Help - October 2022 LSAT

Universalitea_-1

Any specific tips on how to improve significantly for the October 2022 test?

I took the test in January hoping it would be my last time but only scored a 160 (my GPA is lower so I would need a higher LSAT score). Today is the first time I got back into studying and took a PT (untimed) to see how much of what I studied previously I have lost and ended up scoring a 156. I know my weak areas are LR and Reading Comprehension but I was wondering if anyone had specific tips or strategies to improve scores on those 2 sections.

redfoxblacksox

For reading comp:

Read at an even pace. I tend to take one or two "chicken scratch" notes per section. To be honest, it is mostly to prevent myself from mentally falling asleep, as these sections tend to be a bit dry! I don't go back and read my notes later.

While reading, I also digitally highlight to help me keep track. Things like dates, main ideas, reasons, etc. It's not so much like "OH THIS IS IMPORTANT" (I feel like in undergrad note taking, one highlights things that they feel are key ideas/something they'd like to add into an essay. For LSAT reading comp, I like to highlight things as a map marker, so my eyes can quickly look back on a section when the question comes up). After practicing, you can anticipate what kind of questions they might ask. LSAT reading comp provides many good sounding answers; because of this, it is very important to look back on specific text to see what they are actually saying, vs what you remember them saying if that makes sense.

In a different color, I like to highlight words that indicate tone. This isn't as relevant for science passages, but you can bet your butt that if there's any bias/personal opinion outside of dry fact, they'll ask a question about it!

For Logical Reasoning:
I'd say that it's always a good idea to review sufficient and necessary/how to chart them. If you have trouble on "find the flaw" or "find the parallel argument" questions, this will help big time.

On this note, I don't tend to chart everything. If it is a parallel-reasoning q, I'll chart right away because I know that personally, I'll get dizzy while trying to narrow down the answer choices without it! For other question types, I will hold off on charting in order to not waste time. If I run into issues, then I will chart.

Additionally, if I feel myself nodding off, I will start to take chicken scratch notes while reading, just to make sure I'm paying attention.

Hope this helps!

puffinbd

1 Find your areas of weakness - are there certain LR questions that you keep getting wrong? Flaw? NA? Weaken? If there's a pattern, then that just means you now have a way to attack it. Next, you need to understand if its conceptual or not.

2 If it's not conceptual, then are you getting things wrong due to confidence, fatigue, nerves? I find a wrong answer journal is especially helpful with LR questions because on top of 7sage analytics data, I can write down what my thought process may have been in getting those questions wrong and then how to avoid that for future PTs. To get more analytics/data, you'll need to take more PTs, preferably timed so you have a better idea of where you would be under testing conditions. In between tests, definitely do drills of questions you might typically miss from PTs 1-35 and timed LR sections to get in the habit/build endurance for 25-26 Q LR sections. Both are helpful to hone in on weaker areas and get in the habit of moving through LR at a testing pace.

With RC, its also a matter of patterns as well - are you getting certain types of passages wrong - science/finance/humanities, etc.? Do you start getting things wrong more in the last passages verses the first? Are comparative passage an issue, regardless of content? If its unfamiliarity with certain types of passages, just remember all RC passages are from actual published content so find a journal/newspaper/magazine that revolves around that content and start reading maybe a short article every few days. I know I'd freeze when it came to science passages, so sciencenews or other websites that had more of the content forced me to employ the same reading style and level of understanding I would for others RC passages. It might be helpful to look at your analytics here as well - are you getting phrase in context Qs wrong (where they say this line says x, what's another way of saying this?), main point? I do like JY's strategy of forcing yourself to summarize each paragraph and then how it's building the argument/creating the structure of the passage. For every Q that refers to lines #-#, I always go back, no matter how well I think I remember what is said. Like LG, spending time up front with RC makes the difference and having a good understanding of what the passage is talking about and HOW its constructed can make some questions (i.e. Main Point) go faster so you can spend more time on Qs that are more involved.

General tip for both, SKIPPING - I skip on LR so I save time on Qs that I might not get even if I had 3min to spare in order to get to the easier questions that do pop up later. If you want to rack up as many correct questions as possible, you have to know what you're looking at and what would be an effective use of your time. On RC, sometimes I'll do a passage that has 8Qs first vs one that's 5Qs, or even getting the comparative passages out of the way.

These are just some general tips, but in general, re-building your familiarity with the sections as well as meaningful review and analysis of questions can have a huge impact on your studying.

Hope this helps and Good Luck!