Question about Gains

Harvey_l

Hi guys,

I was wondering if you guys notice any interesting things about taking PT's and getting jumps in gains on the LSAT?

For example, was your improvement really gradual and incremental, or did it increase in leaps (occasionally with plateaus) after recognizing a certain thing or concept, or just reviewing why you missed certain questions? (i.e. 150 -> 152 -> 154 ->155 -> 158 , etc.)
Or ( 150 -> 152 ->158 -> 157 -> 164 -> 165, etc.)

For me, I noticed my score tend to increase in "leaps." Though I'm not sure if this is due to just starting and going through newbie gains, or actually starting to recognize patterns. (I feel like there can still be a huge improvement on my timing, and I'm trying my best!)

Just curious on how people got these improvement stories of stuff like 150 -> 162 -> 17X or, 162 -> 17X (how I did it, tales. For example, through incremental improvement, or just bounds of improvement and periods of plateau, then major improvement then stability again.)

Thanks!

acsimon

The latter (discreet jumps with periods of plateau). Also, you should think about these in scoring bands or ranges. You might start out PTing with scores clustering around 152, then jump to those clustering around 158. Then you might jump to those clustering around 161, then 165, then 169, and so on. Reliable jumps get harder to make as you continue to increase your score. I’d be surprised if someone didn’t see some “jumping” in their scoring, rather than smooth incremental change, provided that they study long enough. And one of the things that might explain this is, as you say, the learning of a new concept or technique which is applicable to multiple questions on a given test.

Ohnoeshalpme

I would plateau for a month and then jump 3-4 points. It generally comes from a cycle of 1) recognize mistake in approach 2) learn strategies to correct mistake 3) implement strategies 4) master strategies. After step 4, once you start to master new strategies, you'll see a few point jump after it finally clicks for the first time.