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Help! Clueless about how to get out of the 160s plateau
Hi everyone, so I'm taking the test in October and I'm currently averaging 167 with BR at 173. While I do have a solid amount of time to study before the test, I'm feeling frustrated over a few things. Any advice on how to fix out some (all, any!) of my current problems would be *immensely* appreciated (thanks to all for your help/support thus far!) So here are my questions:
1. How do I increase my BR score?? What keeps happening is that I second-guess myself on questions I originally got right in LR and then get 2-4 questions wrong in BR (hence the 173).
2. I've scored 167 the last 4 PTs and I don't know how I can analyze my results better in order to address my problems. I usually get between -6 and -4 wrong in LR and between -4 and -1 in RC.
3. Most importantly, where do I go from here? What should I focus on? I've been taking 1PT a week and BRing thoroughly, but should I postpone taking any more PTs and focus on drilling RC and problem question types for LR or is BRing more important? As of last week I've been writing down explanations for every answer choice for every question in LR and RC, so maybe that's the way to go?
1. How do I increase my BR score?? What keeps happening is that I second-guess myself on questions I originally got right in LR and then get 2-4 questions wrong in BR (hence the 173).
2. I've scored 167 the last 4 PTs and I don't know how I can analyze my results better in order to address my problems. I usually get between -6 and -4 wrong in LR and between -4 and -1 in RC.
3. Most importantly, where do I go from here? What should I focus on? I've been taking 1PT a week and BRing thoroughly, but should I postpone taking any more PTs and focus on drilling RC and problem question types for LR or is BRing more important? As of last week I've been writing down explanations for every answer choice for every question in LR and RC, so maybe that's the way to go?
Comments
1) Be hyper analytical. Why am I missing questions? Is it the verbiage? Subject matter? Different types of causal arguments? I would be highly diligent about analyzing the questions you're second-guessing yourself on because those are the questions that you can gain the most improvement on.
2) Momentum. I have to take 2-3 preptests a week in order to maintain studying momentum or else I end up spending a lot of time "getting back in the groove." I'm also trying to make it a point of doing questions every day, so I alternate between PTing and drilling. You could be running into this plateau because you're not moving fast enough to run through it and instead spend a lot of time getting your mind back into LSAT mode. Again, this is highly conjecture but based on personal experience.
3) Be creative (categorically). This is part of being hyper analytical but I started creating different categories for myself, expanding my knowledge of what I know about question types and tempting answer choices from all prep courses. It'd be difficult to explain to somebody else but makes perfect sense to me because it perfectly suits my style of test-taking and is based on my own personal, unique understanding of the test. Think outside the box and try out new things.
4) Be creative (structurally). Outside factors play a much larger role than we think. I tried something out yesterday that proved extremely helpful that I'm going to test out on a PT today. I wanted to see if adjusting my timing would help me out in LR. What I did was skip every question I spent more than 30 seconds to a minute on. I proceeded to get through one "read through" of an LR section within 20 minutes, spent 10 minutes on the 5 questions I skipped, and was left with about 3 minutes to spare on the section -- this was the fastest I've ever done on an LR section (+3:29 minutes) and the best (-0). I don't think it's coincidence, though it's too early to say. For one, the biggest benefit I didn't anticipate was the positive momentum that I felt. While initially very difficult to skip questions because I was running into the "sunk cost fallacy," I was only dealing with questions that I knew I was hundred percent sure of (otherwise I would have skipped it). This gave me positive momentum throughout the test to be more sure of myself when I know I would have faltered and to go faster because I was feeding off of the momentum. Test yourself, play around with timing, ordering, etc. and see how this benefits you.
5) Be proactive. Don't be complacent. Don't be satisfied with "I just don't get this question type" or "this kind of passage" or "I hope this kind of game doesn't happen on the June test." There is always a reason you're missing a question, kind of passage, and why you don't want a certain game on the test. Figure out what those reasons are and you'll minimize the role luck will play on your exam.
The fact that your BR score is in the 99th percentile speaks to your understanding of the fundamentals. To get those last 5-10 point gains, it's about getting creative, finding a routine, and remaining consistent.
Monday: PT + review
Tuesday: review + timed sections
Wednesday: PT + review
Thursday: review + timed sections
Friday: PT + review
Saturday: review + timed sections
Sunday: massive review day
I take Sunday to go over all the questions I've missed, see if there's a general pattern to them, create new categories to provide a schema for arguments I have difficulty with, and create new hypotheses to test out for the week.
As to your question about drilling v PT, I think it depends on your weaknesses. I'm at a point where I don't consistently miss certain question types, meaning I don't always miss the weaken or flaw question. However, I do still miss questions and I spend the majority of the time trying to figure out why I missed it. Sometimes the issue is as simple as me misreading the question type. Other times, it's going to the ACs without really understanding the argument. Therefore, it makes sense for me to do timed sections to get massive exposure to various argument types and see how I perform. If, however, you're always missing a certain question type, that's when drills come in. They are also useful in situations when you don't have a concrete attack plan when you see a question type.
Aside from the broken record of promoting our BR group—seriously, it's revolutionized my prep and I think it's a plateau-breaker for many of us.
I also work full time and have found that waking up at 6am for 1.5-2 hours of study in the morning has made all the difference. Whereas evenings fill up quickly and are more prone to wavering energies, the mornings are much more predictable and there are no interruptions.
@nicole.hopkins thanks for the invite to your BR group, but I think I'm going to focus on getting through the LSAT Trainer, doing some drilling, and focusing on my mistakes for a couple of weeks before going back to PTs. Also, I currently live in Turkey so I don't think the time will work out lol