Trends on PTs 60 and up... Forum

[esh12]

Is it just me, or am I noticing some interesting trends on PrepTests 60 and above:

-Correct LR answer choices for a handful of questions in the 15-25 range are increasingly dependent on a key term or two that equivocates correctly what is stated in the stimulus -that and I've noticed wrong ACs are wrong primarily for the opposite reason, that there is a similar word/phrase that you think equivocates what is in the stimulus but is in fact wrong

-LG is requiring the test taker to "plug and chug" more, as stated in another thread. Maybe this is why LSAC decided to give more space starting this June? I'm finding myself using the "Rule of 2" a lot more rather than trying to get the correct answer through inferences.

[gspiel1232]

Rule of two?

[NoodleyOne]

Look, this has to be said about the LGs...

This whole "plug n chug, less inferences thing" is WAAAAAY overstated. It's different from 40s PTs in that regard, sure, but 40s PTs were notoriously easy anyway. You still need key inferences to tackle the hard games in the new ones, and you still needed hypos in the old games to do them effectively. I'm especially thinking of both Stained Glass and Dinos, where each relies on one inference to make a hard game waaaay easier. I think people are getting this in their head so much, which may be causing the dip in 60s level LG scores. There is not a huge difference in approach. You still have to write out the rules, see how the rules connect to make inferences, and hypo out local/some global questions.

[CardozoLaw09]

Rule of two?

[esh12]

"Rule of 2" is a term used in the LG course from Velocity LSAT. The idea of it is to plug and chug with only 2 possible scenarios for a given question.

[gspiel1232]

Id love to hear a tad more about this..

[JDot]

Ever since I started doing the 60 and up PTs in the last week or so I've been getting more answers wrong than usual in the LR sections, kind of depressing...

Is it me or are the LR sections harder than previous tests?

[esh12]

Same thing has been happening to me, I don't know if it's because of getting 5 hours of sleep a night while juggling a full-time job or if it's because the LR sections are getting trickier - not necessarily harder.

[arcanecircle]

Personally it feels like they're changing which types of LRs they give you as the difficult ones, rather than LR becoming more difficult as a whole. I still think Flaws and MBT variants are the bulk of them but I've seen more diagrammables for sufficient/necessary assumption questions than MBTs with red herrings/irrelevant info thrown in than earlier tests. More hard questions also seem to be Paradox/Describe the argument rather than Flaw/Weaken/Strengthen ones.

[gspiel1232]

I second the LR getting trickier. Also the paradox definitely require you to really think it out. Definitely some tricky ones in there. A lot more of the second best answers tend to either revolve around missing the one key word (like people have mentioned), or, as often, "this COULD happen, but it also couldn't happen, making it void.