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Just feeling stuck
LSATStudent780
Alum Member
I'm going to vent a little bit on here. At the start, I took the initial PrepTest June 2007 and got 144. I missed 51 questions then. Now, I took my first PT 62 from December 2010 and got 144. I missed 57 questions. I feel defeated. My logic games did go up, so I am happy about that. I just want to prepare effectively for September and I am not sure whether I should take Kaplan? So far, I just finished the CC and took the first test, so maybe I need to do the drilling too. What suggestions do you have? Thanks for the help, guys!
Comments
Well, what about your blind review? I mean, if you've got a pretty high blind review score, then you just need to work on getting faster. If not, you should take note of your confidence (under and over) errors and figure out what made you make them.
I cannot emphasize enough how conducive properly doing the blind review method can be to seeing gains in your scores, especially in the beginning.
I've never heard anything good about Kaplan, I have heard it called Craplan at least 5 times from people who have used it. So I'd say it's not the best bet
Don't bother with Kaplan! I wasted 3 weeks on it and although it did increase my score by a few points I didn't feel anymore prepared or confident during practice tests. Keep at it and don't be too hard on yourself! I know its not TONS of time, but you still do have time to improve a lot before September
If you're still in the 140s after completing the CC the first thing I think you must do is seriously reflect on how much you actually learned anything from it. I don't say this to sound harsh, but I would suggest that you ask yourself whether you retained the concepts in the CC and are actually implementing its strategies.
For example, do you know how to attack NA questions as JY does? Do you feel comfortable translating English into conditional logic using arrows/symbols? If I give you an average length stimulus right now can you quickly identify the premises, conclusion, support structure, and argument type? For RC, are you comfortable identifying passage structure and forming low res paragraph-level summaries in your mind as you read? For LG did you do any foolproofing?
When you went through the CC how much time did you spend on it? Did you attempt some of the questions in the videos yourself before watching the explanation all the way through? In the 140s you're probably missing a substantial amount of questions in all sections and probably of virtually all question types, so you should go back over your most recent PT and compare each question you missed to the content in the CC that covers that kind of question. Ask yourself what gave you difficulty on that question and then compare that to what the CC has to say about it. You might find that there are concepts in the CC you weren't implementing and you should start by addressing these.
Hope this helps a bit, feel free to write back if there's anything else!
Is this your first PT post CC? If so, that's pretty normal for you to score near your diagnostic. It's really rare for most people to improve drastically on their first PT post CC. Also, your blind review score, will give us a better understanding of your maximum potential because it's what you're theoretically capable of timed conditions.
The whole purpose of CC is to build your fundamentals/knowledge. PTs test your application. For most people, the application is not the same level as their knowledge because they haven't tested their application. I know that I didn't do anything timed while I worked my way through the curriculum (aside from fool proofing games) so think of all the hours you put into working on your fundamentals as opposed to the hours you've put in doing all this timed.
Depending on your BR score, and its proximity to your goal score, there's a number of things you could do: revisit CC, do timed drills, do untimed drills. There's a webinar you can watch that explains this in detail:
https://7sage.com/webinar/post-core-curriculum-study-strategies/
Also, I'd caution against the temptation to try new methodology so soon. I know it feels frustrating because you put in so much effort and time to complete the CC but that's only about 1/3 of the journey needed. Don't let your pride get in the way of your studies, or think that you 'deserve' a certain score (I know I did).
As said above, it’s super common for people to score the same immediately after the CC. I think I only improved about 3 points up from my diagnostic, and I had spent a couple months studying with Powerscore before 7sage too. It takes a little bit of time to actually learn how to apply what you learned in the cc.
For now, put aside doing PTs for a little bit. Early on like this, you probably only need to do one every 2 or 3 weeks, to check in on your progress. Try working on some drills by question type and practicing sections untuned. Definitely watch the post-core curriculum study strategies webinar. It will give you so many great ideas on how to study. And try foolproofing games to get a better grasp on LG.
You can do this! It’s tedious and the work takes time, but I truly believe you will get there!
These are all good responses. I'd say that the most improvement comes after the CC, as you learn to apply the concepts you've learned on actual, timed PTs. All that a -57 means is you have 57 hints as to how you can improve. Seize on every single one!
Thank you so much for your help! How could I do the timed rills and untimed drills? I only have the starter package, so am I missing that? I am just confused
@keets993 said:
Thank you so much for the advice! How could I do the timed rills and untimed drills? I only have the starter package, so am I missing that?
@LSATStudent780 the drills aren't something provided to you by the curriculum but what you do with outside resources.
The two most common types are section drills and question-type drills. Section drills are where you drill a section (so say LG from PT37) to get a better idea of your weak points and to improve on them. You can do timed drills, where you set a timer for 35 minutes, and you treat it as the real thing (with the bubble sheet!) so that you get more accustomed to timing and strategies for time-management. You can also do sections untimed, which is where you have a stop-watch, and you move at a comfortable pace to see how long it takes you to do a section. Of course the untimed drills are not BR so you shouldn't take say 5 minutes on 1 LR question. These drills help to answer how much panic and anxiety contributes to your scores and how much of it is a lack of fundamentals, etc.
For question-type drills you can use the question bank to compile a list of questions of say, flaw questions and choose a difficulty level too. Then you do these questions yourself (generally untimed). Question-type drills help you isolate weaknesses and help you figure out if its something more fundamental (like nature of support) or if it's timing. By doing a bunch of a specific question types in a row, it's also easier to see how they are all related and cookie-cutter in a sense. By cookie-cutter, I mean that there are only so many finite varities of structure that the LSAT compiles for all 3 sections. So the more exposure you get, the more patterns you can gleam and generally this translates to better management of time.
It's also highly recommended that you film yourself while doing drills or PTs so you have proof of how you manage your time. For example, did you spend 2 minutes agonizing between 2 answer choices and then get it wrong anyway? That's not a good use of your time because you could've done it in 30 seconds (and still have the same -1) and then used that 1:30 on questions that could've been banked. The philospophy is that since every question has an equal weight, you need to get as many 'low-hanging fruit' as you can. Also, it's hard to remember whether you spent too much time or too little on a question, so the video is indisputable proof.
Hope that anwers your questions! Let me know if you have more
I don't have advice that hasn't already been given, but seriously, DO NOT go with Kaplan unless you are really struggling with the basics. In my opinion, if you're willing to spend the money on Kaplan, you should upgrade your 7sage course instead.
I will have to agree about Kaplan. I took Kaplan last summer and do not recommend it - specially since you are done with the CC. If you want additional resources you can always consider the LSAT Trainer by Mike Kim. That goes very well one you finish the CC. But please don't waste your money with Kaplan - their teaching methods are different so you will most likely get confused after going through the CC.