Four years of studying and LR is what's keeping me from a 170+.

UCLAplease

Four f*cking years. I'm tired. I'm so tired of this shitty test. I go at most a -4 in RC and a -1 in LG. LR, though, is a complete and utter mess. I score anywhere from a -5 to a -13, or hell, even worse. I have no control over this section. I've been trying to master this section for four years now and I cannot. I've tried every resource available, every study technique, but LR success utterly evades me. I've done every LR section in existence. On the most recently released test (the May one), I went -4 in RC; -1 in LG; and -11!!!!!! in LR.

I'm so close to giving up. I was waitlisted by every school I applied to this cycle with a 164, and I can't see myself scoring any better in August because I seem to be getting worse in LR, not better. Worse. I have no idea what to do anymore.

If anyone can help me, please reach out. I really need help and I need advice for sanity-sake.

Ashley2018-1

I am not scoring in the 170's (I wish) so take what I say however you will. I've heard so many say RC is the most difficult section, but I personally think it is LR. LG is difficult but I think it's mostly because of the superficial differences (miscellaneous games) and the time crunch, but LR just looks like this amorphous blob (imo).

I would recommend starting over from scratch, as if you have never seen LR before, and re-do the entire CC as best you can. If you know the answer choices, fine. But try to breakdown the stimulus, state why the other answer choices are wrong, and why the correct answer choice is correct. Don't just say "this is irrelevant" or "this doesn't matter." Try to articulate why it is correct/wrong. And I wouldn't conscientiously try to emulate/imitate a certain technique or style; I'd just come up with your own naturally. I'd also take the explanations on powerscore/manhattan prep with a grain of salt. Everybody sees the same questions differently; a level 5 question might appear to be easy for you but you might find that a level 1 question might utterly stump you. I also wouldn't rush into tutoring...ngl, this test made me cry more than a few times and I was hurting so badly I immediately rushed into private tutoring and ended up losing a lot of money, not necessarily because the tutor was bad but I found that I was lacking the fundamentals and the tutor was doing most of the heavy lifting...which is something you have to do. I would go to a tutor only if you are consistently scoring 4-6 wrong on LR; otherwise, you might be able to answer the specific questions you missed but won't be able to apply them to other similar questions.

But yeah, this test makes the ACT look like a joke. I was surrounded by peers who finished this test with a 169+ in 3-4 months without any help other than the typical prep course and study guide so I was gutted hard.

And please post specific LR questions you may have on this forum! I promise I will try to answer what I can

sydneykhorner

hi lovey im having almost the exact SAME problem!! I was literally just googling how to break 170s consistently on LR bc I swear theres something im missing, or else why the heck is this so impossible??!?!! For like a year now I either miss 4 on LR or 8 or 12 like its all over the place. Recently ive been wrong answer journaling and being really nice and understanding to my wrong answers, like literally doing therapy with why that answer is right. Also ive been forcing anyone I know who doesn't do LSAT to take an LR section with me just so I can hear another persons pov on their logical thought process.

I think whats helped me the most is to be extremely discriminatory towards answers based on their verbs or the quantifier words (many, most, all etc.). Emphasis on extremely. Today I did this on PT 61 and had 2 great and virtually the same answer choices, one said "at least 1" and one said "most". I wanted to choose the latter because it was how I would say/hear/understand it irl, but I went with the dumb LSAT logic brain and chose the former (which thank god was right or else I would've thrown my computer in a fire). Im not sure if youre like me but im gonna say you are, which means you're too smart for LR and you need to dumb yourself down when looking at the answer choices. I hope this makes sense, but its kinda like talking to someone and they keep interrupting you because youre not speaking in perfect grammatically correct English, and you just wanna smack them because they KNOW what you meant but chose to make you feel dumb. This is my personification of LR, which is what we need to embody to crush this section. So next time u get to a hard q or one with many good answers just be the rude nerd that LR wants you to be. if a answer choice gives you bad vibes because it says "is" instead of "was" CROSS IT OUT!!! BYEEEEE DUMB ANSWER YOURE WRONG!!! I hope this helped, no quitting now my friend. you CAN and WILL destroy this section I believe in you

RuralCactus

Don't give up! LR was my achilles' heel for the past two years. One of the best recommendations I was given from my tutor, Sami, was to record and watch myself taking a section. I found how I was not flagging, not skipping fast enough and not reading ACs from A to E - to give some examples. I scored a 164 twice within a 1.5 yr period before hitting my 17X. I would also say that if you're finding yourself with a -8+ for an LR section, go back to crafting your unique strategy for each question type.

valeriehe

Hi, if you prefer, you can message me to set up a zoom meeting, so we could sit down, looking through your progress and discussing your thought process when taking the LR section. I currently average -3 in LR. Let me know! EDT time zone, available after 5:30 PM on weekdays and anytime on weekends.