Low PT scores...High blind review?

Matthew LLC

So I took PT38 and 39 a week apart from each other to give me time to blind review. I ended up scoring 154/171BR on 38 and 150/167BR on 39? I feel like I have a timing problem, but I have no idea where to begin climbing this steep hill. Anyone with a similar experience? I'm not sure what else to try. This is however, my second time doing BR so I'm not sure that has anything to do with it.

Thanks.

blah170blah

Graeme Blake, creator of LSAT hacks and moderator of r/lsat, wrote a guide on how to get faster at the LSAT. The bottom line is that there is a relationship between timing and knowledge of the material. The better you are at LR/LG/RC, the faster you'll get.

Because your BR is pretty high, my guess is that your techniques/approaches to questions you use when blind reviewing differs from how you approach these questions when taking PTs. Make sure you get more consistent and are applying the same approach that you use when BRing to taking practice tests. Also, practice, practice, practice!

emli1000

Maybe review the lessons in which you haven't got the fundamentals down all the way. Mainly it seems as if you're having a timing issue. With practice you should be able to overcome it. Make sure you keep drilling practice sets to get a better estimate of your timing.

naveedhalavi

i agree with blah170blah. key to getting faster is more familiarity and accuracy. Make sure when you're BRing to really break down the questions you got wrong and figure out what lead you to that decision... what was it about the question that threw you off. You want to figure out what your reasoning was leading up to that decision and what caused you to choose the wrong answer. Also i recommend doing this for the ones that you got right. I personally write it in a notebook and then refer back to them later on for review to ensure that i understood it correctly. So far thats the best advice i can give. Also if you're not getting 23/23 on logic games, then you can easily see improvements in that area by doing the fool proof logic games method in conjunction with the cambridge packets that organize LG by type... what i did was i went through each different type, doing anywhere from 2-5 games of that specific type, referring to the 7sage explanations to get the time, and just repeat till i got it in perfect time and felt like i killed it. This helped me get from only getting to 3 - 3.5 games on PTs to getting to all 4 with 5 minutes to spare .

harrismegan

I would say review fundamentals and really drill. Gain confidence in your ability because obviously you know what you're doing (with a BR in the 170s)

jdawg113

The the fact that you broke into the 170's means you have the fundamentals down a decent amount (dont ignore them obvi, one can always get better) Now you just want to keep drilling, both untimed by type and timed sections IMO along with 1 or 2 full PT's with serious BR of everything (obviously the untimed drilling is basically BR but be sure to review any ones you still had trouble with &/or got wrong)
You have the potential to score high, now you just need to speed up your processes

Allison M

I second what others have said: drill, baby, drill. As you gain familiarity with the test, your intuition about the test will improve. You'll start to prephrase more quickly, spot flaws automatically, and above all else, know when to move on.

If you haven't done so already, purchase an analog watch and be mindful of the time as you go along. Are you spending too long on a question? If so, cut your losses and move on. It's better to sacrifice one curve breaker than 5 gimmes.

Make sure that you're fool proofing all of your games until you're able to get 100% well under the time limit. Redoing old games may seem easy now, but believe me, it's helping your brain recognize and react to the structure of the test.

You clearly understand what the test is asking you to do, but haven't quite figured out how to do it under the time constraint. The good news is that you're done the hard part. All that you need to do now is drill this test to death.