First 180!

Techniques that I thought really helped:

RC

• When you're choosing between 2 narrowed down ACs on RC that both seem like they could plausibly describe what's going on, ask: if I had to rewrite the passage based on what this AC says, would I land on something that actually looks like the passage I just read? If you wouldn't, then eliminate it.

• After every paragraph on RC, re-tell yourself what the gist of the paragraph is and why the author included it, the overall type of piece (spotlight, argument, weighing two arguments and evaluating, etc.) and the point the author is trying to make. At the end of every passage you read, summarize why the author wrote the passage. I had this advice given to me across countless video lessons and question explanations but hadn't actually honed the practice of doing it. Actually doing it makes a big difference.

• The LSAT will punish you so much more for not tracking the purpose of a paragraph or who said XYZ in any passage, than it will for you failing to comprehend exactly what XYZ means. Especially on dense scientific or humanities passages that seem to be talking about very abstract and esoteric things, focus on contextualizing why the author/the voices within the passage are saying particular things, and don't let failure to understand their particular subject matter throw you off.

LR

• I had a tendency of leaving 2 ACs alive on hard LR questions and then spending a bunch of time trying to choose between them. Resist that pattern and just narrow it down to one AC on the first pass, as much as possible. You can usually find something wrong with 4 out of 5 ACs as long as you're discerning enough.

• If you're really stuck between 2 ACs, reread every single word of the question and ask which one answers the precise question better.

• If you're spending more than 1:30 on a question and you're trying to choose between ~2 ACs and you really can't decide, just make your best guess based on your gut and move on. I made 3 guesses like this on the last LR section here and they all turned out to be correct, but it left me with so much more time to tackle the harder questions at the end and do them well.

• I was plateauing in the low 170s for a while, and I think today helped me realize that the true gap between that and a high 170s score, once you've drilled enough to have most of the concepts down, is just being really disciplined in your execution. The formula for every question is read the question first, read the stimulus with the question in mind, predict the answer, assess ACs. If you catch yourself straying from that formula at any point, on even one question, just take 2 seconds to close your eyes and re-anchor around it.

• I previously sped through the first ~17-20 questions of a section with maybe 10 minutes to spare at the end, and tried to move quickly to then use remaining time to double-check questions, but then I would not be able to catch questions I got wrong because I was speeding so fast I didn't even realize the trap I fell for. It was helpful to recalibrate to target actually just having 3-5 minutes left at the end, and taking enough time going through the questions the first time that I could catch those traps instead.