PTing

samantha.ashley92

For those of you PTing at 165+, how many PTs are you planning on taking before your first (or only) exam? I have Ultimate+, so I believe I have access to 82 old exams. That seems like a crazy amount to do, but I will totally do it if that will be significantly more helpful than 50-60ish.

10000019

I believe how many PTs you take is unique to your situation. My plan was to take every test after 35, and use 1-35 primarily for drilling. When I made the last minute decision to switch to the December test, I had to revise that plan.
It's important to get some exposure to modern tests, so I moved my PT schedule around for that. If I had more time, I would not be doing that.

From my personal experience, here is what I would suggest (I'm presuming by your join date that you're a newbie):
- Take a PT now. If you don't want to use June, then I suggest you use a PT from 30-35.
- Post your results (sectional scores as well), what your desired score is, and the dates you are considering signing up for. Then the community can give you better advice.

Planning on taking all 82 tests won't hurt your score, but it may not be beneficial for you.

samantha.ashley92

Thanks, @10000019! My diagnostic was a 155. I am hoping for 165-170. I had -20 LR, -8 LG, and -4 RC. Clearly, LR is my biggest opportunity. However, I'm really starting to get it. I have about a week and a half left of LR until I'm done with it, and then I'll retake the LR sections of an old test to see my improvements. I think that -5 LR is my ultimate goal considering how much everything is clicking for me. I'm still at about 3-4 out of 5 correct on the hardest level question sets, but luckily, there are only a few LR questions that hard on every exam.

Alex

@"samantha.ashley92" said:
For those of you PTing at 165+, how many PTs are you planning on taking before your first (or only) exam? I have Ultimate+, so I believe I have access to 82 old exams. That seems like a crazy amount to do, but I will totally do it if that will be significantly more helpful than 50-60ish.

Hey, Samatha,

I also agree that doing all 82 exams as a full simulated proctored exams is crazy as well as a wildly inefficient way to study, in my opinion. I plan on taking ~20 full PTs by the time I sit for my official exam. this number may change if by my 20th PT I have not reached my goal score consistently. So remain flexible with your planning. I also have taken and plan to continue to take a crap ton of timed sections, which I truly believe you can get just about everything you can out of that you would from a full PT. So this is why having the Ult+ with all 82 exams is super helpful!

I think what test you will ultimately use will be a function of: 1) How close you are to your goal score following the CC. 2) What your prep timeline looks like.

That said, I am a firm believer in getting in as much prep with the newer tests as possible before sitting for the test. While the test still remains the same at it's core, the newer tests have a subtle difference in style/writing.

Seeking Perfection

I did 79 of the 81 that existed before September. I discovered 7sage after having taken the first 35pts + 10 more recent ones and the February test. After 7 sage I foolproofed and did the rest of the PTs except for two. I'm not sure I would consider taking the test an inefficient way to study. It is bar none the best way to work out your timing and when paired with blind review it is an effective way to finetune every section.

That said if I were to rank the most important ways of studying for you I would put foolproofing first, then drilling LR, then the core curriculum, and then doing as many PTs as possible under realistic or more strenuous than realistic conditions.

If you do less than 82 PTs make sure to get the most recent ones. I would drill LR and Foolproof logic games with tests 1-35. This will make them useless as diagnostic PTs (simce you already know the answers to the questions). I recommend taking one of them(PTs 1-35) a week while foolproofing and drilling anyway. It will build confidence and endurance.

Then once you can handle individual LR and games sections I would recommend starting PTing on the remaining PTs 36-82.