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Improving scores above 165
Hey guys,
I just signed up for 7sage but I've been studying for the june lsat for about 3 months now, around 10-15 hours a week. I've gone from low 150's high 140's starting out to averaging 163 over my last 4 preptests. My question is what do you guys continue to work on as your scores improve? I signed up for 7sage for the test analytics and as a way to get a new twist on areas of the test I struggle at the most. Any ideas on how to "max myself out"? I'm currently working on my weakest areas which are LR assumption questions and flaw questions.
What I'm doing right now is trying to go through old preptests I've taken and ace individual timed sections, 35 for LR and RC but 30 for LG, taking at least one test a week. I've taken close to 20 tests. I have yet to actually ace anything but I do -1 to -2 on LG and RC a fair amount but can't seem to crack around -5 on LR. The more tests I take the more I realize you can struggle in 1 section with a -5 but if you can 0 or -2 a couple sections it is huge for high scores.
Hopefully, this isn't to incoherent. I just really want a 170 score and want to spend my remaining 5 months getting as prepped as possible.
Comments
Congrats on the wonderful improvement! What really helped me is utilizing the analytics and zeroing in on the types of questions I was missing. I found that I was allocating time to all question types equally when there were weaknesses that I should have been spending time on improving.
Also, I was plateaued on LR missing -6/-4 for months until I implemented a skipping strategy! It took me to the -2/-3 realm fairly quickly once I got the hang of it.
Have you gone through the curriculum? It may seem redundant, but doing so will definitely help you. I didn't really and it was one of the early mistakes I made when moving from other test prep companies to 7Sage.
You seem to be at a great spot for study groups.
Start writing out explanations during and after BR, especially for questions where you are weakest.
Hi @"ogren.mark15" ! Yeah I agree with @"Alex Divine" analytics is definitely a game changer for your LSAT prep. Here are some things I've noticed in regards to the questions you said you are having problems with:
Learn flaws well. It helped me a lot to go through the Wikipedia flaws (there are also books on flaws that some sages have read). I wrote notes and made flashcards on the flaws and this helped me immensely. I found that by learning flaws and getting more familiar with how and why they ruin argument validity, I was able to quickly spot holes and weaknesses in many other LSAT question types. After going through those, get to know what kinds of flaws re-appear on the LSAT. If you can definitely look at the LSAT Superprep books and read LSAC's explanations of right and wrong acs as well as their explanations for flaw questions. (Here's a flaw intensive webinar if you are interested https://7sage.com/webinar/flaw-intensive/ )
Next learn how to skip questions. This sounds like it could be disastrous (you will likely see your accuracy drop the first time you try this, but don't worry). The more questions you get your eyes on and answer with certainty the better. You don't want to get caught up in the psychological trap of the LSAT. Sometimes there will be questions earlier on in LR sections that are tough and will waste your time; skip them and come back to those questions at the end. You can check out this webinar on skipping https://7sage.com/webinar/skip-it/
Make sure you know and review your fundamentals. Your -1-2 RC performance is promising! You may find that it helps to review some quizzes on the fundamentals like grammar, group translations etc. Reviewing the lessons on sentence grammar helped me immensely with parsing out complicated LR stimuli. Also practice paying close attention to referential phrasing and embedded conditionals---get good at quickly deciphering the more important dichotomy in the reasoning of complex stimuli. https://7sage.com/lesson/grammar-subject-predicate-details/
Learn how to anticipate answer choices if you don't already. Don't get obsessed with the correct answer having to be your pre-phrase, but it does help to have a flexible idea of what you are looking for. Of course this depends on question type. Here's a helpful webinar on that https://7sage.com/webinar/jimmy-anticipating/
Eliminate your bad habits. You can either learn more about your habits by observing your mistakes in real time and BR, or you can record yourself while taking timed sections. Bad habits could mean wasted time in your process like: not reading the question stem first, not immediately identifying the conclusion and premises in the stimulus, not being efficient in what you need to do per LR question etc. Evaluate your process and eliminate bad habits by practicing slowly what you should do every time when you get to LR questions. Getting rid of bad habits will slow you down at first and so you will have to practice quite a few questions to break your bad habits.
^These are a few of the things I did to push my PT score over 170. Let us know how it goes!
For me these were important:
Writing out LR answer explanations for ones I got wrong, or felt were ridiculously difficult and guessed, but got right. Sometimes I've had to stare at an LR question for 30 minutes to fully understand where I went wrong. Then you just have that moment of epiphany and it all makes sense... sneaky sneaky LSAC.
Taking my weakest section as the experimental during ALL PT's. For me it was RC, which I got down from a -5-8 to a -2-4. Probably be LR for you, so take an experimental section for each PT. Try to look for the harder ones if you're feeling daring.
Keep practicing LG. If you EVER get ANY wrong in LG, you have more work to do. I am guilty of this myself. On Feb LSAT, I had to guess on 3 questions... probably ruined my mid 170's chance. So keep going even after you hit -0.
Thorough blind review. For me, it was redoing every RC section timed, and listing line references for each answer/answer choice right next to them. Also, on LR, going through the section timed again (loosely) and spending time on the difficult ones. After time is up, stare at the ones you still can't figure out (for up to 30 minutes if necessary).
great advice! I am in the same boat as OP.
Just want to say thanks for all the advice and I'm currently trying to incorporate lots of it already.
Edit: I didn't read Nessa's comment. I just realized she attached the same video and many more
@"ogren.mark15" There is a great webinar video on skipping strategies here https://7sage.com/webinar/skip-it/
Thanks for the advice! I really need to keep drilling the games-- they are making or breaking my score these days (sometimes i get a 170, other times a 162 depending on how difficult the game section is/whether I can finish). Also will try and incorporate the other tips as well to push over a 170.
I am in a similar situation and have implemented most the advice mentioned. It has helped immensely. A couple of things I would add though is "get social." Talk to other people on these forums about the test. Post comments and answer questions. Attend the BR calls. You will gain much more than you expect by doing so. Also, remember that getting questions right doesn't really show much (after all, you have a 20% chance of getting any question right). What matters much more is your process. Did you identify the conclusion? Did you see the support? Did you recognize and anticipate the flaw? Did you eliminate 4 wrong answer choices? Getting the question right is reflective of all having all of these habits and under pressure, habits will carry you through. Which is also why you shouldn't score chase. Focus on getting questions right and using your processes to do so. The score will come as a natural extension of doing so.
Excellent advice by @"nessa.k13.0"
@bridgetka , if your score is taking 8 point swings just based on the strength of your LG performance, you definitely need to address that. Take some time to do an intensive and lock that down. Here's a great guide on an effective way to approach doing that:
https://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/2737/logic-games-attack-strategy/p1
Second. Great advice all around.
@"ogren.mark15" I often have issues with identifying flaws as well so I do a lot of google searches. I just came across this http://blueprintlsat.com/lsatblog/tag/logical-fallacies/
This just helps me better spot the flaw in the LR arguments. Just google and you'll find all sorts of stuff. Sometimes there's literally one sentence in an article that helps and other times there's nothing in an article that I haven't already read but it doesn't hurt. Definitely take a look at the Wikipedia stuff mentioned above. I took a lot from those articles.
I like that it's real life situations, not that the LR questions aren't but sometimes I can't understand that crap!