Where Am I Going Wrong? PLEASE HELP!

Jonah Chadwick Griego

Hello 7Sage,

I began my LSAT journey in November of 2017. I had just been raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason at my Masonic Lodge, joined the Scottish Rite, and been initiated into Shriner's International. To say these goals were a lifelong dream are an understatement. Riding the high of accomplishing goals that required so much time and effort, I began to ask myself what else I could do now that I had conquered the unconquerable.

Naturally with my Political Science degree in hand and a fire lit from the current state of American Politics, I decided that I wanted to go to law school to be the change I wished to see and make a difference.

I messaged a buddy of mine who is now a 2L at Duke law about what site he used to study and he recommended 7sage (thank goodness). As many others that began their LSAT quest in the midst of the holiday season I found it difficult to stay on task while balancing life and this new found part time job of studying for the beast. Nevertheless, I staggered to the finish line of the CC in April praying that I had learned something from those sleepless nights of watching JY's videos and grinding sets out at work.

In my diagnostic, it was so bad that I questioned if I had even spelled my name correctly. Thus, when my first PT out of the CC was a 151 I was relieved that I was not brain dead and comprehended the basic structure of questions, but also dismayed that I had SO much more work to do. Since then, I have completed 9 other practice tests. Here are my stats:

Average PT score: 150
BR: Consistent 160-166
LR on PT: -12
LG on PT: -10
RC on PT: -10

I have found that my main issues have been medium/ hard LR questions, running out of time in LG, and over analyzing in RC.

My current study schedule is as follows: Saturday or Sunday take a PT, Monday- Friday BR, repeat. I BR a section a day as I am working full time and helping to plan my upcoming wedding.

My goal is T14, thus with my 3.5 GPA from a #231-#300 Ranked University (US News) I know I am going to need a great LSAT score....and a 150 is NOT cutting it.

I have tried to step back and refocus my studying, but nothing has seemed to work. I am turning to the 7sage community now for some #help. If you see anything missing, wrong, or even plain stupid about what I am doing please let me know.

Thank you in advance!

Best,

Jonah

eRetaker

Well based on your post, there are several issues that you can work on and you will most likely need to carve out another 3-4 months of studying on top of everything you done since Nov 2017 to study more effectively.
1. You aren't studying enough. I understand that you have a full-time job and a wedding to plan, so maybe once the wedding is over you can grind more. 1 PT on the weekends while taking the rest of the week to BR that one exam isn't a whole lot of studying considering you didn't mention doing any other forms of studying or drilling during the week.
2. You also haven't fool-proofed LG considering that you're still -10, and again you didn't mention drilling any games. Read this: https://7sage.com/how-to-get-a-perfect-score-on-the-logic-games/
3. For RC, am I right to guess that you're having trouble with science passages? If so, then reading Scientific American on your leisure time can be a good break from the LSAT while training your familiarity with the subject matter.
4. For LR, you need to absolutely drill by question types rather than doing entire sections. For instance, start off by learning how to do Flaw questions, then NA/SA questions.

Overall, I will say hold off on PT'ing and drill LR by question types, fool-proof LG sections from preptest 1-35, and get more familiar with the RC subject matter. You are also going to have to sacrifice a bit for more study time after your wedding planning is over. You learned about the fundamentals from the CC, now it's time to hone them through drilling. After a month or so of this, you can go back to PT'ing and BR'ing. Good luck and I expect you to have great results if you commit to the grind.

Jonah Chadwick Griego

@eRetaker said:
Well based on your post, there are several issues that you can work on and you will most likely need to carve out another 3-4 months of studying on top of everything you done since Nov 2017 to study more effectively.
1. You aren't studying enough. I understand that you have a full-time job and a wedding to plan, so maybe once the wedding is over you can grind more. 1 PT on the weekends while taking the rest of the week to BR that one exam isn't a whole lot of studying considering you didn't mention doing any other forms of studying or drilling during the week.
2. You also haven't fool-proofed LG considering that you're still -10, and again you didn't mention drilling any games. Read this: https://7sage.com/how-to-get-a-perfect-score-on-the-logic-games/
3. For RC, am I right to guess that you're having trouble with science passages? If so, then reading Scientific American on your leisure time can be a good break from the LSAT while training your familiarity with the subject matter.
4. For LR, you need to absolutely drill by question types rather than doing entire sections. For instance, start off by learning how to do Flaw questions, then NA/SA questions.

Overall, I will say hold off on PT'ing and drill LR by question types, fool-proof LG sections from preptest 1-35, and get more familiar with the RC subject matter. You are also going to have to sacrifice a bit for more study time after your wedding planning is over. You learned about the fundamentals from the CC, now it's time to hone them through drilling. After a month or so of this, you can go back to PT'ing and BR'ing. Good luck and I expect you to have great results if you commit to the grind.

@eRetaker Thank you! I appreciate the advice!

akistotle

First, you should maximize your LG score by foolproofing a ton! You have access to the LG Bundle: https://7sage.com/lesson/logic-games-bundle-preptests-1-35

I recommend watching Post Core Curriculum Study Strategies if you haven’t already:
https://7sage.com/webinar/post-core-curriculum-study-strategies

I also recommend talking to one of 7Sage’s approved tutors: https://7sage.com/forums/discussion/4760/7sages-approved-tutors/p1

ChaimtheGreat

I think getting your logic game skills honed is the best place to start. Make that your life for the nest month. I also don't think it would be a terrible thing to wait until after the planning of the wedding to really start grinding. The LSAT will be here when you are ready. The worst thing you can do is rush the LSAT when you don't have the time necessary to commit to it.

Jonah Chadwick Griego

@akistotle a tad star struck here as I love your explanations at the bottom of the videos.

Thank you for the pointers. I appreciate it!

Jonah Chadwick Griego

@ChaimtheGreat after realizing that I was not heading in the correct direction I got the half refund for the test I was scheduled for and told myself I would not reschedule until I felt I was moving towards a goal.

I have a great job that I love and live close to family, thus time crunch and rushing is something that I am not stressing myself out over.

Thank you for the advice. I appreciate it a lot!

akistotle

@"Jonah Chadwick Griego" said:
@akistotle a tad star struck here as I love your explanations at the bottom of the videos.

Thank you for the pointers. I appreciate it!

Haha! Thanks and good luck! I was stuck in 150s for a long time. You can do it!

theLSATdreamer

@eRetaker damn, i was actually on a similar schedule as he is, pt on the weekend and review during the week, i would also do games and reading comp for an hour a day. could you post your study schedule so I know what to aim for?

studyingandrestudying

Stay in the game and don't get discouraged. Just read a quote that it's worse to give up than fear failure. Maybe some timed individual sections could help?

eRetaker

@theLSATdreamer
Tues, Thurs: Drill some games and a reading passage. Then take a PT when I get home at 6PM.
Mon, Weds, Fri: Blind review PT for 2 hours. I drill LR by question types after that.
Sat, Sun: Take a PT/BR same day and/or drill more LR by question types and redo tough games.

I had about a commute from 8AM to 9AM and 5PM to 6PM from work every weekday that I spent looking at LR problems that I had trouble with. I took pictures on my phone of tough LR questions and just sat and thought about them during the commute to make use of the time.

Overall: This process was about 7 months of study. I took the first month to only do fundamentals and reading study guides. Second and third month to fool-proof LG and drill reading passages. The rest of the time doing every single PT in sequential order and drilling LR, RC, LG questions along the way. I retook my LSAT in June and that was when I had to retake old PTs since I didn't have fresh ones anymore but I found that it was the most useful practice I had since I was soaking things I didn't notice the first time.

If i could change anything, I would have drilled LR questions a lot earlier and taken less PTs. I didn't feel a burnout but I definitely could've used the time better on just drilling more.

Leah M B

Studying while working full time (and planning a wedding, no less!) is very difficult. The biggest advice I can give is that you need to be very efficient with your studying.

My schedule tends to look like this:

Monday-Friday: try to do 1 timed section during lunch, home around 6:30, eat dinner, relax a bit, study from roughly 7:30-10 doing drills, foolproofing, or timed sections w/BR.
Saturday: PT
Sunday: BR PT

I make sure to take 1 weekend evening totally off from studying, as well as the rest of the day on Saturday/Sunday after doing either the PT or BR. That helps stave off burn out.

Really, if you can squeeze in the PT and BR over the weekend and use weeknights for drills and such, you’ll get so much more done. PTs with BR are a good way to check in on your progress and learn, but you’ll make faster strides learning at this point working on drills and other things. Since you’re quite a bit away from your goal score, I don’t think it’s even critical for you to do full PTs. Your time would probably be better spent working on LR questions by type and foolproofing games. You can work on your strategy for RC too. Some other great suggestions above from folks on how to do that.

Bamboosprout

I think a common mistake for new students is to focus too much on PTs and BR. Those are important, but essentially useless unless you understand why you're doing them. To actually have a grasp on how to make the most out of PTs and BR, you have to have at least gone over most of the Core Curriculum(CC) once, preferably twice. To be fair, I could be making a wrong assumption (I don't understand what you mean by "PT out of CC". Does that mean you finished the CC once already?). Your BR score is really solid, so maybe you truly already have a strong grasp of the CC, and only need to execute better by doing more PTs.
On another note, I also started at around December of 2017. I have completed the CC twice and done almost all of the LSATs available (missing about 10 of them), so I agree with eRetaker's feedback that you might not be doing enough. Again, I understand everyone's result is different and I may be wrong to assume you haven't done enough, but you have stated that you have pretty big goals, and your current pace doesn't necessarily match up to those goals. On average, every time I did the CC, my score went up by about 5, so I think going through that process yielded very tangible and obvious results. One thing to look out for is to watch JY's live recordings of him taking the test. It's extremely boring and weird, honestly, but you can pick up a lot of practical tricks that you can't learn anywhere else. It's like watching a master at work, like an apprenticeship to successful LSAT taking.

Hope this feedback isn't overly critical and can help you.

keets993

First of all, congrats on the upcoming weddding.

I don't quite see a goal range or what you are shooting for. If it's higher or at the same level as your BR score then you need to revisit the CC or do drills to deepen your fundamentals. I agree with what has been said about foolproofing LG to reduce that score but you should also foolproof LG sections to ensure that you are practicing good habits and not getting lazy while foolproofing.

That -12 LR per section means that you are mainly only getting the easy questions right and not the medium to harder difficulty questions. Do you get those correct on BR? I suggest drilling 5-star questions for the question types you get wrong. Do at least 10-12 of each or until you get a hang of them. Look for patterns in structure and answer choices. For example, almost all correlation-causation questions are accompanied by an incorrect answer choice that sounds like its denying the causation but is actually supported by the causation. Our stimulus would state, "A correlates B" therefore "A causes B"...our answer choice would say "A and /B" or "B and /A" while these may weaken conditional relationships, relationships dealing with correlation account for these types of data points. Identifying patterns among wrong and correct answer choices will help you get faster. So stop doing PTs and start doing drills.

Are you recording yourself with video to see how you manage your time during a PT or sections? That will help you see where you're losing time and what kind of bad habits you have.

For RC, are you doing all 4 passages or just getting through 3 and guessing for one? The strategy depends on your answer. If you're seeing all 4 then you need to drill passages for fundamentals and use low-resolution and memory method. Figure out a notation strategy as well. If you're only getting through 3 and guessing on one then you really need to improve your accuracy for the 3 that you are getting through. It's hard to get into specifics for a strategy just based on the information provided.

Jonah Chadwick Griego

@keets993 said:
First of all, congrats on the upcoming weddding.

I don't quite see a goal range or what you are shooting for. If it's higher or at the same level as your BR score then you need to revisit the CC or do drills to deepen your fundamentals. I agree with what has been said about foolproofing LG to reduce that score but you should also foolproof LG sections to ensure that you are practicing good habits and not getting lazy while foolproofing.

That -12 LR per section means that you are mainly only getting the easy questions right and not the medium to harder difficulty questions. Do you get those correct on BR? I suggest drilling 5-star questions for the question types you get wrong. Do at least 10-12 of each or until you get a hang of them. Look for patterns in structure and answer choices. For example, almost all correlation-causation questions are accompanied by an incorrect answer choice that sounds like its denying the causation but is actually supported by the causation. Our stimulus would state, "A correlates B" therefore "A causes B"...our answer choice would say "A and /B" or "B and /A" while these may weaken conditional relationships, relationships dealing with correlation account for these types of data points. Identifying patterns among wrong and correct answer choices will help you get faster. So stop doing PTs and start doing drills.

Are you recording yourself with video to see how you manage your time during a PT or sections? That will help you see where you're losing time and what kind of bad habits you have.

For RC, are you doing all 4 passages or just getting through 3 and guessing for one? The strategy depends on your answer. If you're seeing all 4 then you need to drill passages for fundamentals and use low-resolution and memory method. Figure out a notation strategy as well. If you're only getting through 3 and guessing on one then you really need to improve your accuracy for the 3 that you are getting through. It's hard to get into specifics for a strategy just based on the information provided.

@keets993 I am shooting for 170+; I am currently in the process of fool proofing logic games; I am beginning to do drills like many have suggested; I have not videoed myself yet, that is a great tip; I am getting through 3 reading sections and guessing for 1, usually the science one as I know I will struggle with it; thank you for such a detailed response! I really appreciate you taking time to respond to this.

Jonah Chadwick Griego

@Bamboosprout said:
I think a common mistake for new students is to focus too much on PTs and BR. Those are important, but essentially useless unless you understand why you're doing them. To actually have a grasp on how to make the most out of PTs and BR, you have to have at least gone over most of the Core Curriculum(CC) once, preferably twice. To be fair, I could be making a wrong assumption (I don't understand what you mean by "PT out of CC". Does that mean you finished the CC once already?). Your BR score is really solid, so maybe you truly already have a strong grasp of the CC, and only need to execute better by doing more PTs.
On another note, I also started at around December of 2017. I have completed the CC twice and done almost all of the LSATs available (missing about 10 of them), so I agree with eRetaker's feedback that you might not be doing enough. Again, I understand everyone's result is different and I may be wrong to assume you haven't done enough, but you have stated that you have pretty big goals, and your current pace doesn't necessarily match up to those goals. On average, every time I did the CC, my score went up by about 5, so I think going through that process yielded very tangible and obvious results. One thing to look out for is to watch JY's live recordings of him taking the test. It's extremely boring and weird, honestly, but you can pick up a lot of practical tricks that you can't learn anywhere else. It's like watching a master at work, like an apprenticeship to successful LSAT taking.

Hope this feedback isn't overly critical and can help you.

@Bamboosprout no such thing as critical when I am asking for help! Thank you for this!

Jonah Chadwick Griego

@"Leah M B" said:
Studying while working full time (and planning a wedding, no less!) is very difficult. The biggest advice I can give is that you need to be very efficient with your studying.

My schedule tends to look like this:

Monday-Friday: try to do 1 timed section during lunch, home around 6:30, eat dinner, relax a bit, study from roughly 7:30-10 doing drills, foolproofing, or timed sections w/BR.
Saturday: PT
Sunday: BR PT

I make sure to take 1 weekend evening totally off from studying, as well as the rest of the day on Saturday/Sunday after doing either the PT or BR. That helps stave off burn out.

Really, if you can squeeze in the PT and BR over the weekend and use weeknights for drills and such, you’ll get so much more done. PTs with BR are a good way to check in on your progress and learn, but you’ll make faster strides learning at this point working on drills and other things. Since you’re quite a bit away from your goal score, I don’t think it’s even critical for you to do full PTs. Your time would probably be better spent working on LR questions by type and foolproofing games. You can work on your strategy for RC too. Some other great suggestions above from folks on how to do that.

@"Leah M B" this is FANTASTIC! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!