PT’s/Drilling

seamusrooney98

I’ve been averaging a 164/165 recently and I’ve taken around 16 PT’s. How often should I balance drilling/taking pt’s for the october LSAT?

MissChanandler

It depends on what your goals and weaknesses are. Generally, one PT per week with a day or two of blind review and then a couple days drilling whatever weaknesses that PT revealed is a pretty good approach.

seamusrooney98

@MissChanandler said:
It depends on what your goals and weaknesses are. Generally, one PT per week with a day or two of blind review and then a couple days drilling whatever weaknesses that PT revealed is a pretty good approach.

My goal is to get a 172 or above on the October LSAT. My weakest points are NA, SA, method of reasoning, and RC. Do you think i should just do the curriculum for those areas and then start doing PT’s?

MissChanandler

Have you done the CC portions for those yet? It never hurts to rewatch the lessons, but if you feel like you've already gotten a lot out of them then definitely drill the heck out of them.

What's your LG average? Some strategy would probably help boost your score. Are you using a skipping method?

axjxmarvel

First of all - Seamus is my son's name! (He's two) I don't see it often.

Second of all - one of the best pieces of advice I've heard (check out the 7sage podcast, episode 1 to hear for yourself) is that you should only take your next PT when you feel like you've made progress in some way - otherwise, what are you hoping to accomplish with another PT?

That could mean identifying trouble spots with certain question types or sections, and then drilling for those sections. Identify whether it's a timing issue or a problem with understanding concepts (your BR will tell you that), and solve for it as best you can. Generally I know when to take the next PT when I've done all of that as well as fool-proof method each game. Doing all of the above is going to help take you beyond the mid-160s plateau into 170+ territory.

marmalade

@axjxmarvel said:
First of all - Seamus is my son's name! (He's two) I don't see it often.

Second of all - one of the best pieces of advice I've heard (check out the 7sage podcast, episode 1 to hear for yourself) is that you should only take your next PT when you feel like you've made progress in some way - otherwise, what are you hoping to accomplish with another PT?

That could mean identifying trouble spots with certain question types or sections, and then drilling for those sections. Identify whether it's a timing issue or a problem with understanding concepts (your BR will tell you that), and solve for it as best you can. Generally I know when to take the next PT when I've done all of that as well as fool-proof method each game. Doing all of the above is going to help take you beyond the mid-160s plateau into 170+ territory.

Thanks for your advice and sharing the 7Sage podcast!
The advice that you should only take your next PT when you feel like you've made progress is not often heard of but it really makes sense to me. Is it the same for someone averaging around 160?
And could you explain more about "identify whether it's a timing issue or a problem with understanding concepts"? I've taken around 10 PTs but I'm not very clear of how to understand my BR score.

axjxmarvel

@Zihan said:

@axjxmarvel said:
First of all - Seamus is my son's name! (He's two) I don't see it often.

Second of all - one of the best pieces of advice I've heard (check out the 7sage podcast, episode 1 to hear for yourself) is that you should only take your next PT when you feel like you've made progress in some way - otherwise, what are you hoping to accomplish with another PT?

That could mean identifying trouble spots with certain question types or sections, and then drilling for those sections. Identify whether it's a timing issue or a problem with understanding concepts (your BR will tell you that), and solve for it as best you can. Generally I know when to take the next PT when I've done all of that as well as fool-proof method each game. Doing all of the above is going to help take you beyond the mid-160s plateau into 170+ territory.

Thanks for your advice and sharing the 7Sage podcast!
The advice that you should only take your next PT when you feel like you've made progress is not often heard of but it really makes sense to me. Is it the same for someone averaging around 160?
And could you explain more about "identify whether it's a timing issue or a problem with understanding concepts"? I've taken around 10 PTs but I'm not very clear of how to understand my BR score.

For sure! I would say that making progress in some way between PTs is critical for just about everyone. If it's a choice between taking a PT every day or taking a few days in between to really review what went wrong, almost everyone (I say almost because there are always exceptions) is going to be better served and see a bigger score increase with the latter approach.

What I mean by waiting until you feel like you've made progress is not necessarily feeling like you've cracked the code to the LSAT - more so that you've identified your weaknesses in that particular PT (could be anything - maybe its inference questions on RC, or double layer sequencing games, or that you're having trouble finishing LR sections on time) and have done something to try to remedy that. For most that means taking anywhere from 2-6 days in between PTs to troubleshoot weaknesses, by drilling, reviewing core curriculum or other materials, using the fool proof LG method, etc. The exact amount of time between PTs really comes down to your schedule and propensity to burn out.

When are you writing the LSAT? If October like OP, since you already have 10 PTs under your belt, you could easily rack up 30-35 PTs total by then while still giving yourself a few days in between to review and drill.

What I mean by timing issue vs. understanding concepts is that if your BR score is consistently -0 to -2 for either a specific section or the entire PT, you're likely facing an issue of not being quick enough vs. you don't understand the concepts in that section. When you have all the time in the world to answer a certain question correctly, do you get it right? Are you able to identify why each wrong answer is wrong? If so, you need to mostly work on getting faster for that question type or section. If you still don't get it right on BR, then you need to go back and review any materials you have on that question type or section.

marmalade

@axjxmarvel Thank you! That's really helpful!!!

_aisling_

For the last couple of weeks, I've been taking two tests a week. My schedule generally looks like this:

Saturday
1) take a PT
2) BR flagged LR, flagged RC, and all LG
3) Print full RC passage, full LG passage, and any LR that I flagged (even if I got it right during both the initial PT and the BR) and any LR that I got wrong during either the initial PT or the BR

Sunday
1) Write out explanations for all LR from that PT and watch the video explanations
2) Begin foolproofing process for LG from that game and work on any other LG that are still in my "in process" binder from previous PTs

Monday
1) Full review of the RC section (as there are usually a couple that I missed on BR, and cherry-picking RC seems silly to me - I have to really start at the beginning and read the whole passage, so I may as well answer all of the questions and write explanations); watch video explanations
2) Continue working on LG

Tuesday
Miscellaneous. I work on any LR or RC review that I didn't complete from the PT I took on Saturday, work on some LR from previous PTs (before I established this schedule, I kept accumulating a larger and larger stack of those print-outs).

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, I repeat what I did on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (except, of course, with a fresh PT).

I do feel like I make progress between each PT, but who knows if what I'm feeling is accurate (until I take a test to quantitatively analyze my growth). Even if I haven't - each PT I take then provides me fresh "worksheets" to focus on in the days that follow!