155 diagnostic -> 177 final score notes

bryanding

First and foremost, I have to give a huge shout out to Chris Bearne from 7sage tutoring. I started seeing my results plateau at the 170 range, and Chris truly was invaluable in helping me break through to the 17highs. Finding a tutor who will tailor strategies specifically for your weakness, and overall just the rigidity of structure Chris brought was incredibly important. My biggest area of improvement was RC from -10 to -1 to -3, and Chris's techniques was key in that process.

I'll skip everything else that everyone already rave about, like blind review, but the thing that helped me the most was repeating this process over and over again: Prep test -> Go through all wrong answers, even the ones you got right but took too long -> Write down all the inferences you took from your performance on how to do better next time (separated into LR LG and RC) -> read them over and internalize before the next prep test. It seems repetitive and annoying (my final document was almost 20 pages), but ultimately it's a great way to maintain the level of standard needed for test day to go as well as your prep tests. Please feel free to reach out if with any questions!

c-tsai29

Congrats!!! Hope to learn more about how do you improve RC.

Hoya Saxa

Wow. Congrats! I'm still in the mid 150 range which is quite frustrating. Hope I can get better soon.

jocelynandrade5

Hi! Can you share some more about RC? That is currently my biggest battle

camilob95

Also in the low 150's and need to be able to break through! Did you BR the whole way?

bryanding

Here are some excerpts from my journal that I think helps. But the point is to make one of your own. Consolidate every insight you can from each timed section as to how you could do better. My most important insights came to this: Practice a few untimed passages where you're focusing on what EACH sentence is doing in the passage. Always see how it links up to the sentences before and after, gauge why the author wrote that sentence in the first place. It'll take a long time at first, but begin getting easier as you practice. You should get to a place where you don't run into any passages that simply confuses you. It's fine to have some unclear areas, but the general jist and argument structure should come naturally once you perfect the sentence by sentence strategy.

More question specifically: (This is just how my journal looks, I have screenshots and explanation and examples from each timed section I took. It's annoying, I know, but it works and is a great confidence booster!) Best of luck, you got this!

1: Read the stem and Acs all VERY CLOSELY AND COMPREHEND THEM
2: READ EVERY SINGLE ANSWER CHOICE, don’t lazy out. I promise you it’s better to be careful
3: Trust your hunch if another answer might be right, search it within the passage
4: don’t be fooled by 2 answers, one is a trap. Go with the one that more DEFENDABLE. Go general, not specific.
5: get into the mindset of the author. Why does the AUTHOR do this?
Never forget author’s main point and what they’re trying to express
6: Stay loose, you want a mindset of picking the AC that’s the LEAST WRONG. Make sure an AC is simply good enough and move on. Flag and come back, often your first instinct is the most valuable. When you dig too deep WITHOUT actual evidence, you find yourself lost in the sauce. If you don’t have new evidence to decide between Acs, just go with gut as to what’s right and what can be justifiable.
7: Part of the AC being right is MUCH BETTER than an entire AC with nothing defendable. General > unprovable, some assumptions are better than others to make.

Chris Bearne

Thank you @bryanding - it was great to work together, but you did all the hard work! Good luck moving forwards. I know you'll crush the admissions game and law school

AndriiUA

Congrats! How long did it take you to get from diagnostic to 177? Thank you!

Johnny Tsunami

Congrats, thats amazing work! Ive got a few questions for you: did you have any issues with timing and if so, how did you go about resolving it? Also when did you start seeing your biggest jumps in score and how many PTs did you take?