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Doing worse on more recent PTs? Help!

cas858687-1cas858687-1 Member
in General 6 karma

At the beginning of my studying I was testing using PTs from mostly the 50s and 60s. As I'm nearing the October test date and taking more recent exams, my score had been going down - from around 172 consistently to around 168 off-and-on in PTs from the mid-80s. Anybody have any advice on why this might be or how to fix this? It doesn't seem to be any one section that is falling in particular

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  • ClaudioD21ClaudioD21 Member
    414 karma

    The consensus seems to be that PTs in the 80s are much harder. Apparently RC is much harder and LR has become wordier and more complex. LG have stayed around the same and apparently have may be slightly easier with some exceptions. I recommend looking into your LR score although your RC might’ve also taken a hit due to the increased difficulty of the passages overall. It’s a shame this isn’t more common knowledge. I was doing well in the PTs in the 50s and 60s and took 83 earlier this week and got a huge slap in the face on LR. I wish more people mentioned how much we should actually dissect the 80s PTs instead of simply focusing on the CC (1-35) etc. since these current LSATs are much more like PT80s than anything else.

  • BigJay20BigJay20 Member
    438 karma

    The test got progressively difficult as the years went by, though the concept is still the same. Understandably so, they have to find ways to make it more challenging when almost every test taker has the basics and format figured out

  • smoothbrainsmoothbrain Member
    128 karma

    i am in literally the exact same boat as you - same scores, with the same drop in the recent tests. And now Im 3 weeks out from the test and realizing that my scores have been inflated lol. im focusing more on RC now because that seems to be where the biggest change has happened

  • james.marmadukejames.marmaduke Yearly + Live Member Sage 7Sage Tutor
    21 karma

    Hi there! This is a really common question people have, so don't feel like you are at all alone in this!

    My personal opinion is that there is no real difference in the difficulty of the logic from the tests in the 50s and 60s to the tests in the 80s and 90s. The main difference is that some of the "tricks" people use in the earlier tests got taken away. For example, on older tests, you could really handle a lot of NA questions by just picking the most weakly worded answer choice. That crutch has largely been taken away, but the underlying logic of NA questions has not changed or gotten harder. I think similar lessons can be taken in a lot of other areas. The headline (and reason for optimism) is that understanding the core logic, the deep underlying structure of these questions will carry you through regardless of the era of the PT.

    If you are looking for help in figuring out how to get to the bottom of those core logical principles, tutoring can be really helpful (it was for me!). If you want to check it out for free, here is a link! https://calendly.com/7sage-consult/7sage-tutoring-free-consult?utm_source=ST

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