Blind Review at 170+

Comments

• noonawoon Alum Member ⭐

  January 2020 edited January 2020 3481 karma

  I could see why you feel that way, I'm also PTing around that score and find my answers to LR don't typically change in BR. I do see value in BRing LG because I usually get 1-2 wrong during PT and know I can get -0 in under time. If you're comfortably getting -0 in LG, then maybe skip BR and just review the 7sage/powerscore/manhattan/etc explanations for the LR you miss. When you're this close to the test, it's probably better to hone in on weakness and save time.
• Jose16Fer Member

  January 2020 edited January 2020 48 karma

  I want to know what is better method too. I keep getting 168 after blind reviewing and not seeing any improvement. This 7sage definitely raised my score, but I cannot improve my score of 168 and I always feel like something in my reasoning is not enough. So I also want to know what other people think. (I'm perfect with LG, but not LR and RC)
• 4 Likes

  caffeine powered human Alum Member

  January 2020 edited January 2020 414 karma

  I believe that there are benefits from BR no matter what your PT score is. I would like to actually recommend BRing all LR questions, whether you circled them or not. I recently started re-timing some of my old PTs and realized that some of the questions I get wrong are the ones I got right before. Reviewing all your questions and tracking your thought process for all the questions could be time consuming, but really helps you retain your knowledge. LR can be extremely repetitive, and especially if you don’t have a weak question type, I’d give this a try.
  Learning from questions you got wrong is a big asset, but solidifying your knowledge from the questions you got right and building confidence could be another big one!
• drbrown2 Alum Member

  January 2020 2227 karma

  Yes keep doing blind review. Every time you miss a question timed or during BR is another opportunity to hone in on why, which will help you continue improving. Also, I thought BR was one of the best confidence boosters for me in the week leading up to test day. I knew my timed score would fluctuate, but that if I took the time to dive deep into the questions I would figure them out.
• lexxx745 Alum Member Sage ⭐

  February 2020 3190 karma

  I think there is no point if you can truly say there is not a SINGLE question you would get right under Blind Review that you got wrong under timed. If it is the case every single one of your answers is the same as blind review, then I dont see the point? But thats like never the case...
• danielbrowning208 Alum Member

  February 2020 531 karma

  I only BR questions that I do not finish in a section. Instead of BRing, I like to invest that time on questions I know I missed or spent too much time getting correct. I think it is a matter of efficiency with your time. Additionally, if you are scoring around 175, there really should not be many gaps in your knowledge (which is what BR is designed to address). For me at least, it's now all about time management, strategy, and good reading. Then again, I am sure BRing is still effective for some high scorers.

  I would definitely recommend keeping a log of and reviewing missed questions a few weeks after you take the PT.
• 7 Likes

  taschasp Alum Member Sage ⭐

  February 2020 796 karma

  I remember being at this phase and wondering the same thing. I'll share tips from what I did and learned through my process, helping me eventually score a 179.

  At 170+, the extent to which traditional BR is helpful depends on the kinds of issues you are having. Basically, you should still flag any questions where you aren't sure of the answer, and the test doesn't give you enough time to thoroughly tackle them. The only time BR becomes totally useless is if you get to the point where you have enough time at the end of each section to go back over flagged answers---such that even with extra time to review beyond the 35 minutes, you wouldn't get any extra questions correct. I'll say though, even by the end when I was consistently scoring 177-180, I still had flagged answers, mostly where I got the answer right but didn't feel like I spent as much time on it as I could have, but usually one or two on any test where I actually got a flagged question right with a bit more time.

  That being said, I found that the best strategy--whether you are using traditional BR or not--is to do this: at the end of each PT, quickly go through the answer sheet and mark down the Q#s you got wrong. If you're doing the test on 7sage, write down the questions you got wrong on a separate piece of paper. Then give it a day and come back to the test later, go back to those questions you marked as wrong WITHOUT looking at the correct answer (if 7sage, use the print/PDF view so that you're not seeing the answers). The point here is that you're going to spend extra mental effort on questions that you got wrong, but thought you had them down. When I was scoring 175+ these were the majority of my mistakes--questions that I totally thought I'd nailed, but got wrong because I'd misread something in the stimulus or just screwed up in one way or another. So now you spend extra time thinking hard about these questions until you really feel like you've broken it down fully and, hopefully, figured out why the answer choice you picked was actually wrong (and why another choice is actually correct).

  Especially once you're hitting 175+ you really should almost never be looking at answer explanations, except as a final check to compare your reasoning to someone else's. You want to do all the hard work of thinking about the question and figuring out everything about it on your own.

  And I will say that the most valuable studying time I spent was working on questions I got wrong, without knowing the right answer, where I felt stumped because I had been so sure of my answer. Just sitting there and thinking about it as much as you can and pushing yourself until something clicks will help you internalize what you learned for future questions much much better than looking up answers. And if you really can't figure it out no matter how much time you spend on it, then when you do look up the answer, you really really really need to make an effort to figure out what the hell was going wrong in your brain, and internalize that lesson for future. And maybe mark that question down in a journal and come back to it in a week again and see if you remember the lesson you learned from getting it wrong.

  If anyone wants more specific advice for scoring in the high 170s feel free to message me!
• 4 Likes

  taschasp Alum Member Sage ⭐

  February 2020 796 karma

  Also just one additional note to @elijah.barrish and anyone else with a similar timeline. Don't be discouraged if you don't get your score up to 175+ by February 22nd. The jump from 170 to 175+ is bigger than it seems. From 170 to 175, you're going from scoring best out 40 people to scoring best out of 200. In less than a month, it's not impossible, but it's gonna need a big push.

  Kind of like if you were trying to gain a relatively insane amount of muscle in one month, you'd need to push yourself really hard at the gym and basically overload to the point of max fatigue. I think you'd need to do the same with the LSAT to really push yourself on the tougher questions you get stuck on. If you're sitting there thinking about it more and still can't get the right answer, keep sitting there and think about it even more until your brain is literally about to explode. Then take a break and come back and push even more. That's my advice if you want to get 175+ in a short time.