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LSAT Round 2

LSATHopeful-2LSATHopeful-2 Alum Member
in General 109 karma

Hey guys,

When I took the LSAT December 2016 I thought it would be my only attempt. Although I did well, to get into the school of my dreams, I need to do better. Problem is I went all in last year and burned through a lot of valuable PTs

There are a lot of PTs I haven't hit (30-45) range, and some intermittent throughout the more recent ones. Any ideas on how I should go about PTing from now until my September test date? I know I can still squeeze juice out of the one's I did do, and I know I don't remember a lot from those same PTs. I am concerned however, that the PTs I do take again will not be truly indicative of my score, moreover, I'm not sure how to schedule what PTs (seen and unseen) to do when. Would I want to do the one

Help?

Thanks!!

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Comments

  • LSATcantwinLSATcantwin Alum Member Sage ⭐
    edited July 2017 13286 karma

    It seems to be a common theme on 7sage that burning PT's is a bad thing unless you have a solid understanding of the CC/LSAT basics.

    While I agree having fresh tests is important to improving, I'd argue it's not the most important part of studying for the LSAT.

    Use tests that you've taken fairly recently as practice materials. Take the questions and use them to apply the concepts you are learning. This way you can get good at applying concepts to specific questions and you will not be "wasting" the questions.

    The tests you have not taken use for full timed PT's. These are important to do to get a good understand of where you are and unseen test are better at showing an accurate score.

    Right now I take one full PT a week (5 sections) and the rest of the time I go section by section attacking weaknesses and questions I missed. This is still very possible even with burnt materials.

    The most important thing here is not to worry about method, wasted materials, or the past. It's to sit down and apply yourself to the mechanisms of the test. Over and over again. The fact that you may have seen a question before, in my opinion, is NOT that important.

  • goingfor99thgoingfor99th Free Trial Member
    3072 karma

    @LSATcantwin said:
    It seems to be a common theme on 7sage that burning PT's is a bad thing unless you have a solid understanding of the CC/LSAT basics.

    While I agree having fresh tests is important to improving, I'd argue it's not the most important part of studying for the LSAT.

    Use tests that you've taken fairly recently as practice materials. Take the questions and use them to apply the concepts you are learning. This way you can get good at applying concepts to specific questions and you will not be "wasting" the questions.

    The tests you have not taken use for full timed PT's. These are important to do to get a good understand of where you are and unseen test are better at showing an accurate score.

    Right now I take one full PT a week (5 sections) and the rest of the time I go section by section attacking weaknesses and questions I missed. This is still very possible even with burnt materials.

    The most important thing here is not to worry about method, wasted materials, or the past. It's to sit down and apply yourself to the mechanisms of the test. Over and over again. The fact that you may have seen a question before, in my opinion, is NOT that important.

    +1

    Great post.

  • AllezAllez21AllezAllez21 Member Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐
    1917 karma

    I fully agree with @LSATcantwin . It does not matter that they are retakes. There is still value in doing the correct processes of solving an LSAT problem.

    Just jump in. Fool proof games, fool proof RC, drill LR. Save a few fresh tests for August. The scores you get on PTs don't matter in a way. They're there to help you study and learn.

  • Achen165Achen165 Member
    656 karma

    I'm in the same boat as you. I began studying only with the most recent tests in preparation for the February exam. The tests are still useful, unless you have somehow memorized the answers. I'm lucky in the fact that I did the tests but didn't have any resources to consult to explain the correctness/wrongness of each answer, and didn't do an in depth review of the tests (no BR)...is this the same case for you? Even when taking the official exam, I noticed some very familiar stilumuli with different question stems. As long as you have not memorized the answers, (which you have stated) which is aided by the passage of time from Dec. to Sept., it is not likely you remember much of those tests since those are hundreds of questions you went through many months ago? You fly through questions so quickly through PT's that you can still use them. I find that re-using tests that you've already burned through will probably skew your PT score somewhat making it potentially higher, but other than that, are still a valuable learning resource, as others have said. The LSAT materials can be somewhat repetitive, the biggest skews being in the games (not a bad thing, if you do a whole lot of them so that they become formulaic), and harder RC passages (a second read probably comes with more clarity...but if you don't remember it..then maybe its ok).

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