Studying between PT's

JerryMac

hey so I have taken about 3 PT's over that past two weeks and my PT score as well as my BR score have been the same consistently. I was wondering what are some studying tips or ways that people are using in between PT's in order to increase your score. any feedback is greatly appreciated.

GettingHereandThere

I am on a rotating schedule, PT , BR, Rest, RC, LR, Games, Rest. Because of school work, I have to take at least 2 days off, sometimes 3. You can definitely fill in those days in with the section you think you need most practice. You could also mix up the dates such as reviewing Games and RC on the same date if you want.

Shane C.

@sunl15 said:
I am on a rotating schedule, PT , BR, Rest, RC, LR, Games, Rest. Because of school work, I have to take at least 2 days off, sometimes 3. You can definitely fill in those days in with the section you think you need most practice. You could also mix up the dates such as reviewing Games and RC on the same date if you want.

Could you elaborate on what you schedule looks like? I am going to be starting studying again, and I think a similar study schedule might work for me!

corinneavc07-1

https://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/14336/here-was-my-study-schedule-for-my-20-point-increase

drbrown2

I remember someone from one of the podcast episodes saying they never took a PT if they didn't expect they had improved their skills. It takes a couple days to thoroughly blind review a PT, and then you can drill specific question types, do timed LR/RC practice, and foolproof LG. There are other drills to help develop reading accuracy too. The memory method for RC can be done for LR stimuli as well. You could try writing out corrected versions of incorrect answer choices for LR, which can be especially useful for parallel question types. After doing a bunch of work, take another PT and repeat the practice mentioned above.

Also, PTs are just a snapshot of your overall skills. Your score on any one test---or three tests---doesn't really matter all that much. Keep working and drilling and try to improve your blind review score. That's what you should focus on. If you improve your blind review score, your timed score will eventually close the gap once you've gotten further along in your prep and taken more PTs.

chisal17

I like to take a PT on a Saturday, BR on a Sunday, and then spend the rest of my work week doing a second round of BR for the same test. On my second round of BR I like to write out in full my breakdown of the stimulus and my explanation of the answer choices. I also have a running list of reasons why I missed a particular question, especially if it was a silly mistake like reading too fast, which I like to commit to memory every time I start a new PT. I remind myself "don't read too quickly" "map it out" "skip the question and come back to it", etc and that's helped to bring my score up.

A second blind review really helps to tease out all of the finer details that I may have missed on my first round of BR, and continue to build on what I'm learning. A lot of people will PT twice a week, I prefer to BR twice a week. It saves me PTs and I'm sure that I'll pick up the PT frequency as I become more and more comfortable with the material.

My schedule looks a little like this, though it tends to change:
Saturday: full PT + rest
Sunday: sit in the library for several hours and BR the entire test.
Monday: come home from work, and do a second BR of section LR1 +LG.
Tuesday: come home from work, and do a second BR of section LR2 + LG.
Wednesday: [break]
Thursday: come home from work, and do a second BR of section RC + LG.
Friday: [break].

Sometimes I don't take my breaks and instead push through my review. Sometimes my schedule gets shuffled around as work responsibilities arise and I have to make adjustments to my calendar. My goal is always comes down to two things: take 1PT a week, and BR that PT twice a week. So, whatever my calendar looks like with everything else in my life that week at least I'm still pushing through.

For context: My BR scores are in the 170s, and I'm gradually working on bringing my PTs up to that score. I'm in the early phases of PTing (I've taken many breaks while studying for this test) but am pushing for submitting apps next cycle, so I have plenty of time. Your studying might look a little different depending on your target cycle.

Hope this helps.

BranTwice

This isn’t a comprehensive answer, but what I have found to be of great use is the “Notes” text line. I use it to quickly document how I feel about each section right after I take it. So if my first section is LR, I write something like this in the box:

“1st LR: questions 1-10 were quick and seemingly easy. Felt good about mid 160ish level questions. Trouble with last 3. Ran out of time and guessed on last question. / (then I start the next section) RC: Confident about first passage, second passage gave me a little trouble....etc.”

After I Blind Review, it is useful to go back to those notes and see more specifically how your confidence scaled with your actual score. It took me a while of doing this, but I have been able to predict my score within 2 points on every exam, which came in handy while I was considering whether or not to cancel my September test. And more to the point, it gives you more information about which kinds of things you need to exhaustively study before you take another PT.

Like @drbrown2 mentioned, you should not take another PT until you have good reason to believe you have improved from your last test. I would also recommend everyone go back and listen to those podcasts with Sages like @LSATcantwin @"Cant Get Right" and @"Grey Warden". I think each of them addresses how they prepared between tests in pretty great detail.