THE PURPOSE OF THIS POST IS TO PROVIDE BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT THE LSAT INCLUDING THE FORMAT OF THE TEST AND A FEW SAMPLE QUESTIONS. I ALSO WANTED TO BRING LIGHT TO SOME RESEARCH THAT HAS FOUND LSAT PREPARATION TO ALTER BRAIN STRUCTURE IN WAYS THAT STRENGTHEN HYPOTHESIZED "REASONING PATHWAYS". THESE...
SORRY IF THE POSITIVE ILLUSIONS ARE OLD HAT, BUT I SEARCHED AND COULDN'T FIND ANY MENTION OF THIS PEER PREDICTION STUFF! IF NOTHING ELSE, I THINK THE FINDINGS PROVIDE A QUICK HEURISTIC FOR GETTING MORE RELIABLE PREDICTIONS OF YOUR FUTURE BEHAVIOR - JUST POLL A NEARBY FRIEND! Peer predictions are...
Right now, the inaugural class of Minerva Schools at KGI (part of the Claremont Colleges) is finishing up its first semester of college. I use the word "college" here loosely: there are no lecture halls, no libraries, no fraternities, no old stone buildings, no sports fields, no tenure... Furthermore, Minerva...
Thank you for this awesome, informative comment. I'm glad to get some perspective on this; at the end of the day I guess it is just a test of basic logic concepts... I guess I shouldn't expect that to carry over to other areas of one's daily life.
Yeah, I think that one is ruled out because they are scheduling only 7 voyages (with no memory of prior voyages). I see what you mean though; it doesn't say anything about prior voyages, but I think of it as 7 slots to fill, and since there is no slot before 1, it can't be Jamaica. The answers are at the end of the test (pg 38).
I really like taking tests; I get energized by intense race-against-the-clock problem solving and, for better or worse, I relish getting to see my standing relative to others when the dust settles. I like the the purity of the testing
... (read 1537 more words →)Scott has some useful, if sobering, thoughts about this on his blog and I think I agree with him. He ends up positing that intrinsic motivation is more or less fixed and describes the whole process as a fascination lottery: there are certain things we find inherently interesting and motivating, and other things we could never really be interested in, even if we really really wanted to.
And my attempts to hack intrinsic motivation, which would be like a instant win condition for everything if I could achieve it, have been mostly unsuccessful and left me with severe doubt it is even possible. So I have pretty much given up on math.
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... (read more)But the
Hey Alex!
When I think back to when I was your age, I really wished I had gotten more involved in math competitions. Does your school have any programs like MATHCOUNTS, AMC8, etc.? I didn't compete in any academic competitions until high school, and I really wished that I had known about them earlier on. It makes getting ahead in math so much fun and it helps lay some really important foundations for the more complicated stuff.
Anyway, keep up the good work!
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Hello!
Hey, I haven't had time to read your post yet but I wanted to suggest that you post over in the discussion section to get more visibility and feedback; I don't think too many people read through the welcome thread posts and those who do are usually just browsing user blurbs. Great to meet you!
Hey, thanks for the comment! I have never had been in a law school classroom, but I remember reading about the law school experience in Shulman's (2005) signature pedagogies in the professions article; he argues that law school, medical school, clergy school, design school, etc, have unique educational approaches because these facilitate learning of the skills and dispositions valued by each profession (e.g., the back-and-forth, often harsh exchanges characteristic of a law school classroom train you to "think like a lawyer", to handle conflicting views/interpretations, and to make an abiding distinction between legal reasoning and personal moral judgements.
I thought it was a cool article in general, but I especially... (read more)
Great score! I'm a test prep guy and the GMAT quant is serious, erm, business. What kind of programs are you applying to? MBA?
Awesome! If what you're dealing with is social anxiety, then you might find this blogpost helpful (I know I did). It sounds like it may be something more serious; if so, all the more reason for congratulations!
Peer predictions are often superior to self-predictions. People, when predicting their own future outcomes, tend to give far too much weight to their intentions, goals, plans, desires, etc., and far to little consideration to the way things have turned out for them in the past. As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow observed,
"We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what... (read 452 more words →)
Right now, the inaugural class of Minerva Schools at KGI (part of the Claremont Colleges) is finishing up its first semester of college. I use the word "college" here loosely: there are no lecture halls, no libraries, no fraternities, no old stone buildings, no sports fields, no tenure... Furthermore, Minerva operates for profit (which may raise eyebrows), but appeals to a decidedly different demographic than DeVry etc; billed as the first "online Ivy", it relies on a proprietary online platform to apply pedagogical best practices. Has anyone heard of this before?
The Minerva Project's instructional innovations are what's really exciting. There are no lectures. There are no introductory classes. (There are MOOCs for... (read 557 more words →)
I wanted to thank you for your response and to apologize for not getting to read it sooner (I am in the throes of final exams, project due dates, et c.). The Lumosity control group or some similar intervention is a great idea and probably the only way to know for sure if LSAT prep had any unique effects.