JUNE 2013 Study Group / Study Partner Thread Forum

[nyjets2090]

169 on PT Dec 2011.

This test and Dec 2012 are my only two fresh tests as a retaker. Although I did do the 4th LG on this one, everything else is fresh. Happy with this score and am hoping to get a real estimation on Friday. I did a very light run this morning (kept my HR around 130), will probably do that Friday and on PT69.

LGs were reasonable on this one.

LR was very difficult on this one. I think it's the hardest I've seen.

RC had a weird passage (passage #2) and passage #4 is an example of a science passage where you need to see the argument and not the passage. Remember, the LSAT is not testing on science, it's testing on reasoning and argumentation.

My PTs have been within a decent score band (168-172), with two outliers on the top and one below that. Friday will be my final PT, Saturday I'll review and drill a few LG's. I'm debating about what to do Sunday. I don't want to take the entire day off, but I don't want to burnout completely. Probably will be a combination of running and some chess so at least I'm doing something with my brain.

Also am eating fanatically healthy this week. Oatmeal for breakfast, Greek yogurt and fruit for lunch. No artificial colors or sweets. I'm thinking of a combination of Patron, five guys, taco bell, and mini-golfing at night on Monday to celebrate.

[mvonh001]

169 on PT Dec 2011.

This test and Dec 2012 are my only two fresh tests as a retaker. Although I did do the 4th LG on this one, everything else is fresh. Happy with this score and am hoping to get a real estimation on Friday. I did a very light run this morning (kept my HR around 130), will probably do that Friday and on PT69.

LGs were reasonable on this one.

LR was very difficult on this one. I think it's the hardest I've seen.

RC had a weird passage (passage #2) and passage #4 is an example of a science passage where you need to see the argument and not the passage. Remember, the LSAT is not testing on science, it's testing on reasoning and argumentation.

My PTs have been within a decent score band (168-172), with two outliers on the top and one below that. Friday will be my final PT, Saturday I'll review and drill a few LG's. I'm debating about what to do Sunday. I don't want to take the entire day off, but I don't want to burnout completely. Probably will be a combination of running and some chess so at least I'm doing something with my brain.

Also am eating fanatically healthy this week. Oatmeal for breakfast, Greek yogurt and fruit for lunch. No artificial colors or sweets. I'm thinking of a combination of Patron, five guys, taco bell, and mini-golfing at night on Monday to celebrate.

I just took this one also but i got a 163, The RC really fucked me up, and so did game 4. The LR was average to below average for me at -5/-6 respectively. At this rate the best I think I can realistically get is -3/-4 LR, -1/-2 LG, -3/-4 LR, and -4/-5 RC, and that is if I'm on fire and the test is easy. so thats a -15 worst case, -11 best case. Unfortunately that puts me just out of 170 range unless i get a monster curve of like -13 or something ridiculous like that, but one cant bet on those uncertainties.

[MKX]

Can someone give me some tips for LR? I do fine untimed but when I'm on the clock I fall apart. Just any tips or tricks will help idk. I feel hopeless right now.

[nyjets2090]

169 on PT Dec 2011.

This test and Dec 2012 are my only two fresh tests as a retaker. Although I did do the 4th LG on this one, everything else is fresh. Happy with this score and am hoping to get a real estimation on Friday. I did a very light run this morning (kept my HR around 130), will probably do that Friday and on PT69.

LGs were reasonable on this one.

LR was very difficult on this one. I think it's the hardest I've seen.

RC had a weird passage (passage #2) and passage #4 is an example of a science passage where you need to see the argument and not the passage. Remember, the LSAT is not testing on science, it's testing on reasoning and argumentation.

My PTs have been within a decent score band (168-172), with two outliers on the top and one below that. Friday will be my final PT, Saturday I'll review and drill a few LG's. I'm debating about what to do Sunday. I don't want to take the entire day off, but I don't want to burnout completely. Probably will be a combination of running and some chess so at least I'm doing something with my brain.

Also am eating fanatically healthy this week. Oatmeal for breakfast, Greek yogurt and fruit for lunch. No artificial colors or sweets. I'm thinking of a combination of Patron, five guys, taco bell, and mini-golfing at night on Monday to celebrate.

I just took this one also but i got a 163, The RC really fucked me up, and so did game 4. The LR was average to below average for me at -5/-6 respectively. At this rate the best I think I can realistically get is -3/-4 LR, -1/-2 LG, -3/-4 LR, and -4/-5 RC, and that is if I'm on fire and the test is easy. so thats a -15 worst case, -11 best case. Unfortunately that puts me just out of 170 range unless i get a monster curve of like -13 or something ridiculous like that, but one cant bet on those uncertainties.

The RC on this one was tough for two reasons. A lot of the answer choices had one or two words which threw it off, and there was the temptation to get too into the material and miss the argument. That last game was about drawing out the possibilities where the hour long TV show could go and making deductions.

[nyjets2090]

Can someone give me some tips for LR? I do fine untimed but when I'm on the clock I fall apart. Just any tips or tricks will help idk. I feel hopeless right now.

What helped me out was anticipating answer choices bu trusting my instincts. Ex. If it's a strengthen question there's probably going to be 3 irrelevant answer choices, a premise booster which is wrong, and the correct one. On difficult LR questions, I will sometimes go about knocking out 4 incorrect choices rather than searching for the right one.

On parallel questions with diagramming you can usually knock out 2 or 3 right away because they're using the wrong strength (most v all or some v most for example).

[ManoftheHour]

Can someone give me some tips for LR? I do fine untimed but when I'm on the clock I fall apart. Just any tips or tricks will help idk. I feel hopeless right now.

Drills. I used to be the same. Drilling helped me a little with the harder questions, but the biggest help I received from doing drills was becoming much faster at the easier questions. Most of the time, I can hit the first 10 or 11 questions of LR in under 10 mins. That leaves me 25 + mins for the remaining 14 or 15. The hardest questions generally are from #13/14 to about #20/21. During a LR section, as soon as I hit a question that I cannot do fast and efficiently, I move onto the last question and work backwards, ensuring that I answer correctly all the easy questions first. It makes sense to me since each question, regardless of difficulty, are worth the same amount of points.

[wtrc]

Can someone give me some tips for LR? I do fine untimed but when I'm on the clock I fall apart. Just any tips or tricks will help idk. I feel hopeless right now.

Ironically, slowing down will help you with timing. Read the question stem/stimulus, then take a 5 second break and anticipate (prephrase) what you think you're looking for in the argument. What's the gap? Where does the reasoning suck? What is needed to make the argument complete? Have a prephrase in your mind (sometimes I even write it down), and then when you see the answer choices, one should stick out to you as the right answer.

How do you approach these questions now? What tactic do you use?

[MKX]

Can someone give me some tips for LR? I do fine untimed but when I'm on the clock I fall apart. Just any tips or tricks will help idk. I feel hopeless right now.

Drills. I used to be the same. Drilling helped me a little with the harder questions, but the biggest help I received from doing drills was becoming much faster at the easier questions. Most of the time, I can hit the first 10 or 11 questions of LR in under 10 mins. That leaves me 25 + mins for the remaining 14 or 15. The hardest questions generally are from #13/14 to about #20/21. During a LR section, as soon as I hit a question that I cannot do fast and efficiently, I move onto the last question and work backwards, ensuring that I answer correctly all the easy questions first. It makes sense to me since each question, regardless of difficulty, are worth the same amount of points.

No wonder all my wrong answers come between 13 and 21. I've gotten 6 in a roe wrong between those numbers. Very frustrating.

[MKX]

Can someone give me some tips for LR? I do fine untimed but when I'm on the clock I fall apart. Just any tips or tricks will help idk. I feel hopeless right now.

Ironically, slowing down will help you with timing. Read the question stem/stimulus, then take a 5 second break and anticipate (prephrase) what you think you're looking for in the argument. What's the gap? Where does the reasoning suck? What is needed to make the argument complete? Have a prephrase in your mind (sometimes I even write it down), and then when you see the answer choices, one should stick out to you as the right answer.

How do you approach these questions now? What tactic do you use?

I read the stim, read the question, and go into the answers. I do some prephrasing but probably not enough. I feel rushed. Sometimes the stimulus has a bunch of mumbojumbo that im confused about so everything after that becomes a blur. Timed I miss 6-10. Untimed 2-3 if that. Lgs I'm fine on. Rc I struggle during science but I just use more notes now and range from -1 to -5 (all usually come from 1 passage so I need to work on focusing on science passages more).

Its just lr I can't seem to get consistent with.

[Daily_Double]

Can someone give me some tips for LR? I do fine untimed but when I'm on the clock I fall apart. Just any tips or tricks will help idk. I feel hopeless right now.

When you review your answers, do you understand your errors?

[MKX]

Can someone give me some tips for LR? I do fine untimed but when I'm on the clock I fall apart. Just any tips or tricks will help idk. I feel hopeless right now.

When you review your answers, do you understand your errors?

Yes. I almost always get it correct when I review then I check what answer I picked and get confused how I thought it was that.

[mvonh001]

Can someone give me some tips for LR? I do fine untimed but when I'm on the clock I fall apart. Just any tips or tricks will help idk. I feel hopeless right now.

Drills. I used to be the same. Drilling helped me a little with the harder questions, but the biggest help I received from doing drills was becoming much faster at the easier questions. Most of the time, I can hit the first 10 or 11 questions of LR in under 10 mins. That leaves me 25 + mins for the remaining 14 or 15. The hardest questions generally are from #13/14 to about #20/21. During a LR section, as soon as I hit a question that I cannot do fast and efficiently, I move onto the last question and work backwards, ensuring that I answer correctly all the easy questions first. It makes sense to me since each question, regardless of difficulty, are worth the same amount of points.

This is an interesting method. I too finish the first 10 in around 8 minutes with the remiaining time to spend on the latter portion of the exam, but I get tied up sometimes. So you go 1-10, then lests say 11 hits you hard and you dont know the answer right away, you go to 26? then work you way back to number 11? What if on your way back to 11 you get snagged up again do you do the same reversal but from 12 this time and save 11 for last? How would that benefit you more than just skipping over the ones you dont immediatly know and going back to them later? I have not tried this method but I think i will tomorrow.

[mvonh001]

What do people do when they redo a PT, do you put it in LSAT QA? or just run it by the correct answers?

[mvonh001]

Can someone give me some tips for LR? I do fine untimed but when I'm on the clock I fall apart. Just any tips or tricks will help idk. I feel hopeless right now.

When you review your answers, do you understand your errors?

Yes. I almost always get it correct when I review then I check what answer I picked and get confused how I thought it was that.

But do you review going into the question knowing what the correct answer is? It is a little bit like confirmation bias to go in knowing the correct answer, even if you were wrong, and feel like you knew why you were wrong. You should review your LR without knowing the correct answer or the wrong questions, but if you need to know the wrong questions then go in without knowing the correct answer at least.


Also - do people find it more effective to review directly after they PT, later that night, or the next day? Im talking specifically for LR, as I will redo RC and troubling games the next day usually.

[MKX]

Can someone give me some tips for LR? I do fine untimed but when I'm on the clock I fall apart. Just any tips or tricks will help idk. I feel hopeless right now.

When you review your answers, do you understand your errors?

Yes. I almost always get it correct when I review then I check what answer I picked and get confused how I thought it was that.

But do you review going into the question knowing what the correct answer is? It is a little bit like confirmation bias to go in knowing the correct answer, even if you were wrong, and feel like you knew why you were wrong. You should review your LR without knowing the correct answer or the wrong questions, but if you need to know the wrong questions then go in without knowing the correct answer at least.


Also - do people find it more effective to review directly after they PT, later that night, or the next day? Im talking specifically for LR, as I will redo RC and troubling games the next day usually.

Nope. I grade my test. Take a 30 minute break. Then retake it untimed. So while sometimes I'll remember what question I got wrong and what answer I picked, I never know the correct answer. And if I remember an I picked was wrong I spend time trying to figure out why I picked it and why its wrong

[The-Specs]

Also - do people find it more effective to review directly after they PT, later that night, or the next day? I'm talking specifically for LR, as I will redo RC and troubling games the next day usually.

I like to review it immediately after and then once more then next morning (usually that means about an hour or two before my next PT). I have found that to be very effective for me.

[objection_your_honor]

Took the June 2007 test today. 171 is pretty harsh for -7, so that's a little disheartening to see. I took it in a pretty loud environment (at my desk).

[patfeeney]

PT 6shit (Fragments of other tests)

Ex. 18 Sec. 3 (LR): -3
Sec. 1 RC: -8
Sec. 2 (3) LG: -3
Sec. 3 (4) LR: -3
Sec. 4( 18 Sec. 4) LR: -5
Raw: 81
164.

It's far too close to the test date to be getting this score, but I've taken three PTs in three days and each one has resulted in a 164. Is it safe to assume I've officially burnt out? And if so, would waiting until Friday to take one last PT be enough rest?

I want to take 68 on Friday, and if I can get an adequate score (170 ideally), I'll sit through June.

[The-Specs]

Took the June 2007 test today. 171 is pretty harsh for -7, so that's a little disheartening to see. I took it in a pretty loud environment (at my desk).

Yeah, that curve is a beast. -7 is good though, nonetheless.

[nyjets2090]

Can someone give me some tips for LR? I do fine untimed but when I'm on the clock I fall apart. Just any tips or tricks will help idk. I feel hopeless right now.

When you review your answers, do you understand your errors?

Yes. I almost always get it correct when I review then I check what answer I picked and get confused how I thought it was that.

But do you review going into the question knowing what the correct answer is? It is a little bit like confirmation bias to go in knowing the correct answer, even if you were wrong, and feel like you knew why you were wrong. You should review your LR without knowing the correct answer or the wrong questions, but if you need to know the wrong questions then go in without knowing the correct answer at least.


Also - do people find it more effective to review directly after they PT, later that night, or the next day? Im talking specifically for LR, as I will redo RC and troubling games the next day usually.

I don't review the same day. I PT and take the rest of the day. Especially at this point I don't think it's wise to do too much at once. This week should be about taking PTs under exact conditions, at your location if possible, and fine tuning whatever has to be done.

[ManoftheHour]

Can someone give me some tips for LR? I do fine untimed but when I'm on the clock I fall apart. Just any tips or tricks will help idk. I feel hopeless right now.

Drills. I used to be the same. Drilling helped me a little with the harder questions, but the biggest help I received from doing drills was becoming much faster at the easier questions. Most of the time, I can hit the first 10 or 11 questions of LR in under 10 mins. That leaves me 25 + mins for the remaining 14 or 15. The hardest questions generally are from #13/14 to about #20/21. During a LR section, as soon as I hit a question that I cannot do fast and efficiently, I move onto the last question and work backwards, ensuring that I answer correctly all the easy questions first. It makes sense to me since each question, regardless of difficulty, are worth the same amount of points.

This is an interesting method. I too finish the first 10 in around 8 minutes with the remiaining time to spend on the latter portion of the exam, but I get tied up sometimes. So you go 1-10, then lests say 11 hits you hard and you dont know the answer right away, you go to 26? then work you way back to number 11? What if on your way back to 11 you get snagged up again do you do the same reversal but from 12 this time and save 11 for last? How would that benefit you more than just skipping over the ones you dont immediatly know and going back to them later? I have not tried this method but I think i will tomorrow.

I don't reverse once I've already reversed. If I get stuck on 11, I got straight to 26 and work backwards back to 11. But I don't think I've ever been stuck on 11. It's usually #14, 15,or 16. It's probably psychological. I'm sure that there is a hard problem from 19-26, but even if it's hard, I tend to finish it and move on. I never skip on the way back (unless it's clear that the problem is monstrously difficult. Then I'd cut my losses and move on).

I think the benefit I gain from doing it this way is that it gets rid of the "discouragement" factor for me. When I was starting out on the LSATs, I used to get tied up in a hard problem and then I would be discouraged because I waste like 2 minutes doing a problem that I still do not have the answer to. Then I think, "Wow, it's only #12. I still have about 14 more problems to do...." Then the stress kicks in. Then I tend to fuck up more than I do because it was discouraging. Since then, I've adapted this method. It's a lot easier to do hard problems when you know you have 20 questions done (and correct) already. 6 hard problems and lots of time to spare? That's cake. I'm to the point where time is not an issue anymore but I still use this method out of familiarity.

[okaygo]

I always (always) get stuck on 19. 19 is el diablo.

[nyjets2090]

I don't reverse once I've already reversed. If I get stuck on 11, I got straight to 26 and work backwards back to 11. But I don't think I've ever been stuck on 11. It's usually #14, 15,or 16. It's probably psychological. I'm sure that there is a hard problem from 19-26, but even if it's hard, I tend to finish it and move on. I never skip on the way back (unless it's clear that the problem is monstrously difficult. Then I'd cut my losses and move on).

That makes sense. The hardest questions seem to be #13/14-19/20 and they drop off a bit at the end.

[ManoftheHour]

I always (always) get stuck on 19. 19 is el diablo.

You're lucky. I usually get stuck on #14 or #15. Maybe that's psychological thanks to my method, lol.

[RhymesLikeDimes]

I always (always) get stuck on 19. 19 is el diablo.

+1, I did a tally of the number of questions I missed for each Q#, and #19 was the worst (with #16 and #18 not far behind).