Breaking Through the 160's Plateau: Olivia's Path to Improvement

In this episode, current 7sage student Olivia joins Alex and Bailey to discuss her journey through LSAT prep and the plateau she’s hit, consistently scoring in the mid to high 160s. Together, they dive into her study strategy, examining the tweaks she’s made in logical reasoning and reading comprehension. Instead of focusing on roadblocks, they break down the underlying issues and provide actionable solutions to help her push past this challenge. If you’re looking to boost your LSAT score and fine-tune your study approach, this episode is packed with valuable insights you won’t want to miss!

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
All right, we're now joined byseven stage student Olivia, who has
generously given us her timejoining us.
Do you want to tell theaudience where you're joining us
from, Olivia?
Sure, yeah, no problem.
My name's Olivia and I'mcalling in from Accra, Ghana, based
in West Africa.
Yeah.

(00:27):
Actually this is a veryinternational podcast today.
Bailey.
Where are you joining us from?
This is an international podcast.
I'm in Argentina in Buenos Aires.
Yeah.
Wow.
Wow.
Is also locatedinternationally technically.
From us.
Sure.
Internationally from you all.
I'm in.
I'm in the United States ofAmerica in Los Angeles.

(00:47):
Yeah.
Three continents.
Pretty impressive.
Pretty impressive.
That's.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
But there aren't.
Yeah.
Challenge other LSAT podcasts to.
Anyways, whatever.
We don't.
It's not a competition.
So we're.
We're joined with Olivia andwe're gonna.
We're gonna.
We're gonna start a newsegment we are tentatively calling

(01:07):
something like diagnosis LSAT.
Dr.
LSAT actually put in thecomments what you think we should
call this.
That's a good idea.
We should crowdsource theseideas because unfortunately you can
see our current ones.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It'll be titled something bythe time you're seeing this, but
that's a must be true.
But Olivia, give us a littlebit of a.
Of the context on just whatyour studying has, like, has been

(01:30):
like up to this point, andthen we'll get into your current
situation and try and provide some.
Some solutions.
Awesome.
Yeah.
So I graduated about a yearand a half ago now and studied for
like two, three monthsfollowing graduation.
Studied full time.
Didn't really have theresources that I needed going into

(01:52):
that study session.
I was doing it like completelyby myself.
Took the August LSAT 2023.
Did not get the score that Iintended to.
I think I changed up my entirestrategy, like day of the test.
And then I was like, okay, I'mgonna not look at this.
Sounds right.
About a year.
Yeah.
Recipe for success.

(02:13):
And then so took a break fromstudying for about a year, came back
to it May 2024.
And I have been studyingeither full time or part time ever
since then.
So I originally was signed upfor the September 2024 LSAT and actually
pushed back my entire lawschool application cycle so I could
have a longer study timeline.

(02:35):
So I've been studyingconsistently since then.
That's awesome.
I mean, wish, wish, you know,you learned a lot along the way,
but this really helpful.
Wait, have we not.
Awesome.
No, it sounds you.
I don't know if you alreadyknow this.
That sounds so.
Oh, no, go ahead.

(02:55):
We're say the same thing.
I'm sure it sounds so muchlike my study timeline.
My own study timeline.
I don't know if we.
Did we post that podcast yet.
You're about to hear a verysimilar study timeline on the podcast
when we talk about what I didand what I should not have done,
basically.
But honestly, it sounds likeyou did a good job, like, taking
a step back, and now you'regetting into it and you're just on
top of it, so.
Yeah, good.

(03:16):
That's what I mean.
Like, obviously, it's like,it's awesome that you took that.
You're putting yourself in thebest place to succeed.
And it sounds like you're sortof okay with how this has unfolded,
because it's just like, gosh,it's just.
It's just I don't.
Obviously don't have exactpercentages, but I just know that
more often than not, peopleeither sort of quit or.
Well, short of, like, what they.

(03:36):
What their goal is, or they dowhat you're doing, which is, you
know, taking the time to putthemselves in the best position.
I've fully gone through allthe stages of grief.
I'm in acceptance.
My LSAT timeline is nowindefinite, so.
Yeah, yeah, that's fair.
No, honestly, that's good.
I was stuck in denial for solong, and I think that's part of

(03:57):
what made my timeline extendeven more.
So you're doing the rightthing now.
And, um, I've also stoppedtelling people.
That I'm studying for the lsat.
I realized I'm tuning out every.
Every other stakeholder thatwas previously invested in my LSAT
journey because I realized itwas pushing so much pressure on certain

(04:19):
dates or timelines that, inthe grand scheme of things, really
isn't necessary.
Uh, so I've tried to, youknow, internalize as much of the
process as I could.
I guess I can.
I think that's helped a lot.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Absolutely.
Yeah.
I think, like, taking those,like, do whatever you need to do.
Like, there's so much going onoutside of the LSAT for everyone.
Do whatever you need to do to,like, turn down the noise, you know?

(04:42):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Cool.
Totally.
And what's your sort of studyschedule looking like these days?
So my study schedule is I workfrom home two days a week, and on
the days that I work weekly,the office, I get up in the morning,
study for about an hour, hourand a half, because I know I'm a

(05:02):
morning Person I can't studylike when I get home exhausted.
So the only times I.
And then after work I'll go toa live class if there are live classes
there, just a little less, alittle lower, lower energy wise.
And so then on my work fromhome days I can usually fit in like
two, two to four hours.
Yeah, at least three hoursduring my like work from home days

(05:24):
because it's a bit more flexible.
And on the weekends I studiedlike about 4, 4 hours during the
weekends.
I usually try to take Sundaysoff because that's when I go rock
climbing on Sundays.
So yeah, and that's the schedule.
I also yeah, currently have aseven stage tutor and so I meet with
him sort of on an ad hoc basis.

(05:44):
Say his name.
Say his name.
Shout out Aaron.
Eric.
Say his name.
Eric.
H.
We were just talking beforehand.
He's great.
Eric.
Hugh.
And he also teaches live class.
So if you know, recommend.
Definitely recommend.
Absolutely, absolutely.
All right, cool.
Great.
Okay, well so let's.

(06:05):
Why don't you pose yourquestion to us about what, what,
what sort of like what's thebig thing that you hope to get answered
today based on where you areand you know.
Yeah, what's the big.
I don't know why I'm just sortof vamping.
I feel like I'm saying a lotwith very little substance.
Give us the question you wantto answer.
Okay.
Because that me practice forrc, like they say a lot of things,

(06:26):
a lot of words, not much substance.
So that's good for us.
Go for it.
Shut me up.
Just ask your question.
Say more words.
Dear.
Dear Dr.
Elstat, I.
I'm in a plateau.
I'm scoring about mid 160shigh 160s for consistently for a

(06:47):
long time now at my schoolscores have sort of leveled out to
be slightly about like minus3, minus 4 in LR and between like
minus 5 to minus 7 in RC.
My analytics are also showingconsistency across the different
question types rather than onequestion type that's clearly detrimental

(07:12):
to the overall score.
So making it a little bitharder to drill effectively.
And for rc I think RC studyingin general is a bit hard because
you can't target specificquestion types as efficiently.
So that has been a struggle aswell of trying to other than like
the techniques of you know,low res summaries and retention drills.

(07:33):
Starting for RC has been.
Has been challenging and Iactually only recently started adding
RC to my wrong answer journal.
So hopefully that's going tomake a difference.
But yeah, that's kind of whereI'm at awesome again.
Awesome that I keep saying awesome.
Okay.
Maybe I should be the one toknow the details.
It's awesome to know the details.

(07:54):
Awesome.
Because I think we're going tobe able to help.
So you're telling successstories that you're like, you are.
Okay.
This is.
You are a success story in.
Yeah.
First of all.
First of all, you're doing great.
You've killed it so far.
Like, that is crazy thatyou're where.
Where you're at now.
Like, I bet I don't knowexactly where you started, but I'm

(08:14):
just reminding myself that,like, when I was at that point in
my studying and, like, I wasabout to, you know, break into the
170s, I think it was sohelpful to look back on how far I'd
come and been like, oh, mygosh, you know, so much more than
you started.
Like, you thought this testwas impossible when you started,
and now it feels really possible.
Feels really frustratingprobably, to get over this last hump,
but, like, just first of all,pat yourself in the back.

(08:36):
You did.
Thanks, Bailey.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Totally agree.
And where did you start?
What was your diagnostic?
We should.
We should ask just out of curiosity.
So my first, like, properdiagnostic was with the.
With logic games.
Because that was like, still.
Or that probably changed the score.
Yeah.

(08:56):
Yeah.
So it definitely changed the score.
And I was, like, too scared to.
I'll be honest, I was tooscared to take a real diagnostic.
So I was like, I don't want toknow how bad I actually am.
So I waited like a month intostudying for taking a diagnostic,
and at that point, it waslike, about, about like 154.
Got it.
Got it.
Okay.
Makes sense.
No, that's good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And what are you getting?

(09:17):
You.
You.
I think you said, but you'regetting minus 3, minus 4 on L LR
per section.
And what.
And what about RC?
For RC, it's somewhere usuallybetween like, maybe averaging minus
5 and minus 6.
Okay.
And timing wise, how's itgoing in both of those?
So timing is usually quite good.

(09:38):
Good.
On my last pt, not so much,but I was very distracted, so just
let's not get that one andlet's assessment an outline.
That's good.
Yeah.
No, and that's good.
No, like, honestly, just notto, like, not to deviate too much,
but I feel like that's, like,that's very healthy to be like, okay.
This is like, notice outliersand aberrations where they are, like.
Yeah.
And I knew it during, while Iwas taking it, like, I knew it.

(10:00):
I was like, this is.
I'm.
It feels like a164.
And I got164.
I was like, oh, my God.
Um, so, I mean, that means you.
Have a really good gauge right now.
And also a good.
Also a good baseline.
Like 164 is a baseline.
You know, when you started ata 154, like, that's great.
So you started at 154.
Now you're like, bad test.
You know, is it 164, whichisn't that bad.

(10:22):
Exactly.
That's awesome.
But so timing wise, you'regonna say it's generally good.
Thanks, guys.
Okay, so timing.
We're here to wake you up.
Sorry.
Timing wise is good.
So I've been.
I've been doing a lot of LRsprint drills.
So like 10, 10 and 10, or 15and 15.
That's made a huge difference.
So I usually finish with aboutfour, three to four minutes at the

(10:43):
end of every section.
I use Rahela's column strategy.
And so I go back for round twofor, like, priority questions.
So usually have time to visit.
Like, what, like two, two tothree questions.
Whether or not I get it rightis like the question.

(11:03):
But, like, usually if I visita question that I just didn't understand
the first time around and Iwas like, not even going to bother
to look into the answerchoices until I get a second look
at it.
Usually for those, I'm able toget it right again if I spent, like
over a minute on the questionin round one.
Typically when I go back forround two, it's a lost cause.

(11:24):
Unless, like, I missedsomething completely the first time
or if it's just a long andmust be true with quantifiers or
something like that.
Yeah.
And then for rc, finishingusually exactly like, no time left
over, like finishing the last passage.
But my timing distribution forRC is definitely something I want

(11:45):
to work on.
I'm spending too much time onthe first two passages.
And even though.
And typically my missedquestions for RC are interestingly
spread distributed equallyacross the four passages, regardless
of difficulty.
So even if it's a one or twostart passage, I'll still miss like
one or two.
And if it's a hard five starpassage, I'll still only miss, like

(12:08):
one max two.
And except for the last one, don't.
Look at the last one.
Yeah.
And so that's something Idefinitely want to fix because I'm
like, why am I still missingthese easy rc, like one, two star
passages?
Okay, great, great, great, great.
That's all very useful information.
And one thing that I just wantto highlight is like, you've spent
a lot of time thinking aboutthis clearly and drilling into it

(12:30):
on your own, which is like.
Which is great.
Which is like the first step, you.
Know, And Alex, I'm actuallyselling my wrong answer journal when
this is over.
Yeah, it is.
That's hilarious.
Gigantic Excel sheet.
That's crazy.
Yeah, I actually was screenshare that if you guys want to see.
It's kind of beautiful.

(12:51):
I'm actually kind of curious.
Yes.
Oh, my God.
No.
I'm so excited.
I love stuff like this.
This is something Eric helpedme develop a little bit as well.
He gave me some, like,templates to work with and it has
been so great for patternrecognition with lr.
Maybe we can put that.

(13:12):
Is it.
Is it like a standard template?
I can also get it from Eric,but we can put it in the.
In the description or thestandard template.
Yeah, it was kind ofproprietary and you should be paying
her for this.
I don't know.
Well, no, I mean, is it Eric's.
She's.
She's.
Eric helped.
I don't know.
I don't know.
This seems.
This seems like her.
This is crazy.

(13:32):
That's fair.
That's awesome.
Your pts.
Wait, sorry.
Can you see my screen?
Yep.
Okay.
So.
Yeah, no, that's perfect.
The question type is just likea dropdown menu for all of them.
The correct process.
What I actually did, what Ishould have done and then keep frameworks
that are missing.
So like if it's casual causal reasoning.

(13:56):
I always read causal as casual.
I too.
Everybody does.
It's like the one thateverybody does casual reasoning.
It's like the opposite oflogical reasoning.
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right.
It's just so casual.
That's.
That's my reasoning.
Good.
This is awesome.
There's like a phenomenonhypothesis as well.

(14:16):
Some of these are the actualtags in 7 sage and some of them are
like my own framework supplied.
So yeah, I've just put thesein for all of them.
I'll map out specifically.
And yeah, it's a big boy document.
That's so cool.
And is it organized?
How do you organize it?
By PT or like just in order.
Of when you get it?

(14:36):
New drills is all chronological.
This is chronological in termsof when I've done it.
And then I have a.
Did I once I revisited it.
So I wait a couple weeksbefore revisiting the question and
I revisit every single one.
Um, and I say yes, I revisitedit, got it correct and understood
it.
No, I revisit.
I did have not revisited it yet.
I got it correct.
Maybe because memorization,but I still don't really understand

(14:58):
it.
Okay.
Wow.
Crazy.
That's awesome.
So.
Right.
And it's.
I'm jealous.
I'm.
I'm like teeming with jealousyright now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Awesome.
And maybe we can.
Do you mind if we.
If we.
If we tab over to your.
To your analytics for a second?
Yeah, sure.
Let me show this tab.

(15:21):
Let's maybe.
Can we start at the top?
Yeah.
I'm curious.
First off, you can.
I mean, honestly, if you wantto get rid of the last pt, you totally
can.
Like, that's one nice thingabout analytics is like, you could
just like unclick whatever youthink is like.
Yeah, exactly.
If it just goes down.
No, honestly, it's not bad though.
Look, it's pretty similar to before.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So.
So just so everyone knows, ifyou're at home, like, this is the

(15:42):
seven Sage analytics page.
Although for now we are comingout with a new website, so it will
change, like, sometime.
Yeah, very exciting.
It's very aesthetically pleasing.
We'll probably be showing someof that on the.
On the videos sooner ratherthan later.
But we don't have analytics upon it yet, but.
Yeah.
So this is.
This is your.
Your actual score and yourblind review score for what.

(16:04):
What date is the first.
What date range are we lookingat here?
Oh, good question.
This is August.
August 3rd.
And how often are you takingPTS now?
So I was not taking them very often.
So the 17th, 21st.

(16:27):
Now I'm trying to take themlike one a week.
Previously I was, like, nottaking them as frequently because
I was finishing the corecurriculum at the same time and,
like, was doing actually more drilling.
Um, something I actually wantto implement now is going to, like,
the really, really early pts.
And even though I've donelike, almost all of those questions

(16:50):
in drills, I want to retakethem as PTs for timing, practice.
Absolutely.
What date was that high?
The 171 or the.
Not the.
Not the 178.
The.
No, the 171 from.
Yeah, there's September.
This is very tragic.

(17:10):
This is the date I wassupposed to take the September.
What?
And I withdrew.
I withdrew.
I withdrew less than, like, 24hours before, like, the deadline.
Cause I was like, I'm not ready.
And I scored this.
And then when was the next one?
Hold on, hold on.
No, no, we gotta stay therefor a second.

(17:31):
I wanna know what was going onin your brain before you sat down
for that Test.
Like, did you just go takethat test?
Like.
Cause you were like, why not?
Like, let's just see whathappens or.
Because potentially a lot ofit was mindset that brought you there.
I was in a program.
I was in a program that, like,mandated that I take the test at
a certain time, and that's whyI had signed up for that day.

(17:56):
And then I realized I waslike, actually, Bailey, I listened
to your advice because yousaid, don't take it unless you have
4pts under your belt consecutively.
Are that are at or around yourtarget score.
And I was like, well, I don't,so I should withdraw.
And so I made a, like, lastminute decision to withdraw.

(18:17):
Well, and postponed my entirelife plan for a year.
So, okay, that's funny becauseit's still good advice.
But, like, okay, so wait,wait, just tell me again.
So, like, you took this PTinstead of taking the actual test
on that day just for funsies,like, why'd you.
Do that the same day?
Because.
Integrity.
I don't know.
Okay, cool.
No.
Okay, that's.

(18:37):
Because that's what I'm tryingto get some insight into right now.
Like, when you were going intothat test, were you just like, okay,
I'm just gonna take it?
Like.
Like, were you putting a lotof pressure on yourself to perform
really well, or were you justlike, ah, let's just see what happens?
Well, I had made the decisionthat I'm not gonna apply to law school
unless I get score the medianof my target school.
And that's still the truth.
And so I was not scoring at that.

(19:01):
At that target median.
So I was like, I'm more weddedto the score than the deadline, so
I was willing to push it back.
I think a couple things thatI'm thinking.
First of all, like, I thinkyour reasoning across the board is
sound like, it's reallyimportant to go into this test with
a plant like you, like,because the answers to these questions

(19:21):
are different for different people.
Maybe some people are like, no.
Like, there's a range of scores.
If I get this score, it justmeans I'll target different schools.
Right?
And.
And other people likeyourself, where it's like, this is
the plan.
And, like, I don't really wantto do this unless it.
Unless I get these things.
And more important, there's nocorrect answer to these.
There's no, you know,universally correct answer.
What is important is that youhave the answers for yourself, because

(19:42):
then that.
Then that takes the guessworkout of all these decisions.
So it's great that you havesuch, you know, and.
And to listeners at home,like, if you don't have answers to
these questions for yourself,like, you know, think about them.
Because.
Because a lot of times whenpeople are deciding, like, they don't
actually haven't thought thisthrough, so they don't actually have
a target score.
They're like, I'd love toscore as high as I can, or something

(20:03):
like that.
And it's like, no, no, no.
Like, obviously that's.
Obviously, that's true for everyone.
Right?
But there are reasons why atarget score is important because
it dictates your.
Your study schedule and allthese things, and it helps you answer
these questions in the waythat you have.
So another thing is, like, youknow, obviously you ended up scoring,
you know, having a great scoreon that day.

(20:23):
But.
But I still think this.
You know, first of all,there's no.
One of the reasons why youwant to score above your target score
is because it's differentsitting down for the actual exam
than it is taking a pt, right?
So the reason you want.
We just see, on average,people score a little bit below their,
you know, their averages oncethey sit for the actual test.

(20:44):
So, you know, no guarantee howyou would have done on the actual
exam.
I don't think, like, seeingthat score is like, oh, you made
a mistake.
You know, you should havetaken the test that day.
It's.
It's.
If anything, it's just like,okay, that's great score.
Like, yeah.
I was like, okay, good.
Good to know.
Let's move on.
Yeah, yeah.
Hold on, hold on.

(21:05):
I'm so sorry.
I really need to know exactlywhat your mindset was going into
that test.
Like, do you remember sittingdown for that pt?
Were you putting pressure on yourself?
That's.
That's my main question here.
Because, honestly, I thinkthat probably a lot of what's going
on is, like, maybe just thisextra pressure to perform in a certain
way.
And if you were able to dothat on that day when you probably
weren't expecting to, like, dosuper well, I think.

(21:26):
I don't think we should moveon from that.
I think that's actually, like,you kind of want to tap into that
mindset and see if you canreplicate it somewhere else.
Does that make sense?
Definitely.
Yeah.
I.
So I had made the decision towithdraw, but I still wanted to,
like, I was like, I might aswell just sit down, take the PT at
that designated time, becauseI've already, like, carved out this

(21:46):
time in my schedule.
So there was significantlyless pressure.
I think also, I've beenstudying, like, I think since May
is almost like eight, eightmonths or so from now or more than.
More than I like 10 months.
And since I took so few PTsover the course of that time period,

(22:08):
every PT has felt really highpressure because it's like, well,
I've been studying for weeksbefore this next pt, so if I don't
see that manifest in a higherscore, I'll be discouraged.
Um, and I think pressure isdefinitely a significant factor.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
And I mean, I ask a lot.
Of that because that was partof what was keeping me kind of at

(22:30):
a plateau.
And so when I was especiallyin the 160s, like kind of right where
you are, and I had gotten up,like maybe I had broken the 170s
once.
But like, I don't even know ifI had the same sort of setup.
I just really kept putting somuch pressure on myself every single
time that I sat down for a pt.
I also wasn't doing thempretty consistently.
So I'm glad that you'regetting into this weekly PT thing

(22:52):
now, but I think that changesa lot, especially when you've been
studying for that long andespecially when you really know your
stuff.
Like, I can tell from the,like, even just from looking at your
wrong answer journal.
You know your stuff, you knowwhat you're doing.
It's more so strategy andmindset at this point.
And so I want to get moreinsight into like, what you're doing
when you're going throughthese pts.
What are you doing differentlyon time practice.

(23:14):
We can talk more about, like,how to get your timing down for rc.
Actually, I have some ideas onthat too, before I forget, but I'm
trying.
To think where to startbetween 118 and 131.
The 171 and the 1 65.
What?
How much time passed?
Sorry.
One.
So 118 to when the.

(23:35):
The 171 to the.
From the 170 to the next one.
Oh, okay.
So this was September 6th andthis was October 8th, so about a
month.
Okay, great.
So.
So just also, I'm realizingsome people are probably listening
to this.
So it's.
This is from your high scorethat you took on the day that you

(23:56):
were supposed to take the testthat we've discussed to the next
time you picked up andstarted, you know, taking pts again.
So I'm guessing like, okay, so.
So about a month passed.
And what was it.
What was.
What happened during thatmonth, study wise?
So since I'm basedinternationally, I had to travel
home to take the LSAT in, inperson or not in person, but in the

(24:20):
U.S.
so I, what, I flew back,started working full time and I took
about a week off after I tookthe sit down test or fake test.
Pseudo test.
Yeah.
And then started studyingagain a week after.
Okay, okay, got it.

(24:42):
And, and, and what's thecadence been like since then?
Like roughly weekly in termsof taking a pt?
Yeah.
Yeah, no, it wouldn't havestarted being.
Yeah.
Until I guess December.
Yeah.
End of November to.

(25:03):
Yeah, I guess December startedto like be more weekly.
Yeah, very recently.
I, I want to say too, likelooking at your analytics, there's
this like trend line up to the171 where it's like, wow, like you're
really every, if, if you'renot looking at it at home, you know,
it's like, wow.
It's just one after the other.
They're going up and up and upto 171.
And then a month goes by andyou, you drop, you know, you drop

(25:24):
down to like 165, another 166.
And so I know like if you lookat my analytics, a similar thing
happened where I, I, I, I wentup and then I just sort of stopped
and I, I don't know if that'swhat happened for you, but I, I really
just like kind of was like Itook my foot off the pedal a little
bit and I don't know if youhad that or not, but it, where and
then it just like dropped andI sort of thought, well, this is

(25:45):
like riding a bike.
Like when, as soon as I pickthe back bike back up, I'll be exactly
where I left it.
And it wasn't like that.
So I, I don't know.
Does a similar thing happen?
Yes, definitely.
And so I mean you can also seefor my first test post finishing
the core curriculum, which isthis first one was my second highest

(26:06):
score.
Yep.
Right.
And so that's been, that wasquite discouraging I think, seeing
that this is what I scoredlike before ever really even starting
doing pts, I was like, oh, Ishould only go up from here.
And as you can see, it has notonly gone up from there, so that
was quite discouraging.
But the reason of thisupwards, continuous upward trajectory
is because I, I was onsabbatical and so I had full time,

(26:30):
I was studying full time, likesix, seven hours a day, nothing else.
Very like disciplined, like routine.
I had no distractions.
I deleted social media, everything.
And since coming back now Iwork full time.
So I had to like adjust Myschedule, life happens, et cetera.
And so it's been, there's justbeen other things that I've had to

(26:54):
like, distribute my time.
So instead of studying likesix hours a day, I only study like
two max four hours a day.
Well, the good news is I thinkthat all the, all that this shows
me is that you're capable of,of doing it.
And I don't think you need thesix hours a day to get there.
Right.
And I think what Bailey wassort of getting at, you know, you've
done a lot of the work that issort of our necessary conditions

(27:15):
to succeed.
Right.
Like you, you, you, you, you.
You're thinking about thesethings in depth.
You've created like just avery rich database for yourself of
wrong answers.
Like you're, you're doing all the.
You're crossing all your T's,dotting all your eyes.
And now I do think we shouldtalk a bit about your mindset because
I imagine, you know, and maybeBailey, if you want to ask the follow
ups that you were thinking about.

(27:35):
Oh, okay.
I don't know them yet.
We took so much time to letyou think about what your next questions
were.
Sorry.
Well, here, let's start.
Let's start just.
Okay, I guess before we dothat, let's, let's start with like,
let's, let's like cross offall the boxes that are like just
sort of like the nuts andbolts of the test.

(27:55):
Like.
So you're getting minus.
Let's scroll down a little bitand look.
So you're saying like the, the.
Your, your.
Your misses are.
Are sort of like across.
If you can go down to the lr.
Okay.
Yeah, so.
This.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's great.
So.
Yeah, so it looks, yeah, so it looks.
Yeah, it looks like honestly,for this.

(28:18):
To be more accurate, I wouldprobably go back up and choose the
most recent 3pts.
Because this is showing youwhat you're bad at from every single
PT you've ever taken.
True.
So how do you do?
Go all the way back to the top.
Yeah, let me show you.
This is gonna be so helpful.
Go top and then it on that.
Currently showing 16 of 16.
Tap to edit right at the endof the list or there.

(28:40):
Yeah, just do five recent atthe top.
The.
There's the button.
Five reason.
Okay.
Because that's December through.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That should be a lot moreaccurate as to like where you're
actually missing questionsthese days.
And it might still be kind ofa similar even distribution.
But let's see if that Changes anything.
Yeah.
Good call.

(29:00):
Yeah.
Okay, cool.
This is helpful.
Yeah.
And so I mean like with thisaccept right away, like we, we see.
So first of all, by the way,what we're looking at right now is
this is seven stage analyticsprioritizing which question types
in each section you are not sogood at.
It's not only take intoaccount your actual accuracy, that's
like how many you're gettingright and wrong, but also comparing
it to this expected accuracywhich is based on where other people

(29:23):
are scoring in the same rangeand then they're also checking in
on the number of expectedquestions per test.
Is this news to you?
This is.
Yeah.
Did you know that?
Okay, cool.
Okay, cool.
So just the time change.
Yeah.
No, I was wondering is thepart that's blowing your mind just
like changing the.

(29:44):
The range of tests that partyou're talking about?
Yeah, definitely.
Because I was, I was like, Iknow my must be true is.
Is way better than this.
It shouldn't be like myweekend especially like I want to
improve that.
So this, this feels much more app.
And honestly, I think this is accurate.
What this is telling me isthat I think when I first finished
the core curriculum, I likehad all of the foundationals, but

(30:08):
I hadn't developed likequestion type strategies.
And so I was more flexiblewith approaching question types.
And this is showing me.
Okay, except is wrong.
My miscellaneous is.
I'm terrible.
I'm terrible at miscellaneousquestions because they don't follow
a specific question type strategy.
So I think it's showing to melike I've lost a lot of that like

(30:31):
flexibility with approachingquestions that might not fit in like
the typical box.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I also think, you know, havingstrengthening in PSAR there, I mean
the good news is they're similar.
You know, PSAR is just a justlike all like sufficient assumption.
Just and necessary assumption.

(30:53):
It's just a specific way to strengthen.
So I would drill down there,think about, you know, look at some
of those missed questions.
Look for if they're, you know,you have this wrong answer journal
where you're labeling them notonly by question type but also by
some of the underlying concepts.
That's where the wrong answerjournal is so helpful because now
you can look and see, okay, ofthese strengthening and PSIR questions,

(31:14):
like are there other throughlines that are presenting themselves
or for the, for the acceptquestions and the miscellaneous questions
as well, like is theresomething else going on here that
has to do specifically withthe way that I'm strengthening arguments?
So that's where I Think yourwrong answer journal and the process
you've instituted over therecan really help you.
Have other thoughts, Bailey?

(31:34):
Yeah, I just want to add somecontext to this really quick.
So like for the acceptquestions, the miscellaneous, you've
only seen six of them over thecourse of these PTs that we're looking
at.
Or like, sorry, six accept andthen three miscellaneous.
Yeah, just remind yourself too.
That doesn't mean that you'reterrible at miscellaneous questions.
It just means that of thethree you've seen, you got one right.
So yes, hone in on those butalso focus just on like big picture.

(31:54):
I like that it's prioritizingthese strengthen and psar.
Because the last thing I wasgoing to say in terms of like how
they prioritize this for youis they're not just taking into account
what you're not so good at,they're also taking into account
how many of these questionsare you likely to see on the actual
exam.
So that's why it's likestrength and psar, you're not terrible
at those, but you get a littlebang for your buck by getting really

(32:15):
good at those.
Yeah, miscellaneous, like youhave, you know, comparatively low
accuracy at 33%, but you'renot, you're likely to see one at
most on the test if don't spend.
As much time there, but couldbe a helpful drill that you want
to do.
And like, I like that idea ofmaybe, you know, going at it with
the approach of making surethat you're adaptable.
Your mindset is allowed tochange just based on whatever question

(32:36):
they're asking you, regardlessof the question strategy.
But yeah, no, this ishopefully going to be helpful to
like start here.
Yeah.
So I think one thing we'velearned is that like, maybe there
is a little bit more that youcan do under the hood, you know,
in terms of like prioritizingquestion types than maybe you realize
like, yeah, if you look atthat kind of flattened out view,

(32:59):
it looks like roughly the same.
But.
But maybe actually at thisstage there are some clear areas
that you need to, to, youknow, question types that you might
want to prioritize and look at.
I mean, and with acceptquestions, you know, that just crosses
across.
That's every question type,you know that, that Right.
Then you throw accept into.
So yeah, go ahead.
I just wanted to do a quick.

(33:20):
Hack for accept questionsbecause I think that a lot of people
need something like this.
Accept questions is literallyjust any question, but you know,
they're giving you theexception to it.
So what I do is it takes maybean extra few seconds, but it's worth
the investment of time.
I'll literally rephrase whatthe question is saying in my own
words so that I can remind myself.
You're eliminating answerchoices that blank, like, if it's

(33:41):
a strength and accept, I'mgoing to be like, okay, Bailey, you're
eliminating answer choicesthat strengthen.
You're choosing answer choicesthat weaken or do nothing to the
argument.
And honestly, it's worth that extra.
Like, just pause, kind of talkit through all the way to yourself
and give yourself that samepointer that you would probably normally
give yourself questions,strategy wise, but turn it into its
accept version.
And also remind yourself,like, for strength and accept.

(34:03):
It's not just you're lookingfor a weakener.
You're looking also maybe forsomething that doesn't do anything
to the argument.
And there's a lot of otherquestion types with accept that maybe
people just aren't going intothe answer choices with that pre
phrase of, okay, I know whatI'm looking for.
I know what I'm eliminating.
So try that there.
Anybody can try that.
And then.
Yeah, keep going.
Take a look at rc.
We have a recent test pulledup, so we're going to use that as

(34:28):
kind of our case study to talkabout how RC is going for you, Olivia.
So this one second to lasttest you took, right?
I believe this is third tolast test.
Yes.
Third to last.
Okay, great.
Bailey, what.
What?
What do you want to take alook at here?
Okay.
Yeah, so I wanted to see thedistribution of questions and also

(34:49):
just like, timing distribution.
Can you mouse over the timing?
Like, yeah, perfect.
And then just stay there for a second.
So.
And just for context forpeople, if you're listening, you
might want to pull this up on YouTube.
You should watch this.
You should totally watch this.
Makes so much more sense.
But I'll give you.
I'll give you context.
I'll give you context for whatwe're looking at.
On 7 Sage, we have a.

(35:10):
On the analytics, we have a bar.
I'm using my hand as if thatwould translate.
Yeah, no, but basically whatwe're looking at is the.
The time that Olivia spent oneach question and if it's above or
below the target, as thealgorithm has determined.
Right.
Oh, my gosh.
And oh, no, my Siri.

(35:32):
I just want to see, like, what your.
I like how your Siri calls youAlexander instead of Alex.
That was the first, actually.
Yeah.
Interesting.
She's learning.
Okay, so I wanted to see,like, how long you're spending on
each passage.
Because like here doesn't seemlike, okay, six minutes total on
passage one is actually areally good pace.
Let me see where like justoverall your timing was distributed
across the passages.

(35:54):
First, just under seven.
Just.
Just to.
Just to.
Just to bring everyone up tospeed from what we talked about before,
Olivia notices that you tendto be missing a similar amount of
questions across each passage,regardless of where it is, regardless
of difficulty.
So the test we're looking atnow, the first passage is a one star
difficulty.
The second passage is a twostar difficulty.

(36:15):
The third passage is a fivestar difficulty.
What's the fourth passage?
If you had scroll down.
Four stars.
Four.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
And this is a good exampledefinitely of like just the natural
or not necessarily thatnatural, but average, I'd say distribution
of RC in general.
The first two passages aregoing to be a little bit easier.
They might not be actuallylike that.
You know, that seems likethese ones were objectively a lot

(36:36):
easier.
But in general, first twopassages you want to be spending
a little bit less time on sothat you can save yourself more time
for those ones at the end.
You have a fairly accurateperception of like what you said
at the beginning seems to holdtrue for this test, which is that
you know you got one wrong onthe first passage, so pretty good.
But then three wrong on the second.

(36:56):
I think two wrong on the lasttwo on each of the last two.
So yeah, your worst passagewas the second one, which is a two
star difficulty.
Not nearly as hard as the last two.
Sorry, go ahead.
Exactly.
And I think that in terms oftiming, this, this PT looks like
it was moving a bit quickerfor timing.

(37:17):
I think I go sort of in apendulum between if I end up scoring,
missing early easy questionsin rc, then I slow down and I for
on the next PT or the next RCsection, then I take too much time
at the beginning and then endup missing like more later questions.
And I'm trying to find abalance between not like you said,

(37:39):
like taking a lot of time herebut still missing a one star, but
still saving time for likeharder passages down the line.
Right.
Because like, technically whathappened here is you, you maybe could
have invested a little bitmore time in your passage too, so
that you made sure that yougot those points that were maybe
more low hanging fruit at, atthat point, but it's so hard to know
in the moment.
Like, would you have known inthe moment?

(38:00):
Oh no, I need to spend alittle bit more time here.
Maybe, maybe not.
And so we can talk about those indicators.
Like if how aware you are thatyou're doing well or not during the
RC section.
But I do want to remind myselfto say this before I forget that
I think overall my best advicefor like keeping yourself at a pretty
good pace for RC is givingyourself a halfway point to move

(38:21):
on.
And so for myself, I noticedthat I was just spending a disproportionate
amount of time on my first two passages.
I used to just like writenotes all over my wrong answer journal
girl, move faster.
But that wasn't really helpfulbecause did it tell me exactly what
to do to move faster?
No, I was just like freaking out.
Panicking more made me move slower.
So as soon as I was like,okay, you need to move yourself along

(38:42):
to the third passage by aboutthe 15 minute mark.
Like distributing yourself.
Overall, about 15 minutestotal for the first two passages
is going to give you seven anda half minutes for each passage.
I mean honestly, it would havegiven you an extra minute and a half
from what you used in this case.
And then you are still movingyourself along.
So you have 10 minutes total,20 whole minutes for those last two
passages or 10 minutes totalfor each new passage at the end.

(39:05):
So I'd start with somethinglike that.
And I started trying to justtell myself to like, you have to
move on.
But in order to train yourselfto get to the point where like you
can trust yourself to move onat that point.
That's why I recommend theselike first two RC passages and 15
minute drills or last twopassages and 20 minute drills.
Like break down differentsections, even ones that you've done
before, but just do ones thatyou've seen least recently and just

(39:28):
start training yourself intothe habit of like, I just have 15
minutes for the first two, Ihave 20 minutes for the last two
thoughts.
Yeah, I think it's really good advice.
I've.
I've heard previously theadvice of you have to save 20 minutes
for the last two passages.
But I've never actuallycontextualize that in doing two passages

(39:50):
and 15 minute drill sets to practice.
So I think that's, I thinkthat's quite good advice.
And it's just going to beabout for me like when, when I have
to go back to the passageversus when I have to just like rely
on like retention frequently.
Also, I find that if, if I amunsure about an early question, if

(40:12):
I skip it in the moment andcome back to it at the end of that
passage and then go back to itfor like a couple seconds, it clicks
into place.
Similar, similarly to like aRang2 on LR.
So I think skipping.
Skipping for.
On this.
On the easy ones, maybe it'snot such a great strategy for like
the fourth passage becauseit'll just.

(40:33):
It's a time sink.
But earlier on, like,sometimes when I do that, it does
help.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And I always just remindmyself, like, if I'm going to skip,
I want to try to skip early onin the timing.
So if you even just giveyourself an indicator, like, okay,
at the moment that I realizedI don't know where in the passage
to get my answer, I don't evenknow a pre.
Phrase.
I'm like.
You mean early on in thequestion process?

(40:54):
Like.
Like.
Oh, yeah, yeah, sorry.
Like right away.
Yeah.
If I'm gonna be skip, I'mgonna skip fast.
If I'm gonna, you know, answerit, I'm gonna try to answer it also
with the over, like about lessthan a minute for each RC question,
basically.
Yeah.
So if you have the inklingthat you want to skip, you know.
Yeah.
Like, go for it.
Take it, do it.
I also think it's important tonote that you did get these questions
right on blind review, youknow, so it's like, I think it adds.

(41:16):
Adds more evidence to the factthat, like, you know, it's a timing
issue.
It's a timing issue.
Right.
And you got specifically, ifyou can't see at home, like, so you
missed.
If you're not watching athome, if you're listening, if.
If you missed the people whoare listening.
Not.
Okay, anyways, whatever.
Yes, thank you so much for clarifying.
So 4.

(41:37):
You got four questions wrongin the first half and four questions
wrong in the second half.
You got all of the questionsin the first half correct on blind
review and none of thequestions in the last half correct
on blind review.
You didn't, you didn't.
Oh, and you didn't blindreview a lot of them.
Yeah, that's a good point.
You didn't.
You didn't revisit them?
I didn't revisit the.

(41:58):
I think for this one.
I've started now blindreviewing, like, the entirety of
RC passages.
But I think at this point Iwas only blind reviewing my flag,
so I wouldn't have had achance even to like, identify these.
Right.
Particularly, like 26 seconds.
Right.
Like, I was clearly moreconfident than I was an overconfidence
error.

(42:19):
Yeah, I need to know.
I mean, and.
And honestly, like, I thinkthat only reviewing the flags is
like, that's the approach thatI would take.
I think it's okay.
To do, to do what you're doing.
But I don't think thateveryone has to do that.
I think just reviewing theflags is generally what we recommend.
I'm not going to say you can'treview everything.
It's just there is something to.
Yeah, there's something to besaid about just reviewing the flags

(42:41):
because it's also indicatingto yourself what you actually thought
was wrong and what you weren't.
So listen, if you want torevisit the whole passage, that's
fine.
There's utility in that.
But I would pay attention towhich questions did I flag?
You know, and like, becausethat's important too because like
what you're noticing hereabout question 20, which is a four

(43:01):
star question on a four starpassage, you did it in 26 seconds.
You didn't flag it.
You thought, you thought youknew what was.
You thought you knew theanswer and more power to you, but
you didn't.
So.
So that happens to me so much.
Yes, exactly.
It's like done.
Yes, so.
So even if you are going toreview for, for the most part, I

(43:21):
would advise people just toblind review the questions you flagged
because I mean, honestly, it'sjust people get burned out, like
doing, doing too much.
Now that's not everyone.
It sounds like it's, it'sworking for you.
So, you know, blind review thewhole passage, that's totally fine.
But I wouldn't, I would stillpay attention to which ones you flagged
and if you got those right orwrong, you know, Definitely.
Yeah.
And I always remind myselftoo, like if I didn't notice it during

(43:43):
blind review, that's totally okay.
It's not like I lost.
It's like, okay, I'm gonnaspend a little bit more time here
on my wrong answer journal.
So I'm, you're, you're greatat your wrong answer journal and
you just started doing it forrc, which is good.
And so I think that just spenda little bit more time with these
ones and also start givingyourself takeaways of like, how do
I know to be a little bit more cautious?
Or like how do I know thatmaybe I should have flagged something
like that?

(44:04):
Which really quick strategywise, when you're going through RC
in real time, are youeliminating like, are you fully eliminating
four answer choices andchoosing one for a reason?
Or like, what does that looklike mentally?
Yeah, I think it varies.
There's definitely some love,some degree of inconsistency with
that POE strategy.

(44:24):
So sometimes I think for rc,particularly for like most strongly
Supported style, like impliedquestions in rc, I'm hesitant to
eliminate right off the batanswer choices because they might
just be like more subtle.
And so half the time if itworks, it means that I'm reading,

(44:45):
reading them through until Ifind one that like clicks with like
my, the logic or the prephrase that I had when I like sort
of develop criteria for thequestion stem itself.
But in other times, like Ifind that it's sort of like halfway
ground between hunting andpicking and going and like reading
word for word, like highcritical, being very critically evaluating

(45:09):
each single answer choice.
And so sometimes if I fallinto that middle ground, it's, it's
to my detriment.
I feel you.
I mean I'd say that your job,when you're doing these timing drills
that I'm telling you to do forrc, like the first two passages,
the last two passages is justtell yourself my job is I have to
eliminate four answer choicesfor a reason.

(45:30):
I have to choose one.
And in order to do that inthat time and also like get everything
done in that time, it's justlike you're gonna have to trust yourself,
like just do yes or nos goingdown those answer choices.
If you need to give yourself afew more, like I don't know, maybes
at first, I mean, allowyourself to.
But honestly, what I do for RCis I'm like yes or a no on every
answer choice.
I get one or two maybes acrossall those five answer choices per

(45:51):
question.
And as long as you're justlike giving yourself evidence based
reasons why you're makingthese decisions, might feel like
you can't quite do all of thatin the time right away.
But as you keep doing thesetiming drills and just like implementing
that, I think it'll cometogether because the inconsistency
thing, I'm glad that you said that.
That was also my problem.
I was just not doing the samething every time.
And I think there's just atleast a couple little strategies

(46:13):
that you want to boil it downto where it's like, I'm going to
do this every time and there'sno way that they can throw something
at me that I'm not going to beprepared for in that sense.
Yeah, right.
And so when you say, sorry,when you say like deriving evidence,
like I'm eliminating somethingfor a reason, is that reason from
your memory or is that goingback to finding like quick textual

(46:35):
support?
Yeah, so that's the part whereRC is kind of a balance.
But I'm a big fan of Gettingfamiliar with where details live
in the passage.
Like reading for structure,reading for what is the purpose of
this paragraph?
What's the purpose of this one?
So that when they ask me areally nitpicky detail oriented question
and it's an inference, forexample, it's not like I am just
trusting my memory.
I know exactly where in thepassage to go back to and find my

(46:57):
evidence.
Sometimes I'm able to findthat word for word evidence really
quickly.
But what I make myself do tolike, be like, okay, did I use an
evidence based reason toeliminate this answer choice is I'll
get out my orange highlighterwhen I'm going down those answer
choices.
And I just use that toindicate to me red flags.
There's usually a word or aphrase in every single answer choice
that you can choose that likejust isn't accurate about the text.

(47:17):
A lot of times for myself, I'mjust allowing myself to go back the
text and double check itreally quick because of how I read
in the first place.
So.
Right.
Hopefully that makes sense.
Yeah.
The other thing I'd say justfor, because more general advice
to everyone is like, you know,it like the ability to go back to
the text is kind of somethingthat you earn for yourself over time.

(47:37):
Like for exactly.
It really depends on your timing.
And so like looking at likegeneral advice is most people don't
yet have time to go back.
Right.
That it's like you're actuallygoing to do better on the test if
you don't go back.
Right.
But this is where, you know,we always talk about it as like public
health recommendations whereit's like, you know, it's like, it's

(47:57):
like they say like take two ibuprofen.
Well, it's like a lot ofpeople can take three ibuprofen,
it'll be fine.
But like, you know, you wantto give.
We're gonna tell everybody totake two.
You know, that that would likebe, be helpful for the most amount
of people and for, for, forthe majority of people.
Like you don't really havetime to go back.
Right.
And that's not to say that youcan't get to a point where you can
go back.
Because Olivia, when we lookat your timing, like you do have

(48:19):
a little bit of time to goback and you should use that where
you, where you can.
But it's like it's the nuanceof, of the LSAT that that is something.
And the mistake that a lot ofpeople make is that they have to,
that their strategy won'tchange that.
That like the strategy theyhave to use the strategy of a XYZ
scorer.
Instead of recognizing, well,where I'm at right now, I don't have

(48:42):
the time to go back and I needto rely on my memory and I need and.
And.
And then understanding that like.
Okay, like in two months Imight be in a place after following
the strategy where I'm a lotfaster and I can go back.
So for where you are, Olivia,I think you can start to build in
time if you know where thosethings are to quickly verify.
Totally agree.

(49:04):
Just to.
Just to bring it.
Just to.
Just to take the specificadvice, you know, because we're.
We're sort of shifting inbetween what you know, the.
Right.
No.
And I think actually that's.
Yeah.
So hopefully your people arelike people who might be in a similar
boat as you, Olivia, are goingto get something out of this episode.
But we also want to make surethat like everybody's getting something
out of this episode.
So really just make sure thatyou're catering your strategies to

(49:24):
where you're at and you're studying.
And just because you're doingsomething now doesn't mean that you're
going to be doing it forever.
Yeah, definitely.
In general in life for.
I mean that's good life advice.
Should we get deep, this tooshall pass.
You know, nothing.
Nothing is permanent andthat's good and bad, you know.
Right.
It's all fleeting.
Okay.
Anything else we want to touchon on rc?

(49:45):
Do you feel like you got whatyou need, Olivia questions?
Yeah, I mean I guess is the only.
Is the only feedback for like the.
These missing early questionslike the two on under 15 drill or.
Well, so one thing is that I'm.
I'm wondering when you do moreof those drills, like maybe your

(50:05):
RC overall isn't quite as like.
I, I don't think that this RCpath or this section is reflective
of where you're at right nowin RC at least based on those most
most recent 2pts.
So like first things first,start doing those drills.
Just see how it works outaccuracy wise.
But my biggest advice foraccuracy is the eliminate four answer

(50:25):
choices.
Choose one for a reason.
So you got to go down thoseanswer choices, yes or no.
Give yourself one maybe orsomething and just see how that works
for the first place.
Then it looks like there'sprobably more nuanced issues that
you might be having with likeit is looking like there's a good
amount of implied questionslike the inference type questions
that you're missing here atleast And I think that a lot of those,
it just has to do with like doI know where to get my evidence in

(50:47):
the passage?
You know, am I able to go backin that time?
Yeah, because it's like implied.
Implied.
Implied.
Implied.
Yeah.
So anyways, I think that theoverall like structuring your read
of the passage that you knowwhere the details live but you're
not overwhelming yourselfwhile you're reading in order to
like memorize all of those details.
That's, that's my overalladvice for like getting these last

(51:08):
few points which seem to be alot of inference.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah, starting off withlike more stricter integrity to like
the POE procedure at theeasier like earlier passages and
then giving more of that likeflexibility later in the.
For harder passages where POEmight not be the default if like

(51:31):
you're not having words thatare automatically disqualifying language
like you mentioned.
True.
And it will be easier in thosefirst two.
But I honestly I can'temphasize enough that I think you
should be doing that sameexact eliminate four choose one for
a reason strategy throughoutthe entire section.
It might feel like that youjust don't have the time or you can't
fully do that.
And like I leave open a coupleanswer choices sometimes with the
harder questions at the end.

(51:51):
But I think the more that youhold that like hold yourself to some
sort of uniform strategy whereit's like I'm making evidence based
decisions.
I'm like.
Because for example, I firstthought of this when you chose that
main point answer choice thatwas like the trap answer but it was
D and the right answer was A.
I'm like, did you eliminate A?
Did you have a reason toeliminate A?
Right, because there probablythere wasn't an evidence based reason

(52:12):
to eliminate A.
So that's why I'm likeeverywhere, all over this test.
Eliminate 4 choose.
So very frequently in RC I'm.
I'm getting down to like a5050 and I don't know as much.
Like if I'm able to, it mighttake longer for me out of 5050 to
find that evidence to.
And so what would yourecommend like when I'm at a 5050

(52:32):
for RC.
Okay, so couple different things.
What do you mean by it's harder?
Yeah, why do you think it'sharder when you get down to 2?
Just out of curiosity.
If I'm out of.
If I'm at a true 5050 it meanslike for me I can't either tell the
difference between whatthey're saying or they both, they
both seem right to me.
They both have like a path forward.
I could make an argument,could be correct.

(52:53):
Well, I'm glad that you saidthat because I think that the main
problem that when people getdown to two is they're thinking that
they basically say the same thing.
And the first thing that I doin my brain is I'm like, they never
are saying the same thing.
I just tell myselfobjectively, like, it seems like
they're written in this way totry to gaslight you into thinking
that these are so similar thatI really can't tell the difference.
But they're not.
And so my very first step islike, I must figure out what the
difference between theseanswer choices is.

(53:15):
How do I do that?
Logistically, I'm going to goup to my first answer choice.
I'm going to pause everycouple words, put those in my own
words, make sure that I'munderstanding what they're saying
as I'm going.
A lot of times what happens iswe read the whole answer choice,
like all together, and we'relike, oh yeah, it basically says
this.
And then oh yeah, the otherone basically says this.
But if you pause every couplewords, see how each new word adds
to or changes the meaning, andthat doesn't have to take too long,

(53:37):
you'll practice it, it'll go faster.
That's the very first stepthat I always tell everybody.
And honestly, that solves alot of people's problems.
But then beyond that, we cantalk through more different ways
to like, figure out the differences.
I think look for thedifferences between them.
Absolutely.
And then also just look for aneye for what's.
What's wrong.
It's like, exactly.
Just pinning the red flagsagainst each other.
We just like, are way toocharitable with, like, with the way

(54:01):
that we take this test, youknow, where we're just like, these
also sound so plausible.
They all sound so good.
Right.
And that's what makes them hard.
So we just have to know that.
We just have to look for howare these different?
Like, they're obviously different.
How are they different?
And then also what makes these wrong?
Like, it's just, it's reallylike a perspective thing.
Like a glass half empty approach.

(54:21):
Like these, these are bad.
Right?
Be less to them, be more mean.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So I mean, I don't know, thatmight sound a little abstract, but
I really think there's a lotto that.
Just really accepting thatthese are two different things and
one of them is unequivocallywrong because.
Right.
Especially as things get hard,we start.
We try looking for the right thing.

(54:42):
Like, what makes it right.
Like what?
And these all seem so right.
And you'll get pulled in everydirection in that way.
Yeah.
Of course.
They're written to make itseem right.
Really.
Like, you know, like, it'slike I.
I wish that, you know, I waslike, you should.
I was.
The image I had is like.
The image I had is like, youshould tattoo it on.
You should tag.
It's like such an importantthing, you know, maybe.

(55:03):
Maybe something temporary.
Maybe a henna.
Maybe a hinted tattoo thatjust says these.
There are four wrong answers.
Not for you, Olivia.
This.
Literally this for anyone.
But no, same like I always.
That's what I mean when I sayfour wrong answers.
One right answer.
Because you get down to two,and you really think both are right.
And no, one of them has to be wrong.
One of them has to be right.
Yeah.
Do you think you'd get introuble if you had a henna tattoo
that was.
I would say.
I actually don't know if.

(55:24):
Four wrong answers.
That's funny.
I mean.
Yeah.
How is that really cheating?
That's also something to memorize.
Don't do it.
We're not suggesting that.
I mean, for other reasons.
I would not suggest that.
Yeah, like, there are otherreasons why I say you shouldn't do
that beyond just.
If it'll work for the test.
All right.
No regrets.

(55:45):
We've gone fairly long on this.
So let's.
Let's see.
Looping back to.
So.
So what, like, drills in general.
Have we recommended?
And full transparency.
We had to split this up overtwo days because we ran out of time
the first time because we'regoing long.
So we're trying to.
We're.
We're trying to.
Which everyone else did the.
Okay.
I was gonna say that Alex isthe only one that didn't get the

(56:07):
memo to wear the same thing.
I didn't wear the same thingas yesterday.
Everyone else was way moreconscientious than me.
Yeah, because we're girls.
Not disagreeing there.
Yeah.
Well, go ahead, Bailey.
I don't even know what I wasgonna say.
I have no idea.
Were you gonna bring it backto, like, a wrap up question?

(56:29):
Yeah, hold on.
You ask.
Yeah.
So just sort of wrapping up.
Like, if we think back to lr,the thing that we identified is.
It seemed like if you take thelong view at all of the tests you've
taken, it's a little flatthere in terms of, like, what questions
I'm getting wrong.
It looks like, it's sort ofequal across the board.
When we reduced the.
The time range to more recenttests, like, some clear contenders

(56:51):
did pop out.
There were the acceptquestions, which.
That is really.
That.
I don't.
Well, I don't know.
You could put together a drillof accept questions.
I mean, that's not the worst idea.
Just to just get your head inthat place, but also just know it's
a mechanical thing.
And, Bailey, you had someadvice for accept questions.
Yeah, I was gonna say, like,you could do that drill and just
be like, okay.
Every single time, you have toput into your own words, I'm looking

(57:13):
for an answer that blank.
I'm eliminating answers that blank.
And then, same thing.
Full elimination.
I must eliminate four for a reason.
Why?
Because they didn't strengthen.
Blah, blah, blah, or whatever.
They did strengthen and so on.
The other thing that we sawwas there were strengthening in PSAR
questions.
I think those were your top three.
Like, accept strengthening.
Right, Exactly.
Which is good, because there'ssome parallels.
Between those, except it'sjust, like, a mechanical thing, right?

(57:36):
It's just kind of.
And it's honestly a reminder thing.
For me, it was like, oh, bythe end, I'm done with this question
for an accept question.
Like, I.
For.
I truly forget what it's about.
Like, I forget becauseoftentimes there's, like, double
negatives where I'm trying toweaken things.
Except.
And I'm like, I definitelylose track of the directionality
since, like, especially ifit's, like, a weakened accept or

(57:57):
strengthen accept, I losetrack of.
Wait, which direction am Isupposed to go for my conclusion?
Exactly.
So for that, I think doing adrill of accept questions and really
forcing yourself to go throughthe workflow for that.
Like, in the same way that youhave a workflow for the other question
types.
Like, for accept, like, forme, at least, it was constantly reminding
myself what the question wasand constantly rephrasing it to myself,

(58:18):
like, with every new answer choice.
Because I will straight up forget.
I will choose the right answerfor the wrong question.
Like, because I have forgottenwhat the question is.
Same.
And then I kind of chuckled myself.
Oh, sorry.
No, no.
I was gonna say I justchuckled myself when I'm going down
those answer choices.
Because, like, I have torephrase it every time.
Like, I'm like, I'm lookingfor what.

(58:38):
I'm.
I'm eliminating what.
And then I go back, I reread.
Like, trust yourself.
Just let yourself do that.
My last advice on that is, like.
I just want to clarify.
Wasn't it sounded like I wasmad at you.
I honestly wasn't evenlistening to what you were saying.
So now I'm so self consciousabout the people how things sound
versus how things look.
I'm like people couldn't seemy face.
Go ahead.
Whatever.

(58:59):
Shoot.
I was gonna say.
Oh, do the accept questionsdrill untimed and like don't worry
about the timing for that.
Just focus on getting a goodworkflow and then maybe you do another
10 question except drill whereyou do it more time.
But first things first.
Just get yourself into a goodworkflow and then probably something
similar for this.
Yeah, I mean, I mean you canlook for the similarity between those.
Right.
Because that is the thing isPSAR is just a specific type of strengthening.

(59:21):
Right.
So like it fits certain criteria.
And for psir you can reallyjust take this formula of like premise.
Like you are looking forsomething that's triggered by the
premise that results in the conclusion.
And like.
Yeah, once I reallyinternalize that, those questions
become fun, honestly.
Because yeah, it's like youjust have to check the two boxes.
Yeah.
And they're, they're, they'renot as.

(59:43):
They don't need to be asairtight as this efficient assumption.
It doesn't need to create herea, a valid argument.
Right.
And so it's just somethingthat, that sort of like that does
what you needed to do thatthat's triggered by that premise,
results in the conclusion, butit doesn't have as high a bar.
And then I would also takethose wrong answers.
Look at that.

(01:00:03):
That's where the wrong answerjournal and all the work you're doing
there is going to be so fruitful.
Looking at strength, thestrengthening and PSA are questions
that you get wrong and seeingif there are deeper similarities
between them.
Is there certain types ofreasoning that you're struggling
with beyond just the question type?
So I think generally drillstargeting accept drills targeting
strengthening and psar, maybeeven putting together a drill of
both those questions togetherbecause you are doing similar things

(01:00:25):
in both of them and then doingwork after those drills, after your
pts to look for.
Are there deeper commonalitiesbetween these questions that I'm
getting?
And then for rc, do you wantto just sum up the.
I mean Bailey, you really.
Oh yeah.
So took the wheel there.
I love helping people getbetter at our seats.

(01:00:47):
I hated it so much.
Like I really just struggledwith that thing.
So.
Yeah, no, I was, I was sayingthe first two passages in 15 minute
drills, the last two passagesin 20 minute drills just go through
like section out some pts orfull sections.
I mean that you can break downinto those halves and then.
Right.
Honestly, by the way, thefirst time that I recommend doing
those, I do it on time formyself or like untimed, literally,

(01:01:08):
but like telling myself tokeep myself at the pace that I kind
of feel like I'm doing whenI'm doing pts.
Just see how long it takes youbaseline because like, chances are
you might be rushing throughthose first two passages faster than
you have to.
Like, we'll just see kind oflike how it plays out more over time.
And then if you end upspending more time or less time,
you can just focus on taperingyourself down to about that 15 minutes.

(01:01:31):
And then in real time, I justgive myself like when I see the 20
minutes left on the clock, I'mlike, okay, you have to move on to
passage three.
By the way.
I usually like, if I have acouple more questions and I realize
that it's 20 minutes left, Idon't just like force myself to stop
my thought process.
I'm gonna be like, okay, yougot two minutes to wrap it up, girl.
18 minutes, that's your hardcut off.
You gotta move on to passage three.
Otherwise you're gonna begiving yourself less than nine minutes

(01:01:52):
per each of those last two passages.
What if they're both fourstar, five star?
Who knows?
I'm just gonna make sure thatI'm setting myself up for success.
I did that too.
For people who are strugglingwith that.
Yeah, it's just a way of alsojust sort of.
It was less of a hard cutoffand more for me to know, to just
sort of gauge what's my pace at.
Like, this is where.
This is the halfway point.
And I would give myself alittle bit less than halfway to get

(01:02:14):
there.
And that way I could just kind of.
It wasn't, I didn't have tolike, look, have my eyes on the clock
at all moments, wonderingwhere it was.
It just gave me.
I used to be doing like crazycalculations that probably weren't
even accurate, trying tofigure out like how much time I had
left for each individual question.
And like, why was that a useful.
It wasn't, it wasn't helpful.
And then I think briefly wecan just touch on like some mindset

(01:02:35):
stuff that we got into at thebeginning, which is, I just think
like, you know, in general,you, you, you're clearly doing very
well on this test.
You've, you've made a lot ofprogress and it's, it's non linear
as we saw, which is True forme and most other people, it goes
up and down same.
And it's a super frustratingpart of this exam.
But, you know, I think one,it's always good to take stock of

(01:02:59):
how much growth you have madebecause you can just feel like you're
not doing anything that.
Not.
There's no forward progress.
And I'm sure it felt that wayat other times when you.
When you look back, youactually have made progress since
then.
So, you know, you are playingthe long game.
You're doing all the right things.

(01:03:19):
We talked a little bityesterday about, like, what the feeling
was when you were taking thatexam where you scored your highest.
Right.
And would you remind us, Ithink you're saying, like, the pressure
was really off in that moment.
Definitely.
Yeah.
The pressure was significantlyreduced because I wasn't working
towards, like, a specificdeadline anymore.

(01:03:39):
And I.
I just remember, like, sittingdown and knowing this score does
not matter at all.
And no one knows that I'mtaking this test.
Perfect.
You're gonna tell yourself thesame exact things.
And it's really true.
It's really true about.
I'm like, in the process of myguys, you know, this doesn't matter.
They don't even know.

(01:03:59):
Yeah, it's really true, though.
It's true about any test.
I mean, the thing is, even.
And I know that, like.
Like, okay, yeah, if you.
If you would, like, schoolscan see that you took a test even
still.
It does.
That just doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
They don't care as much as youthink that they do.
That big of a deal.
Um, so really, any officialtest that you take, like, and I know

(01:04:21):
there are people listening tothis at home being like, wait, but
this test really matters for me.
And I'm like, I know.
I'm not saying this testdoesn't matter, but this is the counterintuitive
thing.
The more that you let go ofthat, like, the.
The as we saw, Olivia, is agreat case study.
The more that you let go ofthose expectations, that pressure
on yourself, the better you'regonna do.
So if you're sitting theresaying, well, you don't get it, for
me, I need this score, and forme, this.

(01:04:43):
This sitting for this testactually does matter.
I'm like, for sure it does matter.
But the more that you can takethe pressure off yourself, the more
that you can accept that,like, actually, no matter what happens
tomorrow, if tomorrow's yourtest day, you'll be okay.
Oh, my God.
True.
You're going to do on thattest, you Know, so, so like finding
ways to.
To just remind yourself ofthat even as you approach your official

(01:05:04):
test.
You know that and this is theluxury you've given yourself too
by playing the long gamesaying like, I'm just going to apply
when I'm ready, when I havethe score that I want.
You've set yourself up for that.
For where that literally isthe case.
It's okay if you don't get thescore that you want.
Of course we would like you toget it as soon as possible, but it's
okay.
And that's going to help youget there quicker.

(01:05:26):
Honestly, you know, very counterintuitive.
You have to let go to get it.
It reminds me of.
Okay, there's.
Real quick, real quick.
I remember reading about thisthing where it was this game and
it hooks you up to sensorsthat like that measure your sort
of signs of anxiety, like yourheart rate.
You're like, oh, I began thatgame like sweat, muscle tension,

(01:05:47):
that sort of thing.
And two people sit across fromeach other and they get a baseline
of those readings for eachother and there's like a ball in
the middle of the table.
And the more relaxed you are,the more the ball goes towards the
other person.
So like to win the game, youhave got to get.
You have to.
It's like the Chinese finger trap.
Like exactly.

(01:06:08):
The only way to get out islike not like not try that hard.
Yes, that's so true.
There's so many things thatare like that.
There's so many parallels.
Namely the lsat.
Anyways, do you feel like yougot what you.
What you wanted out of today and.
Yes.
Yesterday.
Olivia.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
No, this is super helpful.
I think I can do more workeven just in terms of like analyzing,

(01:06:32):
using the analytics page andchanging up my drilling.
Drilling strategy.
Like becoming more reflective.
Not just taking notes, butrevisiting the notes and breaking
them apart.
So yeah, really appreciateyour guys help.
Well, we'll look forward toseeing you around.
Seeing around 7 sage campus asit were.

(01:06:54):
I was like, where do we runinto her?
Like you've been to live class virtually.
Yes.
And yeah.
Come back to let us know how.
How things.
We'll.
We'll check in.
Yeah, we'll check in.
And I need a redemption arc.
Guys, you're in the middle of it.
Honestly.
Yeah.
You've already been.

(01:07:15):
Redemption.
There's no redemption.
Redemption implies that youlike pick your words.
I feel like you mess up.
Oh, true.
Yeah.
By the way, just clear justfor some context, we did just go
back like we chose a PT whereshe had missed a few more on RC so
that we could get that picture.
She's doing better on RC right now.
Okay.
I've got motivation now.
Yeah, exactly.
I'll be bad.

(01:07:35):
But if anyone at home wants todo this, we're looking for more people
to do this.
So again, literally no oneemails us.
So just comment.
Comment on YouTube.
But also there is an email podcast.
Could email us and we'll feelreally special.
Our social media is.
Is now up and running acrossthe board.
So you can comment.

(01:07:55):
Get in touch with us on Instagram.
Like, wait, literally right now?
Like you posted something?
No, once we post this.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Posting this next week.
Next week is when we'restarting our true.
Our social media channels havebeen around.
Technically, they've been very dormant.
Yeah, right.
You're here for the come up.
Yeah.
All right.
You guys want to ever go look,look at our tick tock.
Me and Alex have like one ticktock up there.

(01:08:17):
There's more where that came from.
Yeah.
All right.
Thank you, Olivia.
Thank you for making time forus over the course of two days.
And I think that this is supervaluable for a lot of people, so
I'm very happy with how thisturned out.
Yeah.
That's all.
We'll see the rest of youagain soon.
Thanks, Olivia.
Bye.
Thank you.