Less "Prep tests", more individual practice method

[fmihalic1477]

Hey everyone,

I've been going with what I feel may be a bit of a non-conventional method, but I'm having a lot of success with it and I wanted to share, as well as receive any feed back.

I have purchased every single prep-test that is available on the market, 1-80. Typically, I will study a chapter in the bible, let's say that I study "Most supported questions" one day. Upon finishing the chapter, I will go through every single prep-test 1-55 and do all of the most supported questions. I don't track time per se, but I am conscious of my speed, and I have tracked sets of individual questions to determine time and conversion rates. I notice that as I do more and more practice, my time gets faster (around 1 minute - 1.5 minutes per question), and along the way I learn from my mistakes. This so happens to be one of my weaker question types because I find that complex terminology is more common with these types of questions and each day I am getting bullied around by the science terms less and less because I am learning to extract the necessary information. Generally, I convert about 80% of these questions with an average time of about 1.5 minutes, but I convert Main Conclusion(average speed of 45 seconds) and Principle conforming(average speed of 1 minute, 20 seconds) questions at 95% with an average speed of about one minute. Sorry, I study statistics so every is broken down to a percentage science. I have yet to formally study the strengthen and weaken questions or assumption question. But, I have noticed that I am very "streaky" with these types of questions. What I mean is that I will answer 9/10 correctly and then will get 5 wrong in a row. Time is not really an issue. I think that I get lazy when I don't get the answer right and I fail to really track the premises. Is this normal and just part of the process of because an exceptional LR performer?

I'm sorry, I kind of asked about 6 questions here. That said, any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated.

My overall goal to consistently score no more than -2. I take the LSAT in September.

[Kristina Moen]

Hi fm,

Your methodology sounds like it's working for you, so keep it up! Strengthen and Weaken are two question types, but you might see causal reasoning, conditional reasoning, numbers and percentages, arguments based on studies/surveys/polls and other types of reasoning within those question types. I'd recommend keeping track of the type of reasoning present in the Strengthen/Weaken questions you are missing. Let us know if you see a pattern, and we can offer tips for addressing those specific types of reasoning.

And remember to keep some prep tests available for closer to the test day when you want to simulate the test environment. Doing many of one question type is a great strategy right now, so you can solidify the skills needed for those question types. Eventually, you will need to mix them up. Perhaps your "streakiness" is because you are feeling bored after doing so many of the same question type. However, on test day, you never know what the next question type is going to be!