September PT 73-LSAT Experts Forum

ltowns1 · Post by **ltowns1** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 4:59 pm

First let me say I hope all went well for those who took this test. Secondly, I've been looking around other threads concerning this test and there seems to be a lot of frustration. A lot of those students who took the test complained about LR or RC sections.. In light of that context I wan't to ask those LSAT experts what they thought of the exam, especially in the aforementioned sections? Did it seem difficult? I'm really early in my prep so at least looking at this test is ages away for me, but I'm just curious in light of all the frustration that seems to be coming from this test.

schmelling · Post by **schmelling** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 9:02 pm

Post removed.

ltowns1 · Post by **ltowns1** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 9:25 pm

schmelling wrote:Took in september, happy with my score.

LG: No really easy game, No really hard game. Normally I finish the 2 easiest games 15 minutes or less and have the remaining time for the harder game(s). I think my time was more evenly divided among the games on this one.

RC: pretty straightforward IMO, one weird passage, but far from the hardest RC section i've ever seen.

LR: Very tricky compared to other tests.

I don't have much else to say about the test.

Was LR one of those situations where the right answer hinged on the degree of the conclusion?

schmelling · Post by **schmelling** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 9:30 pm

Post removed.

ltowns1 · Post by **ltowns1** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 9:35 pm

schmelling wrote:
ltowns1 wrote:
schmelling wrote:Took in september, happy with my score.

LG: No really easy game, No really hard game. Normally I finish the 2 easiest games 15 minutes or less and have the remaining time for the harder game(s). I think my time was more evenly divided among the games on this one.

RC: pretty straightforward IMO, one weird passage, but far from the hardest RC section i've ever seen.

LR: Very tricky compared to other tests.

I don't have much else to say about the test.

Was LR one of those situations where the right answer hinged on the degree of the conclusion?
If you're talking about the use of quantifiers, I don't remember off the top of my head, but I would bet any amount of money that it came up at least once.

Be careful thinking about the conclusion in terms of "degree." a conclusion is either valid or it is not, there is no in between on the LSAT.

So in your opinion what made LR tricker relative to previous LR sections?

schmelling · Post by **schmelling** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 9:58 pm

Post removed.

The Avatar · Post by **The Avatar** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 12:13 am

I got a lower score on this test than all my PT; it was even closer to my diagnostic. I'm very good at LR and bombed this one. It was hard, mostly the second one in the set.

BillsFan9907 · Post by **BillsFan9907** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 11:57 am

ltowns1 wrote:First let me say I hope all went well for those who took this test. Secondly, I've been looking around other threads concerning this test and there seems to be a lot of frustration. A lot of those students who took the test complained about LR or RC sections.. In light of that context I wan't to ask those LSAT experts what they thought of the exam, especially in the aforementioned sections? Did it seem difficult? I'm really early in my prep so at least looking at this test is ages away for me, but I'm just curious in light of all the frustration that seems to be coming from this test.

Look - I scored very well on this exam, and several months prior to the exam, I was asking the kinds of questions you are asking here. I spent days obsessing over this fabled final game of a very a recent Preptest. In some twisted way, I thought that if only I could know just a little bit about the game without actually doing it as part of a PT, then I could feel some comfort. When I saw the game, I could handle it with confidence as my anxiety would be lower.

I made my fair share of posts on topics such as "how are today's lsats different than older lsats," "are the new RCs really harder?"

Looking back, I realize how off my questions were. I am not denying that some tests may be subjectively more or less difficult than others, but the differences in difficulty boils down to a matter of having an incomplete skill set. If there is anyone here who was consistently acing LRs in dozens of simulated practice tests and bombed the LR section on PT 73 due to a non-health related reason, I would be beyond surprised. I suspect that the overwhelming majority of those who scored below what they were PTing fall into one of two categories:

1) They had a health complication on test day (illness, insomnia, severe test anxiety etc...)

2) Their practice was not nearly as complete as they thought it was. Unless you've taken several dozen practice tests and are scoring within a fixed window, then you really have no idea of how you will do on test day. Doing a timed LR section and acing it every night tells you nothing about how you will do on LR after 4 previous sections early in the morning.

This test heavily relied on having superb process of elimination skills. There were multiple LR questions in which all of the answers except 1 sucked, and that one either 1) sucked just a little bit less or 2) made perfect sense only after you were able to get rid of the wrong answers.

Those who did not develop strong POE skills and were coasting through their PTs understandably did not do as well on this test as hoped.

In short, when someone says that one particular LSAT was difficult, they are really saying that their skill set was insufficiently developed. When a lot of people say that a test was difficult, it's a sign that the skill sets of a ton of people were undeveloped.

If I could offer you any advice, it would be this: develop a bulletproof and expansive skill set now. In this regard, I strongly suggest you get the LSAT Trainer. I would not have gotten my score without it.

ltowns1 · Post by **ltowns1** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 2:55 pm

Seoulless wrote:
ltowns1 wrote:First let me say I hope all went well for those who took this test. Secondly, I've been looking around other threads concerning this test and there seems to be a lot of frustration. A lot of those students who took the test complained about LR or RC sections.. In light of that context I wan't to ask those LSAT experts what they thought of the exam, especially in the aforementioned sections? Did it seem difficult? I'm really early in my prep so at least looking at this test is ages away for me, but I'm just curious in light of all the frustration that seems to be coming from this test.

Look - I scored a 180 on this exam, and several months prior to the exam, I was asking the kinds of questions you are asking here. I spent days obsessing over this fabled final game of a very a recent Preptest. In some twisted way, I thought that if only I could know just a little bit about the game without actually doing it as part of a PT, then I could feel some comfort. When I saw the game, I could handle it with confidence as my anxiety would be lower.

I made my fair share of posts on topics such as "how are today's lsats different than older lsats," "are the new RCs really harder?"

Looking back, I realize how off my questions were. I am not denying that some tests may be subjectively more or less difficult than others, but the differences in difficulty boils down to a matter of having an incomplete skill set. If there is anyone here who was consistently acing LRs in dozens of simulated practice tests and bombed the LR section on PT 73 due to a non-health related reason, I would be beyond surprised. I suspect that the overwhelming majority of those who scored below what they were PTing fall into one of two categories:

1) They had a health complication on test day (illness, insomnia, severe test anxiety etc...)

2) Their practice was not nearly as complete as they thought it was. Unless you've taken several dozen practice tests and are scoring within a fixed window, then you really have no idea of how you will do on test day. Doing a timed LR section and acing it every night tells you nothing about how you will do on LR after 4 previous sections early in the morning.

This test heavily relied on having superb process of elimination skills. There were multiple LR questions in which all of the answers except 1 sucked, and that one either 1) sucked just a little bit less or 2) made perfect sense only after you were able to get rid of the wrong answers.

Those who did not develop strong POE skills and were coasting through their PTs understandably did not do as well on this test as hoped.

In short, when someone says that one particular LSAT was difficult, they are really saying that their skill set was insufficiently developed. When a lot of people say that a test was difficult, it's a sign that the skill sets of a ton of people were undeveloped.

If I could offer you any advice, it would be this: develop a bulletproof and expansive skill set now. In this regard, I strongly suggest you get the LSAT Trainer. I would not have gotten my score without it.

Very insightful, thanks for the advice

The Avatar · Post by **The Avatar** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 11:08 pm

What Seoulless said makes perfect sense because I got only 3 hrs of sleep on the Thursday and pulled an all-nighter on the Friday before my test. Aced the LG, did a little-worse than average on RC and did tremendously worse than average on the LR.