Tips on Breaking through the Scoring Plateau?

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• 2 Likes

  keets993 Alum Member ⭐ ⏰ 🍌

  July 2018 6050 karma

  Hey! So first of all, congrats on the progress and making it to 160s.

  Lots to say, so bear with me. First of all, what is your BR score like, in terms of section breakdown? That will help people give you advice that is more suited to your needs. For example, if your BR score is in the 170s then it might be helpful for you to do confidence drills or timed drills. If it's 165 then the suggestion would be to focus on fundamentals (since for most people, their BR score should be higher than goal score).

  That's a big jump from 40s to 70s but it doesn't seem like it negatively impacted your score, since you're near your average.

  I finish each section with roughly 3-7 minutes remaining.

  So this tells me that your issue might be more accuracy than timing. Just to clarify, do you mean you've seen all the questions on a section with 3-7 minutes remaining or you feel 'done' with a section with 3-7 minutes remaining? If it's the latter then you really need to focus on where you're getting over-confidence errors and bank points for easier questions.

  Have you tried recording yourself to see whether you're spending time as efficiently as possible? Perhaps you're spending 2 mins on a question you get wrong anyway, when you could've spent 30 extra seconds on easier questions and gotten a few extra points.

  Lastly, look for patterns. Look for patterns in your BR, underconfidence errors, and overconfidence errors. Patterns don't just consist of specific question types (like weaken, strengthen) but structure as well. For example, overconfidence errors could be not diagramming easy principle or SA questions and as a result getting them wrong. Do you struggle with cauation questions or a specific flaw type? Is the grammar/english in some questions/answer choices really difficult to understand? When it comes to games, do you first do questions that give you additional premises or do you spend a lot of time up-front on a question that requires an inference which you haven't made? Depending on your BR score, it's really a matter of adapting test-taking strategies or building up for your fundamentals!
• devinstelter Alum Member

  July 2018 149 karma

  Thank you so much for the input! My BR scores the last few PT's have been 166, 166, 172, 169, and 172. My last one (PT78) was full of over-confidence errors, shown by the only 4 point increase from timed to BR score. I went from -4 in LG timed to -2 after BR, -9 total in LR timed to -6 after BR, and -10 in RC timed to -8 after BR (lots of overconfidence in RC).

  As for timing, I have seen each question with 3-7 minutes left, then I go back and focus on the questions I am really uncertain on (usually Parallel Reasoning or harder NA questions for LR).

  I just ordered a long-arm phone holder so I will start to record my PT's, as well.
• 1 Like

  keets993 Alum Member ⭐ ⏰ 🍌

  July 2018 6050 karma

  Ah okay. So first of all, figure out why exactly you were so overconfident on the last test! I'd suggest drilling (so untimed, 5-star difficulty from question bank) of parallel reasoning and NA. Basically, you should do enough of them (that number can vary from 5, to 12, to 20) so that it's painfully obvious how similar the questions really are to one another and how they employ basic structure. Hopefully, doing these many will also illustrate to you what specifically you struggle with; is your understanding of the concept flaky or grammar or whatever the case it may be. I'd suggest doing some drills in 50s and possibly a couple PTs from 60s-80s as well before September! Also be sure to save fresh PTs for PTing and drilling incase you decide to postpone or need to retake. Better be safe than sorry!
• devinstelter Alum Member

  July 2018 149 karma

  Awesome, thanks for the great suggestions!

  Looking back, my RC has been consistently around -7 (with the exception of this last test at -10). Do you have any strategies that seem to increase your understanding of each passage? Like notating or pausing at the end to attempt to summarize what you've read? And then for drilling, I have been doing primarily untimed passages. Are there any other methods to improving in the section besides doing either timed or untimed sections?
• keets993 Alum Member ⭐ ⏰ 🍌

  July 2018 6050 karma

  What's your BR for RC generally like? I think it's best to take as much time to read the passage and then just speed through questions. You don't have time to be comfortable or luxorious. Of course, this is assuming your BR for RC is like -3 or less. If it's higher than that then you're not fully grasping passage(s) and what's required of you.
• devinstelter Alum Member

  July 2018 149 karma

  My last 4 RC BR scores have been -8, -4, -2, and -2. I may just try investing more time up front while reading. Similar to LG, it is kind of a scary concept to me, but I'm sure will be worth it in the end.
• Ohnoeshalpme Alum Member ⭐

  July 2018 edited July 2018 2531 karma

  @devinstelter said:
  My last 4 RC BR scores have been -8, -4, -2, and -2. I may just try investing more time up front while reading. Similar to LG, it is kind of a scary concept to me, but I'm sure will be worth it in the end.

  Most say that anything around 4 minutes is good time for a passage - not too short, not too long