Skipping sections

k.will29

Hi did anyone skip sections and go right to the tests? I'm kind of anxious to see if I have retained what I have learned.

Joeyyyyy

I'd say it depends on where you are at in your studies. I'm guessing you mean core curriculum, and if that's the case I would recommend against it. Maybe one test won't hurt, but you will surprisingly burn through most PT tests later on in your studies and you don't want to waste any valuable materials. At least wait until you understand the basic concepts of every section so that you can identify how they appear on an actual test.

k.will29

Thank you! I appreciate it!

VerdantZephyr

I think that is absolutely fine to take a test or a couple of sections as problem sets while going through it, but maybe do not start PTing in earnest yet. There is a caveat to that however. It really depends on where you are starting at in your score journey though. I started at a 165 cold diagnostic, spent a month mostly just doing problem sets on Khan Academy and improved to an upper 160's/170 range before moving to 7Sage.

Once I came to 7Sage I started the CC but found that most of it was not that useful for me and skipped large sections. If your diagnostic was similarly high I think you would be safe to skip some content, though I would start the sections you are skipping and make sure that it all seems obvious/familiar to you before just ignoring them. I also, after taking a number of PTs, went back to sections or subsections relevant to my problem areas on PTs. The 7Sage analysis tool is really helpful and a big part of why I moved from the free Khan to the paid 7 Sage. It does require enough PTs under your belt to be reliable though. So, if you are starting from less than 160 I would strongly encourage you to work through the CC. If you are in the upper 160's+ already on your diagnostic or the one PT you may want to take to measure progress it is possible that you might be well served by doing something else and reviewing only the sections that are problem areas for you.

Part of effective studying for the LSAT is recognizing that not everyone needs the same things and that strategies for improving your score vary a lot based on where you are currently at. The way one improves from 150 to 160 is very different than 160-170 which is completely different than preparing to score 175-180. It is also very different if you start with a particular section that is weak. The easiest and quickest to improve is LG, so someone with a good RC and LR basis who needs work with LG is going to want to study and drill LG. But if you come to the test already scoring very high on LG but weak on the other sections you do not want to spend weeks drilling LG but figure out how to get better at LR logic. Know what your final goal score is and then create plans for intermediate steps of improvement.

noonawoon

Taking one test would be fine. I would also say don't worry about "burning" through PTs. If you are mindful in the future and cap your weekly PTs at 2 a week (which I think everyone should), it would be really hard to burn through all of them.