Averaging 158, is 163-165 doable within the next 5 weeks for Sept sitting?

LogicLlama

Hi all,

I have been studying for the LSAT since March. I started with a 143 diagnostic, and there was a slow and steady improvement since then. For the last 5 prep-tests, I have been scoring between 157-159 (BR 163 - 165) and I feel pretty confident with my skills to be in this score band. My goal is to score between 163-165. I registered for the September sitting which is in approximately 5 weeks. I feel like it's doable and within my grasp. Are there any tips or advice from people who were in my shoes, to overcome the 160 barrier?

I'm doing two sections daily and one prep test a week.

I would really appreciate any advice on studying tactics, warmup, test strategies...etc.

Nolan__1

It's definitely doable! I was never in your shoes, but I'm happy to offer some test strategies and study tactics. Before that, if you need any other advice or maybe some explanations as to why some questions are right/wrong, please feel free to message me! I'm still on my LSAT journey as well and will be taking both August and September, and I would love to assist you if I can because this test sucks.
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Study Tactics:
After you take a PT (or any section), note the incorrect questions and record the following information: Question Type, Difficulty, Stimulus, Question Stem, Breakdown, Answer Choices, and Notes.

The first four are pretty self-explanatory. With the 'Breakdown', type out the stimulus in your own words. Use 'lawgic' if you want, and try to make it as easy to understand for you as possible. With the 'Answer Choices', type out each answer choice and explain it to yourself. Why is this relevant/not relevant? What makes this question right/wrong? Lastly, with 'Notes', write down things that you think will help you on similar questions you get in the future. Did you make a mistake reading the stimulus or the question stem, or is it a general concept you're misunderstanding? It could be any number of things.

While sections are great to do, try drilling as well! Input the wrong questions you get on PTs on 7Sage, and use the 7Sage Virtual Tutor option on the Drills page. You want to drill the question types you get wrong as often as you can until you're able to get enough of them correct that you feel comfortable. Focus on the issues you have, not just the ones you get right often.

Test Strategies
Memorize the '33 Common LSAT Flaws' as published by Powerscore, and read the Flaw section in 'The Loophole'. By teaching yourself to identify flaws, you can become better able at answering Necessary Assumption questions, Flaw questions, and all other sorts of questions as well! This is super helpful, and bumped me up from a diagnostic of 164 to pushing past the 170s.

Try to learn how to recognize when questions are giving you a phenomenon and an explanation, or when causation is established on basis of correlation. While 7Sage breaks down questions into easily discernable types, on the LSAT, there can be a lot of overlap such as Strengthening NA questions. Practice your conditional reasoning if you need, too, particularly with diagramming. A lot of people say it's a waste of time, but diagramming on hard questions when you have the time is extremely helpful!

Other Helpful Things
This may or may not be relevant, but eating well, getting 8 hours of sleep a night, and exercising (I run, highly recommend) are hugely beneficial for this test because all of those are necessary to being in the best mental form you can be for test day. I also recommend a magnesium supplement. While this may seem odd, so many people suffer from a magnesium deficiency, and it helps maintain proper blood brain flow! I do that alongside a once-daily vitamin, because I know I don't eat well some days and need vitamins, especially that magnesium which Adderall drains like hell.

I hope some of this is able to help

breanna1227.student

Hey! I think this is totally doable with the appropriate amount of effort. I was scoring around the same as you two weeks ago and improved 5 points by doing a thorough wrong answer journal. Good luck

LogicLlama

@Nolan__1 Thank you so much for the thoughtful response. I've never done a wrong answer journal but I'll definitely start tracking an recording these pieces. So far, I have only used 7Sage and LR Perfection book by LSAT Dragon which helped a little bit. I'll have to check out loophole.

LogicLlama

@"breanna1227.student" Amazing! I hope that will be me soon. I haven't done a wrong answer journal. Do you do it for both RC & LR? What pieces of information do you find useful when documenting the wrong answers?

breanna1227.student

@LogicLlama said:
@"breanna1227.student" Amazing! I hope that will be me soon. I haven't done a wrong answer journal. Do you do it for both RC & LR? What pieces of information do you find useful when documenting the wrong answers?

Yes I do use a wrong answer journal for both.
I use a Google doc and have a table split into four columns with the stimulus (a screenshot of the passage and answer choices for LR and just the test number and passage for RC), wrong answer, right answer and explanation. Every single explanation uses the same structure: "The right answer choice is right because..." and, "The wrong answer choice is wrong because..." The explanation videos are beyond helpful for this.

Before, I would just watch the videos and move on. Actually writing down what I did wrong has been the best for improvement.

Hope this helps.

jwu1210

how long did it take for you to go from 140s to 158? what did you do/change to get to that score? curious because I'm also trying to score higher but need some guidance