Consistency in the 170s

Allison M

Since finishing the 7Sage course, I've been consistently scoring in the 170s. Over the course of 17 PTs, I've had a low of 169, a high of 178, and an average of 174.

The frustrating thing is that I didn't start out scoring 169 and advance to 178; rather, my score fluctuates wildly from one test to the next. This weekend, for instance, I got a 170 on Saturday and a 177 on Sunday.

Equally random is the distribution of my wrong answers. One day, I'll have trouble with an RC passage. The next, it's an LG game that trips me up. Sometimes, it's a bunch of LR questions that push my score down. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.

How have those of you scoring 170+ improved your consistency? Any tips from the pros?

laura.myers63

When I started out I had a similar issue - my tests were between 173 and 176 and I had no idea what my real ability level was because it seemed so arbitrary. The analytics tool here helped me tremendously, though. Look at the ones you got wrong and figure out - are they the hardest questions, or are they easy? If you're missing easy questions, why? Did you think you got them right or were they ones you struggled with?

If you're like me, the inconsistency stems from reading errors that cause you to misinterpret a stimulus, a rule or a question. Slow down, make sure you're reading accurately, and suddenly the only ones you miss are ones you genuinely struggled with. Then from there you can shore up your weaknesses.

Jonathan Wang

In that scoring range, you're just dealing with small inconsistencies and imperfections in your fundamentals. It's natural for that sticking point to vary, because with so few weak spots left to deal with, each test isn't necessarily going to hit on them all.

You just need to figure out what fundamentals are being implicated by the things that you're getting wrong and work on those, independently of whatever the three-digit score says. Think of it this way - on a nightmare test, you may get several of your weaknesses highlighted. On a perfect test, none of them may appear. None of that changes what needs to be worked on.

You may also want to pay attention more to your mental game, as small letdowns and sudden surges of adrenaline can cause temporary lapses in your reasoning abilities (common with questions where in hindsight, you ask yourself "how could I ever have picked that answer???"). Even 1 minute of bad focus can be enough to lead to the results you describe.

Allison M

Thanks, Laura and Jonathan!

Thinking about my areas of weakness as unevenly distributed across PTs is especially helpful, and probably goes a long way towards explaining my inconsistent scores. I'm going to re-review old PTs to see if I can pick up on any patterns that I didn't notice when blind reviewing them individually.

The mental factor is definitely there as well - like Laura, I have had issue with misreading questions and losing easy points as a result. Letting go of skimming has been a tough thing to do!

chase62442

Something else I've noticed is I tend to do worse on the first section, no matter what type of section it is. I think I haven't settled into the test yet. Could you have a problem like that?

Also, it seems like if there's an easy lg section then there is a hard rc section. So sometimes I will get most/all right on one and 3-4 wrong on the other, and the next PT it will be the opposite. (I figured this out using the analytics tool where it says if each section is easier, harder, etc compared to other tests.)