I'm sorry you're hitting a discouraging time in your prep. Remember those moments hit everyone. Regressing on scores can be a major hit to your confidence and motivation. Try not to get too down on yourself - it only ever takes one good score to get the optimism back up.

Here are some things that came to my mind that may be worth exploring.

I know work can make maximizing study time troublesome, but how many days per week do you tend to study? I don't think there is a precise minimum amount of time required to maintain or increase your performance level. However, I do think consistency is a key ingredient for most people. In my experience, 5-6 days/week (ideally 13 out of 14 days), 2-3 hours/day minimum was the sweet spot for improvement. If I dropped down to 3-4 days/week I was lucky to maintain scores from previous weeks. The days/week was more important than the hours/day, though. We all learn differently, but I can't stress enough the difference emphasis on regularity over gross total study time can make in the learning process.

How is your balance of full PT & BR to the other weekly work you mention? It's not unusual for me to have a BR stretch on a few days. Cramming BR into too short of a time can make it hard to get everything out of it. On the other hand, letting it stretch into the week can disrupt other important drills. Taking a few weeks to do only single sections at a time might help you shift into a schedule you can get more out of. I was probably at my most productive when I limited my BR time per day so I could get on to other studying and made sure I had 2-3 days off between BR and the next PT for other studying.

How do you approach untimed sections? I personally avoided straight untimed sections. Set a stopwatch and note when time is up, but keep going until you finish. If you get nervous when the clock is on, this is a great way to acclimate yourself to the timer. Once you start generally finishing sections in time, I would reserve untimed sections strictly for review. Don't underestimate how helpful it can be to pull out a PT you did months ago and work through the whole test again. Blind Review gets a lot of well deserved credit, but Not-Blind Review can be super helpful as well.

What is your strategy on timed sections? Are you hurrying trying to finish, or are you working at your average pace and missing most of your points at the end? If you're finishing, do you miss many questions in the first half of an LR section? Are you RC misses concentrated on passages you misunderstood (maybe read too quickly?), or are they spread evenly? If you feel rushed on timed sections, look for signs you may be going too quickly to give each question your best shot.

Finally, make sure that you're not missing question types from lessons you skipped in the CC. Err on the side of caution and do anything that may help. You never know when JY is going to drop a knowledge bomb you didn't know you needed. Definitely make sure you didn't skip any lessons on fundamentals. Absolutely zero of those lessons should be skipped. No exceptions.

Hopefully something in there is helpful! Stay at it!

You can't predict how quickly you're going to progress, so you have to be a little flexible. I set two numbers as soft guidelines to achieve that flexibility:

the lowest score I would consider using to apply

I picked the highest ranked school I hoped to be a target school (I compared my GPA to 75th percentile GPA numbers to determine this) and aimed 2 points over that school's 75th percentile LSAT

I refused to register until I achieved at least one of those two as an average over 3-5 PT's.

Yes, it definitely is that hard. The good news is that it doesn't have to feel that hard. The BR time will decrease the better you get. I totally get your pain with how long the cycle can be at this stage, though. I would highly recommend doing individual timed sections each day instead of full test followed by full BR. For me that huge process is substantially less effective when you feel like you're still climbing up the score ladder to where you want to be. Repeated days of BR is monotonous and can dampen the learning potential within each test. 35 minutes for testing then 1-2 hours of BR on that section right after can be substantially more valuable.

I also think it's hard on morale to think big picture like that when you're in the middle of it. 1,000 hours would be a very conservative estimate of how long it takes to master concepts in the LSAT. It helps to keep your eye on the next land mark rather than the ultimate destination. Focus on your process. Trust your process. Always try to improve your process.

Hopefully something in there is helpful! The grind gets to all of us sometimes!

There are definitely similarities. At their core, both sections are just asking you 1) what did you read? and 2) how well did you understand it?

I bought all of the 10 Actual books and as many of the PT's in the holes of those books off of 7sage as I could. Scanning is a pain, but just make a thing out of it. I dragged my scanner into my living room and caught up on Netflix while scanning all the way from the last CC test to the end of the last 10 Actual book. Tip - find something heavy to put on the book and flatten the pages on the glass.

I wouldn't stress about those last five minutes too much. 25 in 30 is good enough to go -0/-1. The stress of thinking it isn't enough time might be a problem on your second go around? I think the review ideas above are your best bet. Redoing sections from several months before also helped me establish some more automatic mental timing reflexes. The only immediate fix I would consider is experiment with skipping more quickly. Even if you've only read the stimulus and it turns out to be the easiest question on the section (even question #1), move on immediately if you feel your understanding is shaky. That being said, my advice is not to obsess on 25 in 25 too much.

Congrats! Your posts have been a huge inspiration to me and I'm so happy to see this!

I second 7sage + LSAT Trainer. Did the Bible first. It's fine...just fine.

I review 5 or so games of a certain type each day.

Your new strategy is definitely the better of the two! I would suggest looking into skipping strategies as well. Eventually you want to be comfortable spotting questions that are likely to be the most difficult for you as soon after beginning them as possible. You just have to be careful not to make skipping cause you to rush.

It's a very learnable test. If you're aiming for a 170+ it's not unusual to spend a year or more.

Personally I would cancel. Taking it when you haven't consistently reached your goal is likely to make you more nervous on this take which could conceivably make you associate the entire testing process with that heightened sense of anxiety and carry over to the next one. I postponed multiple times from when I initially planned on taking, and it's so much better approaching test day knowing all you have to do is something you've done multiple times than wanting to over perform your top score.

@ I very loosely stick to this rule after seeing it mentioned in multiple 7sage webinars (and on the forums) I think the basic idea is to ge through 15 total and skip the harder ones. So if there are two really tricky questions in the first 15, aim to be through question 17 by the fifteen minute mark. It's more of a way to gauge time than a hard limit - at least the way I use it.

@ I've found I had to be careful when implementing that sort of timing strategy. My first tries didn't turn out the best because I felt like I needed to be rushing to keep up with the marker. That's not the way to do it. Your natural pace on LR needs to be around a minute/question, and you need to learn to make snap assessments on when to skip without letting this increase your natural pace and thus how prone you are to errors. It's about getting rid of wasted time on hard questions, not about hurrying. Hopefully that helps!

I'm right there with you man. Currently going full steam ahead on Netflix. It's working... okay. Moviepass has also been my bff.

Especially for LG, I would keep pushing until you figure it out. There were a couple of times where I did throw up my hands in defeat and just watch the video, and both times I think it ended up being a really simple oversight on my part. What I do now (and would tell past-me to do as well), is to redo the entire game and change my setup before watching the video. Print a fresh copy and just start from scratch. Maybe you can switch which set of variables are groups/pieces, maybe you should use a chart. At the minimum, aim to be more visual and less cluttered.

@ said:

Bob Loblaw’s Law Blog (jk)

Ask a Sage

Sages Tell All

CC & Beyond

The Sage Page

Logical Reasoning

Sage Vox

I can't believe Bob Loblaw's Law Blog didn't instantly come to mind!

You can always buy a digital copy through 7sage - it's not too expensive given it comes with all of the explanations.

Make sure you've studied examples of both single and double layer sequencing. If you've done enough of each it should be obvious when ties are allowed. Some games will tell you something like "two patients go on Saturday" meaning it's single layer with one tie. Those instances are explicitly stated.

The second instance is about how you know which side is which. Eventually this should be second nature. While you're learning/fool-proofing, take a moment when they use words like "higher/lower" "in front of/behind" and notate your board so you know what you're considering which. If you're ever confused, you can often look at the first question. It will usually be a list, and it will identify I'm how to label the first and last slots.

Both questions just come down to familiarity. Don't be afraid to make mistakes early on. That's how you learn!

I took a similar hit from that RC on the real test day. Be glad it was just a PT :smile:

I was stressed about this as well, but turns out you're fine even if your don't erase.

L-0L

The Amicus Blog

The Admissions Deposition

Sufficient & Necessary

I would also vote for Sage Advice @

I avoid it as much as possible. There is a time and place for it, though. I remember once solving for all sub game boards only to realize I replaced a game piece letter with a group label letter at the very end of the set up. I wasn't about rewrite four boards, so I erased and rewrote. With that extreme example in mind, I typically do my best to stick to JY's no eraser advice.

The phrase musicians throw around: "Don't just practice until you get it right. Practice until you can't get it wrong." :smile:

It seems to me that the key factor you're getting at is internalizing the lessons of the material you've been exposed to through repeated exposure. I totally agree with the importance of reviewing what you've already experienced over and over. Practicing your reaction to new material is also important, though. Rote learning is an important aspect of the process, but it can't be everything. Really digging into the BR process and not rushing to the next PT is crucial; cycle through old games you've fool proofed; return to LR questions and RC passages that tripped you up over and over. Our mental processes are different when it's new material and you can't let those skills atrophy.

Congratulations!!!

Why do you think they don't? If someone can take time off to study full time and doesn't care that they'll have a blank spot on their resume, they probably do. I think there is also some overlap that makes this sort of a futile issue to game out: some people would struggle to study enough even if they didn't work full time; others are going to study enough no matter how much they work; others want the work experience either for its inherent value or for a resume hit/avoiding a blank spot.