Finished with curriculum - December LSAT Game plan

jennilynn89

Hey everyone!

I've finally officially finished the Core curriculum. WOO! There's still MUCH to improve, but I'm feeling pretty good about myself. Ready to gear up for the December LSAT!
Taking my first PT this evening post curriculum and am hoping that my confidence won't mislead me. AKA if my score is lower than I thought, I won't let it bring me down and use this as a great learning experience to improve much more on the ones to come. Positive mindset FTW.

How have you all attacked this beast post-curriculum? I work full-time 8-5 Mon through Frid and have been studying after work almost every night for 2-4 hours and on the weekend for 3-6 hours each day.

I'm thinking maybe two PT's plus BR every week? Like take a PT Monday, BR Tues and Weds, take a break Thursday, Drill Friday, and take another PT Saturday and BR Sunday. Or something along those guidelines.

Would love to hear everyone's suggestions/ideas.

Alex

Congrats on finishing your first go through of the CC.

You'll be returning to it quite a bit (hopefully) during your PT phase. That is why I love 7Sage because you are never done improving and learning!

I think your plan looks great! I work full-time as well (similar hours) and doing something similar has worked great for me. 2 tests is also a great place to start.

Good luck!

jennilynn89

Thanks, @"Alex Divine" ! Good to hear that study schedule has worked for you. Trying not to deal with burnout, so I'll see how it goes for me.

Do you find yourself drilling more some weeks and just taking one PT instead of two? I'd really like to do two a week to make sure that I get enough under my belt before December, but know that I also need to focus on my fundamentals and understanding of everything.

Also do you add an experimental to your PT practice? Wondering if I should add that experimental now or later into the testing phase.

theLSATdreamer

yes ! add an experiemental, what i do is whatever i did worse on the previous PT i add an extra portion to my next PT and I count the one I did the worse in not the one i did well in. but do it mainly to get used to the timing issue , congrats btw!!

Nanchito-1-1

What's your target score @jennilynn89 ?

jennilynn89

@giordanifabiano thank you! I didn't know if I should take it slow first, work on the 4 sections, then add an experimental in a couple weeks, once I'm a little more conditioned to taking PT's? I was thinking about substituting the experimental with extra drills in areas I find myself struggling with.

@nanchito I'd love to score in the low to mid 160s.

Nanchito-1-1

Definitely drill games. Get to know what your weaknesses are and try and get your timing to recommended timing or below. It's the fastest thing some people can improve on.

Alex

@jennilynn89 said:
Do you find yourself drilling more some weeks and just taking one PT instead of two? I'd really like to do two a week to make sure that I get enough under my belt before December, but know that I also need to focus on my fundamentals and understanding of everything.

Also do you add an experimental to your PT practice? Wondering if I should add that experimental now or later into the testing phase.

I'm not at the PT phase just yet, but hopefully soon I decided to do essentially what @nanchito said and perfect my LGs first. What has actually helped me is doing timed sections and continuing to fool proof games to get my time down and my accuracy up. LG is definitely a place where you can tack on some points, especially if you are missing more than 4-5 per section.

If you think you need work with fundamentals, I would push back your PT start date and maybe revisit and revise some of the lessons you feel you need some work on. Maybe perhaps do timed sections for now?

I would not add an experimental in right away. I think it is something that should be built up to. My plan is to do some without experimental sections first, and then maybe begin to add them in after I've done 5 or so PTs.

Cant Get Right

@jennilynn89 said:
I've finally officially finished the Core curriculum. WOO!

Such a good feeling to see that progress tracker roll over to 100% complete! Congrats! (If you're stuck on 99% scroll down into the PTs, there's a hidden lesson on LG rule replacements!)

So, welcome to the PT/BR phase! I like kind of a tiered approach. To start out, really all you're going to be doing is identifying which parts of the curriculum you need to return to. I say start out at 1 PT a week. Take it. BR it. Then analyze it to identify weaknesses. Then return to the curriculum and drill to reinforce the things the PT/BR tells you to. For your BR, really take your time to do it right. Write out your reasoning. Break down the stimulus, break down each answer choice, and explain in detail for each answer choice why it is either right or wrong. Make sure you're working on a clean copy of the test for your BR as well. Knowing your PT answer will skew your judgement. BR takes a long time at the beginning.

Do this until you are consistently scoring at or, even better, a little above your target score on your BR. From there, I think the study strategy shifts. Your BR is your max potential, so at this point you need to start thinking about bridging the gap and reaching your potential. Begin thinking about test taking strategies as well as the fundamentals. You've got to develop effective skipping and pacing strategies, but until you've got a solid footing on the fundamentals, this can be counter productive. I think it's really useful to film your tests during this phase. You can learn so much from reviewing footage, both about strategy and individual questions. During this phase, you'll start finding you have a little less to do between tests. You've still got to return to the curriculum and drill wherever you need, but your needs should become fewer and more focused; and your BR should be a bit quicker. At this point, you can use that extra time to start thinking about kicking it up to 2 PTs a week. Just make sure you're not having to sacrifice quality for quantity!

The third tier is really hard to get to. This is where you've bridged the gap to your BR score and you're scoring at or above your target score. Along the way, you should have increased your BR score. From here it's maintenance and really maxing out your potential. You can think about upping your target score, but it's mostly staying sharp at this point. You do everything the same as before, but there's a very different feel to it. Maybe it was acceptable to go -4 in reading before so you may decide, okay, let's bump that down to -2. Or maybe LR is your jam and you want to really utilize that strength to go from -2 per section to -2 per test. You get to really start honing in on individual points here, which is really fun.

Along the way, you should be foolproofing games constantly.

You also want to make sure you've got a solid PT schedule. So, for tier one, stick to the older tests. Once you get to the second level though, start mixing it up. You don't want to go in sequence and end up the week before the test having never worked a 70's series PT. The 70's have their unique subtleties and most people experience a significant drop in their average score when they get there. So you want to start seeing some of those sooner rather than later, you just don't want to take them before you're advanced enough to be able to really benefit from them. It's kind of a goldilocks situation.

You also don't want to invest too much emotionally in how these PTs go. You're going to have good ones and you're going to have bad ones, and you can't beat yourself up about it when you crash and burn. It will happen and your response should be cold and rational, lol. Easier said than done, but when you tank a PT, respond by recognizing that you had more weaknesses than you realized and that uncovering those is a good thing. By exposing them, you will be able to address them and not make those mistakes again on the real thing. That's all that matters, so if you totally blow a PT, good.

Hope this is useful, and good luck on your first PT out of the curriculum! It's an exciting one!

jennilynn89

@nanchito yes, I'm absolutely planning on hitting games hard! It's my strongest section and I want to make sure to perfect it to the best of my ability. Going to be foolproofing like nobody's business!

@"Alex Divine" thanks for the input! I think I'm going to try your approach and maybe take it slow on the PTs first, and drill some more this week and next week. I think I'm going to go ahead and take my first PT just to kind of see where I stand and go from there and work on my weaknesses. Are you planning on taking the test in December as well?

@"Cant Get Right" OMG THIS RIGHT HERE. This is so incredibly helpful, thank you so much!!!! I actually just printed everything you wrote and am going to incorporate all of your ideas/techniques into my daily study schedule from here on out. Thank you a billion times! I'm also looking forward to finally joining in on those BR sessions soon!
Do you know if there will be a new schedule for December test takers?

citizenkanye

@"Cant Get Right" thank you so much for this breakdown! Would you say that the 29 - 38 book of PTs is okay for the tier one phase, or should we focus on the 50s PTs instead during this phase? Thank you for sharing all this wonderful knowledge and experience with us!

Alex

@"Cant Get Right" You are my hero. Have I ever told you that?