Gearing for Fall 2012 Forum

[DC_Patent_Law]

Hi All,

Just wanted to introduce myself. I'm applying to law school for fall 2012. My UG and Masters was in Electrical Engineering. I passed the Patent Bar in 2006 and I've been doing patent prosecution work at a patent boutique in DC for 7 years billing 1900-2000hours/year. So I guess its about time I went to law school and formally got a law degree .

Since I'm still working full-time I signed up for testmasters in DC so that I have a more regulated study schedule, a support group of sorts and a teacher who I can ask questions to when I'm stuck. I've read a ton of posts on TLS about doing well in the LSATS and a common theme is to take a ton of PTs and analyze your errors. This leads to the question - does testmasters' HW prevent you from taking a ton of PTs because they use real LSAT questions and that "taints" the PTs (I'm planning on taking PTs 29-60)? Does anyone see a ton of holes with this study plan?

My goal is to eventually work in the SoCal market doing patent law. What can I say, I love the beach Here is what I'd like to aim for:
- East coast: GULC (Only reason to go to GULC is that I can do part-time school and limit loans and then move to the west coast after graduation using GULCs T14 reputation).
- West coast: UCLA, USC or Boalt (if I get a score high enough for Boalt).

I have a 3.72 GPA from undergrad engineering. One would think that with the direct relevance of my work experience and my GPA I'd be a shoein at GULC, but apparently that is not the case. GULC has become even more selective with their LSAT scores. A coworker of mine who had 3.6/167 couldn't even get into part-time GULC with 3 years of patent prosecution experience behind him. It was apparently easier to get into GULC 3-4 years ago. I have coworkers who 4 years ago got into part-time GULC with 163 and 165 LSATs (granted they both had Phds which probably helped as well). This is probably a result of fing US news using part-time applicants scores in their calculations. GULC also cut down their part-time class from 120 to 80 students last year. Looks like if I don't get a 170 at the least, its bye-bye GULC .

I would love to hear if anyone has any thoughts/comments regarding my plans.

[EarlCat]

No, testmasters will not preclude you from taking tons of preptests (although I don't think that burning through tests is the best way to study). Having seen some of the questions previously may skew your scores upward a little bit. In the grand scheme of things, this is not very important because having accurate prep tests does not cause you to score any higher on the real test. Reviewing and repeating questions and finding the patterns within those questions so you recognize them in the future does.

[DC_Patent_Law]

Thanks Earlcat.

Reviewing and repeating questions and finding the patterns within those questions so you recognize them in the future does.

I'm guessing this means repeating questions that I missed?

[kiniru]

I took Testmasters as well and I didn't really find it an issue. They take out enough material from the homeworks to provide a good amount of full-length tests you can take proctored or on your own. There's a LOT of hw also, and I know that a bunch of people in my class didn't finish their hw ..which keeps building up...

As EarlCat said, it's more important to understand why the correct answer is right and all the other ones are wrong than just going through as many problems as possible (altho the more questions you solve, the more you're exposed to different ways of asking the same thing). The class will go through all the types of questions asked on the LSAT, so what you really need to study is how to get each type of question right.

HTH.. good luck

[DC_Patent_Law]

Thanks Kiniru! When it comes to figuring out why a particular answer is wrong, often there is no explanation in the book. Do you try to reason out yourself why an answer was wrong? I'm wondering if my own reasoning as to why I got an answer wrong may be flawed.

[kiniru]

yea that's what I did for most of the questions.. but I would definitely encourage asking your testmasters instructor if you're not sure. I know that mine usually came half an hr early just so we could ask questions about the hw. (although I guess if you're working fulltime then that might not be helpful) Usually there's time at the end of class too.

I think the best way to check your reasoning is to solve more of that type of problem.. If you consistently get them right then you're probably on the right track. If you keep getting them wrong then you should check if you're choosing the same type of wrong answer each time, which would mean your reasoning is flawed.

hth

[EarlCat]

I'm guessing this means repeating questions that I missed?

I'd repeat questions regardless whether you missed them. It's like watching a movie a second or third time. You know how it ends, but you'll start to notice things you didn't see the first time around.

[KevinP]

Thanks Kiniru! When it comes to figuring out why a particular answer is wrong, often there is no explanation in the book. Do you try to reason out yourself why an answer was wrong? I'm wondering if my own reasoning as to why I got an answer wrong may be flawed.

Kaplan writes out question explanations and you can buy the explanations somewhere but I find some of the explanations poorly written. You'll find after looking at the questions you got wrong, you'll know pretty much why you got it wrong for most of them. For the questions you're unsure about, I would recommend asking on TLS, just make sure to use search to see if the question has been explained before.

Also,
http://www.manhattanlsat.com/forums/?si ... a10dbd6f40
The first 3 boards titled Logic Games, Logical Reasoning, and Reading Comprehension have quite a bit of explanations which are nicely sorted by category.

[DC_Patent_Law]

Thanks Kevin. You're right, after reading the correct answer choice I can most of the time figure out why I got it wrong. I'm hoping that the testmasters answer hotline will prove to be useful as well.

Thanks Kiniru! When it comes to figuring out why a particular answer is wrong, often there is no explanation in the book. Do you try to reason out yourself why an answer was wrong? I'm wondering if my own reasoning as to why I got an answer wrong may be flawed.

Kaplan writes out question explanations and you can buy the explanations somewhere but I find some of the explanations poorly written. You'll find after looking at the questions you got wrong, you'll know pretty much why you got it wrong for most of them. For the questions you're unsure about, I would recommend asking on TLS, just make sure to use search to see if the question has been explained before.

Also,
http://www.manhattanlsat.com/forums/?si ... a10dbd6f40
The first 3 boards titled Logic Games, Logical Reasoning, and Reading Comprehension have quite a bit of explanations which are nicely sorted by category.

[fosterp]

Kaplan explanations are garbage. Most of them are "well a b c and d are obviously not correct dumbass, so the answer is clearly e"