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Does everyone have a natural plateau score?

monica123monica123 Member
in General 90 karma
I have been studying for the LSAT for close to 5 months now. I don't know what my diagnostic score would be as I never took one. The first practice test I took, I scored around a 165, and I am now scoring in the 171-173 range. I took the LSAT in September 2016 and I am not confident I hit my target score of 173. I want to retake in December, but the question is - Should I aim higher? Is there a point in postponing until February? It's such a small score improvement that I think I am capable of scoring higher, but I do not want to waste another 3-4 months working at something where I really don't have a chance of improving much.
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  • Cant Get RightCant Get Right Yearly + Live Member Sage ⭐ 🍌 7Sage Tutor
    27900 karma
    You have a great chance of improving. Look through all your data and identify exactly where you can improve. Where are your weak spots? Once you've identified that, it's just a matter of addressing those areas. You're scoring so high that identifying those areas gets kind of tricky, but if you know how to read your tests and compare your timed scores to your BR scores, you can find them. All the information is in the tests. It may be a simple matter of foolproofing games or sticking to a more rigorous BR process. It all just depends.
  • BruiserWoodsBruiserWoods Member Inactive ⭐
    1706 karma
    I never really broke the 171-173 plateau. I scored 175 ONCE on a retake that I had BRd pretty thoroughly. It seems as though, like @"Cant Get Right" is saying, there is really only so much you can do once you're only missing 10% of the questions on the test. You're not only now worrying about your last (and therefore biggest) weaknesses, but also, usually, the hardest questions on each test. In addition to all that, you have to tighten up ALL other shaky points, and absolutely CANNOT make any "careless mistakes." (I put it in quotes, because there really aren't any "careless" mistakes, but everyone is human and we all read a word wrong or skip an inference from time to time).

    tl;dr - you can break the plateau, but it's the hardest and most challenging, nit picky, diminishing returns plateau to break. And I have no idea or advice as to how long that plateau takes to consistently breach.
  • desire2learndesire2learn Member
    1171 karma
    It can be done but it is not easy. You have to work on all of your weaknesses individually and new one will crop up that you did not have before. Timing strategies become paramount but you will be able to make it through over time. The hard part is the mental battle. Do not get discouraged when you don't progress. Look at it as a chance to learn about new weaknesses. You will go through this process over and over and over. There is a reason that the tail end of a bell curve looks the way it does. The amount of work to improve at the extremes is more than in the middle but it can be done. Just keep improving every day and do not get too up or too down. Just prepare and work, prepare and work. You can definitely break through.
  • monica123monica123 Member
    90 karma
    Thank you for all the replies! This was really motivating. I will just keep working at it and see how far I can get.
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