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Five Prep Tests Later - Can't Break out of the 145-150 range
H O Thomas
Alum Member
I started 7sage back in September 2016, with the intention to take the September 2017 LSAT (which I pushed back to December). After doing the core, and doing five prep tests, I have yet to score above 150, which I've achieved twice. My average is 147.8.
After PT 39, I have felt defeated and crushed. It's not the worst I have ever done, but it's also a dip back down to my starting point. I feel like I'm doing something wrong, but I don't know what it is. As I can only dedicate 15 to 20 hours a week to studying for this test (which is mostly done at night when I'm burned out from work), my time is precious.
My process for the last five prep tests has been as follows - take the test, blind review the test, and then do a comprehensive review of each section of the test. Why the right answers are right. Why the wrong answers are wrong. Why I picked the wrong answers when I did. Drill the games. Drill the reading comp. This has been the advice of multiple people, and I don't feel like I've gotten the gains I'm supposed to. In fact, I feel as though I haven't gained anything.
Doing what I'm doing now isn't working, so there must be something I'm missing. I feel as though my worst section is logic games, but it's only edging out slightly compared to every other section. Should I just focus on drilling? Do I need to just dedicate my hours of studying to just logical reasoning until I'm answering 20 in 20 correctly? Alternatively, is this just a problem with the older tests being a lot harder than the newer ones?
Comments
Can you post more info? What are your scores averaging for each section?
Averaging over the past five tests, I've gotten 13 wrong on LG, 12.6 wrong on CR, and 10.6 wrong per section of LR.
I would say LG is my worst section, mainly because I have problems with misc games and I'm generally slow when figuring them out. When drilling the games, I spend about an hour to an hour and a half per game between trying to solve the game within time, and going back to the video to see what I missed. I've really carved all of the games thus far into my brain. This is mainly due to doing them so many times. I don't feel like I've been getting better at games though.
CR is really hit or miss with me. I either get what I'm reading, or I don't. I read the passage, try to understand and link up whatever I can, and then go into the questions. I end up understanding one passage really well, one passage mostly well, and two others either barely or not at all. This is another area I haven't felt any improvement in, but that's mainly because I can't read quickly. A lot of answering of the questions feels like I'm mostly going with my gut feeling.
LR I used to be terrible at, you have no idea. Getting 14 or 15 wrong per section was standard for me up until recently. Now, I average about 10 wrong per section, and I'm super stoked about that. The areas where I'm still weak are flaw, and necessary/sufficient assumptions. I've gotten a lot better at these, but I'm still missing them.
I'm not really in a position to give people advice (since I'm struggling to improve my score too) but I went from -10 to -1 (or -0) in LG after doing LG Bundle.
I used to do one game type over and over again, but I improved my PT LG score after I started drilling LG per section (within 35 minutes). I think drilling LG section within 35 minutes is important because it got me into the habit of skipping questions or even a whole game. When I can't seem to get the right setup for a game, I skip and do an easy game first and then come back within 35 minutes.
Are you BR-ing with a clean copy of the PT?
You say you do BR THEN do a comprehensive review. However, BR IS the comprehensive review. BR on each PT is meant to take a long time--some (like me) take 1 week per PT. From a clean PT in BR, it can take me a few hours to BR one section now that I write out reasons why I chose each answer and why the wrong answers are wrong (without checking the answer key). Are you rushing BR?
I'm not rushing the BR, but you could say I'm doing it twice. Once as normal, and the second for the entire PT.
My BR score is normally 8 to 10 points higher than my actual score, mainly because I go back and really dive into the questions I couldn't figure out on a first pass. Normally, my BR focuses on LG and CAR, with a bit of LR in there. I do not check answers until after the BR is done.
On my comprehensive review, I review everything. The most I have done with checking the answers is putting them into the grader. I don't check the answer until after I figure out why the right answer is right, and the wrong answers are wrong. This helps reinforce a mindset when approaching the questions. The repetition has definitely helped me a lot on LR.
So it sounds like you're BR-ing well. But if you're doing it twice, the logical should follow that there would be even more improvement than doing it just once. So there still might be an element missing in your BR.
+Do you drill each area of weakness you find in your BR ad nauseam before taking the next PT?
+Likewise, are you foolproofing each logic game you encounter (especially during BR?)
+Are you using a clean copy of the PT when you BR? I ask because I made huge gains in using a clean copy every time I BR (even if I am doing only a few questions throughout the entire PT), so as not to compete with any bias of previously chosen answers.
Something else I want to share while I'm foolproofing and BR-ing PT18, all LGs for tonight's Oldies Monday call---
Here is my process for LG, and where I realized the biggest gains to get -0 in LG sections thus far:
1. I print out a copy of LG1.
2. I do that game timed. I do it as long as it takes, but I know it's the first game of the section, so I need to be quick. I generally target 10 minutes (which is a huge leap for me where I used to be 14 or 16 minutes per game--yeah, bad.)
3. I print a clean copy of LG1 and do it again in BR, without timing it.
4. I go to my notebook and write out and think about the gameboard(s) (I pick up even more problems with my gameboards, if any) and go through each question and list the reasons why I pick my BR answer choice, and all the reasons for each answer choice that I felt were wrong, and why they were wrong.
5. Then I look at JY's video explanation.
6. Then I do the game 1 more time, to get it all right under the time goal JY states.
7. Repeat for each LG in that section.
I used to worry about losing some skills between LG stacks, but I'm beginning to see repetition, so those skills are becoming easier to retrieve.
I hope this helps!
Can you also expand on your BR process of LR and RC as well? I'm scoring -2/-3 on LG but my RC is -10 to -15. I barely have time to complete the last passage and I get really nervous (because I know I'll run out of time and it's this thought that drags on..). It just seems like I don't have a solid RC process. LR varies from -5 to -9. mostly from Q15-23. I also find I score poorly on the latter LR section, even the easy last questions due to faded concentration. Your BR on LG was helpful so wanted to know how you go about approaching the other sections as well. Thank you!
I drill the sections, but not specific question types exclusive to my weak areas. Coming from Test Masters (where all you did was drills), I've found that drilling LR and CR questions is kind of a trap for me. The test itself doesn't group all the question types together. They're scattered, and so I have to switch between one strategy to another strategy. I feel caught in a catch 22 because want to drill entire LR sections, and time myself on each individual question. Maybe I could take PTs 1-30 and do that? I'm not sure how true it is, but I was once told that the PTs from the 90s are not reflective of PTs from 2007 beyond.
For logic games, I am fool proofing them, or getting as close to fool proofing to them as I possibly can. There are some games where I had no idea on how to even begin diagraming a master game board, so I would have to individually figure out the right and wrong answers per question. As implied by @akistotle I should drill the mammoth LG packet made from PTs 1-30.
I am using clean PTs whenever possible, which is most of the time. I end up saving quite a bit of paper by not writing on my PTs. I'll put the answers onto notebook paper, or the Scantron sheets. This helps me during my comprehensive review because it's a clean sheet of paper that shouldn't away me one way or another based on previous work.
This sounds like a good idea to me. I'm going to start drilling that giant package tonight. LG works on being able to inference and push-back rules. The more exposure I get, the easier this should become.
What are your BR scores?
it sounds like you are stuck in a bit a rut... all of the advice you've gotten here is good, but i think you would benefit from a bit of a shift in your focus. stop worrying about your score on your timed PT and focus on your blind review score.
your blind review score will gauge your actual understanding of the material and concepts. after a blind review return to the core curriculum, rather than individual questions that you got wrong, to review your weak spots. this will help you improve your knowledge base. and as your blind review score goes up you'll notice a causal relationship with your timed PT score.
lastly, i sucked at logic games at first and especially so under timed conditions. i was, like you, scoring -14/15 on each LG section during a timed PT. i paid a tutor $100/hr to help. he told me to simply skip one of the games and guess "C" for all the answers. the extra time allowed me to focus on the 3 games and complete them accurately. instantly brought my score up by 4 or 5 points. then, during my BR I would complete all 4 games. you could try a similar strategy with reading comprehension. i'll also highly recommend nicole hopkins' reading comprehension webinar:
it helped raise my RC score by 4/5 points!
Thank you for the votes of confidence, but sadly, I haven't perfected those processes yet.
I'm halfway through the RC process ---exactly from the webinar that @runningthroughthemountains has included above. I use this notation system (Sage Nicole), in combination with CantGetRight's, plus I think it was Accounts Playable's 3 questions (1. what's the main point, 2. author's tone, 3. arg structure), plus DanielZNelson's notations systems.
Basically, I have combined 4 Sage's RC notation systems, then put my own spin on that combo. Which I haven't articulated or met with consistency yet.
As for LR, that's my biggest mountain to climb, so I'm nowhere near perfecting that process yet. But thank you for asking---it gives me some motivation!
Ditto for me. That's why my LR process is nowhere near perfected yet. I don't have a handle on its randomness yet, which sounds like the same boat for you. So onward we plough--sorry, plow (old Brit habits).
Something that is already helping me with LR is Monday night's Oldies Mondays with @"Cant Get Right" . I can't sing that man's praises enough (as y'all could probably tell from my minion madness since last week. lol) I recommend that study group to everyone because of how much it helped me on the questions we did cover live.
Nothing beats covering a question live with many different brains (peeps) at the same time. For me, that excitement and leaps of knowledge held throughout the week. I'm working on LR & LG today for tonight's call, so we'll see how my excitement translates. LOL
Sorry, that was a long way to say, yes, drill from (cannibalize) PTs 1-35, even if you've drilled those parts before. Re-do the quizzes from CC also--those REALLY help me when I need a certain question type reinforced. And if you can, join us tonight while we chop up PT18!
This is a sound plan. I just did it slower. However, admittedly, I'm probably not going to be able to register for the LSAT until June 2018 for many reasons, one of them being that I want to drill EVERYTHING as often as possible. So I need lots of breathing room.
--good plan for saving paper.
More power to ya for writing answers separately from the Q and ACs. I tried this too early and failed spectacularly. The copies of my PT sheets look like an autopsy, except not as neat as a professional M.E. might lay it out. LMAO
On average, they're about 9 points higher than my timed score. This is mainly due to being able to get all the games in that I missed, and check the reading comps that I didn't understand.
With games, it's rare that I ever stick with the wrong answer, and that's because I'm able to figure out the right answer. I have only ever come across one game where I gave up in my BR, and it's because I literally could not figure out what the game was asking me to do.
With Critical Reading, I end up picking the right answer unless I have no idea what's going on in the passage. There's normally one passage that does that to me, but in PT39, there were three, and I was thoroughly wrecked by it.
With LR, I will rarely ever get the right answer right on BR. Most of the time, I'm picking the wrong answer on timed, and then I'm either switching over to another wrong answer, or sticking with my original wrong answer. I know for a fact that it's because I have no idea how to do what the question is asking me to do. My comprehensive reviews have helped bring me from a -15 average to a -10 average for each section, but I am still very well aware there are questions that I can't do very well. Like sufficient assumption questions. I tend to just flat out skip them and attempt it on blind review.
Fun fact - statistically, the last LR game has a 50% chance of having D or E as the right answer.
I was in the group tonight. Truth be told, I didn't plan on being there. I just couldn't bring myself to focus tonight on my normal routine, so I figured "social activity" would be nice. I tackled question 21 (paintings and attribution question) with barely any prep. I feel absolutely on top of the world.
I'll try to make more in the future. I had fun, which I think is a new goal for me now. I need to make studying for this miserable test fun. Up until now, I've seen it as a thing to do because the incentive of a free law school ride is amazing. I need to study harder, but find a way to make it more... how you say... enjoyable.
You did a fine job too! That was a really hard question!!
For LR, I would really just go back to the curriculum and take extensive notes for each questions type.
I also definitely recommend the LSAT Trainer, a book by Mike Kim. It does an extremely great job of cultivating the right mindset for LR, and it also lays out the exact skills/habits/objectives for every question type on LR.
Two things from this:
First is that enjoying studying is critical. You've got to find a way to enjoy and be interested in the material. For me, a really big part of that was the study groups, so I hope to see you some more on Monday nights!
Second, you did do great on the paintings attribution question which was incredibly difficult! So I think it would be really productive to analyze that performance and see how you got through it. What I saw was that once you parsed through the language and really knew what it said, you went through the ACs with high confidence. The trick was figuring out what the hell the stimulus was even talking about. So I think that's really important. It's anecdotal for sure, but it seems to me like your instincts are good and your intellect is sharp once you know what you're dealing with. Funny enough, it's just really difficult to know what we're dealing with. That's an enormous element of this test which I think is far too often overlooked. So be sure to focus on that in your studies and reviews. Once you were able to summarize the stimulus more concisely and in your own words, that question didn't stand a chance against you. So make sure you're breaking down arguments not just logically, but grammatically. Identify and define your terms. If there's referential phrasing, fill that in with what it's referring to. Break the stimulus down and then reconstruct it. Create those summaries. I think that adding this as a part of your normal study/review (in addition to--not instead of--the logic, of course!) could really take you a long ways.
I agree with the general sentiment. But I would strongly advocate to stop taking tests. These are finite resources. Identify your weaknesses, go back to the lessons, and drill until you thoroughly understand.
@jimmyrivera201 @rochelleb180
Following up on this, have you improved since this post? If so, which method worked best for you?
I have broken the 150 barrier, but it required A LOT of trial and error.
I used everyone's advice. The advice is solid, but I made modifications.
The first 30 prep tests I use only for timing myself on completing sections. Instead of giving myself 35 minutes to complete the section, I gave myself an unlimited time. I read for understanding. I engaged each question. I always asked myself two things. First, what is this question asking me to do? Second, do I have a good understanding of what I read? These two questions are important because they let me avoid time traps.
I've also been taking notes on LR question-types I've been studying. Everyday, I review the notes for each question type. I use the Cornell Method because I can cue questions and/or issues with each section. I don't glance at my notes either. I engage them. I'll link a video series at the bottom that goes into studying and note taking.
Games are still my weakest section, but I'm better than I once was. Instead of mastering a game and moving on to the next, I now have a super complicated bin system. Again, check the linked video series at the bottom. It explains a lot better than I can type it out (I tried). Mine is different because my bins are days of the week. I also assign each question a number. If the question has a one, it means it goes into tomorrow's bin. If it gets a two, it goes into the day after tomorrow. Three is the day after the day after tomorrow. So on to seven. Every wrong question ever gets looked at at least one day a week.
For RC, I don't read LSAT passages anymore. I read legal treatises, memorandums, court opinions, and scholar articles. This stuff is dense, and it's not always written well. I'm good at RC, and only the most difficult of passages trip. Unfortunately, I am a slow reader. My reading pace has increased, but not enough to read and answer everything in RC with confidence. I accept this. I have always been a slow reader. I am slow, but purposeful. I use the dash and dot method in the video series below. Also, If you want any tips on what you should read, or what I've been reading, let me know.
I recommend everyone watch this series. It cranked my studying up to eleven on a scale of one to five.