Self-study
Anyone else, once you consistently started scoring in 170s, have large swings & volatility?
After 6 months of grueling study I went from a 150 diagnostic to a 176 average in the past month across 15 tests. Very proud of myself so I don't intend to sound like I'm complaining. But I want to go to UCLA with a decent scholarship and my GPA in undergrad was low so it's a must I compensate for that with an amazing LSAT score of 175+.
But my scores are all over the place - in the past 6 days: 179 > 174 > 172 > 179 > 172 > 175. And my BR is always 178 or 180 so I'm convinced something's wrong with my test strategy or it's execution related.
I know factors like sleep, work distractions, eating play a part - but what other strategies, execution-wise, did you implement to score consistently 175+ without dips?
Any advice would be appreciated!
like bigfatpanda said, you almost have to know the answer before you look at the AC's. I was stuck in mid to high 160s until I got good at this. I practiced untimed first, then gradually reduced the time in the drills to force myself to go faster. of course, the more questions you do the better you'll get because there's only so many variants possible.
I do 1 of 2 things, sometimes both, before I look at the ac's. 1) make an actual prediction of an answer (aka prephrase), and 2) what I need the answer to do. it sounds like it takes a long time but it's 3-5 seconds once you get good at it
on a flaw question for example - stimulus: all boys are tall. therefore you're not tall unless you're a boy
prediction: assumes that because all boys are tall no other people are tall
what it must do: address the mixup between sufficiency & necessity
on a weaken question - stimulus: Alzheimer's patients have higher levels of enzyme ABC than the average person. Therefore increased enzyme levels of abc invariably leads to alzheimers
prediction: alzheimers causes excess production of the enzyme
what it must do: (since this is causal)
show that the alleged effect is actually the cause (alzheimers -> enzyme)
show that some 3rd factor in fact causes them both (all the patients in question all their lives ate 10 bananas a day and bananas are known to cause alzheimers and increased enzyme production)
show that the effect doesn't always occur when the cause is present (there are 100k people with high levels of the enzyme who never develop alzheimers)