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166 retake advice
Hello all,
I've been around the forums for a while but I have yet posted anything asking for others' advice on how to approach this test (usually only specific questions from the PTs) Recently I've felt I really hit a slump in terms of motivation. I got a 166 last October after studying for almost a year and since then has barely touched the materials, every time I do anything LSAT-related I lose focus very quickly (was super focused before I took Oct though!) Right now I'm trying to get myself together to prepare for either June or the July exam, and want to hear how you guys would approach studying at this point. I have all the basics down and had already gone back to the CC multiple rounds to drill specific question types. I usually go -3 or -4 on LR, -2 on RC and LG is just very random. Sometimes I'll end up with -2 and other times I will psych myself out and end up doing only two games. I've already fool-proofed 1-35 TWICE and seriously just don't know what to do at this point with this section.
Should I be drilling specific question types right now in addition to more fool-proofing? Should I get the LSAT trainer and read through that before doing more drills? Anyone have the trainer? Was it helpful? Should I keep PTing? (I've done a lot of the ones from the 60s and 70s already)
Any advice would be appreciated. My goal is a 175 although I know that's obviously ambitious, but better to shoot high amirite!?
Comments
The LSAT trainer is amazing, but if LG is your main weakness, I don’t know how useful it’ll be for you. My main takeaways from the trainer for LG was to always make sure I spend enough time on my setup, notations, and timing strategies - 7sage foolproofing is the best for LG IMO. What I’d do if I was you would be to foolproof all the games from the recent PTs you’ve done - grouped by type first then do them as full sections.
At this point, I don’t think you should burn through any recent PTs. Spend time with the tests you’ve already taken (and retake them) to make sure you understand where your weaknesses are. What questions give you trouble and why? Move beyond question type at this point and try to understand why wrong answer choices are attractive to you. when I was PT’ing in the high 160’s it took me FOREVER to break 170, and it wasn’t until I did a deep dive that I saw the tricks I was falling for (for example, spending too much time on confusing conditional language when the right answer was very obvious, wanting to choose ACs with analogies because I like analogies 🤷🏽♀️)
I think drilling by question type is super useful but I think you first need to do a deep dive to analyze your weaknesses then make a plan of attack targeted to those.
As for motivation, make sure you’re not burning yourself out. It’s so important to take care of your physical and mental health as you study for this test! I do a mix of strength training, cardio and yoga to stay healthy and cut out most junk food as well and it’s done wonders for me. Remember to take care of yourself and don’t beat yourself up for taking days off from studying. I’m in my last month of studying and didn’t do anything LSAT related this weekend and took a PT today and got a 172. You have plenty of time to crush this test, so just hang in there and good luck!
@aleland13 Those are great advice!! I recently picked up boxing and it's helped a lot, i agree exercise can do wonders. And just to clarify, by deep dive you mean I should do a few sections first to get a feel of where I'm tripping up, and then target those? Since I can only group questions in the bank by type, how do you suggest I target my weaknesses? And also, just wondering since you've done the trainer, what did you think your takeaways were for RC and LR? I heard their RC method was better than 7sage? Can you confirm? Again, thanks a bunch
Have you plugged in the PTs you've taken into the 7sage analytics? I would start by looking at that and seeing if any patterns emerge (like, are you missing a bunch of NA questions or something?) If you're consistently only missing a certain question type, then you might benefit from drilling by type. If you're missing questions all over the place, then you need to look at those questions together and see why you're missing them (like, do they have a bunch of conditional logic you're not 100% comfortable with?) Again, I wouldn't waste a fresh PT on this - you mentioned you've taken PTs from the 60's-70's, pick one of those and retake it and see what you're still missing. Retakes are great so long as you don't put any emphasis on the score you get on them. As for targeting your weaknesses in LR, I wrote down study guides for every question I got wrong, including if I was down to 2 ACs, why I picked the one I did, why the other ACs are wrong, etc. After doing enough of these, that's how I realized I struggled with conditional logic.
The trainer is great for making sure your foundational skills are SOLID. He puts a lot of emphasis on making the process of recognizing argument structure/flaws automatic, which I think needs to be second nature if you're aiming for 170+. For conditional logic, I prefer 7sage, but I think the trainer + 7sage together are a killer combo for LR. 7sage definitely filled in my LR gaps from the trainer.
And I love the trainer RC method so much that I didn't even bother going through the RC part of the CC. The main thing with RC is to read for structure - ask yourself why did the author write this/how does it relate to the rest of what I just read/what is it doing in the passage. But something I read on the forums that stuck with me for RC was that you can support every right answer with the passage - when I BR passages, I write down line numbers that support the AC next to the right AC.
Oh, and timing advice! The trainer gives you timing guides which I follow almost religiously. For games, you generally want to move on from 1st game at 7 mins, 2nd at 16, and 3rd at 25. I try to stick to this as much as possible because otherwise I'd just check every AC.
And find a study buddy, even if it's an online one! I've seen lots of improvement since I started studying with someone else - there's something about having to justify why you picked your ACs to someone else that doesn't let you get away with "it just feels right"
I’m in pretty much the exact same boat as you right now except my weak spot is predominantly RC. I got a 168 on the January test and am going to sign up for July. I actually just ordered the Trainer today and am planning on going through 7 sage’s CC completely again along with the entire Trainer to start things off. I also plan on going back and reviewing everything I have gotten wrong on say the last 10 most recent PTs I took. In addition to this I have been trying to do some dense reading to maybe help with RC. I decided on the July test after talking to people on this forum because ultimately it really takes the pressure off for me. The ability to cancel just seemed to good to pass up, and I think it will make the entire test significantly more relaxing for me. I think going from high 160s to low 170s is one of the more difficult hurdles but we have enough time to make this happen. When you are losing motivation maybe focus on why you are doing this. Remind yourself why you want to become a lawyer and use this desire to fuel you. You already know that this hard work will be worth it.
@aleland13
Ahhh thanks for all that info. I think I'm gonna start with the retakes and examine closely what I'm getting wrong like you suggested. I am still hesitant about the trainer because I feel like I might be spending time re-reading a bunch of stuff I know when I really should be practicing putting those methods in action. But that was great reminder about RC reading for structure. Sometimes it's just so easy to get lost in the passage and passively read instead of engaging with the text as one should. I'll keep ya'll updated on how this all goes..
@"Better every day" Happy to hear someone is in the same boat..I'm jealous you seem to have gotten the LG down though! Mind I ask how you did that? And what did you mean by cancelling with july? Is this a new thing? I'll probably go through alot of the CC again too..good call, especially Q types I suck at..but thanks for the words of encouragement though!!! Appreciate all the support I can get for sure
I just blasted through so many Logic Games and reviewed ev> @CRLSUUUU said:
For the July test everyone is going to be given the option to see their score before they decide to cancel or not. It is my understanding that this is a one time deal and their rationale for it is because it is the first time they are “implementing” the digital test. People will not know until they show up at the test center on test day wherever they are taking the test on paper or a tablet.
For LG I think I printed out like 30 older games maybe and just sat down on weekends and did every single one and then redid anything that gave me any trouble multiple times. I did this like 3 times after going through PowerScores LG bible and 7 sage’s CC. I also watched JY’s videos for every game that gave me any trouble, and by trouble I mean I just didn’t utterly dominate it. I would frequently redo games where I got everything right. I also redid the LG section every single time on the recent PTs when I took them. I think the game changer for me was when I started to find a balance between trying to push out inferences and splitting boards/ just attacking games. Also chaining up conditional statements using 7 sage’s method was huge. You need to have that mastered for grouping games.
How did you get to a -2 on RC. I am dying to get there haha.
@"Better every day" I think the most important thing for RC is reading for structure. And also knowing exactly where the evidence comes from in the text. Once you start reading for those big things and not getting caught up in details, you will feel much more control over the test and therefore more confident moving through the section at a quicker pace, which allows you to go back and redo or check answers for questions you circled. I think the worst is to sit there and be like ok what? I don't understand what this one thing in the text means. Those are usually time sinks and it's very likely your ability to do well won't even have anything to do with understanding any one technical part. Also read other texts!! RC passages can get boring so read other magazines like the New Yorker or as many people here suggest, the Economist. Read them like you would a RC passage, meaning be active! This will train you to naturally apply that on test day. Hope that helps
You guys both have great insight so I thoroughly enjoyed this interaction! CRLSUUUU we're in a very similar boat except I severely underperformed in November. I want to add, I did poorly on LG despite Foolfroofing twice and I'm happy to say I've made pretty significant improvements since november. For me the key is consistency. I have to do logic games pretty much every day to avoid getting rusty. In the past, when I foolproofed I did it once or twice a week. For me, doing 4 games a day works.
I'm curious where you guys are averaging in your PTs. I'm struggling because I have a solid BR average (around 176) but my actual timed score stays around 165-166.
Thanks and I actually haven’t taken a PT since my January test, planning on diving back in this weekend. Leading up to that test I wanna say my average timed PT was right around 169-171 usually and I hit 168 on the January test so I pretty much got the score that would be expected. My BR score was usually around 174-176. What section are you struggling most on? The fact that you are BRing 176 is still pretty solid and means you have a strong understanding of the underlying concepts. Getting my PTs from like the 165-167 range to 169-171 range was pretty difficult but once I started going -0,-1 on LG it started to happen.
@"Pride Only Hurts" @"Better every day" I haven't PTed in a while as well but back in Oct I was PT-ing in the mid 160s while BR-ing around a 173. I think I need to go back and review my basics, maybe my understanding is still rusty, or rustier than I'd think. That's amazing @"Pride Only Hurts" you were able to make huge leaps in LG! Mind I ask how you did it other than just fool-proofing? And which ones did you fool proof? Only 1-30 or afterwards as well? LG is my worst section I just get so nervous and it seems like the nerves don't go away even after fool-proofing.
Your understanding is probably fine if your BR-ing around 173 you're probably just not spending enough time breaking down the difficult questions! I pretty much spent a full 8 hours over the course of two days BRing a PT. I write out explanations for every question and that really helps for extremely difficult questions.
For Logic Games, my method for foolproofing is perhaps a little different. I foolproof in sections. So instead of doing individual games, I print out two copies of the LG section of a PT and do it timed. That way I start getting in the habit of learning when to skip questions or just general time management for a section. The key for me has been getting easy games done in around 5 mins. Then for the harder games, it's been helpful to slow down and review the basics in my head before I attempt the questions. Things like, remember to go over each rule, looking for floaters, how rules relate to each other and restrictive rules. I think this helps me calm my nerves.
My BR score was usually around 174-176. What section are you struggling most on? The fact that you are BRing 176 is still pretty solid and means you have a strong understanding of the underlying concepts. Getting my PTs from like the 165-167 range to 169-171 range was pretty difficult but once I started going -0,-1 on LG it started to happen.
For me Logic games and Reading comp have given me the most issues. But once I'm consistently going -1,-0 in LG I'll be at around a 170 so same boat! I've pretty much decided to focus on touching a couple hard RC passages every day and Foolproofing an LG section a day. I figure from now until June that, coupled with a PT a week, should make for solid improvement.