From a 153 PT to a 172 BR

Daniel B

I just competed test number 71. I was super frustrated when my score dropped on my practice test to a 153. But then super excited to get my highest BR score ever, a 172. I have never had such a huge gap between the two. Usually my BR is only 7-10 points higher than my PT. Not really sure what to infer from this though.

Have any of you had this happen?

Lsatbreakingnews

You're never going to get as many right timed vs. untimed. Keep blind reviewing to find patterns and to close the gap between actual vs br score.

scrichard1279

I did my very first blind review last night, I was really impressed. My diagnostic test was 146 and with blind review was 158!! I’m shooting for a 160 and I think the blind review will be the difference. As the comment before said, time is the enemy!!!

BillGreenpoint

Yes. Supremely frustrating.

danielm777

Sounds like looking at your test taking strategy might also make sense. Figure out what you are doing in blind review and try to practice it/replicated it during tests (minus the obvious aspect you can't replicate: having more time).

Sami

@"Daniel B" said:
I just competed test number 71. I was super frustrated when my score dropped on my practice test to a 153. But then super excited to get my highest BR score ever, a 172. I have never had such a huge gap between the two. Usually my BR is only 7-10 points higher than my PT. Not really sure what to infer from this though.

Have any of you had this happen?

A high gap between a BR score and real score actually says you may need to switch up your test taking strategy. So your real score is still going to be below 172 but it should't have a 20 point gap.

I do think blind review is till very helpful here but you may need more than that. A good test taking strategy can mean the difference from scoring near your potential to scoring really below what you can score.

A couple of good test taking strategies are:
1. Skipping hard questions and getting rid of the idea of scoring in 170 before scoring in 160s. This means you are willing to miss a lot of questions on each section for the sake of improving your average. As your average improves, you can tweak the strategy to get closer to your BR potential.
2. Be willing to sacrifice and miss some questions and not even attempt them for the sake of getting easier questions correct.
3. To not do a blind review on each question when you are taking a timed section.
4. Be willing to answer questions with 60-75% confidence than 100% confidence.

Let me know if any of them could be helpful to you. It's really hard just to know from looking at someones score what they might need to improve. I can hypothesize but its not enough.

Nick Gonzalez

I would like to add to the suggestions above. I also had a 15 point PT BR gap and it was extremely frustrating. What closed my gap from 15 points to 5 points was warming up before every PT and on the test day. There are plenty of warm up strategies on the forums here. I stuck to the standard 1 game 1 passage and 10 LR.
Good Luck