Reevaluating Study Strategy and Goals

Comments

• jyang72 Alum Member

  August 2015 844 karma

  @dj768083724 , based on your LG performance, I think you need to buy cambridge package and drill a bunch of LGs since LG is a section where you can get the most improvement. If your BR score is not above 170, I would say your fundamental is not strong enough. You need to go back to curriculum to reinforce your LR concept, especially your weakness. Go get the Trainer and see how Mike Kim reads reasoning structure and drill Cambridge RC. You need to have a clear concept of what you should approach to LSAT, then do PT. I hope this helps. Good luck man.
• brna0714 Alum Inactive ⭐

  August 2015 1489 karma

  What did you use to learn fundamentals before you started taking PTs? I'd highly recommend the 7Sage curriculum. Work through it before you take any more PTs then reevaluate and determine whether or not you can take the test in October.
• brna0714 Alum Inactive ⭐

  August 2015 1489 karma

  After rereading, it sounds like you have used the curriculum. I would definitely recommend reviewing the material. I'd gladly assist you if you need help with a specific topic.
  
  Kudos, by the way, for recognizing that you need to reassess your situation.
• emli1000 Alum Member Inactive ⭐

  August 2015 3462 karma

  @dj768083724 said:
  if I should come back to the fundamentals of the course again before taking any more exams.
  

  Yes, please go back ad review the fundamentals and drill practice sets. Time yourself and see how many you can finish in 15 mins out of the 10 questions.
• GordonBombay Alum Member

  August 2015 edited August 2015 456 karma

  I would say that you definitely still have a lot of room for improvement as far as fundamentals go, but given that you've had a recent BR at 168 it seems to me like your timing is a big reason for the lack of improvement on your PT scores. My advice is to not give up on PT's just yet. You've taken four thus far, so I'd recommend taking another six to put you at ten PT's before you decide to hold off and readdress fundamentals. As you said in your post you def need to BR to a greater extent. If that means taking two study days to BR one PT then so be it. Doing so should only help develop your fundamentals in the mean time anyways. If you're still scoring in the same range after taking and BR'ing your tenth timed PT then I would def advise holding off on pt's and resorting back to the 7sage core curriculum while also drilling the living hell out of your weak spots with the cambridge packets.
  
  I'd say you're right in thinking that December would be a better bet at this point for reaching your target score, but even so I'd recommend to keep prepping like you're still planning to take October. Also if it's financially possible I'd try and cut way back on work hours.
  
• dj768083724 Alum Member

  August 2015 112 karma

  @jyang72

  @jyang72 said:
  Go get the Trainer and see how Mike Kim reads reasoning structure and drill Cambridge RC
  

  After the third exam, I started working on the Trainer. As far as the drills are concerned, I actually have PT 7- 73 on PDF form. Should I try and copy and paste sections to drill, or are the Cambridge packets specifically tailored toward a certain group of questions that I should drill in a particular order with rhyme and reason? I'm definitely leaning toward dropping the PT and going straight into fundamentals and hardcore drilling the next couple of weeks, I'm just concerned that leaves zero time for October LSAT and guaranteeing that December is my only go to. I wanted to take advantage of rolling admissions with a decent LSAT score to get into Georgetown in Fall 2016.
• 1 Like

  dj768083724 Alum Member

  August 2015 112 karma

  @brna0714 First step is admitting there's a problem right? I started creating my own drills using question types from older PT after finishing 7sage. Right now the analytics tool is really showing me flaw, NA, and SA questions are my weakest area. I've improved NA and flaw, but I can't for the life of me seem to bridge the gap with SA questions. I'm going to try to drill those more, any suggestions for a website or forum that may have outlined particular drills? I have all the tests so I don't know if getting the Cambridge packet adds much more other than having questions already sequenced for me. Thank you for your reply and I'll be sure to keep you in mind
• 1 Like

  c.janson35 Free Trial Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐

  August 2015 edited August 2015 2398 karma

  I would also recommend more PTs before you think about going back through the curriculum. Also, there's comes a point where endless drilling is going to produce diminishing returns. Part of the skill involved with the test is knowing how to identify question and game types and knowing exactly what you should do to attack them. Drilling, while still valuable, removes the identification part of this process and may produce a false confidence in your skills. Moreover, you have at our disposal over 80 preptests to work through, so the possibility of exhausting these resources is quite low--especially with an expected test date of October or December. While I don't recommend using the most recent PTs yet, the 30s and 40s are ideal to really build up your PT game (as well as the earlier tests).
  
  Take some more tests, thoroughly BR, and be modest about what you know. If you see a particular type is giving you real problems, then think about going back through the curriculum. But there is no shortcut to achieving a higher score and no substitute for practice.
• jyang72 Alum Member

  August 2015 844 karma

  @dj768083724 Georgetown is also one of my picks! However, you need at least 168+ to get in Georgetown in Fall 2016. I think you need to put your exam date off to December since a 168 in December is much much better than 163 in October. You should drill on sections that you are not comfortable with. I would definitely drill Flaw, Weaken, Stregthening, NA, and SA since they include almost 60 percent of LR questions. Make sure you get at least 70% of questions right before you go to PT. Go to the Trainer and see how Mike kim does LR. If you go through curriculum in 7sage, you should have a clear concept of conditional logic. Drill ruthlessly. Hopefully we will both get into Georgetown!
• dj768083724 Alum Member

  August 2015 112 karma

  @emli1000 I was thinking of using the analytics tool to examine where my weak areas were, complete the lesson again, and drill the packets. I figured this would be the most efficient use of my time, but I don't know if maybe starting from scratch may be necessary. 60 days until October seems a lot shorter than I thought it would be.
• dj768083724 Alum Member

  August 2015 112 karma

  @jyang72 Awesome! I'll be going part-time which I hear gives a bit more wiggle room for admission, but it can't be much, and it definitely isn't 147 range. I think you're probably right about December, but here's hoping for the next 60 days! See you there buddy!
• brna0714 Alum Inactive ⭐

  August 2015 1489 karma

  I think that @nicole.hopkins has mentioned having a document that classifies LR questions. That would help you drill since you already have all the PTs.
  
  Just to be clear- I do not think it's a good idea to continue taking PTs in your current situatuon. Why waste PTs and/or reinforce faulty fundamentals when you have the option to step away and reexamine the concepts?
  
  Another 6 PTs with only incremental improvement or stagnation is going to feel demoralizing. A little time spent reviewing and reinforcing concept followed by a return to PTs and a jump in score is going to energize and motivate you. You've gotta think end game. It feels good to keep taking PTs because there appears to be forward momentum but it's not a sound strategy in the long run.
• dj768083724 Alum Member

  August 2015 112 karma

  @brna0714 Wow.

  @brna0714 said:
  It feels good to keep taking PTs because there appears to be forward momentum but it's not a sound strategy in the long run.
  

  
  You really hit the nail on the head there. I think that is honestly why I'm in my current situation. I rushed past drilling to get to tests, without having the basics down. I think @nicole.hopkins document would be great to use for drilling.
  
  So I guess my biggest question to you would be, at what point am I prepared to begin PT again. I mean, I already made the mistake of thinking I was prepared, which clearly I am not. How would you gauge that criteria?
• brna0714 Alum Inactive ⭐

  August 2015 edited August 2015 1489 karma

  I actually think it's the drilling step that lets you gauge your preparedness. Unfortunately, that's the part you skipped over. I can definitely understand wanting to get to PTs as soon as possible but if you want consistent results that you'll be happy with, the fundamentals have to be there. Sounds like you realize that now.
  
  When you're getting a percentage correct that you're satisfied with on the problem sets in the curriculum or in ones you create yourself, then you should be ready to PT. This is trickier to gauge based off self-created sets since they're unlikely to be representative in terms of difficulty but you get the idea.
  
  I can't/won't name a certain percentage since this will vary.
• brna0714 Alum Inactive ⭐

  August 2015 1489 karma

  I found this: http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/lsat-logical-reasoning-spreadsheet.html
  
  If you scroll a little bit down the page, you can see a list of questions sorted by type for PTs 1-59. I wouldn't recommend using anything newer for drilling any way, so this should be all you need. Good luck to you.
• dj768083724 Alum Member

  August 2015 112 karma

  @brna0714 Thank you so much for your advice! I'll be sure to check back with a (hopefully vastly improved) update!
• Pacifico Alum Inactive ⭐

  August 2015 8021 karma

  If your LG is that weak then you need to lock that up first since it's the easiest thing to do and will help motivate you for the rest of the test. Check out this guide I wrote up and see if there are some strategies their that may help you:
  
  http://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/2737/logic-games-attack-strategy
  
  Also, when doing LG, you should be competent enough to know whether you're 100% right or guessing pretty much 99% of the time (exceptions happening rarely for misreads/diagramming error), so therefore you should be circling any of those iffy ones and you should not be getting any questions wrong in LG during BR. Confidence errors should not exist in LG with the aforementioned exception. It might also be helpful for you to BR the entire LG section of every PT you take and then you should be getting every question correct because there is no excuse not to when you can resort to hours of brute forcing until you arrive at the right answer. If you fix your LG, you're talking mid-high 150s with your present skill set for other sections. I'd take a week to fix your LG, then PT again and see where you're at and use those analytics for LR. I wouldn't worry about RC, it will come along naturally as your LR improves and you become a better reader. I think people spend way too much time trying to unlock the secrets of RC or figure out the best ways to improve when the best way to improve on RC is to understand the macro level approach you must use during LR sections. Analyzing all that reasoning structure in LR will pay huge dividends in RC so just let it happen and don't worry about going crazy trying to read the Economist and all that other stuff people like to suggest.
• c.janson35 Free Trial Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐

  August 2015 2398 karma

  I second @Pacifico's plan. Good stuff.
• dj768083724 Alum Member

  August 2015 112 karma

  So I've had some time to digest everything everyone has said and I've come to the conclusion there is no way that I am going to let this exam kick my ass into next season without me putting up a fight in fall. So, I will take @brna0714 's advice and hold off on PT for now. As much as I wanted to do 3 exams a week, it is realistically not feasible considering I'm not finishing one a week appropriately. At the very least I will hold off until the last week of August. In the meantime, I've looked over @Pacifico 's binder strategy and I've killed quite a few trees. I went with 6 games instead of four just to give myself some wiggle room for the harder games. I selected every other LG after PT 20 up until 39 (my last LG section). My LR is still pretty weak so I'll be re watching the fundamentals on each type. While I'm doing that, I've started getting into reading the Trainer at least an hour a night. After I finish each question type video on 7sage for the next few weeks, I've constructed a few of section type drills. 24-26 questions for each question type I am weakest, MSS/MBT, NA, SA, and Flaw from PT 15 -39. I have 3 drills each with just the question type to drill and BR during the week. Finally for the next couple of weekends, because as @c.janson35 pointed out, endless drilling may produce false confidence. I've combined a different array of my LR weakness areas randomly into 4 full 26 question section sets to build stamina and identification techniques, while preparing me for sitting through full LSAT. I'm debating whether it may be beneficial to do the same for LG but I'll stick with LR for now. As far as RC is concerned, I think I'll hold off on drilling like @Pacifico suggested until I see where I start coming out of LR. Once I can comfortably hit an actual (not BR) accuracy that'll put me into the 165+ range, I can begin PT again, hopefully soon enough to get 20 QUALITY tests under my belt before October.
  
  Wish me luck, everyone. I'll report back with results. Of course, if anyone sees any glaring defects here, please feel free to let me know!