Redoing the Most Recent Tests vs. Doing Older Ones

joecarterruskey

Context: I've been studying for about 10 months; have done all of the tests except for the 7 most recent ones, and have started to retake many tests I've already done. I've found on retakes I can score in the 174-176 range, and learn quite a bit from seeing the patterns in the test. For the last stretch of my study period I was going to do two retakes a week(think tests from the 2003-2006 range) and one fresh test a week from the most recently released ones (2012-2015) to gauge my progress.

However, I had an epiphany; screw gauging my progress!

I've been stuck in the 166-171 range for 6 months. I know what I'm going to get on a fresh test. So, perhaps it would be worthwhile for me to take these fresh recently released tests twice instead of just once. Granted, the scores closest to my test date will probably be inflated, but I feel like that this is a better learning opportunity versus just seeing those problems on one take and a blind review.

With that said, I'd be taking a test for the first time, and then retaking aprox. 3 weeks later. Maybe that's too soon, or maybe it doesn't matter?

n case I wasn't clear, this is what I mean as an example:

Example of a week in scenario 1:
Retake Oct. 2003, BR it
Take Oct. 2013 for the first time, BR it
Retake Oct. 2006, BR it

Example of a week in scenario 2:
Take Oct. 2013, BR it
Take Dec. 2013, BR it
Take June 2014, BR it

Then, three weeks later, retake those same tests and BR them again

So, the last 7-9 tests I will have taken before the official exam will all be retakes. While this may not give me an accurate assessment of where I stand, it may be a better learning experience (seeing the most recent problems four times in total instead of just twice), and maybe the inflated score will be good for my confidence, and be more beneficial in the long run than scoring a 169 or a 170 just days before the test.

My intuition is telling me to try this out, as regardless I will be doing mostly retakes in the next few weeks.

What are your thoughts?

Cant Get Right

@joecarterruskey said:
However, I had an epiphany; screw gauging my progress!

Yes! This here is the sign of a mature LSAT student!

joecarterruskey

Thanks Cant Get Right! I think the important thing to consider is that seeing the most recent problems from the past several years 4x instead of 2x is what is making me go in this direction, especially since I've already done the older problems. I think it's more important to see, for example, Oct. 2014 2x with 2 blind reviews versus the same with Oct. 2004 and then doing Oct. 2014 only once.

Cant Get Right

One thing I’ll say regarding the newer tests: They’ve started throwing in some weird games. One thing you don’t want to do is get surprised the week before the test. Two things happen. One, you have no time to work with and master a new game. Two, your confidence is seriously hurt. You don’t want that. 72 and 77 are particularly notorious. I sat for the real 77 so I can vouch for that. Game 3 was killer. 72 I’ve only heard about but similar situation from what I understand.

I’ve been seeing an increasing amount of debate about how best to manage the later tests, and the take sooner rather than later side has seemed increasingly convincing to me.

joecarterruskey

That seems like the best idea to me as well. Regardless, I'll have to retake practice tests, so I might as well retake the newest ones.

A point was raised on the TLS forums that three weeks is too short, and that I'll remember the problems. I feel like this may be a non-issue; after all, I'm not retaking the tests to get an accurate assessment of my score. And if my memory ends up being too powerful, then maybe I can take some of the older tests (2003-2006) before the exam.

Ron Swanson

As far as remembering questions, I'd just be cautious of getting to the point of where you begin reading a stimulus and instantly think "oh I know that B is the answer because blah blah blah". I think that defeats the purpose of the process you're going for.

I also score in the 166-171 range on fresh takes, and I think your comments on seeing inflated scores just before the test may boost your confidence if anything, provided your main focus is on the learning process and BR rather than seeing your score go up.

I think the most beneficial part of the process you're going for may be entering test day completely used to the nuances of mid-late 70s tests. I still have to work through those PTs, and I'm going to begin integrating them into my schedule asap based on the comments I've read along the lines of what @"Cant Get Right" is referring to, but I think it is important to enter the real test with the newest material fresh in your mind/skill set

quinnxzhang

@"Cant Get Right" said:
One thing I’ll say regarding the newer tests: They’ve started throwing in some weird games.

Not disagreeing with anything you said, but I'm not sure how someone would go about practicing for the weird games. They seem to be sort of one-off games which don't fit into the grouping/sequencing classification and which will never show up again. Other than not panicking and being good at games generally, it doesn't seem like someone would get much out of drilling the weird games in PT72 and PT77, per se.

Other than the weird games, I personally think that the normal games in the later PTs tend to fall on the easier side (minus a couple of exceptions). Also, if it's any consolation, I took the undisclosed Feb exam, and I thought that exam had one of the easiest LG sections in recent memory -- absolutely no curve balls.

joecarterruskey

As far as remembering questions, I'd just be cautious of getting to the point of where you begin reading a stimulus and instantly think "oh I know that B is the answer because blah blah blah". I think that defeats the purpose of the process you're going for.

I think if that starts to happen, then I'll switch to the older tests. And that's really the dilemma; would 3 weeks of older practice test retakes right before the exam do as much to help me?

@"Ron Swanson" said:
I also score in the 166-171 range on fresh takes, and I think your comments on seeing inflated scores just before the test may boost your confidence if anything, provided your main focus is on the learning process and BR rather than seeing your score go up.

Without a doubt; at this point, I'm not interested in my practice score anymore. Though clicking on all cylinders the week before a test by cranking out 178-180s on retakes would still make me feel pretty confident haha.

@"Ron Swanson" said:
I think the most beneficial part of the process you're going for may be entering test day completely used to the nuances of mid-late 70s tests. I still have to work through those PTs, and I'm going to begin integrating them into my schedule asap based on the comments I've read along the lines of what @"Cant Get Right" is referring to, but I think it is important to enter the real test with the newest material fresh in your mind/skill set

This is pretty much the entire intent. I've done so many of the other problems, and have saved the other tests for the end, and now I'm starting to realize that it may be more important to thoroughly study those tests, especially as I see that I learn a great deal from retakes.

Cant Get Right

@quinnxzhang said:
They seem to be sort of one-off games which don't fit into the grouping/sequencing classification and which will never show up again.

I think it might be preemptive to think they will not show up again. At this point, these games are recent enough that I don’t think we can know one way or the other. There just hasn’t been enough time to really see. It almost feels like they are searching for a new game type. Maybe they won’t show up, but that’s not a gamble I’m willing to take. I think that anything that deviates from the norm on a recent test demands respect and must be mastered.

runiggyrun

Regarding the games, I think both @quinnxzhang and @"Cant Get Right" have valid points: seeing with your own eyes sooner rather than later what people mean by "the weird games from 72 and 77" and developing a strategy to deal with such a game appearing on the actual test is very valuable. Maybe even trying to figure out how you would go about identifying a key inference (like the PT72 game had) if you did face a weird game.
I also agree that "weird" games might be here to stay, but I do think that the whole point of a "weird" game is that it will be somehow new and unusual. I've now done all but 7 LG sections, and the games I'd classify as "weird" never repeated themselves. I'm glad I've been exposed to them, and I would definitely recommend proofing them just like anything else, but not necessarily because being able to solve the PT77 office game would help you solve the 6 countries game in PT 78 (just making it up), but because it will teach you that the same logical skills still apply, but maybe not in the same way you're used to, so you need to be comfortable using your skills "outside of the box" of neatly categorized games. You still need to stop and think how the rules interact, and try to make some inferences; if you have enough time you can still brute force your way through hypotheticals and wrangle a couple of essential points; you can skip and go back with a fresher less panicked perspective once you've finished the rest of the section, and so on.
And it will teach you that the weird games are generally not the most difficult. They just shock you into paralysis, and if you can get over that, you will own them. Practice owning them!

runiggyrun

More to the general point of redoing the newer PT's - I'm firmly in the camp of redo them, even if you remember some of the questions. Just think of the retakes as "delayed BR's".
The LSAT is like a good movie - every time you see it you discover something you didn't notice before, and you want to have noticed as many of the recent nuances as possible.

Cant Get Right

Excellent metaphor @runiggyrun . I hadn’t thought of it like that before, but that’s exactly what it’s like.

joecarterruskey

@runiggyrun said:
The LSAT is like a good movie - every time you see it you discover something you didn't notice before, and you want to have noticed as many of the recent nuances as possible.

Holy crap, that is an amazingly poignant quote!

So, I'm going full steam ahead with my plans. Thanks for the advice everyone!