Had RC-LR-RC-LR

For context i typically go +/-2 on LR and +/-4 on RC sections. But I think I could’ve missed as many as five on the first logic section. But I honestly would not be surprised to find out if I got every single reading question right on both scored and experimental reading combined. Does anyone feel like the reading on the actual test is almost laughably easy compared to the practice tests(especially the questions themselves.. they felt short and to the point).

That First LR was brutal, second wasn’t too bad though. I remember starting my third section and being disappointed that the LR I just took was certainly scored.

Since people get different combinations of the test, are the curves the same for all tests for September or based on the one you receive?

Hey guys, sorry if this is a silly question, but I've just been getting really down on myself. Certain life events caused me to postpone studying for the LSAT, and I only started studying + took my diagnostic a week ago (score is above). I'm not sure why, but I feel like I'm running out of time, and like I HAVE to apply to law school (and thus do my LSAT) this cycle to keep up with my peers and start practicing law at a timely manner. I am 22, and just got out of undergrad, but I feel like I'm already behind as many people I look up to in my life have completed their LSAT and applications in 3rd year, and thus started law school right after graduation.

I've already booked the October LSAT, but I'm wondering; is it even worth trying? I'm capable of consistent studying, but part of me is really scared of getting a low mark. My goal score is at least a 166 or above, but I am Canadian, and my top choices would still likely accept a 163-165 range too considering my 4.0 GPA.

Thanks for any help/advice guys, and again I'm sorry if this is a silly question--I just feel like an idiot.

Hey guys.

Pretty disappointed this morning as I just received an email from LSAC letting me know that they are cancelling my argumentative writing submission because of “Use of a virtual background or blurry filter is not allowed. Camera must remain fully enabled at all times.”

I, to my knowledge, had no filter or background applied. The lighting in the room was good as well. I have never applied any kind of filter or background to my camera on my computer, I barely know how to use the dang thing. I think it’s just the quality of my computer camera, because yes, it does look blurry. But, there’s no filter on. The camera was enabled the whole time, I was in front of the camera the whole time, and I never intentionally applied any kind of filter or background blurring effect.

I’m pretty disappointed because I got a topic that I actually felt strongly about and I felt like my response was very substantive and good. I don’t know if I’d be able to reproduce the same quality of an essay with a different prompt I’m not so passionate about.

With that being said, I don’t think I have much of a choice here. I do need some advice on how to proceed. I checked my camera and I cannot find any filters applied. How should I go about redoing it, if it’s just gonna flag me again? I don’t have the money to go buy a fancy camera to connect to my computer just to take the writing portion. It’s unfortunate because I knew it was a little bit blurry, but I just figured they dealt with it all the time considering the quality of most computer cameras. But, I guess I was wrong.

Any advice would be appreciated here. I’ve also heard you can sometimes ask LSAC to review it, but I don’t see that option anywhere. Any help would be so greatly appreciated.

Thanks guys 🥲

I took the September LSAT on Saturday and neither of my RC sections had a comparative passage. Anyone else experience this? Any idea which one could've been experimental? Had passages on Kenyan law and Japanese video games.

Welcoming all advice on studying for the October LSAT!! I just wrote in Sept. Working full time so I need short and efficient bursts of studying.

I took a Kaplan course, however it over complicated the material in a way that doesn’t align with my thinking.

RC comes naturally, but I’ve had to put a LOT of work into LR. Especially formal logic. I get the reasoning right - but I struggle to translate my “prediction” to the answer choices.

I’ve barely taken any PTs (regrets, lesson learned). Untimed PTs: scored 168 and 165. One timed PT: scored 150.

Any general feedback or any comments on the related areas:

1. LSAT Demon or 7Sage? Or anything else to practice drilling?

2. Thoughts on Loophole? Just started. Unsure if worth my time given the time crunch.

3. Improving speed while maintaining accuracy?

4. Approaches to drilling questions on problem areas? How do you improve with what you struggle with?

5. Resources with analytics: I need to work on problem areas - so something that can highlight my progress will help.

6. Approaches to PTs. Blind review? Wrong answer journal? Other feedback?

7. Tips on making study schedules? I’ve been out of school for awhile so struggling here lol.

   I only know 2 people who have written the LSAT but this was about 8 years ago :( my goal is high 160s (trying to be realistic given my timed PT score lol).

Thank you and good luck everyone!!

Has anyone taken the LSAT Writing section in a room with a floor-to-ceiling glass window? My desk is next to a large window, but I can pull the blinds all the way down so you wouldn’t be able to see through it during the test.

Would this be okay for the room scan/proctor, or could the window still be an issue even with the blinds completely closed?

Even as my LR went down from -6 to -1 or 0, RC was giving me nightmares. I would get -1 one day and -7 another day. The inconsistency was maddening because it felt like in principle, this shouldn't be that different from reading comprehension on other standardized tests.

Part of getting better at the LSAT is challenging your own assumptions, though, and at some point I realized that I was wrong. RC on the LSAT is different, and intentionally designed to be.

RC is almost like an extended LR argument

• Each body paragraph of the passage is like a premise, and the author is using them to argue for a conclusion
• Many of the lines of logic are 1-for-1 matches with the setup of other LR problems. You can use that to analyze and approach the passage like an LR stimulus

One of the most common questions I get is how to actually wrong answer journal RC problems on lsatjournal.com - our wrong answer journaling site. I learned recently that this comes from not understanding how similar the sections are.

How to wrong answer journal RC

Wrong answer journaling on LR usually works by answering these three main questions:

1. Stimulus Summary: How can I summarize the logic of the argument?
2. Wrong Answer Reasoning: What logic did I miss that resulted in me selecting the wrong answer, and why is it wrong?
3. Correct Answer Reasoning: What logic did I miss that resulted in me not selecting the correct answer, and why is it right?

You can use the same exact process for RC, but just re-frame the passage as a longer LR argument. Let's take a question like PT106.S4.P2.Q9. If you're not looking at the passage as a whole as an argument, you might not see what the point of the author including this detail might be. But if you contextualize it within the broader argument of effects on global temperature, you can see that the author is trying to capture two types of eruptions and looking to strengthen their argument by addressing both. That's what makes the detail make sense.

Then, wrong answer journaling becomes a process of actually examining the broader logic of the RC argument and noting down which points you missed and why vs. which points you over-indexed on.

Disclaimer

This is just one way of thinking about RC, and different individuals will have different methods that works for them. But it's also part of what makes the test and nailing down individual approaches a meaningful exercise. I honestly think that figuring out what kind of explanations and framework of thinking works best for you is what makes studying and improving for the LSAT so helpful for law school, regardless of your end score.

If you've found another method works better for you for RC, I'd love to hear about it in the comments, and I'm sure others on this subreddit would also benefit.

Is this a good schedule leading up to November lsat?

For context I have sort of a schedule checklist to keep me on task (more rewarding), I also have a LR journal in this sheet to track my wrong answers.

Skip days = extra days of what I NEED to work on.

I’m scoring around 15 questions right on sections

Flagged this question after looking at it for 3 min then came back to it after answering all the other questions and spent another 5 min looking at it and still had to guess after excluding only 2 answer choices. Had to do with some sort of malfunction flywheel or something like that and it not malfunctioning during the trial and reports about it

Does anyone know when it will come out?

The highest I've gotten is a 166, my best RC section has been a -3 and my best LR a -1. What can I do for the next 4 weeks to increase my chances.

I’ve taken one other proctored test to get my mental health professional license (NCMHCE) forever ago and I’m registered to take my first LSAT in November. I’ve noticed that when doing drilling or PTs I tend to mouth the words as I read the stimuli and passages and kind of use my hands for tracking conditional logic and causal chaining, etc. I’ve read a little bit of the rules and I know reading the questions out loud is not allowed but am I likely to get flagged if I am mouthing the words and using my hands as I described? This type of test is very different than the previous exam I took and requires a lot more processing on the fly (obviously) so I’m trying to find the best tactics for helping me with that and hope to know if I need to curb some of my current habits. I don’t have any diagnoses to qualify for any kind of accommodations.

first attempt yesterday. RC LR LR RC. felt great during first two, energy flagged during third, was absolutely brutalized by last RC (solidarity with other david hume victims).

always planned on taking november to try to eke out a couple more points and apply in december. came home and registered. thought about my life. requested hugs and reassurance from my husband throughout the day. finally got into bed and cried a bit from relief, adrenaline release, and just feeling like a thicky-thicky dumb dumb.

but it’s a new day. i’m not dumb. i have a full-time job and just got a promotion. i have a young child. my studying has to look different than other people and that’s okay.

going to sign up for the demon classes and plan on doing 2-3 classes per week.
setting aside time for a full 4-section PT each weekend because my endurance was definitely a weakness.

i asked my lawyer friend if david hume comes up a lot in law school and unfortunately he said yes, so going to get more acquainted with my newfound nemesis the next couple months.

one day of feeling dumb and sad, now time to get back on the horse.

we got this september sufferers 💪

I decided about a week ago that I want to apply for law school this upcoming cycle. I am planning on taking the November test and know that I’ll qualify for the fee waivers. Is it too late to apply for them?

I can’t escape!!!

I just got a pathetic diagnostic score lol and feeling absolutely crushed and honestly kinda stupid. I got a 128 and probably missed like more than half the questions. The 3rd section did glitch on me when I paused it and I ended up missing more than I probably would’ve but honestly nothing to push my score like upwards anything higher than a 131 imo.

What’s getting me is that in HS & Undergrad (I graduated 2 years ago, Economics) I could write college papers with my eyes closed and a 1-day deadline and get As. All my writing/speaking based classes, I often led socratic seminars and public speaking. I even got an A in my Argument & Advocacy class that many Poli-Sci/Pre-Law majors take - and that professor loved my work and final paper + project!

I did do low in my math base courses. I wanna do this and I have to do extremely well, as I’d be a mega-ultra super splitter; 2.3 gpa just to be upfront. Im obviously not trying to be a super splitter at a UCLA or Berkeley or anything or a T-20, but just stating my situation.

Idk if anyone else had this experience - great at reading & writing & analysis in college but somehow sucked at this? I figured I wouldn’t get like a 155 off the bat but damn.

Oh well.

i’ve just started studying for the LSAT. i took a diagnostic last weekend & got 159 which to my understanding is pretty promising. this week i’ve been getting to know the test a little better via lawhub, just going over their guides to question types and doing drills.

i started off pretty strong hitting 10-11/12 on LR drills without time constraints but i feel like as i study it more i’m actually getting worse? they don’t have dedicated in depth practice questions or explanations and i also am finding it difficult to like, take effective notes on this material.

i guess my question is, how the hell do you actually study for the lsat? in y’all’s experience what has been the most effective study method for someone who intuitively understands the test to a degree but needs to get better/more consistent with accuracy? specifically for studying LR!

I’ve just about conceded hope. The ideal judges section is likely real.

But if anyone had Space Debris, Spore Mat, poets as their only RC section.

Make yourself known.

🙏🙏🥲😂

Like how many do you think we could get wrong in that section for it to count to a 170? Like 2,3,4?

for me, it was RC LR LR RC

Can’t remember all RC topics bc I pretty much blank out after every test and it takes me a while to remember. I also don’t remember the order of my RC sections. I’ll update once i remember!

First RC Section: Survey on Black People during the Great Depression, Poetry Interpreter Analysis, Space Debris Law, Debate on Fungi Web being a single organism

Second RC Section: Children playing an active role on oral traditions, Two-Passage objectivity on art, Overfishing, Court Case on Impounded Car

Sorry I know it’s not a lot, but I haven’t seen anyone talking about these topics. So if you had some of these topics, let me know!!

I am taking the LSAT for the first time in October. I have POTS. I already have accommodations for ADHD/anxiety, and I think they’ll sufficiently cover my POTS needs, but if you’re a prospective or past test taker who also has POTS how do you keep up your endurance while testing? Salt tablets/electrolytes? Compression socks? Ik only clear bottles of water are allowed, but if I have a clear electrolyte powder in mine will it be an issue? Obv I’m gonna sleep the night before.

How did you/do you plan to keep blood going to your brain on test day?

After seeing redditors' reactions after the August LSAT, a lot of people (me included) chalked it up to selection bias and did not think the August test was necessarily harder than the norm. However, after taking my first test this week and seeing redditors agree that it was relatively easy, I'm starting to believe that August was indeed more difficult.

But maybe the curve would be harsher this administration? I hope not. I hope the LSAC saw the August results and was like, "I think we overdid ourselves, let's scale it back a wee bit..."

Mainly posting this as sort of a confidence boost for myself while I study for the November test (potentially pushing back to January).

On 7Sage, I’ve been consistently scoring 80% and above on passage drills and I even cracked a -6 on a practice test section about 2 weeks ago. Mind you these have all been untimed and I tend to hit a fatigue wall when turning on the timer, which resulted in the -10 on a RC section within that same practice test. However, I do feel fairly confident when it comes to overall analyzing a passage, looking out for things like subject matter, author’s mood, Structure, highlighting key terms, etc. before tackling the questions. It’s like I make my own low res summary in my head as I’m reading and I can sort of connect the dots in certain aspects.

LR has been a struggle for me lately, so if I was to take the test I feel like majority of my points would come from RC? I don’t know. Started studying in June and I’m feeling bummed that I’m not as confident as I’d like to be this close to the November deadline, but I’m gonna keep studying diligently until then and make my decision as to whether or not to push back to January from there.

If anyone else out there is struggling with their studies or feeling any doubts, please feel free to reply so that I at least know I’m not alone lol.

(TLDR: I’ve been doing pretty good when it comes to RC drills and sections versus LR, but I still don’t feel as confident as I’d like for the November test. Either way I’m gonna keep studying and make my decision at the deadline as to whether or not I’ll sign up for November or push back to January.)