Arguments

Having reviewed yesterday's practice test some thing is becoming clear to me, I missed 5 questions in all 4 sections. Meaning I'm equally proficient at Reading Comprehension, Arguments, and Logic Games. Since Arguments count for half the total possible points this seems to be the place to focus my studies on next.

81 out of 101

I've made it to the 90th percentile, at a scaled score of about 164/180.

UCLA's median score is 168 but with my grades I'll need 169 to get accepted. However, I'm already past Hasting's median score of 163, and 1 point shy of their top 25% score of 165.

T minus 1 month as of today till it's test day for real.

What is filling me with hope right now is two things,

1) It was so hot in my apartment that I actually started to feel nauseous.

2) My meds started waring off half way through the third section.

Things seeming a lot more real now.

"This is to notify you that you have been placed in test center 9624 EL CAMINO REAL HIGH SCHOOL for test date September2009. Log in to your account www.LSAC.org and select LSAT Status>Print Ticket to print your updated admission ticket."

Reading is hard!

It makes my brain hurt.

Although, it's getting easier, albeit slowly. However, I did come across a useful book by Barron's which was helpful though and packed with lots of useful pointers.

Check Point!

Sorry to leave you hanging for so long. Finally starting to feel better.

Today I took another Practice test and really dropped the ball on the reading comprehension part. I don't know why. Maybe it was my cold I'm still getting over or just it being the first time having a photo copy of the passage in front of me to mark up. Either way Logic Games, as I continue to familiarize myself with the format and get a better hold on the tricks within them, are no longer my only priority.

Admittedly I feel a real sense of accomplishment from having come this far. I assume, as long as I continue to focus on where I am weakest, I will eventually start focussing on all 3 sections knowing that they are all equally valid.

Ugh a cold

Have been slown down today by the attack of the COLD VIRUS! What is it they say, "feed a cold, starve a flu?" Still plugging away at prep question though and also found a valuable set of 12 more here:

http://www.atlaslsat.com/logic-games-practice.cfm

Granted they never appeared on any real LSAT but it's something to work with.

Commitment

There is a difference between intent to do something and commitment to do something.

"an engagement or obligation that restricts freedom of action"

Today, I paid the $132 dollars to hold my seat for the LSAT. What was only intent is now commitment. I don't have the money to NOT follow through with something that I've put $132 dollars towards.

Today is the 12th, I'm going to spend the next month and half continuing to familiarize myself with the LSAT. I have no other choice at this point.

Pushing Forward

The long hours at Noah's, waking up at 4 AM, and studying is starting to wear on me. I have to push on though. Everything I've read points the same thing, "the LSAT is crucial and center to acceptance."

I've split my studies between pacing myself better and making better use of the techniques available to me to solve the logic games.

If nothing else, I've learned this: Lots of sleep, my meds, some caffeine, and calm clear thinking equal one thing, better performance. My meds and sleep are especially important because without them I'm prone to make mistakes on the logic games. One mistake interrupting a game and the next 7 are in jeopardy as well as the rest of the section because of the wasted time.

6/7 on a logic game in just under 5 minutes!

Took the LSAT again today at Boarders, this time scoring in the 80th percentile! I managed to get to every question in time save 2 of the logical reasonings puzzles. The last section of the Logic Reasoning, I did in 5 minutes scoring 6 points out of 7 possible! Not that they were easy questions but I was making choices on a much faster and more intuitive basis knowing that I was coming down to the wire. I did not even bother to make a diagram or to rewrite the rules in my own words. I just made a mad charge at the problems knocking out answers that I knew were wrong. This worked well, so well that next time I'm working on the logic games I'm gonna try to jump into them tackling the "which of these could be" questions first since they are usually taken down by rules violations anyways.

Have a good night!

On the 5th day

God invented Adderall.

I retook a portion of the prep test I took on the third and actually did worse! The big difference was that today I forgot to take my meds. Anyhow, I'm not going to take any this late in the day so I'm gonna just play computer games till it's time for bed.

Good night.

First Prep Test Done

I scored in the 70th percentile. I'm confident I can do better though since I ran out of time on the logic game section and started filling in the wrong bubbles on the reading comp. one.

That's it for this post though, I'm tired and need to go to sleep.

3 Prep Test by TEST DAY

The book I have has three prep tests in it. I got enough time to do one every Monday after work and get them all done by the day of the test. Despite all my preparing I have not sat down and done a full 225 minute practice LSAT yet, only bits and pieces.

Today I got off work at 6 PM, so I made only a quick stop at boarders before making the trip home. I came across another Kaplan publication, Logic Games ADVANCED. Intrigued I sat down the coffee shop at Boarders a flipped to the logic game section and gave the first set of 7 a try. I breezed through them, although still a little too slow. Pleased I turned the page to check my score: 2/7!

"What? Huh? What happened?"

I miss-notated a rule as IO instead of OI. As you can imagine I was frustrated and left shortly after. What a stupid way to miss 5 out of 7 questions! This is not the first time either, for another Logic Game I wrote a J as a 'j' instead of a 'J'. This one mistake also meant that I missed 4 out of the 5 questions on that whole section! Missing 4 questions can be the difference between scoring in the 62nd percentile and the 50th percentile. I just need to make extra sure on test day that I'm not screwing up that badly.

I shouldn't be so hard on myself. I was writing my notes on the back of receipt paper I got from the coffee shop. With so little space mistakes were bound to happen.

Day off

I can't not begin to describe how thankful I was to discover that I had today off from work. Having missed lots of sleep this past week I slept for a full 12 hours, leaving me feeling very much refreshed. Today though I'm taking a breather, no work and no studying. I'll pick up again with the frantic pace of study and work tomorrow.