December 2015 LSAT Discussion Thread

[Jon Denning]

Congrats to those who took the December LSAT today! Here's a thread where you can post your comments and questions about the exam, and engage with fellow test takers and even some PowerScore instructors!

To that end, we want to share with you in advance the topics we can discuss, and some things to avoid.

It's fine to talk about the section order of your test. For example, it would be great if you let us know: "I had two Logical Reasoning sections, then two Games sections, and then finished up with Reading Comprehension (LR-LR-LG-LG-RC)." We'd also love to hear your thoughts on the difficulty of the each section, including the games and the passages. For example, after the October 2013 test, folks were discussing the difficulty of the “Prions” Reading Comprehension passage.

You can also talk about the general subjects of the games and the passages you encountered. So, for example, you could say "I had a game about a concert promoter scheduling six bands at a concert, a game in which at least four of eight employees are selected for a research team, a game about five movies shown on three screens, and a game with five lectures on birds in two possible locations." You can even mention the game type, e.g., Linear Setup or Grouping. The same goes for reading comprehension, in terms of the basic passage subject, e.g., “Prions” or “Happiness and Wealth.”

The guiding principle for our conversation here is that we don't want to give other people an unfair advantage on the test. There are some circumstances in which some folks may take the LSAT later than others. If details about specific test questions were to show up on the internet before those people take the LSAT (like which answers were right or wrong), then they would have an advantage over those who took the test earlier. Their advance knowledge could hurt your chances to get into the school of your choice, and so it's important to avoid sharing those kinds of details.

We look forward to a great afternoon of conversation! SO, how'd it go?!

PowerScore

[ddion8206]

I THINK I HAD A PATTERN GAME.

[Jon Denning]

Whaaat?? Please elaborate!!

[ddion8206]

I can't really remember the whole game but it had to do with four employees with an assignment of offices. Each ranked the office they wanted in order of preference. WXYZ. Obviously not all of the employees could get the office they wanted and from there the questions followed. Hopefully I don't sound like an idiot but I had not encountered a problem like this before. However, I guess it could be a grouping linear game. BUT IDK MY BRAIN IS FRIED.

[ddion8206]

I think I am going to take the february lsat too. But I want to thank Dave, Jon, Jeremy, and Nikki for all the help. The tactics powerscore provided definitely helped and I now I just need to keep practicing to really maximize my score. 2 months to get to that 180!

[Jon Denning]

From other comments elsewhere it does sound like that may have been a Pattern Game. We won't know until the test is released, of course, but, rare as they may be, they're not unheard of: June 2014 had one. In fact, we wrote a few blog posts discussing that test/game, as well as how to tackle Pattern Games in general:

http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/the-jun ... y-happened

http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/pattern ... trike-back

[Jon Denning]

Alright guys, here's an early update based on what I've heard so far:

Real Logic Games: Game 1 was about 6 pieces in 6 times (morning and afternoon); Game 2 was about 8 ceramic pots into 6 spots (sounds like a Linear Game); Game 3 was about 4 employees and their preferences on where to work among 4 offices/companies (from initial reports this sounds a lot like a Pattern Game, which I have provided some more info on in the post above); Game 4 was about 3 committees where each committee has 3 positions (President, Secretary, Treasurer).

Games 3 and 4 have both caused quite a ruckus online, as people are reporting a fair amount of difficulty with both.

Real Reading Comp (not necessarily in order): African American Theater and the Federal Theater Project (4-year program); Punishing companies for fraudulent activities; Comparative reading about Feminist literature (Passage A) and the position of women in Ancient Rome under Augustus (Passage B); Lamarck and Evolution/Inheritance, RNA/DNA.

General consensus that the Comparative passage was the toughest, which is somewhat unusual (comparative tends to be on the easier side on most LSATs).

Real Logical Reasoning (this is notoriously harder to nail down, since there are so many more questions in LR than there are games or passages in the other sections): Amber (lots of complaints about this question), honeybees, cooked foods, psychic powers, dolphins and seals, ocean vessels, and lemurs with covered versus partially-covered forest overhead (several complaints on this one, too). Seems one section was 25 questions and the other was 26.

On the experimental side, there's less info floating around at this point, but I've heard from a few sources that an experimental RC passage was on a Mexican Photographer.


So let's hear it! How did it go for you? What did you see, and how closely does it conform to the info above?

[Steve Stein]

Thanks!

Just a couple of additions to the info posted thus far:

Interesting that comparative reading sounds like it was the toughest in the RC section! I heard the same about the comparative reading in the RC experimental section as well: a tough pair of passages about the link between consciousness and brain activity...

A lot of test takers also seemed to think the first LR section was notably easier than the second.

Let me add my congrats to everyone who made it through today's test! We're psyched to hear how it went for everyone, so let us know!

[Willp]

I had two logic game sections. The second of these sections had the "ranking of the offices" logic game. This was a tough section. I am trying to figure out if this second logic game section was the actual, i.e. non-experimental, logic game section of the test.

Did anyone have one logic game section, which included this "ranking of the offices" logic game? If so, can we safely conclude that this was the actual logic game section for the December '15 test?

[Jon Denning]

Hey Will - thanks for the post! The office ranking game was definitely real (it was Game 3). And caused a lot of problems for a lot of people, unfortunately

What can you tell me about the games in your other (experimental) section?