Study Tip Help Needed - Show you focus on one topic to improve?

Trusttheprocess

Hey fellow 7sagers,

Need some studying advice - not sure if this has already been discussed in the forum previously. If so, I do apologize!

So far, I have sort of carved out this studying plan model:
Phase 1) Finish Content of the Syllabus for RC, LR, LG
Phase 2) Do ALL Problem Sets (Goal: Strengthening my knowledge and foundational skills)
Phase 3) Do Timed Sections from PTS 40 - 60 (Goal: To improve my timing and strategy)
Phase 4) Do All PTS from 60 and above (Goal: Putting everything I have learned altogether & fine tuning my approach)

At the moment - I do not have a set date to write the test, but my prep goal is to help reach about 170. With that stated, I am currently in Phase 2 of my studying and I sort of want to maximize this opportunity. I really want to improve my LG and RC skills during this phase. In LG specifically- being able to recognize patterns & speed improvement. For RC - at least try to complete a passage below 10 minutes & find tuning my annotating skills.

With this in mind - when folks have tried to improve in certain sections, do you try to dedicate a block of studying time for a particular section? To clarify - for example, take two weeks of full LG drilling to improve in LG sections and not studying anything else besides. Simirarily doing the same for RC. Has anyone tried this? Is there any other approach?

Thanks for the help in advance!

samantha.ashley92

I would be hesitant to use all of the PTs because you never know if you're going to retake the LSAT. If you don't get the score you want or have to delay for a reason out of your control, you don't want to run out of PTs. That being said, do a mix of the late 50s, 60s, and 70s, saving some of each for a potential retake. Do the 80s closer to your test date, and definitely save one for a retake. Many of the 2019 exams will not be disclosed (available to use as PTs), so you won't have many 80s to use.

Since you have Ultimate+, I would recommend using the drill pack for LR problem sets in between PTs. Like let's say you take a PT and got half of the strengthening questions wrong. You can print out the drill pack for strengthening questions from PTs 10-19, and just rock those out. Every time you use the problem sets in the CC, they become slightly less valuable. I have done them all at least twice. Now, for many of the questions, I can read the first sentence or two and remember the answer. Those questions will appear in the drill pack, but spaced out.

Fool-proofing LG will really help you with time and accuracy. You'll learn how to do it in the CC, and can always do this again in between PTs.

My best suggestion is really just to remain flexible with your study schedule. I'm a planner through and through. Unfortunately, when it comes to stuff like this, it's impossible to know the best long-term approach right now because you don't know what your strengths and weaknesses will be. I never thought I'd prefer LG to LR lol, but LG just seems easier to me now that I have fool-proofed (I think) all of the problem sets. I also never thought I'd be bad at SA questions until I spent a few months doing other things, then came back to them. All of that being said, you can't plan how you will spend your time in between PTs. Just don't PT back-to-back and hope your score will go up on its own-- even with a blind review. Good luck!

Trusttheprocess

Hey @"samantha.ashley92" ,

Thanks for the response!

I think I heard Cory (but not 100% sure) state in one of the webinars that he literally blocked a certain amount of time (like a few weeks) to solely do LG games and he had seen a huge progress.

Have you or others done this before? Like study LG for one week solely?

Vibrio

@Trusttheprocess said:
Have you or others done this before? Like study LG for one week solely?

Yeah. You could focus on single sections at a time if it doesn't get you bored and as long as you are learning out of it. One week should be fine. It's just harder (at least for me) to focus on one section for a month. Depends really on your preferences and how much time you devote each day. If you are studying full-time, it's probably easier to switch between sections to keep yourself refreshed.

Leah M B

Some people do take a few weeks to focus solely on LG and foolproof all the games in the 1-35 packet. I personally was working on a short timeframe, so chose to do foolproofing mixed in with studying other sections. I think concentrating on foolproofing LG is the only time that you should spend weeks on one section type. The others really all feed off each other and I think it's best to keep fresh on all of them. Improving in LR will help your RC and vice versa. And if you don't touch games for several weeks, you'll get a little rusty at them. So I'd recommend only doing that with LG if you really wanted to, and do that first. But then I think it's better to mix them all in together. I would typically do 1 night after work per week focusing on something, like one evening do a timed RC section, BR it, review cc if needed. Next evening same but with LR. And mix it up that way. But I think weeks away from certain sections will be detrimental over time.

Trusttheprocess

Thanks for the help Leah!

samantha.ashley92

I really buckled down on LG while I was learning it. I spent probably 40 hours fool-proofing right after, too. I did nothing else in that time. I'm going to come back to it again before the March test.