I am getting horrible at LR

fatemeh_f

Hi,
I started studying for my December LSAT in early October. That is when i also wrote my diagnostic test and had 75% in LR, and much worse in LG and RC. I got a tutor for LG and now I consistently score ~90% in LG, BUT... I am pretty much getting 13 questions wrong in each LR section... My score is barely any different than my diagnostic test. I practiced from Pt 41-50 and I did timed sections from pt 51,52,53 and im just doing HORRIBLE! I have one month left and I have no idea what to do. I have all the tests up to PT 70, but I dont even see the point of doing more practice. It's like my brain doesnt comprehend common sense anymore. What should I do

nordeend

Sounds like burnout or a lack of thorough blind review (or both). Do you follow the blind review method to a tee?

Pacifico

@"fatemeh_f" said:
December LSAT in early October

First mistake right there: Not nearly enough time, especially if you're getting half of each LR section wrong.

@"fatemeh_f" said:
I practiced from Pt 41-50 and I did timed sections from pt 51,52,53

Second mistake right there: Wasting PTs.


I don't really understand what is going on here. Did you just take a diagnostic and then start drilling, but you haven't used any type of curriculum/book/other study materials to learn the test? If so, you need to cancel immediately, get on board with some sort of curriculum (I recommend 7Sage and/or The LSAT Trainer) and then shoot for June at the earliest. You can't just brute force your way to success if you have no background in the subject matter (either indirectly from UG study in philosophy or something perhaps, or from direct LSAT prep).

deleted account

@fatemeh_f I agree with @Pacifico And LR is hard to improve in. It takes a lot of time, especially with no background. You have to learn both the logic and the reading style (if you ask me, the LSAT is as much a reading test as a logic test). Your comment doesn't say how you're doing in RC, but I'd guess that you have some room to improve there, which comes only with time.

fatemeh_f

No I purchased a book that had detailed explanations for all the questions from preptest 41-50. And I also have a tutor! I have been studying the techniques and learning them from her while doing the olde rpreptest (41-50), while saving PT 51-74 for timed tests! I did pretty well on my practices, especially in LR! and now that I did the timed tests, even though I dont run out of time, I am doing really bad! I dont know if it is called burn out or me just going plain dumb or over analyzing the questions... I am just beyond scared because I was good.. and I dont know what went wrong

Pacifico

It's not burnout, it's that you don't have a solid foundation of fundamental skills. You really need to pick up some sort of resource that will teach you the test. Simply getting explanations for PTs is not sufficient to do that. And you are throwing money down the drain on a tutor if you have no foundation (and I say that as a tutor). I would never take on a client who doesn't understand that they need to learn the test. On the other hand I do tutor people that need help with the whole process from beginning to end so I act as a Sherpa of sorts to help those people through the curriculum. I would not trust a tutor that doesn't immediately red flag this process since no one in your score range does what you're doing and ends up being successful.

Furthermore, paying a tutor to teach you the fundamentals is a complete waste of money when you could just buy the Trainer for 50 bucks or the 7Sage starter pack for under 200 bucks. Tutors are there to assist in the learning process and fill in the gaps to help personalize that learning process. They are not meant to be private teachers that are your sole source of knowledge. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but your tutor is hosing you and you should really blow up this whole process and start fresh for June or October 2016.