Hi,
I started with a diagnostic of 140 and now I am in mid-160s zone (BR 170+).
I have around 5 weeks from now and was curious if I can get some feedback on how to close that gap. I did read a lot of posts about bridging the gap between actual score and BR but was wondering how I can improve on specific weaknesses I have which are as follows:
I think my biggest weakness is time management. I get anxious of the time and tend to panic while looking at the questions. I don't have any accommodations since it is not super serious but was wondering how I can fight this time management issue.
I am a bit of a perfectionist and tend to take a lot of time in the passage for RC. When I read for the details, I miss the structure and when I read for the structure, I miss the details. What are some good RC techniques I can implement?
With regards to LR, when I panic with time, I tend to misread things and make mistakes:( How can I prevent this from happening?
Thank you all of you in advance for your response! Really appreciate your time!
2 comments
I think there are a couple things I would recommend based off my own experience with a gap between timed and BR performance. First, in terms of the timing I think you might benefit from being more willing to make your best guess and skip when a question isn't clicking for you and come back later. Another thing for LR is try to be regimented with your approach to each question. For me this means I read the question stem, then the stimulus, then try to prephrase possible answers if I can, and then go to the ACs. This forces me to be steady and calm which ultimately turns into speed. It might also be helpful doing some untimed drills to try to build this habit. For your second point with RC, my strategy is to read straight through first and then write low res summaries rather than write them as I go, I find this to be helpful in letting me read for both content detail and structure.
You clearly know the test extremely well at this point if you are BRing in the high 170s, so really try to isolate what you can do to improve timed execution. Ask, "what about this approach in BR can I bring into a timed section?" One strategy that has been helpful for me in that regard is doing untimed sections and recording myself thinking aloud and then listening back to the recording of me getting answers wrong -- this has been really helpful in precisely understanding some of my issues.
I assume you've taken a ton of LSAT questions at this point in your studying, which builds habits. Some of those habits are obviously great, but others can be hurting your performance. I think the LSAT's time constraints force us to rely on muscle memory and habits we form in practice, so it is important to keep note of when your automatic processes don't align with how you successfully approach a question in BR.
@EzraG Thank you so much for such a detailed response! I will definitely try to implement those into studying this week!
Hope you have a great weekend!