Struggling with LR

Amrina96k

So I've been studying for the lsat on & off since June. I took my first Lsat in September and got a 149, and again in November on which i scored a 151. I'm writing my last Lsat this month, in 3 weeks, and my goal is to get a score in the mid 150s. Has anyone been in a similar situation? How likely is it to increase my score 4-5 points for the Jan test.
LG is my strongest, but the only issue is that i'm not able to finish all 4 games in 35 minutes. I'm able to get through 3 games only.

The area i believe i could improve on is LR. However, my question is which book or study method do you all recommend that would help me improve the fastest (3 weeks). I average -9 to -11 on each section. I have the Lsat trainer and the LR powerscore books and don't know which one will be the most beneficial to read over again, since i don't have much time to waste.

MissChanandler

I see that you have the starter 7sage course. Have you gone all the way through the CC? Watching/absorbing all the videos? I don't think that re-reading books with various approaches is really going to be helpful for a last minute push. What are your practice test scores?

redshift

LG is easier to improve than LR. If you're only finishing three games on time, then on the actual test, you'll likely get all the questions on the fourth game wrong, and a handful of the questions on games 1-3 wrong.

The key to getting above 160 is to nail down LG to like -2/-3 wrong. You can easily do that in a few weeks of heavy drilling. LR and RC take more time to improve, but aren't impossible. The thing is, if you have limited time, why would you waste your time investing in LR when you'd reach your goal easier if you drilled LG?

Amrina96k

@MissChanandler said:
I see that you have the starter 7sage course. Have you gone all the way through the CC? Watching/absorbing all the videos? I don't think that re-reading books with various approaches is really going to be helpful for a last minute push. What are your practice test scores?

Thank you so much for replying. I have gone through the CC in detail and made notes ( this was before the Nov lsat). Everything makes sense when i went through the CC. However, i can't seem to improve from the -9 to -11 range.
My practice test scores are around the 150-152 range.
Every time i do BR it improves to about -5. But i still can't seem to understand what i can do to improve my score by a few points when doing timed tests.

Amrina96k

@redshift said:
LG is easier to improve than LR. If you're only finishing three games on time, then on the actual test, you'll likely get all the questions on the fourth game wrong, and a handful of the questions on games 1-3 wrong.

The key to getting above 160 is to nail down LG to like -2/-3 wrong. You can easily do that in a few weeks of heavy drilling. LR and RC take more time to improve, but aren't impossible. The thing is, if you have limited time, why would you waste your time investing in LR when you'd reach your goal easier if you drilled LG?

First off, thank you soo much for taking the time to reply.
I agree that LG is easiest to improve on. It would be amazing if i could complete all 4 games on time. However, when i do timed tests i only finish 3 of the games, and I usually leave the hardest game for the end, which i can never complete. For instance, on the November lsat i completed 3 games and got all answers correct, which got me to a -5 on that section.

Do you have any tips about how i can fit that last game into the 35 minutes?
An additional 5 marks would definitely help me reach my goal score.

redshift

@Amrina96k

Well, the thing is that the reason you're not getting to the fourth game on time is because you haven't improved your LG skills to the point where that's a possibility. Timing comes with increased ability. So just because you're getting all three games you do correct doesn't mean that you've reached your skill ceiling on LG. If you had, you'd be getting all four games done on time.

It's not about fitting in the last game, but rather about improving your ability on the three games you do complete so that you can do them in a shorter amount of time, thereby freeing you up 9 or 10 minutes to do the last game. Have you been foolproofing?

Let's say you get a game done in -0 in 7 minutes where the recommended time is 7 minutes. Do you usually stop foolproofing there? If so, that's a mistake. It's not about getting the questions done in the recommended time, as much as it's about being able to absolutely tear through easy games in 5 minutes or less.

Next time you do a timed section, try and keep track of how much time you're spending on the easy games. I guarantee you that you're spending one or two extra minutes than you need to be. There are four games, and you probably need around ten minutes to do the last one. This means that you need to shave approximately three minutes off each of the first three games you do to make room for the last. When you foolproof, try and keep foolproofing after you hit the recommended time limit and to shave that time off. Really pick apart your LG process. Ask yourself: What are you spending time doing? And do you need to be spending time doing that?

I started being able to hit the last game when I realized that I was spending too much time up front trying to split the game board. It's time efficient if there are two or three game boards you can make that tease out further inferences. But if you're making six game boards when there are only like seven questions, this is a mistake.

As a side note, at LEAST try and do the first question of the last game. It's an easy point. Maybe do that one question before you do the third game if you know you won't be able to get to it on time.

redshift

As for LR, I'll just say this much. Improvement on LR isn't going to come from reading another book again. It's going to come from doing a lot of practice questions, and thoroughly reviewing why right answers are correct and wrong answers are wrong.

You need to have a quick and intuitive thought process for each type of LR question that you may come across on test day. You need to have a plan for each type of question, whether it be strengthen/weaken/necc assumption/resolve reconcile explain, etc. The reason it's important to develop a process for these types of questions is to avoid going solely on gut feeling. Gut feeling will lead you to the wrong answer choice. Process will show you the way.

Second, you need to be drilling question types you get wrong. So if you find yourself missing a lot of strengthen/weaken questions, drill those for a while. Do questions of just that type over and over until you refine your thought process for those questions, as well as understand trap answers that you catch yourself falling for.

One tip I saw on Reddit that may help is this. Summarize the process for each type of LR question on index cards, with the type of question on one side, and the process you're going to use on the other. Then, constantly quiz yourself. For example, let's say one side of your index card says: Strengthen - Causality. The other side should say: Eliminate alternate cause, show example of cause and effect happening together, show example of no cause no effect. Really absorb these processes so that when you see the question stem on test day, your mind immediately jumps to potential answers.

Amrina96k

@redshift said:
As for LR, I'll just say this much. Improvement on LR isn't going to come from reading another book again. It's going to come from doing a lot of practice questions, and thoroughly reviewing why right answers are correct and wrong answers are wrong.

You need to have a quick and intuitive thought process for each type of LR question that you may come across on test day. You need to have a plan for each type of question, whether it be strengthen/weaken/necc assumption/resolve reconcile explain, etc. The reason it's important to develop a process for these types of questions is to avoid going solely on gut feeling. Gut feeling will lead you to the wrong answer choice. Process will show you the way.

Second, you need to be drilling question types you get wrong. So if you find yourself missing a lot of strengthen/weaken questions, drill those for a while. Do questions of just that type over and over until you refine your thought process for those questions, as well as understand trap answers that you catch yourself falling for.

One tip I saw on Reddit that may help is this. Summarize the process for each type of LR question on index cards, with the type of question on one side, and the process you're going to use on the other. Then, constantly quiz yourself. For example, let's say one side of your index card says: Strengthen - Causality. The other side should say: Eliminate alternate cause, show example of cause and effect happening together, show example of no cause no effect. Really absorb these processes so that when you see the question stem on test day, your mind immediately jumps to potential answers.

Thank you so much for that tip. I think focusing on the plan to approach each different question type will be helpful.
Is there some place i can look to find the process for each LR question type?

redshift

@Amrina96k You can find that information in any LR Book, or on 7Sage. The material is going to be more broad than specific plans, so you'll have to develop a simple process for each question type yourself based on trial and error. What it really boils down to is: for each question type, how do you solve that type of question?