Hi everyone,
I could really use some honest advice.
I started preparing for the LSAT in late April 2026 with a diagnostic score of 149. I’ve been studying with the 7Sage curriculum for about five months, but unfortunately, I haven’t seen much improvement in my score. My last two PTs were 150 and 151.
I need at least a 160, and I’m planning to take the LSAT in November, which is only about a month away.
Has anyone been in a similar situation? If you were stuck in the low 150s, what helped you finally break through? Did you change how you studied, focus more on drilling, review mistakes differently, or postpone your test?
I’d really appreciate any advice or insight. Thank you!
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27 comments
One month isn't a long way away. I will be as honest as I can be, because I believe that is what a lot of people need. You MUST identify the type of questions you are getting wrong consistently. Identify how well you do timed. Lastly, identify whether you feel comfortable about the LSAT in November, or if taking it later in this cycle/next year would be better.
If you feel comfortable taking the LSAT in November, but you need to get into 160s, know this. You have about 2 weeks left of time to learn new material before it won't help you on the test day. Then, you need a solid 2 weeks of fixing areas you struggle on, or at least learning why you do poorly in them. The final week pre-test I would recommend taking drills or PT's in different environments.
Note (TAKE PTS or DRILLS like crazy!) Only take them though after you make a "break through" to apply what you learned constantly until its instinct.
To break into the 160s from the 150s means you are struggling on certain question types, timing, or both. Best thing you can do at this point is learn why you get a question wrong, dedicate at minimum 2 hours a day to fixing it (if you can then more), and then getting yourself comfortable to take the LSAT.
I cannot emphasize enough however that you should be working like a fire is under you to learn why you are getting questions wrong. Even patching one or two areas you struggle with will see a point increase hopefully into the 160s.
Hi,
Thank you so much for your advice. I found it very helpful and really appreciate it!
I plan to take the LSAT in November. If things don’t go well, I’ll have no choice but to take it again in January. I’m just worried about my chances of getting into the schools I want.
I wish I had tried some other resources along the way, but even though it’s quite late, I’m still going to give The Loophole a try.
My weakest areas in LR are conditional and causal logic. With RC, I struggle most with inference questions, and of course, the time pressure makes everything much harder.
Ahh yeah. My best advice is to say if you have ADHD try to get accommodations for January. Helps a lot with timing pressures. If not, then I'd say to solve the LR conditional and causal all you can really do is practice.
There are patterns, but for conditional and causal it really is down to two things. Timing which will pressure you to ignore parts of the chain, and just straight up understanding. Only way to get over it is to drill like crazy, watch video explanations on each question, read student comments.
RC for inference im going to be straight up, don't even worry about RC problem types. Everything 7sage teaches on RC is valuable, but what is capable of easily being applied is like the first part of RC curriculum and last part. AKA how to skim/categorize paragraphs.
If you can do that for RC you are set. Gl on november, just remember if you do poorly you got time to fix it if you take it in Jan.
I actually hadn’t thought about accommodations. I’ll look into it and see if I qualify.
For drilling, would you suggest doing 5–10 questions at a time, or does the number not really matter? I’m just curious about what worked best for you and what you found most effective.
I'm a broken record about this but I think anyone who is scoring below or in the 150s would greatly benefit from spending sessions focusing on improving their translation skills. Hitting a 160, means that you are getting roughly 20+ scored questions wrong and obviously that's even a bit more for the 150s.
Focusing on improving the efficiency and speed of your ability to translate the stim and have a pre-phrase to orient yourself towards the potentially right answer goes a long way. Since you've already noted that you have The Loophole, I don't really need to explain translation drills because they're brought up relatively early on (after Chapter 3 or 4 if I remember right).
The "nice thing" is that I think that at the range you're in right now, there's ample room for major break throughs. Getting better with your translation will go a long way in preventing the test from yanking you around and letting you feel like you're in control.
Hey,
Thank you so much for the advice! I totally agree with you. I sometimes try to write down the stimulus and the ACs in my own words, and it has helped me a lot with understanding difficult stimuli.
And, ultimately, you reach a point where the vast majority you'll be able to do in your head quickly but, when you are drilling and trying to do everything at once, it also means that you aren't spending as much time on the specific skill you're trying to hone and you're taking on extra unnecessary stimulus (haha) for your goal.
I relate a lot of things to running as an analogy and trying to improve at everything is like trying to run as fast as you can for as long as you can to improve endurance and speed. It will kind of work but doing specific types of exercises like sprints allows you to target the part of you that you're trying to improve better than trying to do it all at once.
Another thing I've worked in about once or week or so is a lengthy drill (like 15 - up to 30) 1-3 star questions. Every drill I do is technically untimed but there I'm shooting for speed along with accuracy.
I really like the running analogy! I used to run in the past but have stopped now, and the analogy totally makes sense to me. Thanks so much for sharing it!
You need to put 1-2 weeks towards reading an lsat foundational book like the loophole, if you are low 150s you probably have foundational problems. I really hope this helps, YOU GOT THIS!!!!
Thank you so much!
I’ve actually noticed that my foundation isn’t that bad. For example, when I work on questions with invalid arguments, I usually can identify the assumption or flaw, or figure out how to weaken or strengthen the argument. I can also explain why the wrong answer choices are wrong.
Also, when I’m not under time pressure, I get more conditional and causal logic questions right. I get most Level 1, 2, and 3 questions right, but I struggle the most with Level 4 and 5 questions.
I do admit that I haven’t been studying consistently since completing the curriculum, and I think this may have affected my speed and the ability to apply what I’ve learned under time pressure.
That makes a lot of sense! Honestly I’m in the same boat as you when it comes to performing better without time pressure. I am trying to solve my issue by spamming drills and it seems to be working. Let me know if you find anything that works for you on that end, I’ll try it out too lol
Please let me know if you come up with anything that you find useful. I am stuck at 147.. I at least need a 152... November LSAT here as well.
Absolutely! I’ll let you know if I come across anything helpful. Wishing you all the best with the November LSAT! :)
I would recommend the loophole! I improved a ton for LR with it, now I’m really trying to work on my RC if anyone has any advice
Hi,
Thank you for the comment!
Do you think two weeks would be enough to spend on the book, given that I already have gone through 7Sage foundation curriculum?
If it's financially within reach, perhaps look into working with a tutor? I was finding myself plateauing at the low 160s and have gotten up to the high 160s since working with my tutor. They can help diagnose issues and build you a personalized study plan for improvement. If a tutor isn't an option, perhaps try joining a study group where you can study alongside/get help from fellow study members on questions?
Do you feel like you aren't understanding the questions or it's more so you struggle with getting questions correct under timed conditions?
Thank you for the comment! Would you be able to share your tutor’s contact information?
To answer your question, I get most Level 1, 2, and 3 questions right under time pressure, but I struggle the most with Level 4 and 5 questions. For some questions, time pressure is the main challenge, and as soon as I blind review them, I realize how much easier they actually are without the time pressure.
On the other hand, there are certain questions that I’ve spent more than half an hour on and still got them wrong during BR. I think part of this might be because English is my second language. For example, sometimes I come across unfamiliar words that makes the question much harder than it would be if I knew the meaning. However, I know that vocabulary isn’t always the issue.
For sure! I've been working with @RJlsattutor for a couple of months now and highly recommend :)
I unfortunately don't have much advice on the vobab perhaps other than reading as much as possible to start to recognize words in context. I really commend you for doing this test in a second language, I find it hard enough as a native English speaker haha. Richard will probably have better advice than I could have, but maybe prioritize untimed practice for those level 4 and 5s and keep a wrong answer journal to track any recurring mistakes on those? Something that helps me there is looking for patterns in how strong the answer choice should be. Also utilize your analytics to see the priority levels of different questions and then do drills specifically in the 3-5 star range under the drills tab.
Thank you so much! I keep a wrong answer journal, and I even try to write down the stimulus and sometimes the answer choices by hand. It really helps me understand the information better. I’ll definitely need to do more drilling though!
Can I ask what else do you use to study? For me, the lessons were confusing. But when I started to drill and review the questions I saw my score increase.
I’ve only been using 7Sage so far. I’ve considered trying other resources, but I'm not sure if at this point, it is going to help due to lack of time.
Most of my studying now is doing sections and then going through the questions I missed or flagged one by one.
Yeah I think due to time, its best to stick to 7sage. What I would do is go to the study tab then to Priorities. I would then drill the questions it asks me to slowly taking my time with each, slowly you will get faster and be able to regain some points in timed sections.
I'm curious to what others say, but this helped so much for me!
Thank you so much for sharing that! I would definately do that!
I find conditional and causal logic especially challenging and I know that I need to focus on those areas more.
Hi! When are you taking the LSAT?
Im taking it on October 10th!
@IsabelaDuqueRealpe I am taking it in November, a month away from now.
@RawanA. Good luck!!!