Finally broke 170... Now how do I stay here?

lettucelace

Today I took PT 79 and scored a 173, finally breaking the 170 barrier. My average over the 8 PTs I've taken is about a 166, so I was pleasantly surprised (an understatement) with my score today. One thing about today was that I didn't doubt myself as much - I trusted my instincts a lot more, even when that meant moving on from questions I wasn't 100% sure about. That meant that I wasted a lot less time and was actually able to finish every section in time except for LG (on which I had to guess on the final two q's but miraculously got a -1 on the section).

I'm ten days away from test day and was wondering if anyone had any sort of advice on how I can stay in the 170+ zone. I plan on taking 2-3 more PTs before test day. For some context, I've finished all of LSAT Trainer and recently finished Graeme Blake's mastery seminars on LSAT Hacks. I've been doing a few PTs every week for the past few months and drill LG and RC sections regularly (LR is my strongest, most consistent section without a doubt).

Any sort of advice would be greatly appreciated, and best of luck to anyone else taking the November test!

NotMyName

Congrats!!

My advice: Don't get too attached to the score. We tend to be disappointed with any sub-170 score once we score 170. Your approach is working. Keep applying it to find some consistency.

maceodillard

Congrats! It seems like you've did the work. Just continue to trust the instincts you've developed doing the drills and the prep tests and know that they're good enough to carry you to doing your best!

Alex

@NotMyName said:
Congrats!!

My advice: Don't get too attached to the score. We tend to be disappointed with any sub-170 score once we score 170. Your approach is working. Keep applying it to find some consistency.

^^^

First off congrats! I will always remember the balloons and email 7Sage sent when I hit my first 170 on a PT.

When I hit my first few 170s, my LR was inconsistent and I had to rely on killing RC and LG to get there. My scores would tend to look something like this: -0 LG. -3 RC. -1 LR1 -5LR2. My scores would drop to the 166-168 range when I had a bad LG section. So I went back to drilling games like I did when I was learning them to become more consistent. I mean I would do like 3 sections of games a day... Games have always been my weakest. And what really got me some consistency was really going hard on LR. What that looks like will depend on your personal issues/weaknesses. For me, personally, I had to come to the realization that I wasn't as good at LR as I thought. Work caused me to take several hiatuses from my prep and my skills actually worsened at one point in time I worked with a 7Sage tutor and that was a HUGE turning point because they were better able to see my weaknesses than I ever could.

So take a look at where you know you're going to be missing the most points and start there.

But I found a nice way to balance my prep by doing 2 sections each day. 1 LG and either one RC or LR. This way I was making sure I was getting in a bit of practice on everything, whereas in the past I would drill games OR LR/RC.

Finally, just doing more full PTs... It sounds simple and basic, but, yeah, that played a big role. The pure quantity of exposure to fresh questions helped solidify the patterns I picked up and the skills I worked hard to cultivate. Then, of course, was the review that came with it.

Congrats again and I wish you many more 170s