Hi! Just looking for some general advice, I am taking the September LSAT and am currently scoring pretty consistently in the 170-173 range. I have been and will continue doing a lots of in-depth drilling on my weak points and I already do deep-dive BR's, but I was just curious if anyone had any advice on how/if they made that jump, and if it came slower/faster, or any other real insights you have!
As it stands, I feel so close to the cusp but often find myself making those slight errors here and there which end up accumulating and biting me in the butt, which of course these have to be severely limited to non-existent for a higher 170. In terms of fatigue, that's not really an issue, in terms of individual sections I am pretty consistent whether it be through a PT or just one section so I don't think that'd be of much help I believe.
I am open to answering any questions about my current weaknesses, study methods, etc! And any advice is welcome, no matter how unorthodox or off the beaten path haha! Thanks for taking the time to read!
5 comments
At a certain point, you've done all that you can do:
You've gotten yourself to the point where you can process and respond to unseen LSAC material.
You get the question types, can pick out the main conclusion, identify the patterns in the stem, stimulus, and answer selections.
You respond to necessary/sufficient assumption questions like you're breathing in/out and no longer capitalize "flaw.”
You chuckle when you see an obvious answer trap and roll your eyes when you hear "cookie cutter" IRL.
You consider RC sections to be LR with a series of 1-2 star stems that have a longer stimulus.
You don’t read every answer choice for parallel flaw questions because you stop at the right answer.
You had to stop diagramming conditional logic because doing it for fun wastes time.
...but at some point, you need to pump the breaks and give yourself a chance to breathe and process. Take a day or 2 away to allow your brain to process, and you might come back with fresh eyes on what your next steps are. You already know that, but sometimes it helps to have it confirmed lol.
I absorb a lot of info about the material, various perspectives of “best practices” on how someone “should” study, and what it means for each step on the path to an ideal score, but I’m not in any position score-wise to be giving advice to a 170+. Instead of drilling what I need to, my brain makes fun of them and spits out fun little bits that I shared above. I hope they’re received as intended: I feel you, my dude.
My understanding is that once you consistently break into 170+, the last step is reining yourself in and breathe!
@afk Thank you so much for this comment! I will definitely give it a shot. Appreciate the advice
Do you have a mistake log?
That helps a lot maybe there's a type of mistake you are overlooking
@AdelinaI Yes! I plan on continuing to go over it. At this point it's less kind of the actual material in it and more the mental tricks that led me astray most of the times. Will continue to try that!
I used to play competitive tennis, and the difference between a 170 and a 175+ is like, the difference between a 4.0 and 5.0 tennis player. Both are v good at hitting the ball over the net, and can play the game p well, but the 5.0 just has a lot more experience, talent, skill, whatever. Like, 175+ is the top 1 percent of a group that self selects to be smarter than average and is probably more disciplined and hard working than average, and you gotta beat 99 percent of those people by definition with the way the curve works. Every time anyone scores a 175+, they're taking away spots from someone else that would've gotten a high score (not really cuz the curve is predetermined, but you can think of it that way, since the score distributions inform the future tests). So really you gotta grind a ton more for the last 5 or whatever points.