148 to 169-170 PTs - 20 point increase is not Impossible/some advice

Arman080

I just got 169 and 170 back to back after plateauing for a while after my previous 169. Do not give up folks, you got this. When I started in January so many comments on Reddit and other sites claimed it is unlikely to get a 20+ point increase and that scared me, glad I didn't listen. Even if I bomb my first LSAT coming up this June, ill just take it again and again until I get what I know I can get. Feel free to ask me anything.

my analytics:
https://imgur.com/TQ5t8bt

williams.marcus

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

tayjaycee17

Im really interested in how you not only improved your score, but on RC section and LR

emg12345

Congratulations on your progress! I am also around the +15 to +20 score increase range. When looking at your analytics, I am seeing a similar trend to mine: a few outlier scores- some really high and some PTs unusually low.

Can you help me understand how you overcame those low points? I just scored an unusually low score yesterday and can't help but be anxious since I am taking the June exam.

Bagelinthemorning-2-1-1

Thank you for sharing! What helped the most to get from the low 160s to high 160s?

esaelale

That's so amazing! Thank you for sharing!! If you don't mind sharing, what was your study schedule like/how did you study to make such an improvement?

Cynthia-2

That's amazing! What is your study schedule like??

Farm0614

Congrats! I'd also love to know what your schedule is. Thank you and good luck in June!

Out Here Grinding

How far apart are you taking PTs? One every other day or something? Also, how long are you spending on BR?

Slow is Fast

Congrats! Would love to hear how long did you work through your plateau and what helped you get past it?

Granger Danger

Congratulations!

Arman080

@benjinewman7 @Bagelinthemorning
Everyone has different problems for LR and RC. Personally I used a couple tricks I'll share with you, but I can't guarantee it will have the same effect for your.

LR:
You have to do the first 10 questions in under 10 minutes. It is nearly impossible (for me at least) to get the difficult questions at the end of the section, without spending 2+ minutes on some of them. This will be tricky at first, but when you start getting the easy questions right in sub 40 seconds, its starts opening up A LOT of time for the harder questions. I also usually spend 2+ minutes on hard questions I feel like I can answer (sometimes I genuinely guess a hard question and move on, usually only one and its almost always a parallel structure/flaw question.)

I did not study the entire Core Curriculum (I've done around 7%), but I did visit for the sections and question types I struggle with. For example, for main point question I know that reading one premise by another and then flipping them usually reveals which one is the main conclusion. I believe LR becomes more simple when you learn the tricks for the specific question types you struggle with. I also only implement the techniques I know AFTER having a crack at the question normally without thinking about the question type (sometimes LSAT writers try to trap you and knowing every single question type and methods for it, is a lot on your mind)

Pay attention to subjective language and definite vs indefinite claims. A surprising amount of answers can be eliminated once you start paying attention to subjective language (Some and Most relationships in the Core curriculum). Stimuli says: Some apples are red, trap answer choice says All apples must be red. A complex version of this relationship is a trap answer that is hard to get away from during the test, but its present both for LR and RC a couple times on each test.

RC:
There is no trick that I've seen work for everyone when it comes to RC. Nearly every piece of advice I've seen or heard, I've seen/heard someone else do the opposite. So try these and if it doesn't help don't do them.

Pay attention to context, often the trap answer choices I would go for were completely wrong in the context of the passage.

Skip sentences with - or ( or any other modifier through your first read. This saves a lot of time.

Improve your stamina if you find yourself struggling to keep your focus by the 4th passage. Best advice by far I've gotten for RC, is by JY in the Core curriculum when he said, "stay interested in the passage". I've been practicing this and staying interested on the topic. It really helps your brain pick up the small detail stuff. This takes some practice, but its doable and helps w stamina. Try using a pen and following along while you're reading (I do this often when I find myself distracted) and google active reading.

spend more time on the passage than questions. I average 2:30 to 3:30 on passages and try to spend as little time on a questions as possible. This may be the only advice I've heard from most high scorers.

Try to understand the correlation of paragraphs to each other on your first read, because very often there is at least 1 question that asks for the purpose of a paragraph. These questions are impossible to get when you go back to the passage. Also, the relationship of the paragraphs sometimes reveals where the author stands in passages where the author rarely states an opinion.

that's about all the advice I can give. These are the main things that helped me improve. Another good piece of advice is writing down the tips and tricks you find helpful in a google doc, and reviewing it before you do a practice test. If you have any other questions, ask away.

andrew.rsn

@Arman080 I appreciate your advice about making sure you can do the first 10 questions in under 10 minutes for LR. I'm definitely going to try this going forward. Thanks!

Arman080

@emg12345 @Bagelinthemorning @obloome @esaelale
Wow glad to know I'm not the only one. When I got that first 169, I genuinely felt like it was pure luck and was paranoid that I would go back to getting low to mid 160s again. I think me believing that and being scared of it actually lead to it being true. There are a couple things that can help with consistent performance and believe it or not I learned these from gaming (ik ik im a nerd :")

1) being burned out is a serious issue when ever you want to perform consistently in anything at a high level. I for some reason actually like the LSAT and the grind for it, because I feel like it is a fair test and fun to improve in. Even though I like the LSAT and practicing, I still was burned out pretty heavily a while back. Taking a one or two day break really helps with being burned out. Also, make sure you don't force yourself to study past your limit. When I feel like my brain is no longer capable of holding in the information, I stop for the day (usually around 3x 1 hour sessions). I also have stopped entirely with practice RC sections in betwen prep tests because I found that I'm so lazy, that doing these RC practices lead to me being grumpy about RC on the actual prep test and bringing down my score.... So make sure you pay attention to how you FEEL about sections and aren't burning yourself out in between prep tests. Treat the prep tests as practice and valuable information, not just an indicator on what you will get on the actual test.

2) Understanding your limits/skills will actually help you not only with performance, but also with your confidence. For example, I did not get a perfect LG score from my 6th prep test all the way to my 19th test. But I knew that I have the skill for LG, I was just underperforming in comparison to my limits and skills. The other side of this coin, was knowing that I overperformed in RC and might have gotten lucky with some questions I was not 100% sure about. These ups and downs for me can be explained by overperforming through luck or just passages I genuinely found interesting and underperforming in LG through not paying attention to it during my practice in between tests (because I was confident I can perfect it again in under 1 week, which luckily I did). So my advice is learn what your actual skill sets are instead of just looking at your score, so when you go under or over it becomes less scary. This might be a little tricky at first, but being honest with yourself helps a lot. If you get 5 wrong on an RC section where you flagged 10+ questions, you probably coin flipped a lot of the questions. Which is fine, but when you underperform on the next RC section it wont hit you as hard.

3) Make sure you try meditation before your prep tests and have a consistent routine/time for when you take prep tests. I've started drinking Redbull 2 hours before a prep test and meditating on my chair while listening to ocean sounds for 30 to 10 minutes before the prep test. I would suggest trying different times of day and different routines, but if this June test is your one and only shot, I would just suggest sticking to what you have been doing. If this June test is not your only shot, take your time and believe in your skills and experiment with your preptest routines!

Lastly, Just be confident in your capabilities and try to rid yourself of anxiety. The only way you wont get another high 160s is if you stay in a bad mindset. I feel like after a certain point of skill it just becomes your mindset and this is true of other competitive activities.

axbSunDev

This is awesome, thank you for sharing this! 1 question, how did you blind review?? What was your blind review method?

Arman080

@esaelale @Cynthia-2 @Farm0614

I started early January and did 1 PT a week with blind review on the day of and overall review the next day. Some weeks I skipped the PT due to Uni work and some weeks (for example the week in between the 3rd and 4th prep test) I studied 3+ hours a day just working on LG. My biggest advice on scheduling, is do what works for you and stick to it, but don't be afraid to change it once a while. I adapted my schedule several times based on responsibilities with Uni. Now that my 2nd year of Uni is done, I'm doing PT/ blind review on the same day, Review the next day with some light LG on khan and LR questions on 7sage into an LR section the next day and an LG section the day after and then another PT. So two PTs every 8 days.

PT/blind review - Review of PT w light LG/LR - LR section - LG section. repeat. This is my current schedule

Make sure to spend time understanding the sections and tests you do instead of doing more sections and tests! Being efficient with a few hours a day is much better than spending 6+ hours a day doing a lot of sections but not learning from them.

@"Out Here Grinding" @axbSunDev
I dont spend that long on BR itself, but a lot on review. I only blind review the questions I flagged, unless I just feel really bad about an entire section overall. For example on my last PT I really had to use the washroom for the last section (RC) so I just blind reviewed all of it. But, I almost always only blind review the questions I've flagged. I find that reviewing the test over and over is more helpful than spending hours on BR. Sometimes I review a test, find my mistakes and then I come back to it an hour or so later and go back through all the flagged questions and mistakes I made and just try to recall what I did wrong or what I could have done better. I found that this process of reviewing multiple times improves my score and skill a lot more than BR. I always watch JY's explanation videos on the questions I flagged (even if I got it right) and if I'm not satisfied with his video (which is rare) I go to here to find more answers: https://forum.powerscore.com