The more thorough I blind review, the worse I score on LR. Advice needed

joehillman9

For LR, I'm officially scoring what I did before starting 7sage in January.

I began 7sage in january and made massive improvements in LR after the core curriculum. From Prep-test 36 through 38, I was getting just one to three wrong a section. On PT 36, however, my BR score (166) was only two points higher than my actual score (164), so I began to blind review in much more detail in nuance, revisiting parts of the core curriculum, and referring to the analytics tab on 7sage to help focus my studies.

However, I noticed that I was becoming more hesitant and more willing to circle questions, and the answers I gave to circled questions were more frequently wrong. I use to end each LR section with over 5 minutes to spare and around six questions circles, one or two of which would be corrected (my best overall performance was on Preptest 38, I scored a 166, with a 174 BR).By Preptest 40, I can barely finish an LR section, circle 8-12 questions, and end up correcting most of them.

I think this is best demonstrated in two timed drills I took from PT 73.
On section 2 in late February, I got four wrong initially, had circled 4, and corrected two.
On Section 4, which I took today, I got eleven wrong (many of which were not circled), and circled 12.

Does anyone have any other LR review methods besides Blind Reviewing?

I'm taking the March test and need advice. I thought I was in good shape when I stopped the core curriculum and truly believed the 7sage method, but now I feel like I wasted this time I took off to study for the LSAT (sorry for the mini rant).

jasminesade

Hii so while reading this I was nodding my head because I know how you feel. I am also taking the March exam. Have you considered that you may be burning out? Are you nervous/anxious? Maybe when you took the two timed drills you were just not feeling it or somewhere in the back of your head you are overthinking the answer choices? I also do a thorough blind review and I just took an exam yesterday scoring x2 wrong on each of the LR sections which was astonishing to me, but you cannot let this put you down. Right now you should be just doing whatever it is that will get your confidence up so when you enter that test room, you are enthusiastic about taking it.

You are not alone & I felt kind of defeated yesterday as well but I told myself that I cannot let this get to me because all my hard work can backfire on test day. Remain confident in your skills and just take it easy.

I think you may be overthinking answers if you are becoming more hesitant/circling them and getting them wrong. Try to take a break from LR and do LG drills or do some fun reading and don't let the nerves get to you. Then, when you are ready, go back over those questions that you got incorrect and learn from them. If you wanna chat, message me privately! Wish you the best of luck.

MissChanandler

Two things stand out to me: 1) there's an obvious confidence component. I think you probably were intuitively getting those answers correct before. Now that you know more, you aren't trusting those instincts. Your trust and speed will come back with time. Now, here's number 2) the test had subtle but important changes from the preptests in the 30s-40s and the preptests in the 70s-80s. There are more subtle answer choices and many people find the LR to be less cut and dry. I suspect that this is at least a small part of the drop that you're seeing. Try not to get too discouraged. Trust the process and accept that it might take a little while to adjust

joehillman9

Thank you very much guys.
@jasminesade I definitely think I was feeling burnout and took a couple days offs to get away from the test. I appreciate your perspective and its comforting to see the positive parts of the situation. thank you again

jasminesade

@joehillman9 said:
Thank you very much guys.
@jasminesade I definitely think I was feeling burnout and took a couple days offs to get away from the test. I appreciate your perspective and its comforting to see the positive parts of the situation. thank you again

My pleasure! Best of luck!