Urgent: Need studying advice! Not sure what to focus on to increase LSAT Score.

Comments

• 3 Likes

  Hal Incandenza Member

  September 2021 424 karma

  Howdy! So - obviously, I’m only working with the information I see above, so take this with a grain of salt, but:

  Those are very decent scores for 2 months of studying! Don’t be discouraged.

  Having said that, if you think you’ve hit a plateau, consider switching up how you study. Remember that review is the most important part of studying - you should be spending more time reviewing your wrong answers, really understanding them, then you did taking the test in the first place. Redo the games as often as it takes for you to truly master em. Don’t just understand em - master the process of doing them, step by step. Break down the RC sentence by sentence, and evaluate LR clause by clause, word by word. Dig in deep. Good luck!
• xo_f4iry Member

  September 2021 85 karma

  @"Hal Incandenza" Thank you! I really do need to focus on my wrong answers more deeply.
• xo_f4iry Member

  September 2021 85 karma

  I noticed from the past 4 PTs, my problem areas for LR are RRE (Paradox), MBT & MSS, NA, and Weaken Qs.

  How do you drill your weaknesses?

  Do you drill for one week on say RRE?

  Or do you drill one question type on one day, the next day you do a different question type?
• 1 Like

  lsat_sus Core Member ⭐

  September 2021 1417 karma

  ms. xo_t1nk3rbell - sprinkle that pixie dust and ram thru the CC ya got dis fam
• 1 Like

  Hal Incandenza Member

  September 2021 424 karma

  Eh, I think that’s more or less a personal preference. Perhaps think about it less in terms of concrete time and more like … drill until you really understand what that question type does / is asking. But again, not to hammer the point home, but I wouldn’t drill at all until you’ve spent hours on each of those PTs reviewing your wrong answers and guesses. Review is much more helpful than drills … heck, I tell my students only to drill in order to get more wrong answers for them to review!! That’s where the real growth is.
• DontPay4LawSchool Member

  September 2021 edited September 2021 571 karma

  First, there are a lot of things I don't know about you and how you study. So, let's make sure you are doing the following:

  (1) You should be reviewing your PTs and sections.
  (2) Does your studying only consist of PTs? If so, you will certainly have to put in more work. I generally would recommend 1hr/day on average. Of course, that could mean studying 2 hours Monday and none on Tuesday.
  (3) Are you identifying trends in your weaknesses and addressing them accordingly?
  (4) Have you gotten a book or some form of organized curriculum that teaches the basic functionality of the test?
  (5) Do you have a positive attitude about studying? This is essential to actually learning what you are seeing. Even if it is just superficial, convince yourself to be excited for the opportunity to learn more!
• 1 Like

  McBeck418 Member

  September 2021 500 karma

  @xo_f4iry said:

  Please help me. I don't get why my scores aren't increasing when I'm studying so much. When do you start to see gains/increases in your PTs after studying for so many hours? I'm not seeing progress...

  It may be time to look into how you're studying and not quite how long you're studying. I was spending a ton of time studying without actually studying, if you know what I mean. I sat for hours 'reviewing' questions, but in reality, I was still just scraping the surface of the question because I didn't understand the difference between just writing out what I thought I knew about the stimulus and the answer choices and actually making the connections in my brain. In short, I wasn't reading or working to comprehend what was happening. I was reading just to check off a box called 'review'.

  I can't necessarily explain exactly how to do it since my way of comprehension is different than yours, but here's somethings that have helped. There are three things I need to understand before I leave the stimulus. (1) What do the words mean. (2) What is their purpose (premise, context, conclusion, errant information). (3) What analysis can I take away from it. The third is the trickiest because this changes depending on what is said and what the q-stem asks us to do, but it is also where you want to spend most of your time.

  I constantly reaffirm that I know the topic of what is being spoken about as I read (1). I don't just label the purpose of each part, I try to explain how it fills that purpose and what LSAC wants us to think about when they use that particular phrasing. What assumptions or ideas are they pushing us to make. Are they trying to confuse us or distract us from something else (2). And finally, how can I combine the information from steps (1) and (2) to prepare myself to answer the question they ask. This is the pre-phrase part, where you try to anticipate what the answer choice might look like (3).

  I apply these concepts to the answer choices as well by constantly reaffirming to myself I know what they mean, that I understand their purpose is in relation to the stimulus and the question asked, and finally, what is the analysis to determine whether it's correct or not

  These steps are all baked into the review process and you might do all of this. I'm not trying to suggest you're not doing the right things, but what it boils down to are the subtle shifts in quality (i.e. how well it impacts your comprehension level) that will lead you to gains. It's a personal experience that, at least for me, required a much more conscious effort and self awareness than just knowing I was performing the steps of review.