Self-study
Hi! I am taking the LSAT in June, and am consistently scoring 165 on full, timed practice tests (my last actual was 160). Any tips for hitting 170+?
6
Hi! I am taking the LSAT in June, and am consistently scoring 165 on full, timed practice tests (my last actual was 160). Any tips for hitting 170+?
10 comments
RC was/is my worst, most volatile section. It used to be anywhere from -6 to -10, then between -3 to -6, and now consistently 0 to -3. Still not happy with the volatility between 0 & -3, but I consistently started scoring in the 170s once I focused on RC specifically.
I stopping taking practice tests and LR sections for a while & took like 20 RC sections in a row until I got it down to my current range. Of course review every answer you get wrong & create a wrong answer journal, but during the RC sections I would flag every single question I wasn't absolutely 100% sure about (or arrived at thru POE) & reviewed those post test too, and added those to my almost-wrong answer journal and identified some trends. For every wrong or flagged question I always watch the explanation video to make sure my reasoning matched the instructors' and read the help/description on each answer choice to make sure I excluded/selected it for the right reason.
Once I got RC within a consistent decent range, I tightened up LR to where I now miss no more than 3 on a bad day across the entire test. Haven't scored below a 170 in a month - so TLDR, pause on the PT's and focus on fixing most volatile section.
@Marcus91 see, RC is the easiest for me! Unfortunately, conditional reasoning, phenomenon-hypothesis, weaken and flaw/descriptive weakening seem to be my most "volatile" sections lol (according to my priorities tags). I usually get stuck between two answers. Picking the wrong ones, I get around 165. And then on blind review, I'm getting 173-176. I just seem to still be falling for the same trap answers, or overthink/psych myself out.
@JordanElliott how's your conditional diagramming? until I got really got that and understood 100% sufficiency vs. necessity I struggled there too. also weaken was the hardest LR type for me. I read these really, really skeptically & come up with a way to weaken it before I get to the answer choices, or else they ruin me. Try to think of scenarios in which the premises don't always have to lead to the conclusion after reading the stimulus. That's what I take with me into the answer choices, and now it serves me well.
@Marcus91 definitely going to take your advice - I also struggle with weaken a bit. I'm getting better, but it's hard to stay sharp over the long duration of the test. I probably need to practice conditional diagramming more.
@Marcus91 RC is my weak point too! Especially making implicit judgments. In past official LSATs I've taken this has been my freakout too, making the implicit assumptions / analogies under time crunch. Do you have any advice for how you honed this? I'm also in the 0 to -3 range, but on some of the more modern tests/ harder sections could go up to 4 or 5, and on my real exam I cooked the goose (username pun intended) and probably got more than that, since I didn't score in the 170s like I had been in practices beforehand.
@businessgoose I suck at the analogies too so sorry no advice for you there - it'd be the blind leading the blind lol. luckily they don't appear too often in a section, maybe only once. if by implicit assumptions you mean inferences or what the author/3rd party would agree with, tbh I kind of take a POE method on these now & also treat them like mss on LR. I avoid anything too strongly worded that takes their viewpoint too far or is just flat out wrong, and when I get down to the final answer I haven't crossed off, on inferences I always go back to the text to double-check. it's a time sink but just for my sanity I have to do it. I spend about 4 minutes intentionally reading the passage so I walk away with a good understanding of everyone's opinions but also in this 4 minutes I am mentally cataloguing where every subject/thought is expressed. this way when I do my inference passage-checks, I don't have to go searching - I know exactly where to look. it's imperfect, but that's what I do
@Marcus91 Thanks!!
What is giving you trouble? Why are you missing questions? it's hard to give specific tips without knowing where you are falling short.
@julielamberth I seem to be having more issues with conditional logic/reasoning
@JordanElliott is that the answer to why you are missing questions? Because you are mistranslating conditionals?