LR Advice

nw0250b

I am having some major difficulty with LR. I started studying seriously in late July/August with a diagnostic of 158. RC I am pretty good with averaging a -2. LG and LR were my problems with basically -10 in both. I grinded LG for a month and got that down to consistently -0. I got my LR in the range of -4 and -8, but I'm just having consistent LR problems. I took the September exam, got a 168 and I am taking the November test. In the next month I am going to be focusing almost entirely on LR, and I am looking for any tips on improvement there since I have been very inconsistent and almost stagnant. I am hoping I can improve in LR at the same rate as LG. Is it unrealistic for me to break into the 175+ range for November?

Matt Sorr

Let me start by saying that I'm not a tutor, nor do I have a high score on the books. I'm still studying just like you. So don't take what I say as the absolute truth. If you think my advice is trash, just discard it. Now that I've gotten that out of the way:

With your diagnostic and RC skills, it is totally possible for you to break into the 175+ range by November. If you're truly a consistent -2 in RC and -0 in games, that means that for the vast majority of tests you can miss around 2 LR questions and still be in the 175+ range.

In your situation, there's no shot that brain power is the issue. A consistent -2 in RC is extremely impressive, as is -0 in LG. So, I'd imagine you either have a few issues hindering you in LR or just one or two big issues. Here are just a few things to consider: Do you run out of time when doing LR? If you don't run out of time, do you have extra time to review questions or do you finish right on time? Do you miss certain question types more than others? Or do you generally just miss four and five star questions? How quickly are you getting through the first fifteen questions? Are you going through the first fifteen too quickly and missing easy questions? Or are you going through them too slowly and, as a result, missing harder questions?

The questions above are by no means exhaustive, as there may be other things troubling you. For somebody scoring as highly as you, however, I doubt a particularly unique issue (like an inability to focus or understand vocabulary) is holding you up. Therefore, I'd say the questions above are a good baseline to consider. If any of those questions address any of your issues, there's different approaches to take to remedy those issues. I'll restate once more: I'm not a tutor. I don't have hard-earned LSAT wisdom. You could also get in contact with a tutor or high scorer willing to help you for free. I'm sure they could help you in all sorts of ways I can't. But if you'd like to chat about any approaches I've found to work to address some of those issues, I'd be happy to.

nw0250b

@"Matt Sorr" said:
Let me start by saying that I'm not a tutor, nor do I have a high score on the books. I'm still studying just like you. So don't take what I say as the absolute truth. If you think my advice is trash, just discard it. Now that I've gotten that out of the way:

With your diagnostic and RC skills, it is totally possible for you to break into the 175+ range by November. If you're truly a consistent -2 in RC and -0 in games, that means that for the vast majority of tests you can miss around 2 LR questions and still be in the 175+ range.

In your situation, there's no shot that brain power is the issue. A consistent -2 in RC is extremely impressive, as is -0 in LG. So, I'd imagine you either have a few issues hindering you in LR or just one or two big issues. Here are just a few things to consider: Do you run out of time when doing LR? If you don't run out of time, do you have extra time to review questions or do you finish right on time? Do you miss certain question types more than others? Or do you generally just miss four and five star questions? How quickly are you getting through the first fifteen questions? Are you going through the first fifteen too quickly and missing easy questions? Or are you going through them too slowly and, as a result, missing harder questions?

The questions above are by no means exhaustive, as there may be other things troubling you. For somebody scoring as highly as you, however, I doubt a particularly unique issue (like an inability to focus or understand vocabulary) is holding you up. Therefore, I'd say the questions above are a good baseline to consider. If any of those questions address any of your issues, there's different approaches to take to remedy those issues. I'll restate once more: I'm not a tutor. I don't have hard-earned LSAT wisdom. You could also get in contact with a tutor or high scorer willing to help you for free. I'm sure they could help you in all sorts of ways I can't. But if you'd like to chat about any approaches I've found to work to address some of those issues, I'd be happy to.

Your questions really hit the nail on the head, and I am pretty inconsistent in my answers for them. On timing I tend to run out of time for the last 3 questions. In terms of question types I am pretty all over the board (I'll have tests where I miss many NA questions and other tests I miss close to none etc.), sometimes I only miss 4-5 star questions, other times I am missing some of the first fifteen and my time varies on the first fifteen as well which results in not enough time on 4-5 star questions at times. I'd love to hear any techniques you have found successful, I could use all the help I can get.

Cant Get Right

Assuming your BR is strong, it’s a time management problem. Period. If your BR is not so strong, it’s still a time management problem. You’ve just got a few fundamentals to hammer out as well. With strong fundamentals, I think you can be ready by November. It’s a very different process from LG though. Where LG strategy is largely a function of strong fundamentals, LR strategy is interwoven with fundamentals in much more complex ways. With the right approach, though (again, assuming strong fundamentals), you can improve at the same rate as LG. Potentially, you could even improve dramatically faster.

So what’s the right approach? Sorry for linking to previous comments instead of restating, but I really kind of nailed the details of my strategic philosophy a while back:

https://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/comment/169240

https://7sage.com/forums/discussion/27356/finishing-a-section-right-on-time-v-early-and-doing-a-2nd-round