Self-study
Hey y'all, I've been studying with 7Sage for a while and was wondering if anyone's run into a problem with running out of material to use and how you've gone about practicing in that context. I'm not sure if my analytics are publicly visible but if anyone's able to check, it might clear up the problem I'm facing.
From a combination of doing full length PTs as well as timed sections, I've now used up 23 full practice tests out of the 59 ones available. But of the ones remaining, I've used quite a decent chunk of them for drills, so none of them are 100% fresh. The freshest I've found are around 80% fresh, but most are only 50-70% fresh, with a few sub-50%.
Given this, I've kind of hit a cross-roads with what PTs and even timed sections I can do. I worry that if I take any of these remaining tests as full PTs or even just as individual timed sections, there's a good chance I will have already seen and done numerous questions on the test, and therefore my scores won't actually be reflective of my true performance on an actual PT.
I see 3 options, each with their own pros and cons.
I bite the bullet and just use these tests as full PTs or sections, regardless of how fresh they are. While there are going to be questions I've seen and therefore I might have a slightly inflated score as to how I'm doing, at least the questions will be representative of the modern LSAT and I'm sure there's still great value in doing the questions I haven't seen in the setting of a timed PT specifically.
There are a set of older bonus PTs (PTs 7-18, A, 21, 23, and F97?) that the PrepTest pool settings have specifically disabled that I could use. On the one hand, there's obviously no problem of having seen these questions before because I haven't even touched them. But the reason these tests are disabled is because 7Sage says they're not necessarily representative of the modern LSAT. 1 huge gap is that there aren't any comparative passages on RC and lord knows I could practice those. I might also be wrong about this, but I don't think there are explanations for these questions, which might make review tougher.
I ignore PTs and sections entirely. There are still plenty of modern LSAT questions in the settings I have that I haven't touched, and I can still drill these by making Frankenstein LR or RC sections if needed. Of course, these drills won't be structured like the way an actual section of a PT would be, where difficulty starts low generally and ramps up. These sections would have random difficulty interspersed throughout. This would also only be for individual sections, since I don't think the drilling tool lets you construct a whole PT's worth of questions. The individual questions would be fine to use, but I worry that I'd be losing practice in the context of the specific PT in the lead up to my January test.
Also not sure how important this is, but I did take PT 159 when it was first released by LSAC. No experimental, no explanations, but for all intents and purposes, I have done most of that test, even if it not necessarily on 7Sage.
Any insights on how to handle this? I'm probably overthinking things and maybe there isn't a huge difference among these options. There could also be some hybrid or totally out of the box options I haven't considered. Interested to know anyone's thoughts!
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7 comments
I'm in the same boat as you. I've started drilling with the older PTs, and honestly I think it has helped! Some of the RC passages are quite interesting and difficult, too. I've also started to reuse anything that I last saw over 2 months ago, and I remember less than I thought I would. If I find myself looking at ACs for what I "remember" it being or not being, I just ask for a new passage/section, etc.
@businessgoose that's good to hear, I'm probably giving my memory too much credit lol 2 months is a long time 😅 quick question about the older PTs - are there explanations for some of the questions? written or video? I don't want to look through all the questions without having done them first to figure out whether there are explanations
@RR2002 Hi! There aren't many explanations but I've been googling the questions and finding explanations on Powerscore or GMAT Club (lol), and then also using the ask a tutor function and they've gotten back to me very quickly! I think naturally some of the older LR/RC can be a little bit...bizarre? Like they're just worded differently at times/have some ACs that wouldn't be worded like ones on the newer exams, but I think if anything that's extra practice in deciphering odd language and I think it has helped more than hurt me!
For full length PTs, I like the questions to all be new, but honestly, I like to redo questions. If it's been 3+ months since I last saw a question, I usually vaguely remember the topic (especially RC passages) but I rarely remember the correct answer. Additionally, going back through and redoing every question I've gotten wrong has been super helpful, because it's the easiest way to automatically target your weaknesses. As you know, 7sage has lots of helpful filters that have made it easy for me to go back and redo questions that I either got wrong the first time or just did a long time ago, and I feel like I still benefit from this practice.
@gavinlitchford89 Thank you for the insight! Aside from blind review and obv looking at the question explanations, I haven't intentionally re-done any questions I've done before, including the ones I've gotten wrong. But I think I want to try this and see how it goes for the older questions I don't quite remember.
Here's the thing I redo questions. For the most part I don't even remember him I might sometimes remember topic in LR . But a lot of the topics are very similar. Don't know if that helps.
Also for me if I get the question wrong again that I got wrong before that's a clear indication that something is not clicking that I have to work on
@LSATstudyer totally fair, I think there are a handful of questions where I specifically remember the right AC or at least some trap answers, but there are quite a few where I've seen the stim/passage but don't remember the question or answers. The LSAT does have its favorite topics to recycle lol appreciate the insight!