Anyone experiencing drop in scores in PTs after 60s?

WillJayK

LR LR LG RC Score Date

54 1 2 1 5 171 24th July
55 2 2 3 6 167 11th Aug
56 4 7 2 8 163 12th Aug
58 168 24th Aug
59 4 3 5 6 167 26th Aug

60 168 28th Aug
61 3 6 7 1 166 31st Aug
62 6 5 4 6 165 1st Sep

I am having a difficulty in adapting my study strategy to more recent PTs!


As you can see I think i am experiencing a drop in scores in recent prep tests.
(During PTs before 40s I was occasionally scoring 170+)
As a non-native speaker in English, I used to employ strategies in attacking LR questions by looking for answer choices through symbolic understanding of stimuli (for example, looking for specific keywords in conclusion and matching them in answer choices),
and i find it that i have to maintain more room for flexibility in attacking these questions.

Anyhow,
1.
is there anyone who has been stuck for 165~168 band for long time and finally broke above 170+?
I guess i am stuck in this score band over 2 months.

2. in consideration of the fact that i am running out of fresh PTs, would you recommend me to take older or used PTs instead if i want to score 170+ in longer term?

Thanks in advance!

nicole.hopkins

too many PT's

it's burnout

65+ is typically the range when we talk about subtle differences

since you're not in that range and it looks like you are taking too many PT's too close together, i vote burnout.

nicole.hopkins

notice the downward slope coinciding with little evidence of appropriate rest time after Aug 24th

nicole.hopkins

@william.j.kwon said:
I guess i am stuck in this score band over 2 months.

that plateau typically lasts for at least that long (certainly did for me). and rest is part of what makes plateau breaking possible.

NewEnglandBound

@nicole.hopkins said:
65+ is typically the range when we talk about subtle differences

What do you mean by this exactly? Subtle differences as in 65-Present are a bit harder than, say, 50-64?

nicole.hopkins

Not harder; just different—and accordingly, at first pass, they challenge our established skill-set and thereby introduce an element of difficulty qua unfamiliarity.

WillJayK

@nicole.hopkins
Thanks for the detailed tips and analysis. Really appreciate them.

Maybe you're right in that I display the symptom of burnout. In fact, I took a brief break (3~4days) from LSAT during the middle of August. However since I plan to take October LSAT and not to miss this cycle, I decided to push forward while taking 1~ 2 PT a week and reviewing PTs and previous cambridge packets.

Unfortunately as you pointed out my drop was even more dramatic after 65s PTs.

I got

LR LR LG RC
PT 66 ( -7, -6, -1, -7) 163
PT 70 ( -2, -2, -1, -13) 161 (I am still analyzing what happened with my RC)

and noticed that recent ones are much different.
It would be best for me if i had chances to analyze all of recent PTs after 65s but I want to keep them aside for fresh real-time prep tests.

So I am currently BRing with all the relatively recent PTs(post 50s)
but is there any tips or specific mindset or anything that would be helpful for adjusting to more recent PTs? I know there is no special way except careful review but as a potential test taker with less exposure to 70s PTs i would be more than glad to hear that

Thank you so much

nicole.hopkins

Burnout does not respect your goals. But disrespecting burnout can definitely keep you from reaching them.

harrismegan

@nicole.hopkins said:
Burnout does not respect your goals. But disrespecting burnout can definitely keep you from reaching them.

Deep.

eostrelsy

I feel you. Also being an international student, I guess you should not rely on solving questions by matching keywords. Try to understand them under time limits. And my feelings about 70s are that they are harder because there are more trap answers, which may make matching keywords affect your accuracy more.

NYC12345

I actually find PT 65+ (including the 70s) to be much easier than earlier PTs. There were some stimuli in the 40s and earlier PTs that I could not understand for the life of me. They had a very convoluted form. Newer PTs are much better written and diagramming is not needed for many parallel questions.

nicole.hopkins

@alexandergreene93 said:
much easier than earlier PTs

Easier? Support needed for this conclusion

NYC12345

I find them easier. I didn't say that they are easier for others

aamirvir

I'm experiencing the same exact phenomenon. I was 170+ on several past PTs but on the last few (60, 61, 62, and 63) I've been in the 165-166 range. Very frustrating. I'm considering taking a little break because all evidence points to burnout, but I'm not sure how long of a break I can afford as I'm also signed up for the October LSAT. The last time I took at 3 day break I hit a 173 when I came back, so I'm hoping for a similar phenomenon this time around. If I take this break I have to cut down the amount of PTs I had planned to take before the test. Any suggestions on which PTs I should take and how many I should take before the test date? Also whats the agreed upon consensus for the 2-3 days before the test?

NYC12345

I'm taking my last PT on the previous Monday, so I will have five days of rest.
@aamirvir

LSATdogfml

Not sure about other stuff, but in the 60+ PTs a major change from previous ones is that the 2 LR sections are no longer the same difficulty as each other. Before, especially in the 40s I found that each LR section in one PT is independent of a difficulty of...say X. This is supported by the number of five-star questions in each section, which is the only thing that matters because those are the questions that sink the most time.

In the newer PTs one LR is difficulty Z and the other one is Y, and they even out to be an X. However, the result of this subtle change is that the time management skills we've established using 60 or so tests for difficulty X is now moot. That took a lot of getting use to. Furthermore in more cases than not the harder section is the later section, so you really gotta build up that stamina to do it well.

NYC12345

@LSATdogfml
Just because a question has a five star rating does not mean that it's very difficult. The rating comes from the number of 7sagers who got the question wrong.

LSATdogfml

@alexandergreene93 That's how you measure the difficulty of an item in metrics, the percentage of people who get it right vs. the percentage of people who get it wrong. But you're right I'm banking on 7sagers being a reliable sample though

nicole.hopkins

@LSATdogfml said:
But you're right I'm banking on 7sagers being a reliable sample though

sounds legit

NYC12345

@LSATdogfml
@nicole.hopkins
It's not a reliable sample because people are on many different levels. Let's say only 20% got an answer correct. Now, you might conclude that the question is difficult. But what if the 80% who chose the wrong answer were PTing in the 140s? Maybe everyone who was scoring above 160 got the answer correct.
Some 7sagers use newer exams as their diagnostic because they start PTing shortly before test day. That would make the sample unlikely to be representative. The skill level of a 170+ test taker is much different than a 140-150 test taker.