AB barks + moderately students AB study + somewhat diligently
Correct logic is:
dog A barks good -> frequently students A study good -> diligently
dog B barks bad -> infrequently students B study good -> not diligently
dog AB barks fine -> moderately student AB study fine -> somewhat d

Of course i am able to understand my mistakes and analyze them. It takes about 3-4 minutes to fully investigate such types of questions, time which i won't have. Also the very affecting factor is my language barrier. I guess I've got a fluency, thought limited to my small vocab and general lack of required satisfactory from one's speech to advance further. Accenting main topics in text, or given sentence, is a harsh task for me. So this comprehensive amount of text were written for this conclusion: is it really language barrier that stops me?
I've scored 158 total in this prep test, if time limits were a bit less crucial, i believe it would be much higher.

SHORT VERSION:
1) Does everyone have troubles with accenting right topics of text in LSAT, or OP indeed got an lack of everyday USA's life experience, which is huge factor for such tasks.
2) Any recommendation how to work on such skill?

[Micdiddy]

Considering you're saying "accenting right topics" I would wager there is still a language barrier problem. The LSAT has some dense, dense material and even getting tough questions right that took some time to unravel the language can have a sever effect on your score due to the time wasted.

With that said, you sound logical, so that is very good.

I am not really sure on what advice I would give...keep studying/learning sentence structure and idioms, etc.

[bp shinners]

SHORT VERSION:
1) Does everyone have troubles with accenting right topics of text in LSAT, or OP indeed got an lack of everyday USA's life experience, which is huge factor for such tasks.
2) Any recommendation how to work on such skill?

Hey agentK,

It seems to me like there is still a pretty large language barrier, despite your ability to speak understandably in English. That won't be enough for the LSAT, however, as it tests precise understanding of language that's intentionally dense and difficult.

One of our biggest success stories was from a student for who English was her second language. She took the LSAT the first time and bombed it. Then, she took an intense English immersion course and vastly increased her abilities in English. After this, since she already thought logically in her native language (which you appear to do), she saw drastic increases in her LSAT score with very little additional practice.

So, in short, I would strongly recommend finding a similar course and increasing your abilities in English. It's going to help you much more than anything else at this point in your studying (and your career, for that matter, if you plan to practice in the States).

[Clearly]

The real crazy part is that this foreigner with a decent but not complete grasp of English still did well better then half of the (overwhelmingly English speaking) test takers.

[waysidemadison180]

The real crazy part is that this foreigner with a decent but not complete grasp of English still did well better then half of the (overwhelmingly English speaking) test takers.

Same with the bar exam! Lot's of foreigners who do not speak English as a first language tear up the bar exam.