A question to all you 178 and up scorers out there: how to get more consistent with LR

n.place

I'm scoring between 176 and 179 lately, with most of my variation in LR (between 0 and -2, a week ago I got a -3). I'm trying to shore up my skills on that section and consistently get -0 /-1

Most people that score that high say it is partly due to luck, but I don't like leaving things to luck!

The good thing is that I'm not making (many) simple errors like missing a word or misreading the argument, and it tends to be the most difficult questions of the test that get me. That leads me to believe that there is still work to be done in improving that score, and that I can be more consistent there. Got any tips for shaving off those last few in LR? What was that process like for you?

okkkkkkkkkkk

You seem to already be aware of where your issue might be. Consider creating a tally for those questions you are getting wrong, see what type of question come up most frequently as incorrect.

Maybe the questions you've been getting wrong all include conditionals. Maybe formal logic?

Use the problem set search under 'resources' to filter for the questions you're having trouble with and drill them. Filter for high difficulty and filter for the question type that seems to be the problem.

If you're scoring 176-179 you already know how to get better, just figure to narrow down those questions you're having trouble with.

RaphaelP

I tend to agree that any score deviation over a 175 amounts to a not-insignificant amount of luck, since it will largely hinge on missing (or not missing) 1 question per section, particularly since the ones you'll be missing are the curve-breakers that might just play to your strengths or not. As a result, I'm not sure there's a specific 178+ strategy that differs from what a 175-scorer might do. However, it makes sense to not want to leave anything to luck, and everyone has section-specific weaknesses that can squeeze a few more points out! Do you see yourself missing a particular type of question with consistency? If so, I would redo CC problem sets of 5 star questions in that type, doing them untimed to develop good habits for approaching those. For me, it was strengthen/weaken, which redoing the CC section for those questions helped mostly fix. But if the issue is not question-specific, you may want to do more sections and tests to work on a timing strategy. What really helped me to go from -2/-3 to a consistent -0/-1 was developing a timing strategy that worked for me, which was trying to nail the easier ones and not sinking time into the hard ones on the first round, so that I could finish with enough time for second, third, and sometimes fourth rounds on the hardest ones. I found that, for me personally, staring at a curve-breaker had diminishing marginal returns after 20-30 seconds, but that coming back to it multiple times would give me the chance to reset and take a fresh approach, which would lead to it usually clicking by a later round. If your issue is just having 1-2 questions per section that you don't think you get, I would try that, particularly if you're getting these questions in BR hours later with a fresh perspective; my intention with this timing strategy for myself was to emulate closely the fresh perspective BR would bring, except within the timed section itself. Hope that helps!

Tempore Novissimo

Hi to piggyback off this post. As someone who is current in the -4 to -6 range for LR, what would you high scorers recommend in doing to bring it down to the -1-3 range? I currently PT around 167-169 (-0 Games average and -4-7 RC) and haven't been able to break through to the 170s range. Would love to hear how you guys got into the 170s and how you consistently are PTing at a high score.

RaphaelP

@johnjyoo Hey! The first step is to see what the specific problem you have is, which BR scores can help you ascertain. If you're -0/-1 in BR, it's likely a timing or strategy issue, and doing a large quantity of sections or tests will help you perfect your timing strategy. If you're missing questions in BR too, it might be a sign of a question-type weakness. For me personally, the jump from ~-5 to ~-3 during and after CC was through getting a lot more serious about BR, starting a wrong answer journal where I'd meticulously map every question I missed or flagged, and doing problem sets untimed for the questions that my analytics said I was missing disproportionately. After that, once I wasn't missing many questions in BR, what got me to -0/-1 was developing a better timing strategy, which I got mostly by doing a lot of sections/tests (2-3 tests and 3-4 LR sections a week).