How to get from 169-170 to a 180 without Office Hours when Explanations for Answer are Not Helpful
So, at my height I've gotten to a 172-175, but generally I am at 170, and feel like I improved most dramatically, not when I had private tutoring, but when there were office hours on 7sage and I could go over questions where the explanations did not make sense.
Now, sadly, confusingly, 7sage got rid of this feature. And I have noticed a stalling in my progress, where I am not reasonably able to get mid 170s regularly.
What I want to know, is from you top scorers, who were obviously very detail oriented in your studying, how did you write up lessons/takeaways from questions where the AC explanations on 7sage or out there generally were unhelpful?
I find at this point the explanations out there aren't helpful, the chatbot isn't helpful, and what I am trying to do is understand the questions that I got right but unconfidently or that I got wrong well enough that I can discern a pattern that I can use in future LSAT questions.
Please please share the insight!! How!!
3 comments
i got a 180 in my last practice test (generally my br was 179/8 since i took most of my PTs right before bed excpet that last one). what helped was breaking down the question on my own using the explanations as guidance. i found that if i didnt understand the explanation, it was becuase i was not putting the effort into following it. i would write down what the instructer was saying and translating into my own words. if that still didnt work, i looked at the comments to see if anyone else put it differently in a way i could get it.
@zunair first congrats!! Second, did that help you with pattern recognition? I’m specifically really trying to understand enough to be able to make patterns, to recognize what I should look at when dissecting difficult questions, and my feeling is, maybe I’m too rigid, but the explanations don’t always focus on the points where my logic took me. Talking it out w someone in office hours was super helpful, but I know there are a bunch of ppl who scored like you who got past the scoring plateau im at without needing that. And my goal truly is a 180, and I want to build the study habits and test taking habits with that goal in mind.
Any pieces of wisdom you have that got you to that place?
you mean pattern recognition as in recognizing the bad habits i fall into or patterns in my thinking? I think for me, I knew exactly which questions i was faltering at and why, because id feel tripped up. since i remembered that, when i did BR i wrote down what my original thought process was. then i picked my new answer and wrote down why i was changing it.
articulating my reason for the original answer helped a lot, whether it was picking under time pressure, trying to "meta-game" or take shortcuts through what i think a question would or wouldnt do, or genuinely not getting logic. eventually i started noticing most of my wrong answers were because of time pressure + misreading, so all i had to improve was my execution. which was easy because i was taking all my tests at late night when i was sleepy, hadnt eaten properly, or in noisy cafes since my house is loud / busy all the time. thats when i got my 180 on pt 159 i think.
i notice your tests dont have blind reviews. you should honestly try doing them. i had 0 tutoring and my score jump was all from just doing BR and constantly articulating to myself, thats how helpful BR is. good luck, you got this!