Extreme score variation

Comments

• 10000019 Alum Member

  July 2018 3279 karma

  How many tests have you taken in the 70s and 80s? Sectional scores?

  I had a sharp drop when I first started taking modern tests. I had to accept that the credited response may be the best of five bad answer choices. I feel as if the old tests were mainly deductive reasoning, while the new tests incorporate inductive reasoning.
• 1 Like

  _oshun1_ Alum Member

  July 2018 edited July 2018 3652 karma

  100% same re score differences from the 50s to the 70-80s. I had that exact same drop, I took C2 and got a 172 last week, then took PT82 a few days later and got a 167. All I can say is good luck to you and I hope the July test feels like C2 for us. If not, we have time to keep working to better at the 70-80s and retake in the Fall.
• samantha.ashley92 Alum Member

  July 2018 1777 karma

  Yesterday, I did the LR sections from a PT in the 30s and got -3 on each LR section. Today, I did LR sections from PT 60 and got -8 on each one. I guess this is normal because it's not like I lost a ton of brain cells between yesterday and today.
• mgzero2 Alum Member

  July 2018 edited July 2018 86 karma

  This might be late but I talked about this when another person asked me on difference between older and newer tests.

  See here: https://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/16973/are-the-older-lr-sections-easier

  I figured this out after struggling myself with that extreme variation you are mentioning. I didn't understand why until I saw how much better I was at "deductive" and how much less confident I was on "inductive". You might be suffering something similar as this shift is quite prevalent in LR and RC.

  Someone else already mentioned it but I figured more vouching for this idea can't hurt.

  This difference for me crippled my score in the high 170s to high 160s. I would say that is a VERY REAL difference. I even once posted about how frustrated I was just like you with this since most people have tight scores. I was seeing 10+ pt difference.
• 1 Like

  JustDoIt Alum Member ⭐

  July 2018 3112 karma

  I think that large score fluctuations are great! It shows that you still have so much to learn. It also demonstrates that you aren't ready for the test which is perfectly fine. This gives you an opportunity to identify your weaknesses and what habits are resulting in the lower scores. Also, C2 is one of the easiest tests of all time so it is not of great use to determine your overall understanding.
• 1 Like

  Leah M B Alum Member ⭐

  July 2018 8392 karma

  I think for the later tests, there tends to be more nuance in the answer choices. I feel like there are more "trap" answers, choices that are maybe just a shade of meaning away from being correct. In earlier tests, I feel like the wrong answers were more blatantly wrong instead of "almost right". It's hard to describe, but being more careful about choosing an answer helped me. Being more skeptical to make sure the choice I picked is not just slightly off from correct, or that another answer isn't more correct.

  I think in recent LGs, the most common pattern has been 1-2 really simple, easy games (think, 1 line sequencing, in/out grouping) and then 1 or 2 miscellaneous games that are difficult. You need to be a little better at improvising game boards for funky games, and it's usually the more difficult ones that do this.
• ebalde1234 Member

  July 2018 905 karma

  @"Leah M B" said:
  I think for the later tests, there tends to be more nuance in the answer choices. I feel like there are more "trap" answers, choices that are maybe just a shade of meaning away from being correct. In earlier tests, I feel like the wrong answers were more blatantly wrong instead of "almost right". It's hard to describe, but being more careful about choosing an answer helped me. Being more skeptical to make sure the choice I picked is not just slightly off from correct, or that another answer isn't more correct.

  I think in recent LGs, the most common pattern has been 1-2 really simple, easy games (think, 1 line sequencing, in/out grouping) and then 1 or 2 miscellaneous games that are difficult. You need to be a little better at improvising game boards for funky games, and it's usually the more difficult ones that do this.

  Very accurate
• ebalde1234 Member

  July 2018 905 karma

  How do we make the adjustment for lr? To inductive
• JustDoIt Alum Member ⭐

  July 2018 3112 karma

  @ebalde1234 said:
  How do we make the adjustment for lr? To inductive

  Just do it

  (aka practice, review, repeat)
• ebalde1234 Member

  July 2018 905 karma

  Hah lol
• mgzero2 Alum Member

  July 2018 edited July 2018 86 karma

  @ebalde1234 said:
  How do we make the adjustment for lr? To inductive

  By understanding the strength of the statement you read and not going too far or too low. With it you're always aiming for the bullseye in answers to match the evidence given to you in the stimulus. Older tests didn't test you on subtleties of words while the newer LSATs will always do this. Even on flaws. Gives you great sound answer choices and almost word for word answer choices but differentiate one answer to another by the strength of the adjective.

  When it rains the dog will almost be certain to bark. It rained on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Therefore the dog barked on all three days. WOAH, hold that shit up. That's BAD inductive reasoning. The dog is more likely than not to have barked on each of the three days is the correct inductive reasoning. This is the LSAT now.

  The LSAT likes to use words now like generally, tends to be the case, is correlated with, etc instead of anything absolute which you can push conclusions fast through deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is inductive reasoning but at a stronger level basically. When I say they shifted to inductive, I mean they heavily shifted to nuisances of making the point just more slippery. They shifted to specific scenarios and try to get you to generalize what you can conclude, but if you generalize too much or too little you lose. You need to generalize only the correct amount. In RC they will even throw inferences by compatibility in logic which is something the OLD tests did NOT screw with. What inference can you make? Well, IT CAN BE the case that X occurred is something they will go with since they allowed the possibility in the text but didn't lead you to conclude such. In the old tests they will test you mainly on what is on the text. The new RC pushes you to make even very weak inferences by compatibility now more than ever.

  The LSAT loves this instead of when it rains the dog barks. It rains every Tuesday and Friday. Therefore the dog barks at least on Tuesday. This would be deductive. It now throws great details about how big and red the dog's house is. When you get anxious or lose focus the newer tests WILL make your butthole hurt. Old tests? Nah, bro, take 10 min naps, it's cool.

  By knowing how they have changed you can change your approach to the questions to cut back on that time again so you can carefully raise your accuracy.