Dropped from 170 to low-mid 160s

inertiax21

All, please help me to stop pulling l my hair out.

Two weeks ago, I switched to exclusively using Lawhub for my PTs since I'll be testing for the Nov 2023 LSAT and wanted to be accustomed to the format.

Before that, I had been scoring in the high 160s (165, 169, 170, 168) and nabbed a 170 once.

However, since I have switched, I got a 164, a 163, and just got a 164. It's wildly frustrating, especially because I am seeing trends in my scores I have never seen before (I usually get -4 or better on RC, but got a -6 and -7 on my previous two PTs) that seem to defy my previous understanding of my strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately, there are a few things happening in my life that may be contributing to this, so it's been hard for me to isolate what the causes might be. I'm worried that the layout/fixed order/extra LR on Lawhub is a major contributing cause, but I can't tell. Further, I feel like it's important that I get comfortable with the layout whether I like it or not.

In trying to understand this, I wanted to get people's experience and input.

1. How do I interpret this significant drop in my scores? How can I tell whether my previously higher scores or my current scores are the fluke trend?

2. Has anyone else seen score fluctuations when they test on Lawhub as opposed to 7Sage? And, by extension, what are your thoughts regarding the modern (3-passage) vs. legacy (4-passage with the extra LR) for accurately assessing ability?

3. As general advice, what did you do to break the high 160s ceiling/plateau?

Thanks all for your input, and please help me reduce the amount of time I need to spend doing anti-frustration meditations on Spotify.

Wario Fan

Hi there!

I've definitely had score fluctuations and have been personally frustrated with them so I think I understand where you're coming from. Our experiences may not be exactly the same (I never practiced on LawHub, but I think it's def smart to do so) but I can try to help give you some answers based on my experience so far.

1. Do you blind review? If your BR scores are still the same across the new lower scores and the previous higher ones, it might be some outside factor like the new testing format you're using or other life factors that are tripping you up during timed practice. I'd say that once I got all the basics down, performing well on the LSAT really became a mental game. I experienced inconsistencies in my scoring during certain periods as well, and usually I could tell if my head just wasn't in the game that day. For me it became about maintaining the same focus and effort throughout the entire test, as that's how I could best reach my goal. Maybe if you take some time to reflect about how you've felt during your most recent PTs it'll help you interpret the current trend, and hopefully make some improvements to fix it.

2. I don't have any experience with testing on a new format, except when I took the actual LSAT. I can't say it affected me too much, but I can see it throwing someone off, so I think it's smart to practice this way. As for the modern vs. legacy--I think you're referring to combined 4 section scoring versus omitting the experimental section in the newest PTs?--I'd go back to my sustained effort point from earlier and say you should strive to have as little difference between the repeated sections as possible, since you won't know which is which on the actual test. If you're consistent I think that's a good indicator of your ability regardless of what's scored or not. Of course there might be some disparity from time to time.

3. I struggled the most with LG, and so I spent a lot of time bullet proofing games from every new PT that I took. If you can, take lots of PTs, blind review and review, and then find out where your weak spots are and practice the hell out of them. This is what gave me a great feel for the test and helped my PTs get into the range I wanted them to be at. I just took the October LSAT so I can't say if it worked for sure yet, but I felt pretty good.

Final piece of advice, a bad PT, or even a few, I think is bound to happen. I know it can be extremely discouraging, but I found that the bad PTs often taught me the most about what I was doing wrong, and learning from them was some of the most valuable time that I spent studying. Take your time, trust the process, work hard, and eventually the feeling for the test that you need to develop, will develop. I hope this helped, good luck!

inertiax21

I appreciate this!

LG is also consistently my worst section, and one thing that I have learned over the past couple of weeks is that I am not spending the time necessary to cement the concepts that I am learning from my errors.

I BR consistently, but there might be a better way. I usually BR the questions that I flagged, which I try to do any time that I feel 'off' on a question. So there are always several flags to BR before I look at my score.

I do this because, initially, I would BR the entire test when I started studying, and it would take 2+ days to BR everything again. I found that, while my BR was certainly higher than my OG score, I really felt exhausted and inefficient by the time I went into ACTUALLY reviewing incorrect answers.

The issue that I am seeing is that my flagging is rarely an indicator of an incorrect answer. On the contrary, because I flagged something I usually focus more on those questions and find that more often than not, I get the flagged ones correct.

Any suggestions? I think it's inefficient to essentially retake the entire test in BR, but my flagging method is missing those questions that aren't even registering as problems in my brain.

Wario Fan

Hm I see what you're saying.

I agree that BRing the whole test is inefficient so I'd definitely try and avoid that. I also had kind of a bad habit of flagging too many questions, which would make BR exhausting. I guess I'd give two pieces of advice to consider.

The first--and what I personally did-- was to just try and be a little more conscious of what I was flagging during my test. I found there were a lot of questions that maybe I wasn't 100% sure of, but was like 99% sure of, and I would think, "is this something I'd really worry about or need to look at after the test?" If the answer was no, I'd try not flagging it. If I got it right, great! I built confidence and am less likely to flag things unnecessarily next time. If I got it wrong, then I can look even closer at it after review, and get some extra insight. If you do this little by little--it could be just a couple questions at first--it should build confidence and make BR easier for you. The only thing I'd caution is not to think too hard about it during the test. You don't need to be thinking about BR during the actual PT, so try and make it almost an unconscious effort.

Second, I'm not sure how many questions you're getting wrong, but you're bound to miss some flags. The LSAT is tough and some questions will fool you. Unless you notice a trend, like a specific type of question that you keep missing, I wouldn't worry tooo much about a question that you didn't flag but still got wrong. Just go over it and figure out why it fooled you. If you're missing a LOT of questions that you didn't flag on every test, that's probably indicative of something else, although you'd probably have to figure out what that is yourself.

I'm glad to hear that your BR is much higher than OG. I was the same way and it inspired me to keep studying and retake the test, which I'm very glad I did. I think you're on the right track, so keep going!

lucasjamesziegler

Also note that dropping to a 163/164 is still within your range. You could have simply had some harder RC sections. When I see a drop I will take a day or two off to clear my head. I agree with everyone that the BR process can sometimes be counter productive.

inertiax21

Thanks for the input everyone! I took a PT two days ago and I saw upward movement to 167.

Here are my takeaways:

-I think I was over studying without giving myself time to process and feel comfortable with the concepts before moving on to the next big thing.

-I had myself pushing for 3 PTs a week during that low period, and I didn't have time to properly review my tests in addition to reinforce core curriculum concepts before jumping back in to the next PT.

-Taking tests on Lawhub sucks and should be done sparingly and strategically.

-My new flagging strategy is if I am stuck 50/50 or even 60/40 between two answers, I flag; If I can't really articulate why an answer is correct, I flag; if I am spending 2 minutes or more, I flag (and then skip for later)

@lucasjamesziegler what are the general score ranges? I know there is no official answer, but how do you know how low is too low?

AlexLSAT.

@inertiax21 said:
Thanks for the input everyone! I took a PT two days ago and I saw upward movement to 167.

Here are my takeaways:

-I think I was over studying without giving myself time to process and feel comfortable with the concepts before moving on to the next big thing.

-I had myself pushing for 3 PTs a week during that low period, and I didn't have time to properly review my tests in addition to reinforce core curriculum concepts before jumping back in to the next PT.

-Taking tests on Lawhub sucks and should be done sparingly and strategically.

-My new flagging strategy is if I am stuck 50/50 or even 60/40 between two answers, I flag; If I can't really articulate why an answer is correct, I flag; if I am spending 2 minutes or more, I flag (and then skip for later)

@lucasjamesziegler what are the general score ranges? I know there is no official answer, but how do you know how low is too low?

To address your takeaways:

1. Completely normal! I did this so much (especially when pushing to 170). Remember this is a marathon not a sprint. You are obviously solid on most of the fundamentals to be scoring as well as you are, so it will come in time.

2. This makes sense, I would limit to 2 PTs a week max. I tried the 3 PT method and dropped from a 169 to a 162-163. The biggest thing for you right now should be reviewing your mistakes, PTs are simply a reflection of your understanding and not a reliable way to fix small errors without review.

3. Lawhub is actually the same format as the real LSAT, so I would recommend getting used to it. I do agree, it sucks, and for this reason I tried to just take them on 7sage. Also, 7sage has analytics, so I would do it for this reason aswell. It'll help you find mistakes easier.

4. Great strategy. Answer everything you can and come back later. Sometimes the second take on a question will lead you to the right answer.

5. General score range is around +- 3 points according to LSAC, so if your average is 167 it would make sense for you to get a 170 and also a 164. I've fluctuated more than this number though, sometimes I had an off day and scored lower and sometimes I had a moment of revelation and scored really high. I think just focusing on my mistakes was more productive than focusing on the score. I saw big improvement on my RC without actually seeing a score increase due to some LR sections that I was just bad on. Eventually all of my work combined at the same time and I saw a jump into the 170s.

It's actually a really good thing that LG is your worst section. It is the quickest section to improve on. I would devote a lot of time to making sure you're getting a -0 to -1 consistently on LG. Doing this should push you into a 170 average.

Hope this all helps.