Seeking Guidance on Overcoming my LSAT Challenges

[ahmedimam]

Hey there!

I am currently gearing up to take the June 2018 LSAT. I have been self-studying from February, and this next month will be crucial for me as I am still not hitting my goal of 165 on the practice tests. Let me explain in further detail:

Context

As I noted, I've been studying since around mid-February. From February up until mid-April, I was solely focusing on getting through all 3 bibles. I work full-time in a very demanding role at a corporation, and so the conditions in which I've been having to study haven't been ideal to say the least. For this reason, the weekends have become like gold me for me!

In any case, on my first two practice tests, I achieved scores of 148 and 149 respectively. After going through my mistakes on these exams and understanding my weaknesses in detail, I managed to get scores of 154, 152, and 154 on my most recent practice tests. While the consistency seems to be there, I also seem to have plateaued around this range. With just under a month left before the official exam, I am getting extremely nervous.

My process for going over the exams is as follows:
1) After completing a practice test, I will immediately score it to see where I am at and jot down any incorrect answers as well as questions that I might have gotten right, but ultimately kind of guessed or felt that I did not take the optimal approach to answering it. Then, I list the correct answer right besides the question that I got wrong.

2) After identifying my scores in each section (which are now very predictable by the section), I will analyze in depth each and every incorrect answer, especially with the LR and RC sections. When I mean in depth, I mean that I will take a look at the question, try my best to answer it again without looking at the correct answer, and then see where I'm at. If it's incorrect, or if I'm just simply not sure still as to why the correct answer is the correct answer, I will immediately jump to the forum to get clarification. I will spend a long time doing this, and will write down my analysis of each incorrect question in my notebook and what I should have done in order to answer it correct. This can get EXTREMELY frustrating, as I'm noticing that I'm continuing to make the same mistakes over and over again and feel like the mistakes I'm making are DUMB. I know that I know the material, but for some reason that grasp doesn't really show on my practice tests, especially with the added time pressure that I admittedly am not the best at dealing with

3) After compiling my analysis and seeing what went wrong, I will try my best to take on whatever lessons I've learned and practice with individual timed sections (LR + RC) and not full practice tests in order to really hone in on them. Sometimes, even after I've gotten a solid understanding of what I'm doing wrong, I still will make a similar mistake.

4) My practice tests are typically on the weekends, so during the week after work, I tackle individual timed sections as much as I possibly can.

Weaknesses

Overall, I feel like some of the concepts still are not "automatic" or "2nd-nature" to me yet. After going through multiple practice tests, I've decided that my plan of action will be to NAIL the Logical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension sections, and then attempt 3 games on the Logic Games section. While I don't think that I am exceptionally good at Logic Games, I know that with 35 minutes I can definitely successfully attack 3 games and only get zero, one, or two questions wrong. The last, unanswered game I will leave up to the LSAT guessing gods above... (may they be with my at all times!)

Some more specific weaknesses that I am seeing:

Logical Reasoning
- Flaw questions: I am still getting at least 2-3 flaw questions wrong per chapter. I have reread the chapter in the Logical Reasoning Bible, done many questions out of the Question Type Training, but am still having difficulty. I believe that it's related to the time aspect.
- MBT/most strongly supported: for very long, dense stimuli, I can find difficulty with the MBT questions. I'm getting better at them as I review my mistakes, but definitely could still use improvement
- Justify: In earlier prep tests, I neglected to use the 'Mechanistic Approach' to answering these and could see how it was negatively impacting my score. I've just reread this chapter in the Bible and plan on practicing the approach in more detail
- Assumption: You know, with the time pressure, it's hard for me to quickly identify whether the stimulus is looking for a 'Connector' or a 'Defender' assumption. Also, sometimes when I use the negation technique, an incorrect answer will seem like it weakens the stimulus! Clearly need practice, but just trying to figure out how to best approach it.
- In general: Time has been an issue, and I believe that it really has to do with the approach to answering questions still not "2nd nature" yet. The time pressure can negatively impact my focus and leads to dumb mistakes, a lot. Also, it takes me some time to fully digest a stimulus. I can easily and automatically identify the conclusions/premises, but with regards to fully understanding what exactly is being said, it takes me 2 or 3 reads of the stimulus.

Reading Comprehension
- Time! In general, I wouldn't call myself the fastest reader. Even in general, just reading the news/essays/etc. in everyday life I wouldn't call myself the fastest. Specifically to the LSAT, I can usually fully read and understand a passage in 4-5 mins and then end up spending another 4-5 mins answering questions. This is leading to me not being able to fully answer/attack each passage. Any tips on how I can speed this up and know each component of VIEWSTAMP to the passage off the first quick read?
- Diversity passages kill me. Even though I know exactly what to expect (i.e. the tone will be supportive of the underrepresented group at hand), the questions on these passages for some reason seem to be a lot more difficult than other passages

Goals
With all that being said, my goal still stands to achieve a 165 on the June exam. While it would be easy for a response to this prompt to say that I should consider taking the exam at a later date, I still believe in myself and my abilities enough to know that I am making a lot of dumb, correctable mistakes that I will dedicate every ounce of my energy and time outside of my day job to master!

I did not include anything to do with Logic Games in the above sections because I feel comfortable enough with that section to complete 3 games and do so with great accuracy. Again, my plan of action for the exam is to get 22-25 correct on each LR section and the RC section, and then get 13-15 correct over the 3 LGs that I attempt.


Questions

My questions for the LSAT gurus at Powerscore are as follows:
1) What are any general recommendations you have for me over the next few weeks, based on all that I noted above?
2) What method of reviewing my practice tests do you guys think I should be using at this time? i.e. based on my weaknesses and the remaining time before the exam, should I be using the Blind Review, Delayed Blind Review, or Immediate Review method of going over my answers?
3) In general, with my practice tests being done over the weekends, I dedicate Monday - Friday for going over my practice tests and improving on weak points. Should I be doing even more?
4) How can I overcome my time challenges on both the LR and RC sections?
5) How can I continue to get the concepts to be "2nd-nature" to me, so that I can automatically attack the questions without even thinking?
6) What am I doing wrong right now that isn't allowing me to get over this plateau of the 152 to 154 range? For LR, I typically get somewhere between 7-9 incorrect per section. For RC, I typically get 7-9 incorrect (which I think can be shored up with a better Diversity passage and more efficiently using my time so that I don't have to guess the entire last passage)
7) Or, alternatively, have I been going about this all wrong over the last 2 months, in which case I should definitely scratch the idea of taking it in June because of a fundamentally wrong approach...

Thank you so much in advance for reading and offering your recommendations! As you can tell, I am determined to improve and will do everything I can to do so. I know I have the abilities and the tools... it's now just time to really perfect them in as efficiently a manner as possible with the limited time at hand!

Best,

Ahmed

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Ahmed,

Thanks for the excellent recap! This is really helpful for us, and gives us plenty of ideas for what can help you improve There's quite a bit here, so let's dive right in!

First, just from an overall perspective, the best thing you said was: "I'm noticing that I'm continuing to make the same mistakes over and over again and feel like the mistakes I'm making are DUMB. " The fact that you see repeated errors and feel they are avoidable means everything to your ability to improve. while I know it's frustrating to make those mistakes, it would be a lot worse if you had no clue or simply couldn't understand what was wrong with what you chose. This means the changes are in how you interpret ideas and respond, and not in the basic understanding of what is being said. that is far more important than you might initially think, and tells me that improvement is within your ability here.

Second, time is always a problem for every test taker. Even for people who finish each section early, we always are thinking about time in the back of our heads and are looking to go faster. And we always fear one questions/game/passage that could cost us lots of time. So, that feeling of not having enough time never goes away, you just learn to deal with it more effectively with practice.

Those are just two broad thoughts that I wanted to mention to you, so let's move to your specific questions (I put your original questions in green for contrast:

1) What are any general recommendations you have for me over the next few weeks, based on all that I noted above? I'm going to try to fit in various parts of this answer to this throughout these seven replies (which is one of the dangers of having this parceled out into so many different questions—you lose a little continuity of thought as you attempt to address various pieces that might not be perfectly related). In general, I think that you probably don't know the concepts as well as you think, and thus your practice has been a little mis-focused: it's almost like you are trying to dig a mile-long trench with a fork. So, you are working hard on doing all these PTs, but if your grasp of the tools isn't strong yet (and you've more or less said that via your comments), you then are working way harder than you need to be. when your understanding of the concepts gets better, it's like you upgrade your tools. then you are digging the trench with a shovel, and eventually you hope to be good enough with the methods and techniques so that you are digging that same trench with a backhoe. Thus, to sum up, I think taking tests is great, but you don't want to rush headlong into that until you feel like you kind of know what you are doing and want to do. Otherwise you are wasting energy by working harder when you should instead be working smarter.


2) What method of reviewing my practice tests do you guys think I should be using at this time? i.e. based on my weaknesses and the remaining time before the exam, should I be using the Blind Review, Delayed Blind Review, or Immediate Review method of going over my answers? I'd say use Blind Review here. It's gives the best combination of feedback and timeliness in my estimation. what I really want, is you to look at each problem again without knowing the correct answer or having had time to make notes (beyond "this was tough" or similar). Part of what's happening to you is making mistakes you think are correctable, so put that to the test every time by redoing the problems prior to knowing what was right or wrong. That eliminates any bias and forces you to evaluate your prior choice!


3) In general, with my practice tests being done over the weekends, I dedicate Monday - Friday for going over my practice tests and improving on weak points. Should I be doing even more? I think this schedule is generally good given your time constraints. As I alluded to above, I think you need a little more than just take practice tests though.


4) How can I overcome my time challenges on both the LR and RC sections? This is also about practice, but keep in mind you have to know what you want to do as well (that's again about tools: you'll always go slower using the fork than the shovel or backhoe). Let me outline some ideas here:

Logical Reasoning:

• Speed in LR is based on two main factors:
  
  1. Your reading speed
  
  Simply put, how fast a reader are you? While native reading speed is hard to increase, you can improve your ability at what you look for and recognize, which offsets a slower reading speed.
  
  2. Recognition
  
  Concept recognition (I'll use that term broadly to encompass a number of different elements related to understanding argumentation, language, question types, etc) plays a major role in how fast you can navigate through each LR question. Ask yourself, do you really know the concepts well and understand how to recognize and manipulate them? If I were to whip up a quick quiz on a few basic LR concepts, how fast would you be able to answer each question (here's an example: quickly name the five ways to strengthen a causal argument; if you hesitated at all, you need to go back and make sure you have the ideas locked down cold).

Reading Comprehension:

• Speed in RC is based on one main factor:
  
  Your reading speed
  
  This whole section is about reading speed, and that can't be changed in the short term. So, since you are where you are for speed, what has to change is your focus on what you are looking for while reading. This is where ViewStamp comes in—it's simply a memory tool to help you identify and track the elements in a passage that they typically ask about. You need to know what they are likely to ask you about before you hit the questions. In the last chapter of the 2018 RCB, I added in a bunch of tests for students to help find their exact RC weaknesses—go through those and let's find out where the real trouble is happening!

Also helpful is what I wrote here, which applies to all students: https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/retaki ... your-score. Specifically, look at the points in #4 there as they all apply to you!


5) How can I continue to get the concepts to be "2nd-nature" to me, so that I can automatically attack the questions without even thinking? This is all about practice and memorization, to be honest. You have to first know the ideas cold, and then practice with them over and over until you recognize them in each questions and respond appropriately. The more questions you do, the better you get at it!


6) What am I doing wrong right now that isn't allowing me to get over this plateau of the 152 to 154 range? For LR, I typically get somewhere between 7-9 incorrect per section. For RC, I typically get 7-9 incorrect (which I think can be shored up with a better Diversity passage and more efficiently using my time so that I don't have to guess the entire last passage) this is tied back to what I've mentioned in the prior two points: it's about knowing concepts/methods/techniques and then about practicing them until you recognize them every time and react immediately.


7) Or, alternatively, have I been going about this all wrong over the last 2 months, in which case I should definitely scratch the idea of taking it in June because of a fundamentally wrong approach... I can say this: how you've been going about it was a start, but it seems you slipped into a rut and simply kept repeating the same approach. That wasn't the right thing to do. But, the overall summary here, which may be disjointed above due to the different replies, is that just doing PTs over and over isn't optimal unless you are already totally locked in conceptually. I suspect you need more work there, and that's likely the root of the problem. You have to go back in to the concepts, or use some sort of fast-forward tool like tutoring to get there quickly (which I'd strongly recommend here given where you are, what you've told me, and where you want to be in a month). Then, that's the point where you start doing question after question.


Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!

[Dave Killoran]

Added note: I ran out of time to analyze the various question types, but everything in there—Flaw, Must, Assumptions—pointed me towards the idea that you aren't getting a good handle on what you read, and then you aren't translating that well into their terms in the answer choices. You've got to lock down what is being said first: can you paraphrase what they said into 2-3 sentences and be relatively accurate? If not, that's a starting point. Then, you need to become familiar with how they describe various situations.

Last, a comment on this: "Assumption: You know, with the time pressure, it's hard for me to quickly identify whether the stimulus is looking for a 'Connector' or a 'Defender' assumption." Ok, but your goal is not to identify that in the stimulus. You identify those in the answers, mainly because you can't tell what they will do in the stimulus on a reliable basis (well, you can with some practice, but it's not something most people can do early on).

Thanks!