In need of advice... Old vs New PT's

JerseyRhk3

Hello all,

I’d like to start off by congratulating those who just finished taking this past June administration! I’m taking the LSAT this September, and I’m looking for some advice as far the PT phase of my prep. I’ve been fortunate enough to have access to every published PT, so I’m wondering if it makes sense to take every single one of them. Sticking to my original plan of taking every PT, I would be taking about 4 PT’s a week up until the September administration. I took PT’s 1-3 so far and my scores have thus far been sporadic, and much lower than I’ve anticipated considering where I believe my level of understanding actually is with the LSAT, and also having been through the curriculum twice with months of previous preparation.

After having taken PTs 1-3 so far, I feel as though the LR sections in particular have been substantially different from the questions I’ve been prepping with through the curriculum, JY’s videos, the LSAT Trainer, the Power score Bibles, and foolishly enough…. a Kaplan book or two (lol). So really my question is, from the experience of others in the community, if it makes sense to take the earliest PT’s, and if BR’ing and learning from the questions will actually be of use for my upcoming September administration? Or if I should limit my focus to the more recent exams… say around 20 or so, and to retake the PT’s in the 60’s and 70’s if I have the time.

A thank you in advance to any of those who take the time to respond, any advice is appreciated.

Cant Get Right

Don’t take more than 2 PTs a week. 3 maybe, but I really think 2 a week is the best way to max out what you’re going to get from them. Sacrifice 1-35 to drills and fool proofing. Start with 36 for your PT/BR tests.

And if after a couple weeks you’re still not scoring close to where you want, don’t hesitate to pause PTing and dive back in to the curriculum. This phase is all about identifying weak spots.

Good luck! And check out the BR Group schedule if you think you’d benefit from a study group.

Matt Dare

I'm into the old tests. Not only are you training your question answering skills you are training your test taking ability. Using "new" (something haven't seen before) material to work on your diagramming and conditional skills as well as your answer sheet bubbling and pencil sharpening can't help but benefit you.

Based on the 15 PTs I've taken so far (a mix of old and new), if I got every NA and flaw question correct I would pull my score up 5 points. These questions are killing me. The first 20 PTs probably have 150-170 of these questions, NA and Flaw. That's a huge resource of "new" questions for me to use to first practice my test taking ability (timed conditions, bubbling, etc) and then to dissect during BR.

I concede the stimuli have changed a lot but the construction of wrong answer choices has not. For flaw questions in particular the first 20 are a huge resource to help develop a search image for formulaic wrong answer choices.

JerseyRhk3

thank you for the response @"Cant Get Right"... Do believe it would be useful to drill with LR sections 1-10? RC is my weakest section and I've definitely found those useful to drill with considering you can only change up Reading Comprehension but so much... Similarly with LG. However, I've been coming across LR questions that have me thinking to myself.... wtf... am i really going to see a question like this on test day....? I've been having a hard time figuring out if questions that I'm missing on these early PT's are actual weaknesses of mine, or if they simply aren't representative of the strict level of scrutiny of modern exams as far as the assumptions, gaps, and language is written.

runiggyrun

Don't force yourself to take 4 PTs a week just to get through all of them. If you need to retake, it would be nice to have some fresh PTs left.
As far as the order, I'd start with the oldest "fresh" ones (so, 38+) to build up your analyticals a bit and figure out where you need to drill more, and maybe do every other PT until you get to ~52 (where the comp passages start). Then mix them up - one from the 50's, one from the 60's, one from the 70's. I'd probably want to do all the 70's but do every other one/every third one from the others to make sure you're not doing more than 2, max 3 PT's a week.

JerseyRhk3

thats what I was thinking @"Matt Dare"

And thank you for your response @runiggyrun

Cant Get Right

@Rhkurtz3 said:
I've been coming across LR questions that have me thinking to myself.... wtf... am i really going to see a question like this on test day....?

This is a great scenario to learn how to deal with. There are some older questions that you are unlikely to see. However, you will continue to come across wtf moments and it’s good to have dealt with that as much as possible to minimize panic when it does happen. And it really hasn’t changed so much that it’s any less valuable than other sections. Oddball questions pop up all the time, I think it’s just more tempting in the earlier PTs to write it off as an early test quirk.