160 score plateau - Need advice on how to proceed

niki2018niki2018 Member
in General 54 karma

Hi,

I was hoping to ask for advice from those of you who have experienced and have got passed a160 plateau.

I started studying for the LSAT in May and my initial diagnostic score was a 145. My last five recent PTs are 159, 159,162,160, and 160 and my blind review score average is around 170. After I do the blind review I get almost all LR right, maybe except one or two questions, and same goes for LG. But I still get around 5-6 wrong on RC. My goal is to get a 165 and I am writing the test in September.

My average incorrect answers in each section is as below:
LG: -4
LR: -5 each
RC: -8 (I am an ESL student so at best I have to spend 3:30 min on each passage)

Right now I am doing three PTs a week and I do BR after each plus I am still fool proofing more rare/mapping/pattern games.

Since I got almost the same score in my last 5 PTs I have started questioning the effectiveness of doing only PTs followed by BR. What I am not sure about is whether doing PTs is going to increase my score or should I still do more drills and work on my techniques.

Thank you :)

Comments

  • Leah M BLeah M B Alum Member ⭐
    8392 karma

    You definitely should do drills and other things besides PTs. PTs are a great way to check in on your progress, but it's best to spend more of your study time focusing on ways to improve, not just taking full tests.

    RC is obviously going to be a challenge, being ESL. Also... wow, I am so impressed! I tend to score between -5 and -9 on RC and I'm a native English speaker. That section is no joke! It's super tough. You're doing fantastic.

    A little helpful thing for some people on RC is playing around with notations. Some people notate a lot, some people not much at all. And sometimes it helps to change your approach just to see if it makes a difference. So you play around with that a little. I used to make way more markings, but tried doing very little and it increased my speed a lot.

    For LR, I'd suggest figuring out if you have specific weaknesses and working on those. Is there a certain question type or 2 that you tend to miss? Work on drilling just those types. Or is it that you are going too slow and not finishing? Maybe you need to work on a skipping strategy to pick up speed.

    For LG, have you done foolproofing? That really helps a ton in getting it down.

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