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70 hours of prep later - no score improvement
Ohnoeshalpme
Alum Member ⭐
I took PT 63 yesterday and scored on the low-end of my PT average (158). This is the same score that I got on my last 2 practice tests and I am starting to worry that there is something seriously wrong with my method. While my LG scores have increased from a -7 to a -1 in this time, my RC has gone down from a -9 to a -12, and my LR per section has gone down from a -6 to a -8.
To address my problems with RC, these last two weeks I did around 20 sections of RC, timed. Toward the end, I felt more confident in the section than I did two weeks earlier (-12). During practice, even for 5/5 diff passages I was able to swing a -1 in around 8 minutes. Come PT 63, no such luck. I struggled through the first two passages and then hit a tough science passage which ate up the rest of my time. I didn't even get a chance to read the last passage. All in all, the passages seemed more challenging than the ones that I had done previously - the structure was less straightforward and the arguments were more well-hidden in the superfluous-word-weeds. Is this just a factor of the increased difficulty of RC in more recent tests? How am I supposed to prep for this level of difficulty without wasting new material? Should I start drilling by section in RC? I am just really lost for the method of how to improve here. I know that RC is challenging to improve but it doesn't seem out of reach for me to improve from an average of -10 to a -5 for example.
Secondly, I also drilled all of the question types that I had a problem with in LR between each test. I watched my video of the latest PT and gained some valuable insight into where I was wasting time. I felt great about PT 63's LR sections actually but I totally bombed them. On the second LR section in the test I scored a -11 which is the lowest I've ever gotten in a LR section - even worse than my diagnostic a year ago. I don't feel hopeless, but it seems crazy to me that I can feel like I did well on a section and get a -11. Does drilling by question type actually work? If so, where does the emphasis need to be? Is it in the BR of those question types, or is it just by understanding the theory and then applying it quickly? Should I switch to section drilling for LR?
I realize there are more questions in here than one person really wants to answer, but if you have any insight into this type of score plateau I'd love to hear about it. If you feel that you have a good answer to any one of these questions please let me know 
PS: I was wondering if consulting a tutor would be worth my time, maybe some of you can throw in your two cents about the tutors for 7sage if you worked with them and if they were worth the money.
Comments
I can't comment on RC as I didn't work on it. I won't comment on LG because I sucked at it.
Regarding LR sections, how are you doing on time? How do you approach questions? What do you do when you get to a question you don't understand? When you BR your test, how many are you getting wrong in the section? If it's more than a question or two, then you're taking educated guesses.
My own experience (taking roughly 10 PTs) is that the difficulty of sections varies among tests. If you're aiming for an elite score, then you need to be acing even the most difficult scenarios. If you aren't aiming for a top score, then I suggest you hesitate to make a broad generalization of your skills from a single PT.
@10000019 I finished the section in time. Side note: I just finished my BR, and found that the questions I missed weren't the super hard ones, but I missed some 1-3 diff questions that I skimmed over/missed a word because I worked too quickly on them. I actually was done with q19 at around 17 minutes so I slowed down and got the last 6 harder ones correct.
My approach to questions is to read the question stem and then apply my strategy to the stimulus as im reading it. I try to predict an answer and then hunt through the answer choices. If it's below 18ish I usually just go with my gut and circle and move on. I tend to slow down for the last 6 questions or so to make sure that I am not falling for anything.
In my BR I tend to miss about 2 for a given LR section.
Have you gotten through the entire CC in 70 hours? I've been working at the CC for a few hundred, and I'm still not done with RC. I would suggest slowing down and redoing the problem sets. 70 hours is really not a lot of study time when it comes to the LSAT, although it feels like a million hours.
My PT score was the same for I think 4 PTs in a row. Then jumped a few points up, then dipped a few points down (although still 2 points above my plateau). Plateaus happen. Putting in hours doesn’t necessarily mean your score will improve. It’s about quality of study, not necessarily quantity.
You should certainly drill by type at this point. Drilling by type only becomes arbitrary once you’re in the 170s.
I BR and then drill by type as I’m BRing. If I notice I missed a weaken question bc of a fundamentals issue, I’ll just pause BRing to drill 10 weaken qs to implement whatever I learned.
Note that in the CC, amongst the PTs there are drill by type sets.
It took me like 5 months to get through the CC, but I have about 150 hours of CC done. I was referring to the 70 hours of prep between the first 158 and the most recent 158.
Yeah I worked through all if the PSA and SA in both the CC and the first 10 tests but still find them to be the hardest question type. I don't feel as though the drilling improved my ability at all, and my poor performance across a month of data corroborates that.
I understand your frustations, I had something similar happen. Someone told me that you should focus on the individual sections within the test as a whole instead of the overall PT score. So for example, examine why a particular LR section was good for you or bad. Was it because that section just had more question types that you struggle with, did you fall into the traps the writers set out for you, etc.
Were you rushing? I've found that the time constraint can lead to a form of rushing where you don't even realize you're rushing. As a result, you think you did well, but only because you didn't realize that you didn't thoroughly understand things. This can also lead to careless mistakes and errors where you misread a word, q-stem, misread a rule on LG, etc.
Another big thing is active reading. This is tied in to the rushing aspect. Do you pause to think about what you just read and try to tie it together, activiely, as you go through the stimulus?
I think drilling by type is worth it because it gives you more data. Like...not all questions are made equally. Some 5-star questions might be difficult for others but easy and obvious to you. Whereas a 1-star or 3-star question that gives you trouble might not be difficult for someone else. In that aspect it might be helpful to get a tutor to have them point out your weaknesses.
Sometimes it can just be you getting lax. Most of us started out somewhere and so when we see decent PT score or high BR scores we start to get comfortable with being in that range and we need to be constantly aware that we aren't allowing ourselves to fall into or create bad habits.
Was your BR score similar to what it usually is?
How many PTs do you do a week? Also, I highly recommend just throwing the LR from the first...39 tests in the trash. If you solely drilled from PT 1-10 then that explains why you might be doing well on drills and then missing the same question types when you PT. I recommend drilling LR in the 40s-50s.
@keets993 I think that I have experienced a little bit from each point that you bring up - the "I have all summer to study" mentality relaxed me a little bit, the "clock" ticking makes me rush a little bit (which is why I think section drilling would be useful). I also feel like I have developed some bad habits in the name of speed. I have a hard time striking a balance between speed and accuracy because I have very little experience with section drilling or taking PT's in general.
For LR I was -2, -4 respectively which is consistent with my BR in general. For the test overall I scored a 171 BR and my BR average is a 172. The questions that I missed in BR were mostly questions that I had not circled. That is, questions that I thought I knew during the test but actually was not correct about.
Why do you say that about PT's 1-10? Is LR that much different now than it was back then? Also, how do I manage this without wasting valuable PT's?
I do about 0.3 PT's a week.
Aside from the 4-5 star questions yes LR is that different. It’s a lot more nuanced now. I score 3-5 points higher in the earlier PTs than PTs 60-80 and consequently no longer PT in the early PTs. You shouldn’t need to take more than 20 PTs so just save like 64-84 for PTs. You need something to study from. PTs are just diagnostics.
I also recommend taking a PT untimed. And also taking a PT timed as usual and reviewing the entire thing question by question. It takes a while but it is helpful.
.3 PTS a week? Does that mean you only drill half a section a week or?
What is your study schedule like?
@"surfy surf" I do about one PT every 2-3 weeks. Sorry for putting it in such a weird format lol. That's just what came to mind. I generally take a PT on saturday, i'll BR on sunday, review footage on monday and then print out 2 weeks worth of drilling material, which include LR question types that are listed as high priority in the analytics and i'll print out probably 20-30 RC passages and go through those. I also have done everything timed and I have never BR'ed anything that I have drilled. I'll also point out that this isn't some regular schedule, I have only taken 4 PT's since finishing the CC and only 2 of those since finishing fool-proofing. So all-in-all I have only 2 PT's since I started working on LR and RC (aside from what was in the CC).
Not improving immediately after taking the CC and having only done a few prep tests isn’t a novel occurrence. It sounds like you have a good schedule going. Just keep working at it and you will improve. You can’t expect to immediately have huge gains. The fact that you are consistent and not getting worse is good enough at this point. Maybe record yourself taking the PT and see if there are timing issues.
How much are you studying every day? Is it a lot? Do you take full days off? I wonder if there might be some burn out involved here.
I think you maybe should do more work in timed sections instead of by question type. I think the question type thing is helpful for recognizing patterns and learning to have the format be second nature. You read the stem and stimulus, and know what you should be looking for in the answers.
Once you feel like you really know how all the question types work, I think it’s more valuable to concentrate on timed sections and BRing them. This will help you get used to seeing them all mixed in and learn strategies for how to do the test - learn skipping strategies, timing, etc.
If you think you are sacrificing accuracy for speed, I’d try doing some full sections but instead of counting down, do them as fast as you can (but accurately) and see how long it takes. Then you have an idea of how far off you really are on timing. If it takes you 45 minutes to do a section accurately, you’ll know you need to shave down by 10 minutes.
Have you watched the webinar “Post-core curriculum study strategies”? It’s soooo helpful.
I think you're going wayyyy too fast for the LR sections if you're at question 19 at 17 minutes. Realistically every question (hard or easy) is worth 1 point so take time to look over every answer choice in LR, even if you feel like you found the right answer already. Cause like you said, the questions you got wrong weren't even the ones you circled. I hit around 23-24 minutes at question 19, and I think it might benefit you to just take the extra time to really eliminate all answer choices despite how confident you might be. I managed to maintain a very high accuracy by slowing down and just making sure my questions are correct, generally finishing an LR section at exactly 34-35 minutes at -0/-1. Also, are you rushing through your RC sections the same way?
For RC I struggle for time. I usually can finish 3 passages comfortably but I have to rush if I want to get all 4 done.
I study about 2-4 hours on any given day and I take a day off of the LSAT during the work week. I agree with your point about section drilling. I feel like a mixture of question type and section drilling will deal with this over time. I am just having a hard time deciding what tests to draw from for section/type drilling.
I have watched the Post-CC study strategies video twice actually, I really like it but i'm hesitant to follow it when I don't see progress.