Post Core Curriculum

jaefromcanada

Hey guys,

Any tips on post core-curriculum ideas?
My first four PT's have been stagnant at 158-161. I didn't take a cold diagnostic and my first PT was 161.

Specifically,

A: What is a good PT schedule?
- I'm doing every other day; I tried to do a back to back today and felt mentally exhausted. I thought it'd be waste of a PT.

B: How do you recommend drilling LR?
- I don't have those cambridge packages or whatever. I also haven't taken enough PT's to have a good sample size on my weaknesses yet. Should I use the question bank primarily?

C: How do you recommend going back to the core curriculum to review?
- I've been supplementing a little bit of the trainer to help me study. Is this a good idea?

D : Is it normal to have your first four PT's show almost no improvement in raw score?
- My first was 161; then I dipped to 157, 161 then 159. I'm wildly inconsistent between my sections; for instance, I got as good as -2 on RC, -3 on LG and -5 on LR. But I always have one section during a PT just implode on me.

I'm writing in June and am planning on doing PT 35-80.

Thanks in advance!

PS: I think @"Cant Get Right" did a webinar on this; any take-aways from that webinar since I wasn't able to attend?

tanes256

@"Jae Won Hur" are you doing BR between your PT? You drill after you've done a BR. Your BR should show you your weaknesses. You should then return to the curriculum and brush up on that section. You mentioned The LSAT Trainer so you can throw that in the mix as well and then drill that question type. You can use the question bank to filter the question type and degree of difficulty. The analytics will also show you your weaknesses and guide you toward what you should be drilling. Also, I wouldn't do PT every other day. That's not leaving enough time for BR IMO but I guess that depends on how many questions you circled. It seems most ppl are doing 1-2 PT per week with a thorough BR. You can get easily burned out doing every other day. The goal shouldn't be to take every PT released so I would adjust your PT schedule.

Cant Get Right

@"Jae Won Hur" said:
Hey guys,

Any tips on post core-curriculum ideas?

Yep!

My first four PT's have been stagnant at 158-161. I didn't take a cold diagnostic and my first PT was 161.

That's a great place to be starting out.

A: What is a good PT schedule?
- I'm doing every other day; I tried to do a back to back today and felt mentally exhausted. I thought it'd be waste of a PT.

Stop! You are wasting PTs that you can never have back. If you're coming right out of the curriculum, you should be closer to one a week. After each PT, you need to take time to respond to the mistakes you made and the weaknesses that those PTs expose. Until you are confident you have addressed the specific weaknesses exposed by one PT, you have no reason to expect to perform any better on the next. If you have no reason to expect an improved performance, you should not be taking a PT.

B: How do you recommend drilling LR?
- I don't have those cambridge packages or whatever. I also haven't taken enough PT's to have a good sample size on my weaknesses yet. Should I use the question bank primarily?

Respond to each PT. Patterns will emerge, but that doesn't mean you can't study the things you miss. Address every mistake on every test, and you will be addressing your weaknesses.

C: How do you recommend going back to the core curriculum to review?
- I've been supplementing a little bit of the trainer to help me study. Is this a good idea?

I haven't used the Trainer before, but from everything I've heard, it is a great resource that is very compatible with 7Sage methodology. Use your errors in your PTs to identify particular concepts that cost you points. Return to those areas in the curriculum, and do exercises to reinforce.

D : Is it normal to have your first four PT's show almost no improvement in raw score?
- My first was 161; then I dipped to 157, 161 then 159. I'm wildly inconsistent between my sections; for instance, I got as good as -2 on RC, -3 on LG and -5 on LR. But I always have one section during a PT just implode on me.

Yes, that is normal. A given test's difficulty will be distributed differently, but will mostly even out to produce a consistent score.

I'm writing in June and am planning on doing PT 35-80.

Please do not do this. You will feel great about how much material you have covered, but confused as to why your score has not budged. You will also have burned all of your material and be severely hurt in your efforts to do it right once your scores come back and you have to start over. Less is best, quality over quantity, etc.

Thanks in advance!

You're welcome!

jaefromcanada

Wow. Thanks for the tips.

I have greatly underestimated BR. I am going to follow your advice and take less PT's and more diligence in BR and understanding what I've done wrong.

What sorts of mechanisms did you guys to use to 'drill'? I should definitely revisit the core curriculum in areas of weakness. But after that, should I just do the problem sets that are included in the curriculum? Any suggestions?

Cant Get Right

What are your BR scores?

jaefromcanada

I've been BRing at 165. Granted, I haven't been BRing as rigorously (not circling everything that I absolutely aren't sure about and not BRing games or RC as rigorously)

Cant Get Right

@"Jae Won Hur" said:
I've been BRing at 165. Granted, I haven't been BRing as rigorously (not circling everything that I absolutely aren't sure about and not BRing games or RC as rigorously)

So, you already know I'm going to say it, but here it is:

BR rigorously.

Right now, your immediate goal has to be upping your BR. It is your theoretical maximum potential, and you are very near to maxing that out. So to improve your timed scores, you've first got to increase your potential.

extramedium

@"Cant Get Right" said:
Please do not do this. You will feel great about how much material you have covered, but confused as to why your score has not budged. You will also have burned all of your material and be severely hurt in your efforts to do it right once your scores come back and you have to start over. Less is best, quality over quantity, etc.

Which PTs do you recommend taking in the run-up to the June test? Should we jump around from 50s to 60s and 70s or mainly PT the 70s?

Drill from old sections pre 50?

Cant Get Right

It kind of depends @extramedium . If you're consistently scoring at/above your target score, I'd say go ahead and stick to the later tests, maybe saving 3 or so from each series just in case. If you're not near your target score though, you'll want to save more because you're likely to need them to prepare for a retake. You need to take some recent tests before testing regardless, but use your earlier tests to gauge to what extent you are ready to burn the more recent/valuable material.