Help: Hitting a mid-160s plateau, broke 170s only once. LR is my worst and least consistent section.

vaziri

My LR section is my worst and most inconsistent section, ranging from 17 to 23 on any particular test. I really want to get it up to a consistent 23, but I'm not sure how.

Things I've been doing:
- Keeping a wrong answer journal and writing out an answer explanation for why I got the question wrong and why the correct answer is correct.
- I've read all of the Loophole (by Ellen Cassidy)
- Pacing myself during the test. I often, but not always, have enough time to answer every question on the test, but I typically feel rushed in the last 5 LR questions, when my pace slows considerably.
- Drilling the last 5 LR questions on 15 prep tests to improve my pace and accuracy on the last few questions.

I take the LSAT in a month, and I've been plateauing on my LR for about two months. Any help would be much appreciated.

all gain no brain

My score is the same as yours but LR is my best section.
Are you getting 100% on LR BR, if not, then there is probably a problem in your reasoning process. You deal with that by spending a LOT of time making sure you understand everything about every single question you do. If you get 100% on BR, then it only a time thing. Time can be improved by applying the same reasoning process faster(you achieve that by practice) and in some cases recognizing patterns you have seen before. Hope that helps!

divya326

do you consistently get those last few questions wrong? and are you skipping questions? if you spend too much time on the time sinks, you may miss more questions in the long run, even if you get those time consuming ones correct.

sammmm93

What’s your LR BR look like?

Ensure you’re getting through the first 10 Qs fairly quickly so you can give yourself more wiggle room toward the end. The first 10 are typically the easiest so you shouldn’t 2nd guess yourself as much on those.

Cant Get Right

Your time management is a big problem. That's the most conspicuous thing I see. If you want to score consistently into the 170's, "often, but not always" having enough time to finish just won't cut it. For example, my "often, but not always" task is going through the section for a fourth time in order to confirm answers I'm highly confident on but where I was so so aggressive in response to that confidence that it was a bit scary. You don't need to be at my level of ability to score consistently into the 170's, but you do have to be far more advanced than your current level on time management.

In working on time management, just remember that it's about efficiency, not about speed. You won't get there by racing against the clock. It's not about going faster, and in fact I would not be at all surprised to find out that you actually need to slow down. Efficiency is about only investing your time into tasks which will produce the greatest returns. So in your studies, you need to examine not only the answers you arrive at but at your process of arriving at them. A big part of your work moving forward will be to find more efficient processes to arrive at the same place in less time.

Alanna Belmont

Hey! I'm having the same issue.
One thing that I've noticed that's been helpful is using the LSAT Analytics tool 7Sage offers. You can see which area you're weakest in, and then go back and re-do those lessons and make sure you're scoring 100% and fully understanding the concepts.
Additionally, I totally agree with whoever said that it's likely an issue in the reasoning process. I used the LSAT Trainer and about halfway through, I was still getting more LR wrong than I was getting right, so I went back to the drawing board and started doing less timed and more BR/untimed. If you can reason it out untimed consistently, then you should be able to get better and faster.
Feel free to message me if you ever want to work on some problems together, but in the meantime, good luck!