3-6 Months to 170+ Forum

[jdealla]

Hi all. Thanks for all of your collective help in all of the threads. I don't have much to contribute right now, but I'm going to use this thread as a way to log my activity and progress in my LSAT prep both for my own good and for any good that others may get out of it. However, feel free to offer any advice or words of encouragement (I know I could use extra motivation from time to time). Here's a little about me, my intentions, and my goals.

Academic Background:
UNC-Chapel Hill
History and International Studies major
Spanish minor
3.37 GPA (heavy upward trend)

W/E:
Peace Corps
Teaching English Abroad
2 years in international logistics
2+ HS Teacher (current pos.)

Schools and Goals
I'll go to law school only If I get a substantial scholarship (75%+ of total COA - housing) or if total debt would be around less than $20K (not a hard limit).
My career goals are in PI, or rather, something other than corporate law. My career location preferences are NC/VA/DC for the moment.
I'm shooting for UNC-CH (NC resident) for a lot of reasons, but I'll follow the money more than likely.

Stats:
LSDAS GPA: 3.34
5/24 LSAT Timed Diagnostic 1: 154 on Preptest 62 (RC: -7 (guessed on 5 bc of time and got them all wrong); LR1: -10 (guessed on 2 bc of time); LG: -15 (guessed on 10 bc of time); LR2: -8)
5/27 LSAT Timed PT 1: 162 (RC -4; LG -8; LR1 -8; LR2 -6)

Resources:
All released Preptests
LSAT Trainer
Powerscore Bibles (LR, LG, RC)
Manhattan (LR, LG, RC)
LSAC SuperPrep I
7Sage videos (for reviewing LG)

Prep thus far
-Started prep May 24
-Chapter 22 of LSAT Trainer (I haven't done all the drills)
-Chapter 6 of LG Bible (I haven't done all the drills)
-Drilling LG by type on PT 30-39 (along with 62, 52, and 1). So far I've done sets in Basic Linear, Advanced Linear, and Grouping. Logic Games Results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... oQ/pubhtml
-LR Questions Missed Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 8o/pubhtml
-5/31 Did untimed LR1 on PT 52 and got -6 (finished in 40 min)
-6/1 Did untimed LR2 on PT 52 and got -4 (finished in 44 min)

Reflection
-I've done better on the Linear games than I did on the Grouping games I did today (although I did get -0 on one game, but I got a -7 (out of 7) on another). I'm seeing why answer choices on LR are wrong now and why most are right, but I can't process the questions and answers quickly. When I rush I make mistakes. I'm planning on drilling LR by question type to see if that helps.
-I've been putting in 5+ hours per day since I'm off work for the summer.
-I need to review conditional reasoning and the inferences/connections that can be made. That may be a problem for my slowness, and even though the books (Trainer/Powerscore) have sections explaining those, I feel like I need drills just on cond. reasoning and the common inferences.

[usaorbust]

Looking Forward to seeing the progress!

[somethingElse]

Can you rename this to something like "3-6 Months to a Score Adequate for a 75% or Greater Scholly to UNC-CH" please??

[lymenheimer]

Schools and Goals
I'll go to law school only If I get a substantial scholarship (75%+ of total COA - housing) or if total debt would be around less than $20K (not a hard limit).

Solid goal. Also not very realistic if you're taking out loans for COL+remaining tuition. (estimated COL is ~$23k/year)

I'm shooting for UNC-CH (NC resident) for a lot of reasons, but I'll follow the money more than likely.

You should take a closer look at the 509 disclosures. The 75th percentile scholarship from UNC is 14k/year which is only 60% of tuition cost. The best way for you to even get this scholarship is to hit 170+ on the LSAT (unless you are URM, in which case you might be able to hit a lower number and still get it). Source: I have a similar gpa and ~170 LSAT and I was offered $15k/year.

If you have money in the bank or other resources to cover other costs, then it becomes a matter of whether or not you want to deplete your resources and then whether or not UNC will allow you to reach your goals, because if you get into the 170 range you can potentially get into Duke.

[jdealla]

You should take a closer look at the 509 disclosures. The 75th percentile scholarship from UNC is 14k/year which is only 60% of tuition cost. The best way for you to even get this scholarship is to hit 170+ on the LSAT (unless you are URM, in which case you might be able to hit a lower number and still get it). Source: I have a similar gpa and ~170 LSAT and I was offered $15k/year.

Thanks lymenheimer.

You're right; the amount I listed for total debt is probably too low to be realistic. I am married though, and my wife would continue working (assuming she found a job in the Triangle), so the loans I'd be taking out would just defray what was left of tuition (assuming I got any scholarship at all).

If you have money in the bank or other resources to cover other costs, then it becomes a matter of whether or not you want to deplete your resources and then whether or not UNC will allow you to reach your goals, because if you get into the 170 range you can potentially get into Duke.

I wish! We've lived with family for a few years and we have managed to save, but not nearly enough to finance law school. I'm definitely shooting for as high as I can get on the LSAT, and what I mean to say before is that I'll follow the money to wherever it will take me. If I'm not PTing at 165 or above before September, I'm going to consider taking the December test. Also, If I score below 165 in Sept., I'll retake in Dec.

And I'd love to get into a T14 like Duke, and between now and Sept./Dec. I'll be dedicating a good portion of my time/life to scoring high on the LSAT, but even if I did get accepted to Duke or another T14, I think the debt would have to be manageable still, because I really don't think I want to go into non-PI work, and substantial debt would likely force me into it.

[somethingElse]

Close enough. Thanks bro!!





GO GET EM!!

[jdealla]

LG Drilling
Per everyone's suggestions, I'm reattempting all of the LG that I don't get a -0 on the first attempt. Today was a significant improvement over yesterday's round of grouping LG, although I watched all of the 7Sage explanations of them yesterday (except for one) which helped me with my initial setup. (See spreadsheet: set included the book shelves game (PT37 S3 G3), apparently one of the harder LGs according to PS)

One thing that I've altered is the amount of time that I spend trying to make initial inferences before reading the questions. I'm not going to try to make an exhaustive list of inferences during the diagramming phase anymore. Instead, I've noticed that after I think about the possible inferences for a few moments and get the obvious ones down (perhaps all of them will become more obvious over time) and then move on to the questions, I make a connection or two while looking at each question. That may risk missing a question or spending too much time on it, but for now, it's helping me see the game as a whole more easily than thinking about it from the start.

I'm going to redo some of the linear games today that I attempted last week.

Reading
I'm rolling through the PS LG Bible (on chapter 9 now, without drills, some of which I plan on returning to after I get the bigger picture down). It's been helpful for minor points and for helping me think about the inferences and how to make connections with rules, so hopefully when I go back and do the drills I'll see even more value out of it.

No progress on LSAT Trainer. I'm thinking about skipping the RC section of it for now.

[westtech]

I'm looking forward to seeing your progress over time. A few years ago I started with a very similar diagnostic, a 153 if I remember correctly and my LSAC GPA is 3.33

[jdealla]

I'm looking forward to seeing your progress over time. A few years ago I started with a very similar diagnostic, a 153 if I remember correctly and my LSAC GPA is 3.33

Thanks for the encouragement. Did you sit for an official test? If so how'd you do? If not, how's your progress going?

Logic Games Drills
I attempted 5 new LGs today from the basic linear group. I did significantly better although a few took me way too long, and a few I got -0 or -1 around 9 min, although 7sage has the time for those games at 6ish. However I'm diagramming and not missing rules and even making some good inferences. I figure the timing aspect will come later as I fine tune how to attack question types.

Reading
LSAT Trainer chapter 30. I'm finding that this book really isn't giving me much at the moment, as it seems more general than what I need. I'm going to continue reading it until the end, and I'll likely go back to the RC section I skipped when I start figuring out an attack to that section and drilling.

Logical Reasoning
I'm planning on starting my lessons on LG question types and then drilling 30 or so questions. I'm going to start with PS LR Bible for this first round. Later on I'll do the same with Manhattan LR book.

I'm using PT 30-39 for the LR drills, but since the Cambridge packets disappeared Im having to screenshot individual questions and then organize them into a folder. You can then print four per page via preview on a Mac and you get a nice LR drilling packet but setting it up takes too much time. This has been annoying.

General Thoughts
I just finished a book called Peak by Anders Ericsson which is about deliberate practice and elite performers. The gist is that mostly anyone can get really good at things if they practice right. There's an episode of Freakonomics radio that talks about it. Practice and drilling weaknesses leads to increased mental representation and then pattern recognition. Innate ability is not the determining factor for elite performers. There is hope it seems. I'll post a link to the episode and book later.

[Edits for spelling mistakes. I still can't type on a phone I got in April.]

[westtech]

I'm looking forward to seeing your progress over time. A few years ago I started with a very similar diagnostic, a 153 if I remember correctly and my LSAC GPA is 3.33

Thanks for the encouragement. Did you sit for an official test? If so how'd you do? If not, how'should your progress going?

I sat for October 2012 test and I got a 157. At the time I had significant issues with LR and LG.
I took PT 62 about a week ago and got a 157. Then about a week later I did a blind review of the test and ended up with a 172.
I have very significant timing issues and I genuinely suck at logic games.

I'm going through the LSAT trainer now until probably the last week of June where I'll start drilling logic games and LR weaknesses. I also dump explanations to LR questions that I write on this website http://www.lranswers.com

If you haven't already come join us in the Official September study thread.

[jdealla]

LG Drills
Just did 5 more grouping games. There's some improvement but the games heavily dependent on conditional logic still give me some trouble (-3 on PT34 Section. 4 Game 4 which has a contradictory rule). I'm going to do some conditional logic review and then drilling some more grouping games.

[jdealla]

LG Drilling
Ok so LG 3 in PT36 was ridiculously hard but I only missed one and it ONLY took me 14 minutes (7sage says 15 is the allotted time). I did well on the Advanced Linear games I did today, but it seems that they are my strongest games. I noticed that I'm not very strong on Grouping games, so I'm going to drill them and go back and revisit the Trainer chapters and PS LG Bible chapters.

LR Drilling
I'm to chapter 6 on PS LR Bible, and I drilled about 15 MBT questions (going to be drilling more of those and some other questions that PS lumps together in the family), and I need a little work here, too, but the initial results are encouraging. So far it's the little words (any, some, most, many) that are tripping me up, or a lack of reading the answer choices with fidelity (prephrasing seems to be hard for MBT type questions, much more so than flaw questions)

Also, b/c the Cambridge packets are unavailable, yesterday I decided to make a very basic web app using AngularJS for the LR review. It's pretty cool and I'd love to share it, but since I can't share the questions I can't put up the files. All one needs to work it (assuming some JavaScript knowledge) is screenshots of the LR sections of the preptests, with the files in the following format PT#_SECTION#_QUESTION#.png (for example, the image file for question 4 on section 3 of PT 38 would have to be named "38_3_4.png"). The back end with the answer and category info is just an array, and I used the spreadsheet from LSATBlog with all of the LR review questions categorized as the input data. I don't really want to spend time explaining how it works, but if anyone wants JavaScript files (remember, you'll need to provide the test questions and name them correctly) PM me. I'd share a screenshot of how it looks, but I can't seem to put in image in this post. Go figure.

Off to study.

[joeytribbiani]

So far it's the little words (any, some, most, many) that are tripping me up,

http://www.thelsattrainer.com/assets/31 ... hapter.pdf

You may have already read this, but it's a great reference for all LSAT terminology with a specific section for the quantifiers you mention.

[Barack O'Drama]

Not sure if you are, but try following The LSAT Trainer study schedule and doing the corresponding drill work. I read through it very quickly back in June and then restarted it following the schedule, reading earnestly, and doing all the drills. I noticed really great improvement.

I am also doing what you are doing. I am using the Powerscore Bibles, then doing a round of drilling. (Although I glossed through the RC Bible I sort of found it useless) Then reading Manhattan LSAT books while doing another round. I really think you get some good info from both.

My biggest piece of advice is to make sure you are doing mixed review in regards to LR. I found myself doing well on the Cambridge Packets drill by types, and then not doing as well on actual LR sections.

7Sage is really awesome too.

You seem to be doing really well and I have faith you can reach that 170.

Also, are you taking in September or December?

[jdealla]

It's been a while since I've logged on and posted, but I've been faithful to studying (although with break periods) throughout the summer. As I might have mentioned before, we've been out of the country visiting family since mid June. I've mostly been drilling LG by type and reading PS LR Bible and Manhattan LR Prep, along with drilling by type.

Also, are you taking in September or December?

I'm taking in September, although when I get back to the US next week I'm going to take a few practice tests to see where I am. If I am going to law school, then this is the application cycle for me. If I don't do well in Sept., I'll take December. But I hope that's not the case.

My biggest piece of advice is to make sure you are doing mixed review in regards to LR.

Thanks for this. I haven't done a PT in about a month (I've been drilling) so I think I'll start throwing in a section of LR between my drilling. I have noticed that I am getting more right in drilling than I did in my initial PTs, but I attributed that to studying and concentrating rather than the mixed nature of the real sections.

Not sure if you are, but try following The LSAT Trainer study schedule and doing the corresponding drill work. I read through it very quickly back in June and then restarted it following the schedule, reading earnestly, and doing all the drills. I noticed really great improvement.

I will try this out when I get back, as I read through the trainer quickly, too, and then moved on to drilling based on other packets.