JUNE 2013 Study Group / Study Partner Thread

[eliztudorr]

Thanks DD. I figured out 22

[eliztudorr]

Thanks GL

[bdeans91]

This is a complaint. I have negated the shit out of N/A Qs from PT 1-20, all level 4 difficulty. WTF? What's is wrong with the bizarre wordings????

Level 4 difficulty in the Cambridge books is sometimes strange. I can read and understand the argument, pre-phrase an answer, but the answer choices available just don't make any sense.

Especially found this trend for "Weaken".

Is this unique to the older exams for the most part?

[Fianna13]

hey DD, do you mind posting some quick thoughts of how you approach each kind of LR questions? like 1 sentence or so of what do you look for or what goes through your mind after you read the stimulus and the questions stem?

[griffin.811]

Anyone know if there is a list of RC passages by difficulty?

[Daily_Double]

hey DD, do you mind posting some quick thoughts of how you approach each kind of LR questions? like 1 sentence or so of what do you look for or what goes through your mind after you read the stimulus and the questions stem?

Yeah, I'll do something like that. So here's how I look at LR:

Assumption
Necessary Assumption
Sufficient Assumption
Strengthen
Weaken
Flaw
Evaluate the Argument

Inference:
Must Be True
Most Strongly Supported
Complete the Passage
Cannot Be True
Main Conclusion
Point at Issue
Paradox
Principle (Identify)
Principle (Apply)

Structure
Method (Argument)
Method (Statement)
Parallel (Reasoning)
Parallel (Flaw)

Now I'm sure you're going to say, DD, that's not how the companies do it. Yeah, I know how they do it, I know why they do it that way, but this is just how I think of it. If you don't know what each question type is asking for then I'd suggest reviewing the concepts. I'm going to do a brief over view though.

Assumption - these questions revolve around a gap, which is to say, there's at least one reason why the core might not necessarily follow from the supporting premises. I try to identify the gap, then come up with an answer, usually I just come up with one and move to the answers, sometimes it's right, usually it's not, but I'm working on that. Anyways, wrong answers for these questions will reverse the logic, or not address the core, although sometimes you do see premise boosters/premise weakeners as correct answers, this is rare though, you just have to eliminate as many as possible on your first pass. There are additional things to look for in these such as a correlation supporting causation, causation in general, conditionality in general, and formal logic.

Inference - these questions require you to use the information provided to you in the stimulus to select an answer which must follow from that information. Scope is your biggest obstacle in these, you have to possess a very narrow sense of scope, cut down the wrong answers, diagram if you must, and remember the information is in the stimulus, and the correct answer will always follow from it. I'll diagram conditional and formal logic, the rest I usually just work from my notations in the stimulus.

Structure - these questions require you to understand the abstract nature of the argument and pay attention to subtle shifts in terms, degree, division, etc. and select an answer which either conforms to the information in the stimulus or to describe it in an abstract fashion. I usually diagram matching questions, argument part questions are usually pretty straightforward.

Also see LSAT Blog's approach to the question types

[rebexness]

Anyone know if there is a list of RC passages by difficulty?

I have only ever seen RC sorted by subject. Definitely interested in the response to this.

[crazyrobin]

Anyone know if there is a list of RC passages by difficulty?

I have only ever seen RC sorted by subject. Definitely interested in the response to this.

Actually yes. I have RC bundle by type and it is sorted by difficulty. I don't know if I can screenshot here. Is it distribution of copyright materials?

[rebexness]

Just looked at mine again and they ARE sorted by difficulty within the subject types.

[crazyrobin]

Assumption - these questions revolve around a gap, which is to say, there's at least one reason why the core might not necessarily follow from the supporting premises. I try to identify the gap, then come up with an answer, usually I just come up with one and move to the answers, sometimes it's right, usually it's not, but I'm working on that. Anyways, wrong answers for these questions will reverse the logic, or not address the core, although sometimes you do see premise boosters/premise weakeners as correct answers, this is rare though, you just have to eliminate as many as possible on your first pass. There are additional things to look for in these such as a correlation supporting causation, causation in general, conditionality in general, and formal logic.

Inference - these questions require you to use the information provided to you in the stimulus to select an answer which must follow from that information. Scope is your biggest obstacle in these, you have to possess a very narrow sense of scope, cut down the wrong answers, diagram if you must, and remember the information is in the stimulus, and the correct answer will always follow from it. I'll diagram conditional and formal logic, the rest I usually just work from my notations in the stimulus.

Structure - these questions require you to understand the abstract nature of the argument and pay attention to subtle shifts in terms, degree, division, etc. and select an answer which either conforms to the information in the stimulus or to describe it in an abstract fashion. I usually diagram matching questions, argument part questions are usually pretty straightforward.

Also see LSAT Blog's approach to the question types

One thought on DD's interpretation.
The scope thing.

Read every words meticulously. Especially when you eliminate answers choices, read carefully.

If the core if about how to evaluate something, the ACs go with aim at, means could be wrong.
Some LSAT answer choices are very tricky. But if you have your eyes wild open, you can easily spot the wrong answer.

I am still working on this

[crazyrobin]

Just looked at mine again and they ARE sorted by difficulty within the subject types.

That's right. The last page ranks the difficulty.

[hannnahbb]

DD's LSAT knowledge is so sexy.

[Daily_Double]

DD's LSAT knowledge is so sexy.

You haven't even seen my diagrams yet. They're seductive. Plus, nothing gets a girls clothes off faster than playing the LSAT proctor on your surround sound when you get back home. It makes 35 minutes fly by.

[CardozoLaw09]

DD's LSAT knowledge is so sexy.

You haven't even seen my diagrams yet. They're seductive. Plus, nothing gets a girls clothes off faster than playing the LSAT proctor on your surround sound when you get back home. It makes 35 minutes fly by.

[crazyrobin]

DD's LSAT knowledge is so sexy.

You haven't even seen my diagrams yet. They're seductive. Plus, nothing gets a girls clothes off faster than playing the LSAT proctor on your surround sound when you get back home. It makes 35 minutes fly by.

Lololololo
ROFLMAO!!!!
DD you have my vote.

[Typhoon24]

Hey ladies and gents, I just finished my first timed PT today!

I would've started early feb with you guys, but only managed to finish drilling to the point where I felt comfortable by Saturday night.

PT 40 :

LR: -1 (1-2 of the questions were mentioned in a manhattan online thingy, saw before. didn't remember the answer though)
LG: -3 (One of the games was in the LGB, so i technically saw it before)
LR: -5
RC: -3

169 . If that was my June score, I'd buy everyone a round of drinks!

[arcanecircle]

Anyone interested in a tinychat for PT57? If there's interest, I can start one either Tuesday or Thursday. Open to some other PTs as well, have a lot of old sections piled up either way. Will try to work out a time if you post here.

[rebexness]

DD's LSAT knowledge is so sexy.

You haven't even seen my diagrams yet. They're seductive. Plus, nothing gets a girls clothes off faster than playing the LSAT proctor on your surround sound when you get back home. It makes 35 minutes fly by.

[Fianna13]

Thanks for all the info everyone. I'm just about to be done with drilling all the LR and RC from 1-38, still working on some grouping games. LG tend to be my weakest section. Hopefully I can start PTing starting Spring break, that gives me about 3 months of pure PT and review, hopefully that's enough time. :/

[ready4180]

Just checking up! I've been super MIA/slacking on all things LSAT due to work travel last week/weekend, but today I have off so I'm trying to put some quality time in.

I've done all games from PT 1-38 twice, but I'm going to continue to drill at least 2 games a day to stay sharp.

I've finished up to Chapter 3 in MLSAT LR, and today I've drilled 25 Assumption Qs. I'm going to keep drilling, and hopefully start Chapter 4 tonight once I feel comfortable with Assumption Questions.

Hoping to hop back on the PT train this week! I might take 50 tomorrow, and then try to synch my schedule with DD's schedule from this point forward. Looking forward to reviews!

[Daily_Double]

Throughout the next few months, I'm going to describe patterns that I've noticed during PTs when I'm bored in class. You should be able to predict the answer, try to ignore my jokes in the stimulus.

The Vineyard Vines soccer team is better than any other soccer team in the state. Shep is a player on the Vineyard Vines soccer team, therefore he must be a better soccer player than any other soccer player in the state.

Spot the Flaw?

Try to parallel the Flaw.

[Fianna13]

Whole to part flaw.

My school's football team is better than any other schools in the nation. Since John Doe is a player in the team, he must be better than any other players in the nation.

[Daily_Double]

Nice work. I like it. I'd expect the answer to be something along the lines of: presumes, without providing justification, that what is true of a system's whole, is also true of a part of the system.

[Fianna13]

Oh nice. i think phrasing flaws in terms of correct answers on the LSAT is a great way to build recognition patterns. Gonna keep that in mind for the next one. lol

[Guerrilla Logic]

I've been having trouble developing a process for RC. I'm one of those people who can have a deep focus for a long time on something but cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. Taking notes while trying to retain info seems to not work out for me.

So today I just started reading through the paragraph, no underlining or marking while I read, then pausing my read at the end of the paragraph to summarize in the margin, maybe box something, and then continue to the next paragraph and repeating the process. Does anybody else use the same strategy and if so how has it been working?

I tried Voyager's approach but sucked pretty bad at it. Terrible retention and long on time. I also tried to make no markings through the whole thing, which went pretty fast and had it down to -1 to -2 until I bombed a few sections on PTs. I think the passages are too long for me to retain all the info and when I try to go back into the passage I don't have a great idea where I'm going. Any suggestions would be helpful.