What does a high Blind Review score entail for studying?

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• 2 Likes

  Harvey_l Alum Member

  February 2019 edited February 2019 268 karma

  They say practice makes perfect, but in this case it shouldn't be you just doing PT's over and over.
  Rather, your issue of timing (perhaps on LR) occurs due to the fact that you don't fully grasp the stimulus paragraphs.

  Practice reading and fully understanding what the stimulus is.
  I had the exact same problem, so I quit doing PT's entirely, because I recognized I was lacking the ability to fully comprehend the stimulus. (Which is why my BR score was high, but my timed score was lacking.)

  Think about it like this, why have a super dense paragraph that's barely understandable when you can understand it so much easier by translating it into simple sentences? "i.e. mathematicians are wrong to think that we should focus on hard math. bc hard math wastes too much time to understand rather than ez, general principles. therefore, it's better to focus on ez, general principles to advance the math world."

  Then it becomes so much easier to see that gap right?
  Also practice reading and being able to understand something on the first read, and retain that in your head. (This skill carries over to RC as well.)
• 1 Like

  vernicelove-1-1-1 Live Member

  February 2019 30 karma

  @Harvey_l you may have just unlocked all of my problems! I love all of you guys!
• 2 Likes

  Harvey_l Alum Member

  February 2019 edited February 2019 268 karma

  lol no problem! many of our ACTIVE reading skills and reading retention are lacking!

  which may be why philosophy and english majors start with such a high diagnostic score, bc they read alot of dense passages and have to understand what they're reading. not to mention, they'll have to retain what they read for exams.

  of course, it'll take time for us to get good at these skills but that doesn't mean it cant improve. it's just like doing math problems. and if you really want to study the lsat 24/7, you have to expose yourself to the literature level that's just the right difficulty level for you as well in your free time (pick up a 19th c. book and read or something!! lol) .
• 1 Like

  vernicelove-1-1-1 Live Member

  February 2019 30 karma

  @Harvey_l Thanks I definitely will do that. As for studying 24/7 I wish. But, with work my chances are slim to none. I do look forward to improving with the tidbits you’ve blessed me with! Thanks again!
• KeepCalm Alum Member

  February 2019 807 karma

  @Harvey_l I could not agree more! I often compare my lsat studies to studying for algebra in middle school: whether I was completing homework assignments or studying for an exam, I never considered the amount of time it took me. I would just continue practicing until the material would sit well with me and I felt like I understood the concepts. A math problem that once took me 30 minutes to complete eventually took only minutes to solve. I had put in enough time upfront to answer all of my doubts that when it came down to taking an exam, I didn’t second guess many things because I had already proved them through practice. This is very much like the ‘fool-proof’ method (if not identical) for LG but I applied it to my LR & RC as well.

  I made this comparison when I noticed that I would know exactly how many seconds I had left to answer a question and nothing about the stimulus I had just read (twice). I was hesitant to take completely untimed PTs because I thought it would be counterproductive—it was not whatsoever. It completely relieved me of the anxiety I had about time and kept me relaxed enough to dive into a question/passage. Questions eventually became old hat to me and, like studying for algebra, I did not second guess many things because I had already proved them through practice.

  @Purrrrisprudence I apologize for my lengthy comment. The short answer to your question is: yes, focus on gaining a stronger mastery of the concepts and adaption to time constraints will follow
• 1 Like

  Purrrrisprudence Alum Member

  February 2019 49 karma

  @KeepCalm @Harvey_l Thank you both for replying, and thank you for the great advice!
• Bamboosprout Alum Member

  February 2019 edited February 2019 1694 karma

  Ideally, your BR score should be 5-10 points higher than your target score, depending on your target score (if it's 175+, then I guess, this rule falls apart, hahaha).
  Depending on your next test date, if you still have a lot of time (more than 2 months), I would recommend shoring up your core competency by redoing some of the core curriculum, or design drills for yourself. @KeepCalm gives great advice about how to do that, and I think every high scoring LSAT taker does it in one form or another. I also like printing out full sections of the questions I've missed or circled before, and tried to do them timed. And when you have less than two months left...
  If you do not have a lot of time left (less than 2 months), then I recommend switching over to timing drills and strategy. I believe that mastery over the subject will definitely increase your speed, but it can only do so much. I believe JY says this often, but the LSAT is not so much a test of knowledge, instead, it is a test of skill and discipline. And I believe the skill and discipline that he is referring to is timing. It is much better to finish every question with 80% certainty, than to only finish 80% of the test with 100% certainty. This is particularly true if you are in the mid 160's range. I believe anyone consistently getting 160's, without any timing strategies, has the potential to break into the 170's with property timing strategies.
  I'm not sure what you mean when you say "I notice that I made little mistakes with my actual score that I would not have made if I had had more time to decipher what the question was asking", but I generally believe that anyone who says something like this is giving themselves too much credit. I hope that isn't insulting. I simply find that, myself included, people tend to not see their own weaknesses. To me, at least, time has very little to do with how well I can see my own mistakes, because I have already taken up the perspective that led me to the mistake in the first place. What helps me much more, and I believe is actually happening in your case, is what JY and the sages call "seeing something again with fresh eyes". I've stared at a question for hours without any new understanding, but coming back to that question after a walk/snack/some sleep usually allows me to see my mistake immediately. This is why BR is so helpful. It allows you to objectively judge your own work. This is why it's so important to finish the section early and to review things you've circled with the extra time. One of the sages, cantgetright, I believe, tries to finish every section with 10-15 minutes left so that he can BR every single question in the whole section.

  TLDR: I actually diverge for the most part with pre-dominant advice given here. I believe speed and consistency is almost a wholly different set of skills that needs to be specifically practiced and engrained. I suggest looking up some timing and speed drills on this forum. I know people who BR consistently between 175-180, but sometimes run out of time and gets dropped with a 165. Mastery of the subject, in no way, guarantees speed, or even a good score. Listen to some of the 7sage podcast, and you will notice that the sages will tell you the importance of timing drills. Of course, this is all predicated on the basis that you have a relatively high core competency. If you need a hard and fast rule, I would say that if you aren't constantly getting high 160's or low 170's in your BR, then core competency and mastery of the material is more important than timing, and you should ignore most of what I said above.

  PS: The LSATTrainer actually helped me quite a lot with speed in LR. It teaches you when to pre-phrase answers, when to just focus on the flaw, and when to just be objective. It optimizes your approach to each question type so that you don't overthink when you don't have to, and you don't underestimate a question when it takes more work.
• 1 Like

  keets993 Alum Member ⭐ ⏰ 🍌

  February 2019 6045 karma

  I have many opinions on this, and the answer to this question boils down to a bunch of factors: your original section breakdown, your BR breakdown, how thorough your BR is, how long it takes you to BR, and which section it is. I'll try to make this coherent and short as I can.

  For LR, I think if you are missing 5 or more questions (per section) during BR, then it is a fundamental issue. You probably need to revisit the core curriculum and brush up on your weaknesses. If you are missing 5 or less, that doesn't mean that it's not a fundamental issue but that the problem is harder to diagnose. A question type that you struggle with might require more than one section's analytics to diagnose, especially if you struggle with 4 or 5-star of that question type as opposed to easier questions of that type. You might be struggling with the nature of support or convoluted grammar that is difficult to parse. As has already been mentioned, the grammar lessons that deal with subject, predicate, and context are an essential skill that requires mastery on the LSAT. The tougher questions are not necessarily tougher because they test you on different things but because it's hard to understand what exactly they are testing you on. The distinction between "legislation that prevents people from committing moral wrong should be permitted" and "any permitted legislation prevents people from committing moral wrong" is something that you have to be wary of when dealing with tougher principle and PSA questions. Paradoxically, the very skills that aid you in easier questions (boiling an argument down the basics) are the very thing that tougher questions will punish you for. To reconcile this, you have to realize which questions require you to remember details (or require you to check the stimulus for more information) and which don't. You figure out which questions fall into which of the two categories by conducting a thorough BR where you write or type your reasoning out for each question. You break down the argument into its structure, play around with the stimulus and support, and analyze the answer choices. When you do this, you'll notice some questions take you a minute or two to figure out under BR, and those that take upwards of 5 minutes. The ones that take you a minute or two to figure out are the ones you can probably get during timed conditions; you're just not using your time effectively enough. The ones that take you upwards of 5 minutes are the ones that you need to recognize as being questions you shouldn't attempt during timed conditions, at least probably not on the first round. Depending on your goal score, you might not even want to attempt them at all and use the remaining time on questions that you should get based on your BR score.

  It's different for RC and LG though. I think a good LG BR score is something most people can attain, given enough time. Scoring well on LG during timed conditions requires good habits and solid fundamentals and being able to see patterns between games. Patterns in LG are a lot easier to see than LR and RC, but they do exist for the latter.

  For RC, all the answers can be supported by the passage. In BR, I think if you're not getting a low (-3 or lower) for RC then you're not reading the passage effectively enough. Which seems so crazy because most of us have been reading since we were pretty young so how can it be that we are not reading effectively? However, that is, unfortunately, the case. Try not to give up on BR during RC. I know it can be tedious because you have to break down the entire passage even if you are BR-ing just one question. However, you can find support for every question, even if it's only one sentence at the very beginning of the passage. Doing untimed sections of RC from PT1 (if you have access) is a good way to work on your reading skills for RC.

  I think often times we place a lot of our hope for our potential on our BR score and lose sight of the big picture process sometimes. It's okay to struggle on BR as well and to ask for help when we need it.

  Let me know if you have any other questions or something requires clarification.
• Bamboosprout Alum Member

  February 2019 1694 karma

  @keets993 said:

  I like your comment very much. I was trying to say something similar at the start, but completely couldn't put it into words.