Yeah, definitely Matt Murdock.

I got up at 9:30am last Monday and was literally 3 minutes away from the testing center. It takes me a while to get dressed, so I had to factor that in. I also wanted to make sure I got as much sleep as possible the night before, so I went to bed early and ended up getting approximately 10 hours of sleep.

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So its been a month since I last took a PT and my actual score went from 139-144 and my BR went from 159-166. I'm guessing the advice is still the same? or?

This is major, congrats on the improvement. I think whenever your BR is above your target score, you can move to improve things like timing and start timed section drilling. However, don't keep taking practice tests over and over again. Try to finish 15 LR questions in 15 minutes. See how well you do when you go with your instinct. If accuracy is low when you go at a fast pace, you probably need to return to untimed drilling and focus on fundamentals to ensure 100% accuracy. A 144 tells me that you're probably still missing many of the fundamentals. a BR of 166 is promising though.

How are you on LG? have you fool-proofed 1-35 yet?

After I drill the question types I struggle with, I will start doing timed LR sections. Up to this point, I only time myself with LG but if I want to see 150+ and beyond, I'm going to need to face the music and start doing timed LR and RC. I'm full proofing 1-35 by game type. I have made progress, but I still have a ways to go.

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Congrats on that 5 point improvement! I feel like it's so easy to get discouraged but I just remind myself that it takes time. If you keep on taking PTs, it's just going to keep giving you the same information over and over again and is also a waste of perfectly good PTs. I've had to learn this the hard way.

For me, the easiest way of breaking through to the 160s at first was becoming really good at LG, which is the most learnable section people say. Try to get -0 in LG. Foolproof all the games. But don't disregard LR and RC. Even reading the Economist or the NYer is considered supplementing for RC studying, in my book at least.

Good luck :)

Thanks for the advice! LG is my best timed section now, but when I first started it was my worst. I am still in the process of foolproofing, and I'm starting to enjoy it.

So its been a month since I last took a PT and my actual score went from 139-144 and my BR went from 159-166. I'm guessing the advice is still the same? or?

I think the gallery Idea is fantastic! Wish I thought of that. > @ said:

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I used to do LG for 3-5 days, then LR for 3-5 days, then RC for 3-5 days, etc. Admittedly, there were some longer stretches (10 days+) when all I did was a single section type. I really enjoyed learning the LSAT this way.

Wow that's a cool strategy. Sounds like you can really go all in for specific sections and then return fresh. Did you feel like the time spent away from each section was helpful for letting the things you reviewed sink in?

Yeah, definitely. I'm a huge advocate of breaks from study when you need them, too. I think this sort of preparation gave me an edge.

when you did LG for 3-5 days, how many sections of games would you aim to do per day?

It changed over time. In the beginning I would try for 8 LG untimed. Towards the end, I would reliably complete 5-6 timed LG sections per day. So from 8 LG in the beginning to 20-24 in the end.

whoa!! Thank you :) I am going to try a similar approach and do 3-5 days of studying a section.

Which PTs did you do untimed up until?

1-38 via the Cambridge packets. I did a lot of untimed work throughout 39-70, but I used those tests mostly for timed sections.

Could you give us an idea of how you organized your study? For example, over the course of those 5 days, did you just take timed section after timed section, plus BR in between? Revisit later? Were you also still Foolproofing games from the 39-70 sets?

In the beginning, it was almost exclusively untimed work so no need for BR. As I became more confident in my abilities, I would keep 'running time' as I did my LG. If I was dissatisfied with the time it took me to complete an LG, I would immediately repeat that LG once, maybe twice, and then continue on to the next LG in the lineup.

Towards the end, I would do 5-6 timed LG sections a day and then BR immediately after. Often times I wouldn't BR if I felt I had only missed 2 or 3 questions. At the point, I was confident enough in my abilities to simply take a picture of the stimuli I missed to review them afterwards. I had a gallery of missed LG/LR stimuli in my phone that I would regularly review/think through whenever the mood struck.

Also I'm aiming for category 2, I'm assuming 50% extra time is an extra 17.5 minutes. Is that correct? That's how I interpreted what I read online.

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@ No, she didn't. Perhaps I am making an incorrect assumption based on an experience 2 years ago. My condition was affecting my attendance in a class and I needed a letter providing proof that I had been to the doctor and that I had been diagnosed with my condition and someone speaking on my doctor's behalf said if I wanted a letter, then I need to make another appointment.

Do you currently have a primary care physician? If so, get in touch with the diagnosing physician and ask them to forward all your information to your primary care physician. They may charge you a forwarding fee.

Once that is done, I would suggest that you schedule an appointment with your primary care physician. If they are unable to help you, they will direct you to a specialist.

Lastly if you have health insurance, check to see if there is a hotline number for questions. They might approve you, and send you straight to a specialist.

Yes, I have a primary care physician. Thanks for all the advice.

Maybe once I acquire my medical records I can go see a doctor in my hometown for a revaluation. That seems like the most feasible option.

@ No, she didn't. Perhaps I am making an incorrect assumption based on an experience 2 years ago. My condition was affecting my attendance in a class and I needed a letter providing proof that I had been to the doctor and that I had been diagnosed with my condition and someone speaking on my doctor's behalf said if I wanted a letter, then I need to make another appointment.

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I agree with the advice to stop PT'ing and to focus on learning the fundamentals from the CC. I think the best way is to work (untimed) for a while on drilling LR/LG by question type.

Ok. I'm not really a fan of PTs atm anyway, haha.

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@ you mean in terms of the actual score or the BR score?

The actual sectional score and the BR sectional score. I think you should maximize your points on LG first, but I would like to see where you lose your points. Your BR score shows that you have room for improvement.

Also, what is your goal score? Unless you are aiming for a 180, you don't have to solve all the questions to get to your goal. You should strategically miss hard questions.

Actual-

RC: -19, LR: -14, LG:-13 LR: -14

BR-

RC: -10

LR: -7

LG: -2

LR: -4.

Goal score: 150+ but after seeing my BR improvement, I'm beginning to feel a bit more ambitious despite not needing beyond a 150+ for the schools I am currently targeting.

First, you should definitely fool-proof LG to go -2 under the timed condition. This is definitely possible as your BR score shows.

Let's say you are good with a 150. This means you can miss around 45 questions. Even with RC -19, you can miss 26 questions in LR and LG.

So forget RC for now, and you first should aim for:

RC: -19, LG: -2, LR: -12, -12

As for LR, you should drill MC and easy SA questions so that you can always get them under 30 seconds. I think you should video record yourself to see where you are losing time.

Also, you should not try to solve difficult questions. If it doesn't click after reading the stimulus and answer choices, you should skip immediately. Under the timed condition, if you can successfully skip (=miss) 7 questions that you couldn't solve during BR, that's a win.

Unless you are scoring in 170s, your actual score will be like -10 of your BR score. So try to improve your BR score to above 160+.

I think you can aim 160+ but for now, you should maximize your LG score to get to 150+.

Thanks!

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@ you mean in terms of the actual score or the BR score?

The actual sectional score and the BR sectional score. I think you should maximize your points on LG first, but I would like to see where you lose your points. Your BR score shows that you have room for improvement.

Also, what is your goal score? Unless you are aiming for a 180, you don't have to solve all the questions to get to your goal. You should strategically miss hard questions.

Actual-

RC: -19, LR: -14, LG:-13 LR: -14

BR-

RC: -10

LR: -7

LG: -2

LR: -4.

Goal score: 150+ but after seeing my BR improvement, I'm beginning to feel a bit more ambitious despite not needing beyond a 150+ for the schools I am currently targeting.

@ you mean in terms of the actual score or the BR score?

When I did the BR, at least 19 of the 20 points came from doing questions I felt too stressed to process at the time or time simply ran out before I got to it. It's not like I'm getting a ton of stuff wrong.

I currently foolproof LG by type. Haven't gotten through 1-35 yet and I also practice LR questions by type after redoing all the CC lessons for the particular type I want to work on.

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@ You are always welcome to join but I recommend not - personal BR is where most of the learning happens and joining would actually harm your studies missing out on challenging your own thought processes during a BR and the knowledge you will gain.

The calls will always be here for you to join when it works with your schedule, no rush:)

If you have any questions after your BR, please reach out to me or post in the forums and we will make sure you have a clear understanding of any question !!

Oh, that makes sense. Sorry about that. I thought I would be able to BR today, but stuff came up. I guess I will join you guys another time.

I took the PT but I didn't have time to BR it yet. Can I still listen in?

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One thing to keep in mind is what you would be able to make and eat before the actual LSAT. These have all been great suggestion, just adding that element - you might not want to get too elaborate, so you can make sure to be able to replicate that on test day.

I like to make sure it’s protein heavy, that will keep you feeling full longer. I did 2-3 eggs, a toaster waffle with peanut butter on it, and a banana. For my snack, I had a Larabar (packed 2 bars for actual test day, just to be safe).

Yeah, I will definitely keep that in mind. Thanks for the great advice.

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Kind of thinking about a "logger" breakfast like a stack of pancakes, eggs, fruit, and maybe additional protein. Subject to experimentation, though. :)

Pancakes and eggs sounds good to me! :smiley:

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I think this mostly comes down to each person and what works best for them. I've been taking practice tests for a while now and generally don't eat or eat very little before taking a test and that seems to work best for me, whether I'm taking a PT at 8am or 1pm.

For sure! I think it's because @ was asking what to eat to prevent being hungry that we assumed he wanted to eat something.

I used to only have tea before starting a PT in the morning and it worked perfectly well. Now I like to have a light lunch before I take my test around 1pm.

Well it was a pretty accurate assumption, haha. Back when I was PT'ing around 8:30, I had a problem being able to focus during the whole thing, but fortunately figured out that tea was the solution to that problem the morning of the December test and was able to function at my best. The only question now is will tea have the same affect on me even though I will eat breakfast later than I'm used to.

@ Thanks for the advice! I prefer tea because I'm not a coffee person.

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Good luck! Try to get a balance of protein and simple carbs. I liked a bunch of eggs with some fruit and toast. The sugar kicked in and got me going right away, and the protein kept me feeling good. I've heard I lot of people go with oatmeal too.

You're going to do great!

I think this sounds excellent! And don’t forget that you’ve got the 15 minute break where you can grab a bite as well. I would normally have a peanut butter sandwich, a banana, and some matcha.

For brunch, for the break, or for both?