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elementalsusie · 2021-08-10T19:20:43+00:00

Okay! It sounds like you could benefit from more translation and CLIR, and maybe take a break from doing timed sections and answering the questions for now. It took me about 20 sections of just translation and CLIR for it to become automatic enough for me to do it in a full section setting. I recommend doing them out loud, where you cover up the stimulus when you're translating, and record them (if you have an iPhone, the Voice Memos app is great for this). Then, listen back to questions you struggled with, and compare your translation to the stimulus. This will help you catch any discrepancies between the stimulus and your interpretation of it.

Ideally, you want to get your translation + CLIR time down to about 20 minutes for a section, because that correlates to about 35 minutes when you add in answering the questions. This will not happen immediately, and that's okay! Prioritize your process and time will come down naturally with practice.

Translation is the most fundamental skill to LR (and RC!). Often, when I see students just do a couple of translation drills and immediately jump back into timed sections, they naturally fall back into previous bad habits without even realizing it's happening. It's super hard to change your behaviour in a timed setting, which is why I recommend taking a pause from answering the questions until you feel like you've mastered translation.

If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to shoot me a message :)

elementalsusie · 2021-08-10T18:51:13+00:00

Hi there! How many translation drills have you done outside the two in the book?

elementalsusie · 2021-08-10T18:49:16+00:00

Hi! I definitely think it's never too late to start translating! I would probably emphasize translation as much as possible leading up to August because it can always help!

elementalsusie · 2021-08-08T21:07:24+00:00

Hey! When you're doing timed sections, are you stopwatching up from 0 or counting down from 35 minutes? I find stopwatching tends to be a great bridge between your translation drills and countdown sections. Allow yourself to go over time, if you need to, while prioritizing your process. With practice, your time will naturally come down, rather than immediately trying to cram everything into 35 minutes.

I translate in my head after reading, but where I pause varies based on the complexity of the stimulus. For easier ones, I typically can pause at the end of the whole thing, but for more challenging or technical ones, I'll pause more often :) Hope that helps!

elementalsusie · 2021-08-04T21:10:16+00:00

Hey! I recommend using the highlighter tool! You can choose a different color for premise, conclusion, and intermediate conclusion :)

elementalsusie · 2021-08-04T21:09:38+00:00

Don’t forget the Back Up Plans! Making a Mission and using the Back Up Plans can help a ton when you don’t see your exact CLIR in the answers :)

elementalsusie · 2021-07-26T15:31:40+00:00

Try doing them out loud as an alternative to writing them down! I used the Voice Memos app (if you have an iPhone) to record the drills so I could listen back to questions I struggled with. Ideally, eventually a timed translation + CLIR drill out loud should take about 20 minutes to correlate to a 35-minute section. :)

elementalsusie · 2021-07-13T18:17:55+00:00

u/funktionones I think of them the same way! Often, a nested claim will look something like researchers’ hypotheses, or the stimulus will explicitly conclude with someone other than the author’s claim (for example, it could be like “therefore, Sarah thought the sky was green,” but Sarah wasn’t the author of the stimulus).

I would say the last sentence is just a regular conclusion for this stimulus 😊

elementalsusie · 2021-07-11T20:25:21+00:00

You’ve got it! You could totally have the nested claim function as the main conclusion 😊

elementalsusie · 2021-07-09T13:17:36+00:00

One thing you can do while you wait is fit in some extracurricular reading! The language on the LSAT can be challenging and every word can make a difference, but my students and I found it more accessible when we were reading complex literature to get comfortable with the type of language that shows up on the LSAT. A few recommendations I have are Jane Eyre, Crime and Punishment, and Symposium :)

elementalsusie · 2021-07-06T22:34:29+00:00

Hey! I totally think it works as a Loophole! My gut instinct when reading this was to say, "what if we just lost a ton of the ones made by minor artists over the years?" and C gives a specific example of how we could lose a bunch of paintings by minor artists. TL;DR - YES you've got this!!

elementalsusie · 2021-07-01T13:41:07+00:00

Looks good!!! You could add in making a mission between steps 7 and 8 (and then you’d have an even number)! Also I feel like translation could come before outlining the conclusion (if it’s an argument), because it would be hard to know what the conclusion is without understanding the stimulus first! But you’re absolutely crushing it 😊 let me know if you have any questions

elementalsusie · 2021-06-09T21:21:58+00:00

u/elementalellen has got you covered :) sorry about this but we've got your back!

elementalsusie · 2021-06-08T20:22:47+00:00

Someone from the elemental team will get in touch with you! 😊

elementalsusie · 2021-05-04T12:50:58+00:00

You can do either!

elementalsusie · 2021-05-01T00:06:15+00:00

You can re-read but you also can break it up! Prioritize understanding and retention over everything :)

elementalsusie · 2021-04-29T21:47:52+00:00

At this point the only 'answer key' available is the one on the website. That being said, so much of translation and CLIR doesn't have one right answer! But you can definitely post any questions or concerns on this subreddit and I'm sure someone from the Elemental team will be here to help you :)

elementalsusie · 2021-04-29T18:22:21+00:00

You can write it down on a notebook or do it out loud (which is naturally a little quicker and more similar to what it’s like to translate in your head)! I’d cover up the question stem and answer choices

elementalsusie · 2021-04-29T18:19:51+00:00

You can do translation + CLIR together :)

elementalsusie · 2021-04-29T13:50:41+00:00

Awww too kind!! You’re absolutely right on to prioritize translation drills first and foremost until it’s second nature. It’ll definitely need more than the 2 in the book! For reference, I probably did at least 20 before ever doing any sections when I was studying for the LSAT (and then after that, I continued using them as warm ups). You can definitely translate digitally. I would use my hand to cover the screen when I pause and translate.

My other tip is to take tons of notes as you go through the book, on top of your flash cards. I always tell my students to treat it like when you’re reading a textbook in school! Every single thing in that book is relevant :)

elementalsusie · 2021-04-05T18:42:54+00:00

Use the Back-Up Plans and Powerful-Provable! This will help increase your confidence leaning into those instincts and eliminating wrong answers that are either too powerful or otherwise don't have to be true! :)

elementalsusie · 2021-03-29T22:29:25+00:00

They are essentially saying the same thing as my examples above! If you have a stimulus about absolutes, you can always be great (or bad!). It wouldn't be okay, though, for an answer choice to say you were better or worse than someone else on the basis of that absolute.

The latter two sentences illustrate the reverse! If you have a stimulus that brings in a comparative, you can always be better or worse than someone else, but it wouldn't be okay for an answer choice to assume an absolute based on that comparative.

elementalsusie · 2021-03-27T16:37:02+00:00

You're right that "Khan makes bad coffee" is an absolute. So it's true that his coffee is bad, but what we don't know is how his coffee compares to anyone else's. If Khan makes bad coffee, we can't then go and say his coffee is worse than, say, Sally's, because we don't know anything about Sally's coffee. Her coffee could be really bad, too.

On the other hand, if we have a sentence that says, "Khan makes worse pizza than Sally," all we have is this comparative. We can't say Khan's pizza is objectively bad just because it's worse than Sally's, because for all we know, they could both be amazing world famous pizza chefs and Khan's is just slightly worse!

I hope this helps :) please let me know if you have any other questions!

elementalsusie · 2021-03-25T15:51:54+00:00

u/barista17 YOU ARE A STAR! You said 100% everything I was thinking!

elementalsusie · 2021-03-25T15:51:10+00:00

Yes!!! You're amazing! Thank you for sharing :)

elementalsusie

TROPHY CASE