How to break into 170s from high 160s

21sevana

On my last 5 practice tests, I've scored 176, 169, 166, 174, and 168 (least to most recent). Basically, I haven't really seen consistent improvement, and it's been hard for me to break out of the high 160s.

• not feeling mentally refreshed after the 10 minute break (I consistently perform worse in the last two sections)
• timing issues

Does anyone have tips on how to make the most of the 10 minute break and/or build stamina? I need to score 170+ on my April exam. Thanks!

natemanwell1

Ok so the issue that you are having is definitely neither stamina nor timing issues. What is actually going on is that the lsat has a range of content that it tests, so not everything is tested on every test: when a test contains mostly material you know, you score high, when it contains mostly material you don't know, you score lower. As your high score is 176, and a 176 is generally about 7 questions wrong, and the range of question types is somewhat limited, its pretty unlikely that there aren't one or two things you don't understand on every test, and since that is gonna cap your performance in the mid 170s, more errors are gonna keep you in the 160s. It's probably something like fully understanding the arguments or passages or grasping all the details of a question or argument or passage, or being worse at one or two question types. It's also tough to tell from your question what the exact problem is: we don't know the range of scores you have for the logical reasoning section or the reading sections.

Cant Get Right

What have your BR's been for those tests? If your BR scores track closely to your timed scores, then it probably is just fundamentals. What I'd hope to see is a BR score consistently in the high 170's/180. If that were the case, then it would be primarily a time management problem. Your BR score is your max potential on a test based on fundamentals. Your timed score is your max potential minus inefficiencies in strategic execution. So you either need to improve your potential to something more consistent and stable, or else improve your execution to be more routinely capitalizing on the potential you're already demonstrating. Very different pathways, so hard to say without knowing BR scores/what the issue really is.