Self-study
Anyone else, once you consistently started scoring in 170s, have large swings & volatility?
After 6 months of grueling study I went from a 150 diagnostic to a 176 average in the past month across 15 tests. Very proud of myself so I don't intend to sound like I'm complaining. But I want to go to UCLA with a decent scholarship and my GPA in undergrad was low so it's a must I compensate for that with an amazing LSAT score of 175+.
But my scores are all over the place - in the past 6 days: 179 > 174 > 172 > 179 > 172 > 175. And my BR is always 178 or 180 so I'm convinced something's wrong with my test strategy or it's execution related.
I know factors like sleep, work distractions, eating play a part - but what other strategies, execution-wise, did you implement to score consistently 175+ without dips?
Any advice would be appreciated!
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3 comments
While a higher stable score would be great, you don't actually need it. Just plan to take the test multiple times. Schools care about the highest score which is what their rankings are based on, so you don't actually need to have a stable score. If you need a 175+, just take the test 2-3 times and you'll almost certainly have it with that score distribution. You'd actually be better off with a 172 and a 179 than with just a 175.
That said, since you might as well try to keep improving while waiting to take the official test, I think the most important thing that helped me as I went from an official 172 to a PT average of a 177.5 and then an official score of a 180 was retaking fresh copies of all of the questions that I got wrong about a month later. You aren't missing a lot of questions when you are scoring in the 170's so you need to learn as much as possible from them. That means you need to thoroughly review them, create a wrong answer journal that identifies what went wrong on your first try and what you noticed when you figure it out on blind review or with the help of an explanation, and then circle back to those questions and practice going through the process right when your memory has faded a little bit.
If you want, you could also post and try to find a study buddy or two scoring around 170 and meet up once a week to review your wrong answers together. Explaining questions is often very helpful to refining your thought process about them.
I also do agree with the poster who thinks you might be slightly over doing it. It's not as stressful or tiring to take PT's when you are scoring in the mid-170's, but a little more rest can prevent burnout and make you more engaged and less likely to make lethargic mistakes that you later see as easily avoidable. I think that is especially true as you get close to the test date. I would recommend mixing in days where you just do an hour or two of drilling along with the days where you are taking and reviewing a PT.
I also think that you should just keep doing what you are doing. Progress on the test is gradual. But, if you keep blind reviewing at 179 or 180, eventually, that is going to translate to steadier scores in the 175+ range.
Congratulations on all of the progress so far! You've put yourself in a great position.
If you took those PTs once a day, then I think a likely culprit to your problem is overdoing it. I'm not a 170s scorer, so I'm not in a position to tell you what it takes to get that 175+. But I am a guy who made the mistake of taking a practice test once a day like it's a Super Mario coin block glitch - thinking it's going to increase my score linearly. This test is anything but linear; you will find a lot of volatility in your PT scores, especially as you get closer to the 170s and that margin for error becomes small. Once I started treating PTs like a measuring tool that should really be taken max once per week, I was able to focus more on drilling to get my score up from the 140s to the high 160s.
Like I said, I'm not in the 170s myself so I'm not going to treat what I'm saying like it's going to be a magic fix. But I wanted to give my two cents if you found yourself having score volatility on top of taking a practice test more frequently than needed. Hope this helps and I hope you get that 175+!
what were your study strategies for such a big jump ? i'm trying to get to where you currently are tbh