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Studying Tactics - Need Advice
I'm still going through 7sage material, but I'm not seeing much of an improvement in my regular score/BR score. I've been studying 7sage material almost every day since November, but for some reason when I sit to take a full test it's not sticking. (I had been using other studying materials before 7sage since July)
When I practice a few questions at a time, it's easier for me to get them right, but not a whole section.
Am I doing something wrong? I'm going through the core curriculum + taking one PT every 2 weeks. I BR the next day + review and log each question I'm getting wrong. LR is easily my most difficult section, then RC, then LG.
Is it better to focus on a question type for a couple of weeks and then move on? Or focus on a question type for a couple of days and incorporate it the more question types I learn? I feel like I get a good grasp of a question type, and move on just to get them wrong on the PTs I take and I don't know why. I'm re-watching lessons as well, but I feel like I'm not studying smart and there's a better approach. Any advice would be much appreciated.
Comments
I'd stop taking PT's until you are done with the CC. Focus on understanding each lesson, then take, BR, and do a review of the problem sets. Jump between LR/RC/LG as necessary to change it up. There is no sense doing PTs until you have all the fundamentals down IMO.
One of the reasons why the LR section is difficult is because it requires you to quickly go between different thinking processes. And if you don't do the switching part correctly, the LSAT has very tempting answers that are intended to mislead you. So that's my guess as to why you understand a few questions at a time and struggle with whole sections.
The first couple months of studying, I used Kaplan and had no improvement in LR - a similar situation to yours. So, I switched to LSAT Trainer and it worked a lot better because it helped me identify why I was getting questions wrong (like what aspect of the question I didn't understand or didn't read correctly). My friends have had much better luck with other smaller batch LSAT books (there's one by someone named Ellen that's popular). It sucks that my advice involves spending more $$$, but it's what worked for me. Good luck!
@canihazJD thanks for your input! I saw you also mentioned in another discussion that "I have this theory about inducing stress and integration of the test into your day to day life so its not this whole oh shit time to do lsat thing" Do you mind expanding on that? I genuinely enjoy studying/try making it fun for myself, but since it's been a few months with little improvement I can feel myself starting to dread when I need to sit and study. Definitely want to try to avoid this feeling as much as possible!
@yunonsie thank you! I have the LSAT Trainer, but decided to start with 7sage first so maybe I'll take a look at that book as well. Was there any part of 7sage/any methodology you used that helped you with the LR section? For example - just watching the lessons/drilling?
It started off addressing that exact problem, some of my study partners perceived PTs very apprehensively, and I think really we all experience a little bit of dread. I just kind of realized, wtf are you scared of? You want to get questions wrong. When we're prepping, this is when we want to push limits and fail. So we don't on test day. The questions you get wrong are gifts, like a friend pointing out, "hey I noticed you are weak in this area, and I don't want you to get it wrong on test day."
Then I realized that while you do have to respect the complexity of the test and craftiness of the test writers, you do not have to put it on some kind of pedestal. There are a limited number of ways they can test you and adjust difficulty, and all of them are learnable.
So knowing this, how do we get comfortable? I always hear Bane... "you merely adopted the dark, I was born in it" lol. For me, the best way was to immerse myself in content. Like learning a language. Or how you get comfortable driving a car... stressful at first, but you just do it all the time in all kinds of conditions, and eventually it's no big deal. To replicate less than ideal conditions, I would do a game or problem set first thing after waking up, maybe when I had 5 minutes waiting for my coffee to brew... I'll just knock out a game. I drilled when I was tired late at night. I may or may not have done a fair bit of drunk drilling.
For stress, I'd go for a run, then come back and jump right into a problem set. I integrated problem sets into workouts, studied in noisy conditions, did 25 minute sections or added an extra 1-2 games, built sections out of level 4-5 questions, limited myself to just one reading of a stimulus... just kind of found any way to make it interesting and challenge myself, and to get rid of that mental barrier of "oh shit LSAT" to where it's just a normal thing you do. It may be something as simple as jumping right into a "#help" question or not sitting there staring at the "start" button before a set or PT... just do it. You own this test, not the other way around.
My background is military and law enforcement, so I've seen how well training under induced stress works. I think it could be applied very successfully to the LSAT because this is a performance test. When we play a sport or get into a fight, or S otherwise HTF, we do not rise to the occasion, we revert back to the last level pf performance we've adequately trained to.
Now, is all this necessary? Not at all. I think most people can be very successful without getting all nuts and doing wind sprints before a PT. But on my last test day this philosophy saved my ass after a pretty big tactical error. I don't know that I'd have been able to salvage my score without being comfortable operating in that environment even after a screw up.
Sorry, I just kind of rambled on. I haven't really taken the time to organize this yet. Hopefully some of that made sense.
@canihazJD Thanks for this advice! I always want to study in the quietest, least distracting environment possible, and it's always a pain to incorporate stress or distractions. This is such a good reminder to do it anyway, even if it's frustrating and could result in a worse score at first.
@EllaJ016 there's a difference between studying to understand a concept and drilling/PT'ing. I think the stressors/distractions are good for the latter, not the former. Also remember that drops in scores are fine... PTs don't count. Only one score counts: the one you get on test day. I'll even go further and say that I want to get questions wrong. How else will I know what to work on? Would you rather just happen to get everything right and hope your luck holds on test day?
One super easy way that requires minimal effort on your part is to just use the background noise feature for the problem sets and PTs. "Cocktail party" and "politics and profanity" are my two favorites.
There's a theory that when you are becoming better at something, your baseline drops as you incorporate a new concept. It should then jump above your baseline when you master that concept. I think a drop just shows you haven't mastered some of the new concepts you are learning.
@canihazJD I think it’s a great approach to want to get questions wrong while learning, so you can truly learn where you need the most help. I'll definitely try to look at it this way rather than feeling defeated.
Thank you for your ramble! It made a lot of sense. I’m still in the process of learning the material, but when it comes to drilling I think I’ll try to push my limits like you did. I want to be able to do these questions in my sleep and anywhere else haha You just re-motivated me
Lmao I'm bad at this site, so sorry I couldn't just reply directly to your reply. Straight up, I don't think the LSAT trainer covers every single LR flaw that you can run into on test day. It said it did, but there were definitely a handful of flaws that I couldn't understand until I watched the explanation videos on 7Sage.
An example) You can't state that a conclusion is wrong because you've proven the premises to be wrong. There could be other premises that support that conclusion, that just simply have not been discussed so far. I have no idea how I could have gotten that one from the LSAT trainer, but I still think it's great for the foundational stuff.
After I went through the book and drilled a couple sections, there were a few questions I wasn't able to explain at all. That's when I discovered 7sage and it helped to fill in those gaps. Good luck!!