Moving forward to 70-recent PTs: Advice Appreciated!

JD__2528

Hi all

I’ve been doing 2-3 PTs a week after finishing all CC, and have somewhat reached a stable mid160s (BR: 168-172ish). My main sources were PT45-70, always took it under exact test conditions (4 sections timed).

I’ll be taking April 2022 lsat (goal score: 174) so I’ll eventually have to slowly transfer to the newer PTs, but was hoping if I could get some advice on this transition.

Current situation:
- RC: My weakest is RC and I’m slowly seeing improvement. I’d be happy to see around -4, which happens occasionally. Shivering at all the horror stories of recent LSAT RC being much harder.
- LR: -2~3 on good day around -5~6 on not so good ones. Currently really digging into the subtle weaknesses/errors.
- LG: -1~-2. Foolproofing everyday.

Advice I’m hoping for, if any, are:
- what to expect for each sections (gets harder in what way/easier in what way/time-consuming, etc)
- if I were to work on improving weaknesses to be prepared for recent PTs, any helpful areas/topics/skills to focus on for each section? Things you guys wished you would’ve done or known before facing them?

Thank you, and I just rly hope it’s not as bad as I fear (tears)

RaphaelP

Great questions!

The general point I'd emphasize here is that it's important you push yourself into the more recent PTs (70s on). Yes, they will be harder, but that's really the point - to prepare yourself for test-day conditions. Let me try to hit each of these questions:

Each section -
RC: Comparative reading (late 50s onward) is more challenging for a lot of students. Once we hit the 70s, the passages get overall denser, with inferences that are just much less obvious (there's still a textual basis, of course, but it's harder to see). More choices seem "close" or "iffy" for a lot of students.
LR: There's less of an emphasis on formal lawgic/mapping and more of a push on critical reading - are you able to figure out this small detail and see why that affects the argument? Strengthen/weaken/flaw questions, in particular, are going to get harder. They're also more willing to "break the mold" and do something that the rules tell you shouldn't happen (strongly worded answer choice for NA or MSS, for example).
LG: The return of the miscellaneous game! Many, many of the LG sections here have a hard miscellaneous game 4 - you likely won't escape many LGs here without a 5-star game and it's often going to be weird.

Improving -
Honestly, just do the PTs. I don't really have advice here that's separate from the advice I'd give you for other PTs - you won't learn much from the PT, itself, but you will learn a lot if you (1) BR (2) Watch JY's videos (3) Plug the misses into a Wrong Answer Journal (4) Redo them

JD__2528

@RaphaelP Thank you Raphael! I've been having some icky feelings about weakening/strengthening and PSA precisely - good to know I'm on the right track in correcting these before jumping in!