Retaking and don't know where to start...

westcoastbestcoast

Due to the recent elimination of the 3 take limit, I have been considering the possibility of retaking. However, I'm not exactly sure where to start as I have already studied the LSATs for over 2 years, pretty much took all the exams and went through curriculum and have taken the exam three times. My highest fresh non-official takes were a 163 and a 166, but my highest official take was a 160. Starting from a 140 diagnostic, I do understand that I made substantial progress but I would at least like to be able to score closer to the higher end of my score band or perhaps score into the high 160s or low 170s. How should my study plan look like? RC I have been underperforming on test days because I tend to freeze up on hard passages. LR is an inconsistent section for me as well and I have trouble on those harder flaw questions that don't follow a cookiercutter flaw. FInally for LG, I tend to struggle with sections that have those medium level games that require you to brute force

tanes256

@westcoastbestcoast address the issues you mentioned in your post. I think this gives you the perfect opportunity to breakdown your studies to focus on one or two question types at a time. I would work on a max of two question types, an entire LG section and maybe 1-2 RC passages a day. Of course you can tweak that however you see fit, but I think you should keep it simple and focus on a few things at a time. Use your analytics to tell you what else may be hindering you. For LG, I would implement the fool proof method. Also, it never hurts to brush up on your logic and grammar skills. What were your BR scores? Were you hitting the high 160s to low 170s?

JustDoIt

Hi! Don't fret! I'm in the same boat as you

@tanes256 really hit the nail on the head. With the exception of LG, I wouldn't do any full sections. I would do individual passages and drill your LR weaknesses. Start with easy passages and build your way to more difficult ones. Each time, make sure you are writing out the reasoning structure, purpose of each paragraph, tone, viewpoints, and overall main point. Also remember that you can have a completely perfect understanding of the passage but still be missing questions because you aren't reading answer choices thoroughly (I am guilty of this).

Flaw questions and NAs require a lot of fundamentals so I would shoot back to the lessons a bit for these. I still do from time to time and have found that reviewing the grammar and weakening lessons jumped my score a few points. Drill and BR hard. Like next level. Like break down each sentence. Then anticipating when possible.

Put LG on the back burner for now. I presume if you've been studying for a while you have the fundamentals down. Squeeze in a section here and there; maybe two a week. This is because games often just need to be refined and rarely does anything new need to be learned.

Hope this helps!

Alex

@westcoastbestcoast said:
Due to the recent elimination of the 3 take limit, I have been considering the possibility of retaking. However, I'm not exactly sure where to start as I have already studied the LSATs for over 2 years, pretty much took all the exams and went through curriculum and have taken the exam three times. My highest fresh non-official takes were a 163 and a 166, but my highest official take was a 160. Starting from a 140 diagnostic, I do understand that I made substantial progress but I would at least like to be able to score closer to the higher end of my score band or perhaps score into the high 160s or low 170s. How should my study plan look like? RC I have been underperforming on test days because I tend to freeze up on hard passages. LR is an inconsistent section for me as well and I have trouble on those harder flaw questions that don't follow a cookiercutter flaw. FInally for LG, I tend to struggle with sections that have those medium level games that require you to brute force

Agree with all of the excellent advice above.

For LG, try doing a section a day and fool proofing that section. You'll be a pro in no time -- all about being consistent when it comes to mastering games.

Also, you said you are nearly out of fresh PTs. Have you already done PTs Feb 97' A, B, C, and C2?

westcoastbestcoast

Thanks everyone for the advice, @tanes256 @JustDoIt Ill be sure to implement your advice into my study plan. @"Alex Divine" I actually did that earlier in my prep and I found it helpful. I believe it helped me get a minus 4 on the LG section with the Virus game which is pretty good in my book but there is still room for improvement. I actually did A, and B as sections and C2 as an exam. I haven't taken a look at the LR and LG of C, although I have done the RC section of PT C.

Alex

@westcoastbestcoast said:
Thanks everyone for the advice, @tanes256 @JustDoIt Ill be sure to implement your advice into my study plan. @"Alex Divine" I actually did that earlier in my prep and I found it helpful. I believe it helped me get a minus 4 on the LG section with the Virus game which is pretty good in my book but there is still room for improvement. I actually did A, and B as sections and C2 as an exam. I haven't taken a look at the LR and LG of C, although I have done the RC section of PT C.

-4 on PT79 is beast! So you clearly must have most of the fundamentals down. It seems that if you are having any issues with the medium level games that require brute forcing (found more often on tests in the 50s+) then perhaps try going back and redoing LG sections from PTs you've already seen.

If you're out of fresh material, don't fret. I know of numerous high scorers who did plenty of redos. After all, the purpose of a PT is to get a snapshot of your weaknesses, so that you can spend time working on those weaknesses and hammering out your technique. Most of your improvement will not happen while you're PTing, it will happen when you review and drill things that, in your review, you find out needs work. So even if you can't use PTs as a 100% accurate gauge of your score, you can still get use from them.