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For 170+ scorers
TheMommaBear
Member
Did you get to the point where the test becomes almost easy, or do you consistently feel challenged? I picture J.Y. being able to do it in his sleep. "Nope." "Wrong." "Don't care." "What does that even mean?"
Comments
yes, that happened to me on my Jan Lsat.
Someday I hope to have that level of confidence! How often and for how long did you study?
I've only recently been getting consistently 170+ and by consistently I mean only the past 3 PTs. But since you're mostly talking about LR and my LR has been exceptional lately I'll chime in. Personally, there are many questions, even the 4 and 5 star difficulty questions where yes I normally will eliminate answer choices extremely quickly, sometimes within reading a few words. Those answer choices are easy. But that doesn't mean every question is easy. In my last PT I got question 2 on an LR section wrong during the exam. (Right in BR) And in JY's explanation he also says that he was confused while taking the question under time pressure. 170+ scorers tend to go through a period of underconfidence errors on the easy questions.
To answer your question, yes there is a point where even the most difficult questions can be easy, but things such as confidence, stamina, focus, health, mindfulness, all come into play. And putting it all together cohesively and consistently is a completely different beast. Any single LR question? No problem. 50 in a row after reading about one person's contributions to an obscure architecture movement in the early 1900s and the critics' response? Not so sure.
A point that is brought up a lot in the early podcast episodes is that most people 165+ are probably making more procedural errors than anything. Fundamentally the skills are there, but again, putting it all together on test day is where 170+ and especially 175+ scorers really differentiate themselves. If you are testing in mid to high 160s and BRing consistently in 170s then it's mostly the process. What's your skipping strategy for LR? What's your order strategy for LG? What's your optimal reading time for RC? And after you've figured out what works for you, are you sticking to them piously, or letting your procedure slip under time pressure? I'm not saying be robotic, but having a plan goes a long way, which I believe is what has taken me from mid 160s to low 170s, and looking at my mistakes in my 170+ exams, I know it is what will take me to 175+
@jpelberfeld
Thank you for the thoughtful response. I took the Jan Flex after a month of studying so I’m not taking my sub par score too badly. 😬 I feel a lot of the concepts really click if I study them, move onto something else for a week, and then come back to it.
I’ve discovered that studying for the LSAT is really not something to be rushed.
And holy hell YES to the underconfidence on easy questions. I think because it’s easy that it must be a trick question so I overthink.
Even when I was taking 2 PTs a week and averaging 176 back in the fall, the test was not necessarily easy. Some PTs were. Others were frustratingly hard. There was not always correlation. The week before my October take I had a PT that I was sure I bombed and I was freaked out. It was so hard. I let it ruin my mood and day. When I BR'd with my study partner later that night, I ended up with a 176 (though I think my BR was still only a 178 or 179). That was a great experience for me because I realized how terrible we are at assessing how we did on a given LSAT. I have had other PTs I took and thought I aced and ended up with some of my lower scores. On this past January take I really thought it was one of the easier LSATs I have taken as was dreaming of a 177+ but ended up with a 174.
Sometimes they seem easy. Sometimes they seem hard still. But neither of these things in my experience has correlated with my performance. I am most likely to get frustrated on the RC sections if there is a particularly difficult passage/questions. I enjoy the challenge of the harder LG so long as I don't get twisted up in lost time, so I suppose those are always easy. LR always has a tricky question or two, but usually doesn't stress me.
@VerdantZephyr
Thanks for the insight!
I just scored 175 (and had previously scored a 170 in Nov) and I can say that the test never felt easy, but it definitely felt more familiar. I gradually became less anxious when I started new sections and it all started to feel like something that came more naturally to me. I hope that helps!
Going to add to this discussion that the commentary about having the skills but making procedural errors is spot on. My last 5 PTs have been consistently 169 or 170. I would never, ever go as far as to say it is "easy." I always have to put my full effort into it. That said, I feel far more confident in my knowledge and ability than ever, and spotting wrong answers and knowing the difference between 2 answers (why one is wrong and the other is right) has become a million percent easier. They say that improvement on the LSAT is incremental, which is true, but in all honesty there really is a point in which you realize that everything is just starting to click- and it's pretty obvious.
@VerdantZephyr is also correct in say that the skills to score well on any given question are one thing, but being able to replicate that for 75+ questions in a row is a whole other set of skills. Once you go over about 165, the errors you make and the questions you miss are usually due to misreading or fatigue (my biggest issue), but rarely due to lack of ability. No matter what though, it's rarely "easy" and there is very little correlation between my feeling like a particular test was easy or difficult and my score.
LR was, is, and always be my weakness. I am usually 100% on LG and max -2 or -3 on RC. I theorize that this is because I'm only focusing on 4 total passages/issues per section. Moving from question to question presents me with huge issues- I get tripped up and confused going through questions at such a rapid pace. Individually, the questions are no problem, but I just haven't mastered the LR process as a whole. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to have a perfect LG and RC, while being -7 on LR.
All this to say, the LSAT is incredibly difficult regardless of what kind of score you get. Don't ever let a high scorer tell you otherwise. It's tough and quite frankly, I think anything over a 145 is downright impressive. Getting through the test is impressive on its own.
When doing the test, do you map out some of the harder LR questions, or primarily do them in your head?
@TheMommaBear I only ever map out the parallel reasoning/flaw questions and occasionally I map out a MBT, but otherwise, no. I find mapping tends to waste time and confuse me.
@TheMommaBear Not addressed to me, but I have found I need to do less mapping out as I get more exposure to the test. Or at least, I have felt the need to map things out less often. Generally, for me, when I do need to map out a question it is a sign that it is a hard one for me and I should skip and come back. Those are my lower probability/high time expenditure questions. Not really what you were asking, but maybe it is helpful.
I finally hit above a 170 on my most recent PT -- for me it doesn't become easier. Part of the battle is learning not to panic on the test, because you can psych yourself out of collecting as many coconuts as possible (this applies especially in the LG section -- I tended to panic when my setup was wrong from the start, so to combat it I started just to move to the next game fresh and come back, knowing that generally the easier games are in the front end and the harder games are in the back end of the section, so the time allocation is easier to justify).