My score went down?

jjoushlyn

Hello 7sagers !

I have been watching the discussions closely, and I first want to say congrats on all of your progress !! Many of you are doing extremely well. Unfortunately I have hit rock bottom. I took a course over the summer and my initial diagnostic score of 144 went down to a 138 by the end of two months. I was supposed to take the September LSAT, but I have moved it back to December because I want to get the best score possible. I am working on LSAT every single day. I feel i am getting better but i have yet to see any improvements. I would be extremely satisfied if i could get to 160. I know i have unmatched work ethic, but it seems like im having the time of my life trying to grasping the material. For now I am reading the powerscore books, using practice tests, and flashcards to help me. I think i can make the biggest improvement in Logic reasoning because I enjoy it so much. However, I need to make at least 18 correct in each section to get a 160. Please help!! I am not sure what to to do. What are some techniques that have helped you all? Im familiar with LSAT now with all the practice i have put in over the past three months. I just need to break through.

PLEASE list the key components that helped you piece things together for each section. Was their key videos that helped you make sense of everything ? Please let me know.

Admin note: Hoy moly, please dont post titles in all caps...

Alex

@jjoushlyn said:
For now I am reading the powerscore books, using practice tests, and flashcards to help me. I think i can make the biggest improvement in Logic reasoning because I enjoy it so much. However, I need to make at least 18 correct in each section to get a 160. Please help!! I am not sure what to to do. What are some techniques that have helped you all? Im familiar with LSAT now with all the practice i have put in over the past three months. I just need to break through.

I'm sorry to hear you are having a rough go.

1) Forget taking in September, December, June, etc. Just focus on that 160. You can't set a date and THEN try to work towards a score. It has to be the other way around. Well, it makes more sense to do it that way. In short, your goal is a test score, not a test date.

2) Try a new approach. The course clearly isn't working for you and either is Powerscore. I know this sounds obvious, but have you tried/considered 7Sage.... FWIW, I and many other top-scorers think it is the best course out there.

3) Don't take anymore fresh PTS until you are ready to begin PT'ing. There are only so many and they are finite, so treat them like treasures. Use 1-35 to drill and learn the material and 36-78 to PT. Or you could divide it up different, but just make sure you have enough recent, fresh PTs to take when the time comes. Right now though, you are not ready for PTs.


My advice is to basically get the basics down, for LG develop a diagramming system for the different types of games, and really work on your deductive reasoning (inference making skills), each game has a game breaking inference that you will need to make in order to finish the games quickly and do well on the section. For assumption family questions in LR you need to be able to weed through the excess verbiage in the stimulus and identify the argument core with surgical precision, identify the conclusion first then the reasoning and figure out why the premises do not completely substantiate the conclusion (there will always be at least one reason, there has to be). If you're able to pre-phase an answer it'll make it easier for you to identify the correct answer, that said don't fall in the trap of eliminating wrong answer choices because they don't match up with the answer you pre-phased. The arguments almost always have many reasoning issues and sometimes the correct answer choice will either be one that you did not anticipate or if it is it may be worded in a different way so be cognizant of that too. Also, one important thing when eliminating wrong answer choices work from wrong to right, not vice versa. A skeptical state of mind is imperative to doing well on this test, especially when eliminating answer choices. Usually there are 1 or 2 blatantly wrong answer choices which that you can eliminate pretty quickly. Of the remaining choices, the wrong answers will often contain a quantifier/modifier like "most" that extends the scope of the argument or something, so play close attention to stuff like that, one word can make an otherwise seemingly correct answer incorrect. Come up with one reason for why an answer choice is incorrect, if you can't don't eliminate it because it could be the correct answer. If you blindly eliminate an answer choice which turns out to be the correct answer, it's going to make it that much harder for you to evaluate and address your thought process when you were answering that question.

@jjoushlyn I know this is kind of a lot and not well organized. So let me know if you have specific questions with what you need help on and I will do my best to guide you.

Cant Get Right

Seconding everything @"Alex Divine" said. The most immediate steps to take are first and foremost, stop taking PTs. You may as well be burning them. Once you've done that, scrap what you're doing and find a new approach. It sounds like you really need to just forget everything you've done so far and start over from scratch.

danielznelson

Honestly, 7Sage was what helped me actually understand the LSAT. I too used the PowerScore books, as I am inclined to guess most on 7Sage have, and while it did help me with some mechanics - primarily so with logic games - I had a hard time grasping LR and its questions with more than a surface-level understanding.

PowerScore and flashcards will help you with tips and tricks, but I question either's ability to allow one to garner an actual understanding of the LSAT, especially with LR. PowerScore will get you places in LG, admittedly (though 7Sage is still leaps and bounds better than PowerScore), but it seems like you may need to learn what the LSAT is actually doing - that is, the logic behind the LSAT and what it is trying to get you to perform. If you cannot see the broad picture of the LSAT as well as the underlying logic, you're dependent upon tips and tricks and mere memorization, which I imagine is difficult to utilize effectively and efficiently on a timed test.

Given what I've gathered from your studying process, it seems like you really attempted to employ specific mechanics to questions at the full expense of not intuitively understanding at all what was going on. If this is the case, a drop from your diagnostic makes a lot of sense (and a drop from a diagnostic is not so uncommon). Trying a new shooting form on game day will probably make you miss more often than usual, even if you've been playing basketball all of your life. Realize that even if you are studying effectively and if the resources you are using will end up being good for you, it takes time knowing how to use what you know.

I would recommend more than just 7Sage to you if I could, but I wasn't even a big fan of the LSAT Trainer, another resource many high scorers seem to really like. In all fairness, however, the LSAT Trainer was somewhat redundant for me by the time I started using it. Try out 7Sage (is there a free trial?), and I suspect you will see improvement in your knowledge of the test. At least eventually, that will likely reflect itself in your scores.

MrSamIam

First off, good call postponing your test. Second, don't freak out, it happens.
What exactly is the reason why you think your score dropped? Was it a timing issue? Were you having trouble with a particular question type? Did you lose a good chunk of points in 1 section?
Figure out what went wrong on that PT, and report back.

Either way, you would likely benefit from doing a few more problem sets and drilling. Strip out a few LR, LG, and RC sections from PTs 1-35, give yourself 35 minutes for each section, then BR. That should A) Help you get accustomed to the LSAT and Help you develop a list of LSAT-related issues that you need to work on.

Piecing together the information happens when you start PTing. As you take PTs and BR them, you'll develop a sense of what works and what doesn't.

Sprinkles

LOL @"Dillon A. Wright" with the edits

Nanchito-1-1

I agree with what everyone says.

Before I got 7sage all my studying was a bit unstructured. Everyday for longer than id like to admit, id crack open a book and do as many random questions as I could but I didn't have a method of attacking every kind of question type. I didn't always make huge inferences in games, or read for structure. I didn't always understand the real meaning why something was right or wrong. I also had huge expectations of myself, and id freak out when I didn't meet them.

Once I got 7sage I got the tools I needed to do these things, and I muffled those expectations of myself and took it day by day.

Take the time to go over this test and figure out what went wrong. What do you need to do? have a better understanding of your fundamentals? Practice drilling what you've learned? Do you need to work faster or smarter by skipping questions?

We're here to help you if you have further questions.