Last-Minute Tips for Logical Reasoning (Advanced) with Rob

All right, nice to see a few of you. We will be starting in two minutes, he hasn't in the drill, but if there's something you want to know right now, before we start, you want to ask a question, feel free to do so.

No, nobody wants to know anything that's cool, but know, be prepared with some questions. This is obviously like a very it's going to be pretty open one.

I see. Okay. I'm seeing those. There's a few more participants. This is, you know, the last minute, uh, last minute tips, the logical thing.

It's also a lot of Q and A. So, but I'll cover that when I turn the screen on. But I think we're ready.

We got people. We're ready to start. My name is Rob. I'm an instructor at LSAT Max. You guys are viewing.

first as part of a live class and today we're doing last minute tips for logical reasoning. So here's how this is going to go down.

Those of you who have maybe seen one of these last minute tips before know that I'm going to be up here.

I'm going to write down a few things. I'm going to probably try to solicit from the crowd as much intel as you guys can provide, but this is a fairly conversational live class.

Most of the time, we don't really dig into problems at the granular level, but we want to have some big picture strategies.

I think that that's really helpful for you. Those of you who are taking the test this week in a couple of days, I am here for this hour to help you as most as I can.

So if you have questions about, you guys, I'm going be honest with you, you got questions about reading comments.

Feel free to ask those too. Don't interrupt. Ask your reading. Test that. That'll make me look bad. I'm asking that but throw that in the chat so questions comments anything throw it all in the chat and I would You know love to answer as much large text questions Know what that means, but yeah, you got a you got a really long question Just you know use that like hand-raising mechanism on zoom and then I'll just say like hand you know unless it's a Unless there's like multiple of you raised me which is like never happened Uh, not often so let me show my screen.

We're gonna talk about a couple last minute tips Make this real simple A lot of yeah, yeah You know if you do ask questions, you know make it easy for me to understand what your question is sometimes Sometimes when you're asking a question, it's like you genuinely you know the whole point of it is that you

Don't really know what you don't have a good enough feel for it. So like you don't even know how to articulate the question correctly And that's that's totally forgivable.

It's like very reasonable other times like please try Not to make me solve a mystery novel when I'm reading your content in chat.

It's just Tired, I'm like just free wheeling off of something that doesn't make any sense. So questions are coming in Already first one.

Would you recommend taking practice tests every day into your test if it was coming up? No, I would not So here's Here's my thought on this Generally, I am not a fan of lots of practice tests I think it's and my reasoning is this a practice test is designed for two things It checks your progress and it solidifies your pacing strategy

Like, that's it, right? So in the early stages of your studying, you don't need to solidify a pacing strategy because you're, you know, you're going improve your comprehension so much over a couple months that it's like, you know what I mean?

Like, in your first week of studying, you don't be like, okay, how do I get this under 35 minutes?

No. You wait until like you're at a point where you're like, you know, kind of tapped out and then you focus on pacing a little bit more.

So, when you're coming up to the test, obviously there is more of a need to have your pacing strategy down pat so practice tests become a little bit more relevant.

That being said, the other purpose of a practice test is to check your progress. That to me, like, I think people really misunderstand what studying is.

Because taking a practice test is not studying, it's not, tracking your progress is not progressing. When you people take practice tests, what usually happens is that you are so with at the end of your session that you will not be able to like actually do any kind of like blind review or to sit down and really understand why you've got things wrong.

Like you're tired and you should be like because you should be using you know maximum energy for that period of time.

Like if you're if you finish a practice test and you still have a lot of gaps to do you know 45 more minutes of studying after that you're you're not studying at a high enough intensity.

Like you're you have no focus not no focus but your focus is lacking. Like you should be absolutely whipped after two and a half hours of practice test.

So a lot of time people spend so much time practicing progress instead of using that time to actually progress.

You know you want in the days leading up to your exam you want to be dialing in your pacing strategy and you want to be giving yourself an opportunity.

to learn from your mistakes with a practice test is very hard because you have to take it one day and then you really can't even deal with it until the next day yada yada yada so the point is that no I do not recommend taking practice tests every day because you won't actually be getting better at something you're just going to turn into a habit like whatever you're doing right then like you're just going to continue to fossilize your habits and if you have good habits great but if you have good habits like why do you you know you know you know best-case scenarios you you know like it's just usually what happens is people are fossilizing bad habits and then slowly you'll start to see your scores kind of tuck down little bit and then you're going to panic and then you're going to be like oh my god what do I do with myself and then that's the situation I can't really recommend.

Here's what I think you should be doing because it's so important to know where you're pacing is. I recommend you know

not practice test every day, but like you, if you really had to, you could do a practice test every other day leading up to the test, it'd probably be okay.

But that's like the maximum. You can do time sections. I think time sections are going to be a lot more helpful to you because you still get to practice your pacing.

You still get to like live in that real time experience. But then because you only did 35 minutes time, you're still going to have a lot of energy to learn from what you just did.

So I'm more a fan of time sections as opposed to time practice test generally and even before the test as well.

Next question. No, I'm not in the last, I'm back in the last school now. Although, yeah, moving on. Thank you for asking though.

Okay, another one. Okay, so we have somebody checking in saying that the past two practice tests that this person's taken.

again, they're getting the last three problems run on both, is there a way that you can recommend to avoid the stamina issue?

I don't know that it's not really a stamina issue. The last three problems are, you know, some of the hardest three problems on the exam.

If you told me, if you're like, Rob, scoring at 170, but I consistently missed the last three problems. Okay, well, we'll troubleshoot that.

I don't think that's what's happening. What's happening is like, you're missing problems that are like, you're not really supposed to get the right, unless you're scoring, you know, probably like above a one, above a 164 maybe.

So I wouldn't worry about that. It's not a stamina thing. And for those of you who are worried about stamina, stamina.

Stamina, so it's like this thing that we talk about all the time, it's very, very overrated in terms of LSAT studying.

Like, you're going to feel worse at the end of the test than you did at the beginning. Welcome to, you know, any activity that has any degree of exertion.

If you feel the way that you did at the end, same that you did at the beginning, either you're so smooth that you got a 180, which like honestly, that's not even, that's just not even true.

Like tutors, you know, from our perspective, you know, there's a limit on how many hours a tutor can do in a day because, you know, at a certain point, your brain starts to fry a little bit and you're not as sharp as you would be.

It doesn't really matter if we're doing the same problems I've been doing for two years, or, you know, like the three years I've been an all set tutor.

But I think stamina is really overrated. I think instead that you should shoot for a high level of comprehension, so that when you get to the end of the test and you're not, you know, doing very well, you're still, you're not going to maybe hit your best, but you're going to hit like something that's like pretty good.

And you got to be okay with that. It's really, really reasonable, you know, like for me, it's like, well, shoot, you know, like I can run a mile in five minutes, but, you know, at the end of my marathon, like, I can only run it in, you know, seven, thirty, and it's like, well, you know, of course, you have no business around five minute mile at the end of a marathon.

Like, it's okay. It's okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Some other thoughts. And I will write a few things down, I really, well, you guys are throwing some cues into the mix.

So some people say to skip the last questions after doing the first 10 or skip to the last. So you do the, this is for L.R.

You do the first 10 and you skip to the end and then you work backwards. That is a test-taking strategy that a lot of people have.

Yeah. Here's, you know, let's see, this is one, I almost wrote zero. It's like there's no problem zero and lr 25 it's all downhill Here's the level of difficulty Like that's that's what lr is so You know, I think that this section is really nasty I this is not an exact science because it's gonna be very test to test but generally That's That's the nastiest section maybe it's 18 to 22 maybe Maybe it has been to be like, you know, 16 to 21 on this test, but Point is the nasty stuff in lr is is gonna be contained.

I'll probably like I might say like yeah 17 through 22 or 23 Um, so the reason some people will tell you they'll say like hey, you know do this

up to like 15 and then go this way and then work backwards. That's a totally valuable strategy. mean, know, go for it.

One thing that's really important that I want to stress for the last minute tips is that you don't want to try something completely new.

Like this week, you can't reinvent the wheel a week before the exam. The goal is not like if you've been scoring a 150 on practice tests and you're like, well, I'm gonna go for broke because I want that 160.

There's no way. Like that's test is designed so that that does not happen. know, you like the cold hard truth to the outside is like you can only do worse than your best.

You can't really do better than your best. So, you know, it's possible for somebody scores 160 all the time to roll into the test and get one.

50. There are reasons that it happens. We can talk about those, but I've never seen somebody who is hitting the 150s that is like, oh my god, I got a 160.

I just blew the doors up. It does not happen. So when you are like, so your goal going into the exam is not try to like grab a point to like, highly, highly unrealistic for you to capture at this stage.

The goal is to say, okay, how do I end up at like the high end of what I'm capable of doing?

Like, you have a range. You know, maybe you're like a 153 to a 159 person. Your goal is like, okay, how do I get a 158 or 159 in this exam?

Not how do I get a 164? That's, don't do that. If you try for that, you're going to be trying strategies that don't really, know, that are outside your command.

You're trying to do things that you haven't really mastered. It's going to be a big disaster. Like it, it just, it is, you know, I used to use the example of Michaela Shiffrin at the Olympics, except, you know, that was so long ago, nobody remembers what I'm talking about.

But if you try to do stuff you never done before, you're going to end up like Michaela Shiffrin. So, what was the, I mean, I hope that, yeah, yeah, this leads us into our first couple tips here, you know, one, you know, stick to strategies you've developed.

Like, if you try something you've never done before, it's going to get weird and it can go really, really badly.

Mostly what happens is like, you know, it doesn't work at as you think it's going to work, because you haven't in a practice time, then it takes a little bit longer, then it's not really very effective, then you end up in time stuff, and you get really nervous, and then you move on to the next problem.

That's stick to what you know, and focus on, ask yourself, what is it that I do well? Okay. How do I want to make sure that I'm going to do what I do well when I take this exam?

So, if you think, you know, I tend to notice that a good day for me, I do a lot better when I'm anticipating.

Okay. I'm going to make a point out of anticipating on this exam. You know, like, you ask yourself, what your two keys to success are, just two, maybe it's anticipating, maybe it's using the negation trick, maybe it's saying, like, hey, I really

I want to remember how to do the sandwich method, because Rausman talked about the sandwich method for two years on this platform, even though I haven't been on this platform for two years, or I have been speaking you.

If you think like that, something I want to take into it, OK, you know what? I want to remember on a must be true to try to make inferences as I go.

Or you think the thing that I need to do is I need to stop and need to wrestle with the argument.

Sometimes I get really eager in just reading the stimulus for a strengthen and a weekend and be like, oh, yeah, OK.

And then moving on to the answer to choices. And I need to just force myself to wrestle with it a little bit first.

And I'll take that template that Rob designed, you guys know what I'm talking about. And I'm going to use that.

So you pick two things that are your personal keys to success. And they need to be things that are within the boundaries of strategies that you've already developed.

I mean, it's fair to say, right? Like if you've ever anticipated on a question. One, how, like, how are you here?

You know what mean? Like not anticipating is like, like, you know, my girlfriend and I went to the movies yesterday.

We saw Twisters. There was somebody like two girls in front of me who was like on her phone and I went down there and I said, you can turn out of your phone right now.

And to me, like, using your phone in the theaters with, like, a big bright light and just, like, you know, scanning for, like, TikTok and all that nonsense.

Like, that's, like, the one thing you can't do in the theater. You know what I mean? And, like, I feel like, we all know that.

Every time the screen goes up and say, sounds your phones, every movie you've ever seen in the theaters has said that.

It's the one thing that I ask you to do. You know, that pretty loose and They're loosely interpreted, but like the turn off your phone is like the thing.

In terms of the LSAT world, anticipating is the thing. If you don't anticipate on a question like, and you've been there for a couple of weeks or a couple months, I'm gonna be like, okay, you're basically just like turning your phone onto the theaters.

You know, like, like that's how little you've learned from what we've been trying to, you know, inculcate in you.

Yes, to answer that last question that's in the chat. Yes, we will do that. So please anticipate, if you're not doing it by now, though, like, you know, and you've got couple of days to take the exam.

All right, you know what mean, just figure out what it is you do well. Don't focus some stuff that you don't.

Because you're it is. That's, that's not, that's not, That can be a good use of your time, you know, for one parallel reason, it's not really how you'll think to be working on and for two, like focusing on your weaknesses can put people in the mind where they're not confident going into the exam or they're trying strategies that are like pretty half baked.

Whereas focusing on your strengths, it's your muscles primed, gets you exactly where you to be on those questions and gives you like a source of strength that's going to like take you through the difficult parts of the exam that you know, focusing on your strengths a lot more.

All right, let's return to some of these, some of these questions here. I've been scoring consistently around a 168 to 169 and I scored 171 ones.

congratulations. That's awesome. Do you have any last minute recommendations for me to get over that 170 hump again or do you think it's unrealistic?

I don't think it's unrealistic. So, here's, um, here's what I to tell all of you out there who are trying to break the 170 barrier.

So there's, it's a, you know, different tutors say like very different things about like what it takes to be a 170 score and some of the time it seems like we're all just saying nonsense to you, you know?

And it shows to me, or like, you know, that indicates to me that it is like this mystical platform that many people achieve.

But for me, on the tutoring side of it, I know when somebody's a 170 score, I don't technically know that because a lot of you like take the test and never tell me what score.

So, like, you know, but a 170 score to me, someone who is capable of like contributing to the body of knowledge or body of theory on the outset.

what I'm by that is, when I start, when you know, when I'm working with somebody, there's a point where they start saying, you know, talking about the test in a way that I am quite thought of, and it's a unique take, and it's a take that is, you know, good, you know, like you are, there's a lot of like philosophy of the outset, right?

Like I have my, you know, about like how problems are organized, how to do problems, that, all that stuff.

Other instructors have different takes on it. I hit that 170, you start developing a take on something, you know, if you just, oh, if all you did was just do whatever I wanted you to do, you're not going to hit 170.

Like there's a certain amount of like innovation that comes with And what this test is, and how it works.

You know, if you can say something insightful about the LSAT and be like, well, you know, I mean, here's this is how you do a strength and problem, you know, I've seen, I've seen the way the Rob does a strength and problem, I've seen the way that, you know, make a Nate do strength and problems and I kind of have this other idea and, you know, it's been working for me and they haven't really said anything about that.

That's what makes you 170 score. You know, don't put a lot of pressure on yourself if you're like, not there, but like, the last minute, the only last minute tip that I can give you from get like a 169 to 170.

I'll give you the same tips I'm giving everybody else, which is like, you know, focus on, you know, your keys to success for 170 scores, those keys to success or something like, you know, anticipating and reading comprehension, or, you know, you you know, properly wrestling with the problem or like knowing how to manage your time right, usually.

And then there's this extra component, which is look in the mirror, know that you You've spent a lot of time on this exam, so it's interesting about the LS that you've never heard from anybody else and go underneath the desk.

Next question here. Do you I'm going to skip the sandwich thing and I'll come back to it just to hit this other one after it real quick.

Do you recommend doing a few questions before the exam just to wake up your mind? You can if you want.

I mean, sure, there are very good instructors who recommend that, so I think that's up to you. I don't do it.

I don't even say the day before the exam. I don't do that at all. And two days before the exam, I'm doing it probably like just a full length practice test on a test that I've taken recently and like, I kind of already know the answers to, you know, because the goal is to go through the motions.

And like practice like, Oh, here's where I anticipate. Here's where I do this. Here's where I do this when you're not wrapped up in the content of the question or you're not in a situation where like you could potentially like get a lot wrong and then like no confidence.

So you work with something you've already done before and that you're good at. And then you just go through the motions like that's normal.

So if you can take that same principle to before the test, if you want, you know, I mean, if you feel in need to, but it's up to you.

And you don't have to do it for, you know, like you can decide whether you want to do that for L or C or both or whatever, but if you do it.

My rule for you is do something very easy that you've already done before, you know, answers do. Like that's a.

You know, there should be no point where you're looking up answers to quite bad is that is bad. Like, you know, we're talking about light jog to loosen the muscles.

So, you know, but yeah. So, You know, your adrenaline's working so much, and pretty much everyone who takes a test is going to get hit.

Like, I think it's very hard to start with L.R. It's hard to start with R.C. too. Like, it was easiest when the game is in, and then, you know, when the game's rolled out, you can just kind of walk into it.

It is okay to, like, read Question 1 for L.R. Have your adrenaline run in so high that you're just like, I didn't understand any of that and just reread the whole thing again.

Like, it's all good. But that happens with R.C. too. It's like, you need to reread the whole thing. I was like, I would just go in just thinking that you were going to do that.

Because that's what I did. Because you just don't feel settled. You know, you're like, you're pumping. It's 35 minutes.

know, clock's ticking. Build it maybe into your strategy to be able to, like, have to redo something because, you know, you jumped the gun and you were too aggressive with it.

And yeah, you can. You can do a question for the extent if you want to. Yeah, so that's up to you, you know, I mean, you know, if you have an instructor, you can ask an instructor if they personally recommend that to you, because they'll probably have a pretty good indication of like how fresh you are.

But it's like, do you do practice that that way? No, then like, don't do it. you know, it's a classic like stick to the strategies you've developed.

Don't change it up. Okay, here's what the sandwich method is. I don't this doesn't really need to be numbered these first two are pretty relevant.

But you know what? Yeah, let me just do that right. There we go. Who knows what the sandwich method is?

You So I'm going explain it in the chat very quickly. You guys, this is like, you know, brand. This is one of the things that I am most, uh, you know, I mean, I've been, I've been for like 3000 hours and LSAT tutoring.

This is, I think, you know, probably like the single most innovative thing that I've come up with on the LSAT.

So like, I, I think you got to know it. Um, anybody sandwich method? I mean, first question is like, what questions do you even use this on?

And then how do you use it? And then like, you know, what should you expect while you're using it?

All things that you don't consider.

That's unlikely. If you've watched my content for as long as you have, um, long you've content content for watched watched watched

Okay. Okay. So somebody's saying you put an answer choice between the negative, now, okay, all right. Yeah. All right.

Well, that's why we're doing this now. So somebody asked a question that nobody else wanted to ask, and then it turns out you all need the refresher on it.

Okay. What answer choices or what question types can you use it? One, two, Strengthen. Weekend. And sufficient assumption. Now why can you use it on these three?

Okay. Here's what all the question types have in common. They ask you. to take a sentiment contained in an answer choice and then put that into the stimulus and see if it changes the merit of the argument.

Like they say, like, which one of the following strengthens the argument? So that's literally saying, take something that's not in the argument, put it in the argument, and see if it strengthens it.

With a weekend, same thing, which one of the following weakens it? Okay, let me find something in the answer choices that I could put into the stimulus to weaken it.

Sufficient assumption, my advice to you is that you should do sufficient assumption questions, the exact same thing, do strength in questions.

I mean, I think the only difference in practice, in theory, there's, know, I mean, instructors could be like, oh, they're totally different types of questions.

Okay, you know, like it's, in practice, they're not, they're not theoretical differences only. In practice, the only difference between a strength and question and a

sufficient assumption question is that strength in questions tend to be more difficult to anticipate because they're a little bit, it's a little bit less predictable.

You know, like the answer choice, there's a, like they deviate with a little bit greater creativity. you don't know, it's doesn't matter.

You know, just do a strength in question the same way you would do a sufficient assumption question. Please do that.

Okay, so you use it on these and the reason that you use it on those is that you're taking an answer choice and you're putting it into the argument to change the quality argument.

So, why don't you put it support answer choice conclusion, right? So, this is a sandwich. It's called an argument sandwich.

The argument is in blue, an argument is support and a conclusion. it could be conclusion first, but like, don't do it that way, right?

don't read the conclusion first because then you're going to like, you know, lose yourself, like you want. When you're testing an answer choice that you think is correct for a strength in a weekend or a sufficient assumption question, read the support in the stimulus, then read the make the sandwich.

If you do this, here's what you should expect. If it is a strength in question, you should expect the sandwich that you made to sound like a better argument than the stimulus originally was.

If you're doing a weekend question, you should expect this sandwich here to make the argument worse. Like, you know, if you're doing this correctly, for a weekend,

you can question, you're reading it and you're like, oh, you know, like, it's just, it's just wrong. You know, it's like, that just doesn't go together.

It, I felt like I just kind of like broke the link and then pretend, you know, like, yeah, I hate it.

You know, so if you need more practice on the sandwich method and you're not taking the test in like three days, watch the office hours that I've done every office hour that I've done in recent, in the last two years, where I've talked about strength and sufficient assumption or weaken, I have talked about the sandwich method, like everyone.

So, um, if you find one where I'm, I didn't, I, I probably said at the beginning that I was going to try a wildly different approach.

So, that is your sandwich. And the point of a sandwich is like, I used to kind of, it kind of got the name sandwich method because my, you know, the test takers that I was working with just liked that.

at more of the so than the other competitor, which is the puzzle piece method. Puzzle piece method is exactly the same thing.

I just think the visual is like sometimes with answer choices, you guys will read something and you're like, I think it's C and I'm like, well, why?

You're like, well, you know, C and because the support says this and then C it you're putting together a puzzle.

When you put together a puzzle, how do you do it? Like you see you're looking at it, you're like, well, you know, I mean, I'm looking for, you know, I'm putting together a sailboat.

It's a Norman Rockwell painting. It's, you know, rough waters. There's like a boat. There's some guy rowing. It's like there's waves.

There's kind of dog's nose. and then like a little bit of the boat and a little bit of the ocean and then you scan and you find something like that and you're like oh wow and then you put it in there to see if it works in your place what nobody does when they're making a puzzle it's like nobody picks up the piece and they're like does it go in there hmm hmm yeah i don't know i don't know it's hard so hard to say i guess i'll never know no you put it where it belongs to see if it does what you hope it's gonna do that's the whole point of like what the sandwich method is too because the theory of the the correct answer choice if you put it between the support and the conclusion in a strengthening question it's going to strengthen it and we can question it's going to weaken it so like take your piece you found a good lead take your piece and then put it in there to see if it does what you think it's going to do so whether you think about this sandwich method or the puzzle piece method or whatever that's what it is um if you guys want to see this in action

You're going to have to go back and look at those other live classes because I run up time to drum up a bunch of those today.

But that's where it was. And the other thing, too, is you still need to anticipate, because it would be totally nuts.

If you picked up, if you had a little puzzle piece, and you're like, and stormy waters, you wouldn't just pick up a random piece.

you're like, OK, test, test, test, test, test. No, that would be a quite insane way to do a puzzle.

So you anticipate you have a lead, and then you do the sandwich method when you have one or two that you're considering.

You don't do the sandwich method for every answer choice. That's sloppy. That's picking up stuff at random in a puzzle and just trying to jam it into a piece that's incredibly inefficient and it's not going to work.

So there's. to prime on the sandwich method.

Awesome. Awesome. I wish I could dig into it. Honestly, know that I keep doing it with all the strength and weak and sufficient assumption stuff that I teach.

there probably should be a separate live class. The reason that there is this is something I came up with like a centralized platform thing.

So I can't imagine any other instructors being like, oh, it could be sort of weird. So that's why nothing is listed like that in a live class.

you only see it in my content. Oh, maybe you do see it in other people's content. you do, I'll start crediting me.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm going to be honest with you. But it's like, I think it's a great tool.

I think it's very easy to use. It's not gonna do all your work for you. You know, like it's supposed to give you like a little bit more clarity.

So don't expect it to just like do all your work for you. You know, it's a better tool than I think every other tool that we give you, it's much easier to use.

But like, you know, I'm gonna take you all the way. So make sure you spend some time practicing this before you take it into the exam.

Okay, next question here, I should do more live classes. I'm gonna be back next week. I'm also tutoring. You guys know that.

I'm back on Thursdays. And if you ask, if you ask, there may be some other stuff that's opened on other days, but you know, we'll see.

But I'm bookable as of now, or as of last week. Okay, next question. Can you go over how to distinguish?

English, between the wording and a sufficient assumption question and a necessary assumption question. Yes, so I don't want you guys to just have to memorize a bunch of trigger words for it.

So I want to, you know, but some of those trigger words that are like really, really like right there.

Oh, beautiful. You know, when you see stuff like some of the stuff that characterizes necessary, you guys, it would be awesome if you could throw some of these in the chat.

you've studied this a lot. Yeah, right, like, depends, requires, you know, necessary, if you're lucky enough to see that one, you're going to be like, Hey, awesome.

Sufficient is a lot looser. Sufficient, you know, when you see, um, that ends up being, that's important. Um, what else is it out there?

I tend not to teach it this way. So, um, yeah, you have, uh, enables, um, the conclusion follows logically if which one of the following, you know, the, any of like, any conditional language like that, if which one of the following, um, hope that that's actually going to do a lot of work for you.

But the principle difference between these types, yeah, relies requires necessary relies. Yeah, all good answers, thank you for that.

The principle difference is that I used to think it was really dumb that these assumptions were called. Does it mean do you guys know why they're called sufficient necessary assumptions?

Like usually I asked this and people were like, well, because one's necessary and one's oh, sounds like you really know.

Yeah, so here's the philosophy on necessary. Okay, hold on. If the argument is true, then we have to assume this, that's a necessary assumption, right?

the argument exists, now what? But sufficient assumption is a little bit different, sufficient is like, what can you add that makes the argument true?

Like the argument is not true before sufficient assumption is there. So you notice this is why it's like a strength in question.

A strength in question does take something, put it, that isn't there, put it in there and make it lot better, and that a sufficient is the same thing.

It takes something and make the conclusion properly drawn, oh, that's another one you guys are going to want that one, properly drawn, you know.

logically coherent or something, you know, any that kind of language. But the idea with a necessary assumption by contrast is like, it's asking you to accept what you read as a completely valid argument.

What do you mean? Logically inferred is going to be a must be true, like, which is long as logically and probably.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's good. It's a this stuff down here. Like, if you're like, Rob, I don't understand what this means.

Don't worry about it. I get all. I just bring this up because I think so many people do, like, such a terrible job of teaching necessary and sufficient.

And I think that. it's really difficult to do it, I'm not saying that I'm immune to that, but the challenge is that sometimes an answer like there can be a particular piece of information that is both necessary and sufficient, like it can be the necessary assumption and it can be a sufficient assumption at the same time.

It depends a lot on your argument. You don't want to get wrapped up in that. I'm bringing this up to say like your confusion is validated.

Like there's a little bit of crossover between these. I think that probably the safest way to go into it give you something, but sufficient assumption has the characteristic of like it.

When it's asking you to put something in the stimulus, that's It's a sufficient assumption or a strength in question.

When it's asking you to recognize something that's like invisible, that's a necessary assumption. So the way that it looks is that when a question says, which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends, that's not asking you to put something in it, right?

It's saying it's already there, it's just invisible. Like you go to a house, can't see the foundation, but it's there, that's what a necessary assumption is.

The sufficient assumption is like, which of the following enables, which to the following, which of the following, you see which of the following, you're sitting on a sufficient assumption, right?

Or the conclusion is properly drawn, which of the, right, it's just you to put something into it, so it looks a little bit different.

So, this is a tricky area of the LSAT. It's a great area to review a little bit. For a lot of...

questions. I mean, oh my god, like question 12, I think logical reasoning set one, practice test 73, I think, I don't know, it could be 72.

It's a sufficient assumption question, and I got it wrong, like five times in my prep, like this question would just keep coming up because like I didn't have many tests to work with, like, so I kept seeing this question and get it wrong, like five times in a row.

And then I finally got it right, three days before the exam, and I understood it, and I was like, I understand what sufficient assumption is now, finally.

So, rest assured, there's a lot of people scoring in high 160s, low 170s, who like really don't have a good grasp on this.

Okay, you know, you don't really need to know that much, but it's a, I mean, it's obviously it's incredibly, it's an incredibly tricky.

area of the LSAT. So when you are focusing on your last-minute tips, and you're trying to really do a good job here, be reasonable on what you can expect to accomplish.

If you want to dig into the weeds between what's necessary and what's sufficient, it's not like a great use of your three days, because for a lot of the easy questions, the answers choices are going to be kind of pretty similar anyway.

Working on the sandwich method I think is going to get you more questions correct than parsing the sufficient assumptions, depending for most people.

But yeah, you can really spend some time digging into this. I think these words It will help you a lot.

But there's a lot of other office hours that have a little bit of a difference. I mean, here's, you know, want to do another thing?

OK. Yeah, there's some problems like the question sets for the analytics. think it's for the analytics. It might just be in the study.

when you open up the study on a necessary assumption, it's like the very first question in there. Well, it used to be, I think, questions have been added and stripped.

And so it's probably not true anymore. But it used to be for like two years, at least, if not still true, that there's a question about a government flu shot program.

And that's a sufficient assumption question. And it is somehow in. the necessary assumption, realm for LSAT max, and it doesn't really matter because the answer would be the same either way, but it kind of shows you that it's really tricky, like whoever put that question in there like wasn't really, either they weren't really, they weren't really thinking, because it's not helpful to people when they see sufficient assumption language in the necessary set and then like think that it's, that's what it is.

I think that's a one off though, so I wouldn't worry about that too much. But yeah, study up on the office hours if you want to kind of bone up on that, you know, ask something tomorrow, I guess, but you know, or focus on some other yield stuff and just be like, ah, gross, I'm just going to do the sandwich method for necessary assumption.

I know Rob told me not to, but like, he also said it wouldn't be, it would only trip me up on like really hard questions, which I did that, so like, I'm probably going away with it.

And I'll feel a little bit better, even though like sometimes I might get around do whatever you do. Okay, some other stuff here.

Yeah, I mean, the distinctions are so like, if I were to design it, I would teach, strengthen, weaken and sufficient assumption in the same set.

I would not separate those at all. I would teach the necessary is like a related thing that separate, but like, you know, the idea, it's just, it's completely.

There's no difference in practice between strength and would be just like a raw strength in and a sufficient assumption question, even though I understand there's a lot of difference in theory, but it's just not in practice.

Like, I've looked at the problems. It's just not there. Um, question, do you have any tips for someone who's broken 160 on a practice test, but has a hard time grasping the test overall?

Yeah. Yeah. Here's my tip, relax. I mean, here's, this is, you guys, let me, let me take this, this time to say this.

Congratulations on making it this far. The LSAT is very hard. It's kind of incredible that you can get better at this over time and have a lock at you that you know now that you just didn't in the beginning.

I hope that that, I hope that you have the opportunity to reflect on that and celebrate that. And then your attitude going into the test is one of celebration of like, Hey, like, I put in a lot of work.

You know, like, you can't take that away from me. I'm going to do what I can on the test and like, you know, some of the balances like might really go my way.

Some of them might not, but like, I put in a lot of work. I know a lot more than I did.

And I'm not. Focus on the things that I do well and bring that in and I'm gonna be solid like that's like if I could put all the last Minute tips for LR.

I mean, that's it was just last minute true of our c2 That's what you need to do. So what does this have to do with somebody who's like step, you know Getting a 160 or 155 or like, you know 170 and you've improved a lot, but you're still like, I don't understand this at all Um Do you guys I read Do you think or I understand this exam I mean the level of understanding That I had When I took this exam and scored a 177 on it, which is like, okay, so it's like I got two problems run That level of understanding is like here The level of understanding you have after being an instructor for like A couple months is like

gear. And then like a couple of years, it's just like, oh my God, like literally next year, you know, I could look at a strength in question and just be like, oh my God, why have I been teaching the sandwich method?

I see it all now. Like, it's a, like, this is something where I have been able to, like, continually learn from it.

So I will say, when you're at 160, for a test that is designed to be like bone crushingly difficult, you know, designed to separate, you know, 175s from the, you know, from the 162s, you know a lot.

Focus on what you do know and acknowledge that there's stuff that you don't, but like focus on the stuff that you do know, because that's, that's the stuff that like you can prepare for and you can take an exam and do well.

mean, you know, it's, it's true. Like a 160, no, it's like, I mean, Yeah, it's like, you know, there's a lot of things that you have no idea what's going on.

Who cares? It's, it's like amazing. I mean, you can get an amazing score on this exam, just a fantastic score and you can miss a ton of problems.

You miss a, you know, you miss so many problems. You know, like a 170, 170 like in the old, like, you know, four sections scored.

To get a 170, can miss like 10 problems. So it's like you get 90% correct and you're in the 9th percentile of test.

Like that's unlike any, any test that you guys have ever taken. Unless you're like a STEM major, then you're like, yeah, like I've taken tests where I get 30% right and I'm like, it's the top of the class.

In that case, you know, yeah. So you, you know, celebrate the progress that you have made, because it's any of them a lot.

And it's, and it's just like really, really cool that you guys are, are here day and day out. All right.

Let's see what else we got here, closing in, you know, throw your questions up, try to make it down.

Let's see what we got here. No, no we just got anything. Yeah, any thoughts like, what do you guys wish that you would have known before you took the test the first time?

For those of you who have taken it once and you know you're back for more, you're back for like the victory lap Anything that you want to pass on to the people or like you're gonna make everything like rely on like the stuff that I just like Come up with every hour Yeah, 18th to 22 or the most difficult now are yeah Yeah Um, you know, if this was the two weeks out

a lot of class. Then I would say, hey, you know, really, really think about your strategy for 18 to 22.

Unfortunately, the test in a couple days. So like, I don't know, I can tell you like radically redesign something, but knowing that 18 to 22 are the most difficult, just think about that.

Think about where you want to put your time. I know a lot of test takers who pretty much just only get like one or two correct in that 18 to 23 stretch.

So let's say, or like, let's call it 18 to 22 because that's, you know, even more can be. There's a lot of test takers who are getting like two correct in that stretch.

I mean, if you're scoring 155, like, I don't think, I don't think you're doing three correct in that, you know, on like some test, but I do think that you're spending 10 minutes in that section.

I mean, that's, that's just like a lot of land. might even be like a little bit more. So, you know,

A lot of you out there are spending 10 minutes to get one point in that 18 to 22 stretch.

One point that's the same odds of guessing, so if that describes you, if you go back and you look at all your practice and you're like, dang, I keep only going one for five in 18 to 22.

Two. My advice to you is just guess on that and put your time else one. You know, if you're getting two right, then it's like, well, I'd still guess take the one out of five, maybe you get more, maybe you last, but like that's, that's your odds.

And then put your time, putting 10 minutes on to the rest of test should get you more than a point, like putting 10 minutes into the rest of test should be like in my mind

questions correct is like, what I think you get if you don't even attempt 18 to 22, and then put that time elsewhere, it's going to work out for you.

But, you know, if that is a strategy that you want to think about, remember that the key insights today are here, you can't do something that's totally new because you won't have enough time to practice it and make it a habit, and then you're going to get to the test, you're going to be slightly uncomfortable, and when you're slightly uncomfortable, you're going fall back on that habits.

So it's like, it's not worth it, right? It's like, why we're cramming for the test is not worth it.

It just doesn't work. Yeah. All right. That's all we got today. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, wish you

And, uh, you know, I'll be back with some live classes on, I think, uh, probably, I think Wednesday, um, but, you know, you guys are taking the exam at that point.

Oh, right.

that's, you know, that's so unfortunate. Um, I really wish that that happened to you. You know, so, you know, a lot of this is obviously like really frustrating.

You know, like it's frustrating when you feel like you're stalling out. Um, on, on some of the tests, like you're just like spinning your wheels and week after week.

It's pretty normal. Um, a lot of the process with the LCC is frustrating. LCC is a, you know, a joke of an organization.

that has a bunch of like lazy people working for it that just like extorts test takers and have been times.

Yeah, they're terrible. They're horrible. I mean, you know, it's like, is this going to make you feel better about the tests you're taking, like, you know, to be in a session where we're like, yeah, I always use the words, maybe, you know, like, it's kind of funny, you know, some of the parts like, we've all been there.

We've all been through like some goofy proctoring. We've all been through like, like, we've had to go through that like paper mill fish question.

You we've had the reading passage that, you know, is in the physics of mirrors and everyone's like, oh, you know, it's part of it.

It's part of the fun. It's the best thing I think you can do is sit back and, and if you spend some time reflecting on your progress so far, it's going to make it very easy.

for you to like see all the good things that you've learned and you're going to be really focusing on your strengths and then you're going to understand what your two keys to success are because you're going to be like oh yeah these are two things I got like a really really good at and like yeah I want to take that into the exam and that's how I know I'm going to do really well so spend some time in reflection feel good about yourself and then coincidentally like you're also going to come up with like some great things that you want to take into the exam.

Nice yeah and you know after the test if you want to log into a live class and you know complain about how bad LSAC is then you've rated it you know I have a feeling nobody's going to want to do that but that's the opportunity for it so good luck on it see you guys later bye you