Comments

• AlexRexeger Alum Member

  May 2018 178 karma

  Oh and also, just to clarify, I BR every preptest and I have been keeping a list of every LR question I get wrong and reviewing it at a later date.
• thinkorswim Alum Member

  May 2018 433 karma

  Hi Alex. Im actually in a similar position as you and I decided to delay to July. I was averaging around the 165 range except most of my missed questions are from RC (-10). I think this question depends on where your missed points are coming from. I really don't think a few months is a great big deal of difference in terms of the "bigger picture". As for your stress, I'm also stressed and have been in the burnt out phase. I think to overcome this, the correct way of thinking is that your 170+ will come when the time is right AND when you have earned it. It's just a matter of time and commitment not WHETHER you or I will ever reach that 170 as I am certain we will!! FYI , i've been studying for close to 18 months and still going strong. So don't let a few months put your off from achieving your goals.
• studyingandrestudying Core Member

  May 2018 5254 karma

  I'm not an expert, but maybe wait about 2 weeks and then see where things are at. Also, I like what @VanishingTaxAct said.
• 1 Like

  keets993 Alum Member ⭐ ⏰ 🍌

  May 2018 6050 karma

  I think it depends on what your BR score is and if you've hit 170+ yet in in a PT. Your BR score represents your theoretical maximum so if you're not BR-ing or PT-ing in the 170s then chances of you hitting it on test day is less probable. To me (and I could be wrong) it sounds like you might want to delay and are seeking confirmation that it is acceptable and not a bad thing. I know in my life, a lot of people who hadn't taken the LSAT, told me that "you never know" or that I could perform better than my PT on the actual thing. I think it'd be helpful if you stated your actual scores over the past PTs instead of the average. Getting a few high 160s or a couple in the low 170s as opposed to being gathered mid 160's helps to tailor the advice more.

  If you feel like you are burning out then take a week or so off from everything LSAT related. That might yield an increase in your PT score.

  I'd also suggest deciding now only if you want to delay to July or Sept. Not only with it save you money from delaying twice but also save you the emotional and psychological turmoil that can arise as a result of delaying multiple times.

  Best of luck!
• 1 Like

  Tom_Tango Alum Member

  May 2018 902 karma

  take both
• Return On Inference Alum Member

  May 2018 503 karma

  How variable are your scores? Do you sometimes hit 170+ if you have a good day? If so, I think you should take it in June.

  I'm in a somewhat similar circumstance. I desperately want to score 175+, but my current average is 172-173, a few points short. My scores are variable though, sometimes I'll score 170, other times 175+, and it really depends on how my guesses go during the exam.

  I'm not postponing on the principle that I might have a good day on exam day and get some lucky guesses.
• AlexRexeger Alum Member

  May 2018 178 karma

  So the last 5 lsat scores I got were:

  172
  166
  164
  165
  168

  Honestly I don't score when I BR. It's definitely much higher than what I get during timed test times.
• AlexRexeger Alum Member

  May 2018 178 karma

  Looking back on it, I think keets993 is right. I do want to postpone it, because I want to max out my score as much as possible. Preferably I would like to get something around 173. So I am more so debating whether or not I should postpone until July or if I should just go ahead and postpone until September. I want to start applying in the fall so I wanted the summer to start preparing my apps rather than having to study for the test. But it seems like it's the only chance of getting what I really want.
• keets993 Alum Member ⭐ ⏰ 🍌

  May 2018 6050 karma

  @AlexRexeger Hey Alex, so I would suggest scoring your BR score because as I stated before your BR score is your theoretical maximum. What that means is, the chances of you scoring higher timed than what your blind review score is is low because if you don't have that fundamental understanding when you're not being timed then how can you when it's timed.

  So since you're in the mid 160's range, you have a good grasp on the fundamentals. I think the challenge of getting up to 170s is doing confidence drills where you lower your threshold for certainty. So if you're 80% sure an answer choice is correct but you waste an extra 40 seconds or a minute trying to figure out why exactly that last remaining answer choice is correct, you're wasting valuable time. So instead of trying to get to that 100% certainty for every question, you need to be comfortable with choosing something you're pretty sure of and moving on.

  I'm going to tag some lovely people who have gotten past that hurdle on mid 160s to scoring in 170s and hopefully they can give you some more detailed direction on steps. And whether you're better off delaying to July or September.

  @"Seeking Perfection" @LSATcantwin @"Cant Get Right"
• 3 Likes

  LSATcantwin Alum Member Sage ⭐

  May 2018 edited May 2018 13286 karma

  Hey! @keets993 has summoned me!

  So, bad news - we cannot ever accuratly predict if you can break the 170+ in time for these tests.

  Worse news - from experience and evidence the likely hood of breaking into 170+ from the mid 160's is small.

  So I opened with two harsh truths. It sucks and hurts to hear, but we all heard that when we started. I know @"Seeking Perfection" and @"Cant Get Right" at one point or another also felt the time crunch of the test. I know for a fact that @"Cant Get Right" and I both took the test before we were ready our first time and watched our performance tank on the actual thing.

  Time for some good news though, you absolutely can get 170+ on the LSAT. It will take 3 things, patience, persistence, and time. There is simply no way around it. You will have to sit down and climb that hill struggling for every point. The higher up the hill you get the harder it gets to climb. When you start nearing the 170 mark you are literally talking about 1-2 questions that will make or break your score. You need to hammer out every hiccup you find on this test over and over again.

  Some questions I am left with are;

  1.) Why do you HAVE to take June/July? There is a Sept and Oct test that will give you much more time to study and break into the 170's AND you will still be able to apply early.

  2.) Where are you struggling? LG/LR/RC? what type of questions? What are you doing to fix things you are missing? Just taking PT's wont help you improve, you need to dive into the problems you are getting wrong and figure out why. Then drill it into your head so you don't repeat the mistake.

  Edit: I also see you want help for the 170 hurddle (sorry didnt read comments)

  The biggest thing for 170+ is getting three things down pat.

  1.) Timing, you need to be able to finish a section on time, with time to spare. Getting that few extra minutes at the end of each section to go back and "clean up" can bump you 1-2 points you would have missed if you couldn't go back. (maybe not in RC)

  2.) Accuracy - You need to read a stem and know EXACTLY what you are doing right away. You need to know the mechanics of the test so well that when you read a stim you are already thinking about flaws, method of reasoning, or gaps in the argument. You want to be prephrasing so well that sometimes you wont even need to read all the AC to find the right one (still should read all briefly to be sure imo)

  3.) Staying on your game, avoiding stress and burnout. This one is really important. Your brain needs to be rested and fresh for the real test. It can not have just done 5 PT's in the week leading up to it. It can't be worried about the clock during the test, it needs to be focused on the job it is doing. You need to get yourself extremely comfortable with the LSAT to the point where you are confident in what you are doing. You know it is 24-25-26 questions in LR, you know its 23-24 in LG, you know RC is 26/27. You don't care which is experimental because you can handle it all. All these little "stressors" need to be dealt with. You also need sleep and real breaks from studying (like days)

  If you continue to be diligent and can master these things a 170+ score should be not TOOO hard to obtain.
• 2 Likes

  Seeking Perfection Alum Member

  May 2018 4428 karma

  I too was summoned by @keets993.

  For me I started in the high 160s and worked my way up to the high 170's getting lucky and scoring a 180 on my retake.

  I like almost everyone had a long plateau where it was hard to improve. My diagnostic was a 168. I got to an average of 173 mostly thrpugh a couple weeks of practice PTs and famaliarizing myself before I took my first test with about half of all my errors on PTs coming on logic games. I didn't finish the logic games section of that test and still scored a 172. So the path was really clear for me. Foolproofing logic games using 7sage was obviously what I needed to do. It took about a month and a half to get regularly to perfect logic games foolproofing by section. Once I was there I was usually getting over 175 on PTs. A little fine tuning by drilling all the LR questions I had ever missed and continuing to foolproof sections as I PTd and I got so I was mostly getting 177's and 178's.

  Because of this I would always recommend foolproofing first if you are not perfect or a -1 average on logic games. When people found out I was scoring around the low 170's without foolproofing games, they knew I could improve significantly even though it is rare from that starting point because almost everyone can get to a -0 or -1 average on games through foolproofing.

  After that your easiest place to gather points will be LR because the most questions are there and because RC is hardest to improve. I didn't need any huge gains, but I would still recommend doing something fairly close to what I did. Keep track of the questions that you miss. And after you have the correct explanation for why each wrong answer is wrong and each right answer is right, just flip through them and work through them. It will get easy to know the right answer pretty quick, but you want to focus on thinking about why it is the right answer, why the others are wrong, and how you could have realized this on the test. I went through all my mistakes many times. Keeping careful track of missed questions will also let you notice more if you happen to miss certain types more often. If you do find a pattern, go back to the CC and the problem sets and solidify your understanding on those question types. For LR some people like to use a skipping strategy. I always found that having to go back wasted time for me. So experiment a little giving different skipping strategies a chance and see if you can get some edge from them.

  Remember though, that just like logic games in logical reasoning there is always a right answer and you just need to find and prove it. There also are not any really hard LR questions. There are just ones where the answer is a little more or less obvious than others. By doing more and more of that type you are getting better and better at finding the answer quicker until the LR section seems pretty easy. For me on a lot of the LR question types that intuition was naturally there, but if that section is your weakness, you may have to build up an intuition.

  Finally there is RC. For many people this section poses the hardest challenge as far as time is concerned. At first you are going to blame the fact that there are longer passages that are harder to read for this timing challenge. However, if you just go read the passages from a test you have already used, you will find that this is not quite true. You probably can read through the passages and pretty much understand them in a third of the time or maybe half of it. What takes the time is actually reading the questions and then trying to find out where the info is in the passages to answer them. So what you need to get better at if time is an issue is remembering where information is located in a passage and how each paragraph and the sentences within it work to support the argument of the passage. Once you can do that you will find that many of the main point questions don't even require you to look back and that many of the others can be answered quickly when you remember where to look.

  So in summary, logic games should be basically perfected first. This is attainable by June and definitely by July. After that clean up LR looking for any patterns and working on any question you can't get completely sure of in blind review by looking up an explanation you understand. Finally focus on memorizing the structure of reading comp sections to relieve the time pressure there. Major improvement here alongside the other sections will take all summer as a minimum.

  I hope this helps. You might be able to get more specific advice if you give us your section averages.
  LG: -5 LR: -2 LR: -3 RC -3 will get far different advice than
  LG: -0 LR:-2 LR:-0 RC: -10