Questions for those scoring in the 169+ range

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• 2 Likes

  Sprinkles Alum Member ⭐

  July 2016 11542 karma

  I highly recommend you check out the webinars given by 7sagers who scored in the 170s. This one is my favorite:
  https://7sage.com/webinar/lsat-prep-for-170-plus/
  
  There's a few more in the webinar section, and one will be uploaded soon given by @cmelman95 which I thoroughly enjoyed.
• 10 Likes

  LSATKingsman Alum Member

  July 2016 edited August 2016 1024 karma

  A couple things I noticed/did.
  
  Once I was scoring in that range I found myself not taking notes in the recorded webinars but shaking my head in agreement. Almost as if I was part of giving the lecture.
  
  My big breakthrough was focusing on one section at a time. Focused on RC for about 2 weeks and did not do anything else. In that two weeks I seriously learned to read faster, and in review I learned where the writers hide the information they ask me about. I went from -10 to -4. Additionally my score for other areas rises when I do this as well. After my RC mini camp my LR scores went from -4/-5 to -1/-3
  
  Reviewed correctly. For me talking out loud and acting like I am explaining something really helped me get through BR and break my bad habits that were keeping my out of the 170+ range.
  
  Knowing how, what, and when to skip is what I am working on now. Hoping this gets me those last few points! Watch the webinar!
  
  Edit:
  
  I have received a few messages about this so I wanted to elaborate on a few things.
  
  1. About 90% of my improvement for R/C came through BR, Intense no corner cutting BR. After I took the section I would then go back UNTIMED and justify every answer for why it was wrong and why the correct one was right. I know you have heard this 1 million times but I promise this is where the money is made. I know it sucks but it is what it is. Oh and I think my exact time spent was 1.5 weeks not two, but don't think you need to do exactly what I did maybe less will work for you.
  
  2. I also learned how to utilize my time. I had trouble finishing and I was always leaving questions on the table thus I was missing out on the low hanging fruit.
  
  3. Lastly my increase in LR was due in part because I learned how to grasp important information faster. A larger part however was because the time I took off LR really helped. Several Sagers have commented that they have seen this effect as well.
  
  Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions.
  
  
  
  
• Alex Alum Member ⭐

  July 2016 23929 karma

  @jawadchaudhry70 , So @montaha.rizeq and @LSATKingsman are 100% right! Check out the webinars, they are literally perfect for your questions! My favorite is https://7sage.com/webinar/my-18-point-increase-story/ This is @"Nicole Hopkins" story of going from the 150s to the 170s. It was really informative and helped me to see what I should be doing differently. I highly recommend it. There is also a great webinar in how to properly skip questions, this helped me break into the 160s for sure! Here's the link for that. https://7sage.com/webinar/skip-it/
  
  
• 7 Likes

  Cant Get Right Yearly + Live Member Sage ⭐ 🍌 7Sage Tutor

  July 2016 27822 karma

  This is an excellent question. It is also a really complex answer.
  
  For me, it was much bigger than the LSAT. It’s like what Teddy Roosevelt said (or was it Bill Clinton?): "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
  
  It really is about maintaining exceptional, highly disciplined study habits. And for me, a lot of that was psychological. When I was treading water in the low 160’s, it was nevertheless still incredibly difficult for me to accept that I was not already outstanding. The brain has powerful mechanisms by which to reject these kinds of thoughts, and those mechanisms do not yield quietly. But until I managed to do it, I couldn’t achieve what I wanted because I was convinced I was already excellent. That’s obviously ridiculous from a rational standpoint, but that’s the only way to express what I felt subconsciously. I could only make excuses. What I was doing was lowering the bar on what it actually meant to do it so that the bar was very near where I already was in order to protect my ego. So my 162 on the Dec. 2016 test was not because that was an accurate reflection of my abilities, it was because of Game 3 and a disproportionally high number of flaw and NA questions which were the only things I wasn’t 100% on. Right, lol. Breaking into the 170’s is so much more difficult than I thought it was at that time, that I could never have overcome it. It’d be like trying to knock out Mike Tyson in his prime, only you’re under the impression that you’re fighting a malnourished 5 year old. It’s just never going to happen. So in breaking into the upper echelons of the LSAT, or anything else I’d suspect, you’ve first got to break your ego protecting illusions to realize that you are inadequate for the task. Then, make yourself adequate. We’ve all got the potential, I really do believe that. We just have to be able to accurately assess the actual distance between where our abilities are and where they need to be. And there is very little that the human brain does worse than that. That, for me, was the hard part. From there, the rest followed pretty naturally.
  
  And by the way, if there’s anyone that actually gets that horrible quote misattribution joke, I’m not sure I necessarily respect you for it, but I definitely think we understand one another.
• 1 Like

  kgbawuah Alum Member

  July 2016 44 karma

  @"Cant Get Right" said:
  We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit
  

  "We are what we repeatedly do.Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."— Aristotle
  NOT Bill Nor Ted.
• Cant Get Right Yearly + Live Member Sage ⭐ 🍌 7Sage Tutor

  July 2016 27822 karma

  
  Party on @kgbawuah .
• 1 Like

  Ron Swanson Alum Member Inactive ⭐

  July 2016 1650 karma

  I think it's really important to get your LG to a consistent -2 or less. Most of the recent exams have been 101 questions and you need 88-90 correct for a 170. With ~10 questions to play with between 2 LRs and an RC, a 170 is doable assuming your fundamentals are where they need to be. Obviously getting to that point is way easier said than done.
  
  What's your current average and your section breakdown?
• jspence316 Member

  August 2016 14 karma

  The biggest jump for me came when I tried an experimental theory one morning on a prep test. It worked so well I never looked back. It's LR specific, but since that's 50% of the test, it's still super helpful.
  
  Here it is: for the first 10 questions of each LR section, don't overthink the questions. Just glide through them! Almost as if they are just a warmup for the actual questions. Read for detail, be attentive, select the best answer and just move on. If you do this, you'll have a much much better chance of finishing the section on time.
  
  It sounds useless, but you'll be amazed. You really should be able to get through the first 10 questions in 10 minutes. Sometime even the first 13 in 13 minutes. Not only is that 20 points you're not dropping, it's also very very useful minutes in your pocket for when you need to take on questions 10-25. Also, you're more focused and less taxed going into the harder questions. But once you do hit question 10, gird your brain loins.
  
  Occasionally they do sneak a difficult question or two into the first 10, but you'll recognize them when you see them. While you're practicing, assume that all 10 are easy and avoid overthinking at all costs. If it turns out you missed a few of them, identify what made them difficult questions. That way you'll know to slow down a little when you see a similar question next time.
  
  I really believe the most dangerous traps on the lsat are the ones we set for ourselves. Stroll through 1-10, then machete your way through the rest. Of course this all assumes that you're willing to take upwards of 30 practice tests, and review them in detail. If you're not doing that, then do that.
  
  The score boosters in LG and RC come with learning their unique nuances through sheer repetition. There's no magic bullet, it's more like a magic buckshot that you agonizingly build one magic pellet at a time. That's my most useful insight. God speed!
• LSATKingsman Alum Member

  August 2016 1024 karma

  @"Ron Swanson" Yeah I forgot to mention that but 100% agree. It's almost as if it's just assumed you need to be in the range for games lol. What really astonishes me is that there are people out there scoring in the 170s and missing entire games! Wild.
• Gladiator_2017 Yearly Member

  August 2016 edited August 2016 1332 karma

  Thanks to everyone who's shared what worked for them! @LSATKingsman for the 1.5 weeks focusing on RC, how many timed RC sections were you taking each day with thorough BR? Also, did you mainly focus on more recent exams that you had already taken or pre PT38? Thanks!
• LSATKingsman Alum Member

  August 2016 1024 karma

  @Gladiator_2015 The majority came from PT 1-12, or whatever the first LSAT book of pt's is. I supplemented this with 5 or so passages from test's I had already taken. I find that the earlier test's are much harder for me for some reason. I think it has to do with the language and vocab that was used at the time. I did not do more than 2 per day thus, it was a pretty casual LSAT week for me. In the next weekish I worked on doing RC full sections which is where I really got the swing of timing like I never had before.
• Gladiator_2017 Yearly Member

  August 2016 1332 karma

  @LSATKingsman thanks for the tip! Next week I'll focus on RC and will try two sections a day with thorough BR. Hopefully the focused approach will result in some improvements. I'm currently averaging -5 to -8 and would love to get it down to a consistent -4.
• cal6005 Free Trial Member

  August 2016 106 karma

  @"Gladiator_2015" said:
  Next week I'll focus on RC and will try two sections a day with thorough BR. Hopefully the focused approach will result in some improvements. I'm currently averaging -5 to -8 and would love to get it down to a consistent -4.
  

  I don't know if anyone else has recommended this, but for me, this helped immensely: after taking timed RC sections, go back through each passage and identify the exact line(s) that were needed to correctly answer each question. It really helped me to recognize that practically every question can be answered directly from the text, even if it's an inference question. The correct answers to questions in the RC section are ALWAYS supported by the text, even if in an easy-to-overlook way. Then, if you keep this knowledge in your head during the next timed section, it can help you get into a good habit of quickly finding and confirming the support needed to answer each question instead of "spinning your wheels" or selecting another tempting yet unsupported answer choice.
• 3 Likes

  blah170blah Alum Inactive ⭐

  August 2016 3545 karma

  I agree with @"Ron Swanson" that it is fairly important to do well on LG to get consistently in that range. However, it gave me a lot of anxiety to think about the test in that way because it made me feel super screwed if I didn't feel like I knocked LG out of the park.
  
  For me, what's been working for all 3 sections is the following:
  1) LR: doing sections timed loosely (meaning I'd set a stopwatch but I wouldn't feel beholden to the time) but really going through the mechanics of solving an LR question. This means writing out or diagramming the argument core, anticipating the flaw/answer choice, and carefully reading the answer choices. I tend to miss questions because I'll read the answer choices too fast so it was important for me to slow down at that part. I will then BR the section to make sure that my logic is sound on any question. When I get questions wrong, I'll write down why the right answer choice is right and why the wrong answer choices are wrong, typically using the Manhattan LR forums as a guide.
  
  2) RC: doing sections timed loosely. For RC, I really needed to have a crystal clear reading method so I did sections loosely until I could speedily read through a passage using the method I created for myself.
  
  3) LG: just practice. Typically doing 1 section a day, strictly timed and aiming to go about 30-32 minutes for the section. This is possible for me because LG has always been my strong suit so I just want to make sure I don't lose my skills.
• 1 Like

  Jimmyjatt Free Trial Member

  August 2016 edited August 2020 31 karma

  [deleted]
• blah170blah Alum Inactive ⭐

  August 2016 edited March 2019 3545 karma

  @Jimmyjatt hi there! It means I'll run a stopwatch instead of a timer. Usually I finish around 35-36 minutes but there are a few occasions where I'll go up to 37 minutes to check my answers/revisit a question. I find timing loosely helps me better identify my weaknesses because I can't really chalk it up to a "timing issue."
• 1 Like

  blah170blah Alum Inactive ⭐

  August 2016 3545 karma

  Also, I did this because I noticed I had two sets of LSAT habits. Good habits when I get like less pressure and bad habits when I feel a lot of pressure. I'm trying to make sure that only good habits are getting reinforced. For example, good habits include writing out the argument core and spending 1-2 seconds longer in reasoning out why I'm eliminating ACs. Bad habits involve more cursory understandings of why an AC is wrong, where I'm more prone to eliminate an AC because it feels wrong.
• Cant Get Right Yearly + Live Member Sage ⭐ 🍌 7Sage Tutor

  August 2016 27822 karma

  I’m a big fan of untimed drills. Keep time with a stopwatch, but remove the pressure of the countdown. In my earlier days I’d even go 40 minutes plus sometimes. It’s important to keep moving, but removing the pressure really does change the nature of the test in a really remarkable way. The goal is to learn the material so well and become so efficient that your untimed pace falls within the 35 minutes. These drills are a really important step in mastering the logic. Timing is a separate issue, and it is very difficult to work on before you’ve really nailed down the fundamentals. First master the logic, then develop timing strategy.
• 1 Like

  tanes256 Alum Member

  August 2016 2573 karma

  Hello, everybody has provided great tips. The only thing I would add is do not get too far in your studies without timing yourself. I would go with the stopwatch first because in the beginning it didn't make sense to me to time myself when I didn't really know what I was doing. Obviously you have to get the fundamentals down or it's probably going to be impossible to complete a section within the timeframe. Once you are solid with the fundamentals start setting your timer for 35 mins. The other thing I wanted to add was make sure that you are prephrasing before hitting the AC on the appropriate question types. These have both been the hardest habits for me to break. I was drilling yesterday and didn't once prephrase. I hit 10/10 but maybe that was just that time?? Studying with no timing just allowed me to be lazy. I was reading at my own pace and taking forever on the AC. I won't have that luxury on game day and it never fails when I start PT I always have to remind myself that "I'm timing this one" and kinda wake myself up. You don't want any unnecessary distractions on game day or feel that you have to change how you've been taking PT to do well on the actual test. Good luck!