Any advice to improve in these last two weeks?

[JakeA559]

Hi
I just wanted to know if theres any last advice that I could make the most of these two weeks before the test date, any advice is appreciated.

LR weaknesses:
• Sufficient Assumption
• Strengthen
• Reasoning
• Disagreement
• Flaw
• Paradox-

[ohthatpatrick]

That's a pretty broad swath of topics. You're talking about at least 25 of the 50 LR questions there.

Also, there are very few quick things we can do to achieve LSAT improvement. If you're not already using good strategies for these types of problems, it would be untenable to develop new habits in two weeks.

So you're primarily wanting to rehearse the strategies you already know to make them more automatic:
- Flip through LR sections, just reading question stems and rehearsing what your priorities / tendencies are for that type of problem

Practice going swiftly through easier material:
- Try doing the first 10 Q's in 10 mins. If that gets doable, shoot for the first 13 Q's in 13 mins.

Redo problems you've missed before:
- revisit old tests and sections and redo problems you struggled with before. It doesn't matter if you remember what the correct answer is. Prove to yourself that you remember WHY that's the correct answer and why the other four are wrong.

In terms of your specific LR weaknesses, I can't get into substantive discussions for such a broad expanse of LR, so I'll just give you some shorthand thoughts and hope they make sense.

LR weaknesses:
• Sufficient Assumption
You should have these answered before you look at answer choices. You're trying to prove a claim mathematically so you can solve for what you're missing. If the conclusion is "Lou's dinner party was a success", you should be asking:
- Do I have a legal definition of "success"? Something like "If xyz, then a success"?
- Do I have any facts about "Lou's dinner party"?
- Do the facts about "Lou's party" clearly trigger the legal definition of "success"?



• Strengthen -
- Beware weakly worded answer choices.
- You should still think of objections, after reading the argument, to figure out where some vulnerabilities are. Correct answers often go the opposite direction of these.
- You should be well-versed in how to deal with causal arguments, where the author presents a curious fact and then assumes a possible causal explanation. (is there some OTHER WAY to explain the curious fact? Is the AUTHOR'S WAY plausible?)
- You should know how to deal with comparative arguments (strengthen by making the things being compared seem more relevantly similar)

• Reasoning
- You need to be able to drop the topic of the argument and describe the structure in abstract terms.
- You want to itemize the premises, thinking about what types of claim they are and what strength of claim they are.
- If the conclusion is a specific type of claim (conditional / either-or / normative / causal / quantified), then defer/eliminate answer choices whose conclusion is a different type of claim or strength of claim.

• Disagreement
- After you've read each person's statements, revisit the 1st person's statements, claim by claim.
For each claim, ask yourself, "Was person 2 arguing for the opposite of this claim?" This helps you isolate which claim person 2 was actually taking issue with. If person 2 didn't disagree with any of the explicit claims, then think about what assumption person 1 made that person 2 is disagreeing with.

• Flaw
- You should know your 10 famous flaws
- You need to distinguish between answers that present Assumptions, present Objections, or describe the Shady Move.

ASSUMPTIONS
presumes / takes for granted / assumes / fails to establish

OBJECTIONS
fails to consider / neglects the possibility / ignores the possibility

SHADY MOVE
concludes X on the basis of Y / mistakes X for Y / takes for granted that X because Y

If it's an assumption answer, ask yourself "DID the author have to assume this?"
If it's an objection answer, ask yourself "WOULD this weaken the argument?"
If it's a shady move, ask yourself "DOES this match the argument core?"


• Paradox
After you read the paragraph, organize it in your head as,

GIVEN [these background facts]
HOW CAN IT BE THAT [this surprising fact]?

Stay flexible, and look for an answer that can help explain that surprising fact
(don't expect the answer to be bulletproof and don't be afraid to connect the dots with common sense)

Avoid answers that make no distinction between the before and the after, or between the one thing and the other thing.

Good luck!