My prep tests have ranged from 154-159 for the past month, but my blind review have been consistently 166+! The thing is I would understand it more if it was because I spent a longer time on each question during blind review and that's why there is a major increase. But i don't, I still time myself and take about 1.30 to 2 minutes per question. I haven't seen much improvement in my timed score this whole month, and I don't know what to do to make this gap smaller. I would love some advice
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I just had this exact issue for nearly a year! Literally just scored a 160 today for the first time. I realized I understood the questions really well but I wasn't fast at solving them. So I was making the mistake of trying to read them faster and work through them quickly. This simply does not work. Your brain is gonna work however fast it wants to work. So the best thing you can do is allow yourself to take the time needed to solve the questions. Focus on accuracy over completion. Make sure you understand the passages completely so when you get to the questions you don't have to look back at the text. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. Your goal is maximizing points. You can get in the mid 160s with roughly -5 per section. So if you do 20 questions and get all 20 right then guess on the last five, that's better than doing 25 and only getting 15 right because you didn't give yourself the time you needed to work through some of the ones you were capable of getting correct. It's so hard to do, I'm still struggling with it, but as I've already seen improvement, it's what I recommend.
It sounds like you're trying to finish the sections? And that you think you're limited to a certain time per question? That's the biggest thing holding you back. Right now you shouldn't worry about finishing. If you just focus on reading carefully and mentally prepare yourself to guess on whatever questions you don't get to, that's the path toward improvement. It's not ultimately where you want to end up, but right now if you do only 20 questions and guess on what's remaining, you likely will score higher. You'll also understand what it feels like to read effectively under time pressure. There's a good chance that your current approach leads to occasional panic, frantic rushing, skimming, etc. That's why you're making mistakes that you easily avoid in BR. Ultimately the test is designed so that only those who hit the highest scores are finishing sections in a comfortable manner. If your skills aren't there yet, you're not really supposed to finish.
What are the specific questions types that you struggle more on? And what is the reason you spend more time? (Is it that you dont get the questions? Is it that you don't know the quick methods to eliminate to decide answers? Or is it that you spend too much time hesitating on answers?) I would say try getting answers to the questions above by doing some self-tracking as you try some drills.
Some possible tips:
1. Build the skills and confidence with staircase drilling and then only move on when you get it all right. Basically start with 5-7 questions of 1 star and then if you got it all you go to 2 star and so on.
2. You said before one of the type you struggle on is Phen-Hyp questions. I personally find those a little hard to drill as a category of its own just cuz they are not the sole focus of how we approach them. Most of them are causR questions that you have to Weaken/Strenghten/Explain Discrepency/Find Flaw. I left a long comment on a different post: https://7sage.com/discussion/61024/struggling-to-improve-on-phenomena-hypothesis
3. Sorry if this tip feels very "basic" but I am not sure how much you have gone through in general through learning materials such as the 7sage lessons or other sources. Learn the ways/skills needed to do specific question types that have preferred ways(and HONE them). Such as diagramming or negation tests. I used to be like: "Yeah, I know how diagramming works and that's enough" for CondR, but I was not fast and not confident and that is costly, I needed to familiarize myself with specific key words(If, Only if, unless). Ask yourself questions during certain questions, it helps me focus on what I am looking for and sometimes avoid tempting answers. For ex: SA I would say "This arg is trying to win, which ac helps it win?", for NA I would say "This question is trying to survive, without which one will it "die"?". Things like these helped me.
Good luck with your studies (૭ ｡•̀ ᵕ •́｡ )૭