Advice after Completing Dec 2004 PT

[moshei24]

Hi,

I just took the December 2004 PT, and after taking it I felt that I got around a 165. I ended up scoring a 162. The one I took 13 days ago, I scored a 160 on, and the two I had taken a few months before that I had scored a 163 and a 161 on. The two previous to that were 154 and 150, and 153 a few years ago, but I don't take those into account anymore.

On the one I took today, I had done my best overall performance in LR. Before today, my best score on LR had been getting 9 incorrect with a worse performance on the LR experimental. On this one, I got 45/50, and 22/26 on the experimental section that I took from an old LSAT. On LG, I got 19/22. The bad section I had was RC, which tends to be my worst section, I got 13/27, which is awful in my book.

In LR, I had started off a bit shaky in the first section, but regained my focus, had a small amount of time to check some I wasn't sure about, and got 3 wrong in that section.

Then, I did the RC section. I started to feel burnt out, somewhat, in the second passage - I think mainly because I wasn't really following what was going on in the passage - but either way, I got 2/8 on that passage after getting 4/6 on the first passage. The first two passages were Humanities. The third passage was science, and I scored 5/5. The last passage I was low on time, so I did almost no diagramming, didn't have the passage down well, rushed through the questions, forcibly educatedly guessing on most of them, and ended up scoring 2/8 on that section. That section was Law/Diversity. I feel that the second passage is what really slowed me down, as I reread parts of it - which didn't really help me understand it. When I was doing the science passage, I was answering a lot of the questions from memory, and didn't really need to look back in the passage that much, and actually got all five of the questions right.
RC has been my weakest section in all standardized tests throughout my life. Over the past week, I've tried to most days, go through 1-3 passages a day, and work on diagramming them quicker, focusing on not over-diagramming. My overall regimen lately has been, to do a few LG per day, a few RC per day, and about 20-30 LR questions per-day on average. What would suggest I change that to? I'm finishing up the LR Homeworks soon, as I'm in Lesson 10 for those. I start school again in about two weeks.
Should I start timing myself more often? I've started timing myself in LG, trying to keep myself under 9 mins per game, but I haven't yet for RC, and I don't for LR. What should I do with that?

In the LG section, the first game go to me a little bit. I realized just now that I completely mis diagrammed one of the rules, which is probably why it took me a bit too long to get through that one, and I now realize that I'm lucky that I only got 2 of my 3 wrong in that one. And one of the two wrong was a careless mistake. And the other one wrong was one of the two I guessed. That's pretty surprising given the fact that I mis-diagrammed a rule. The second one, I also don't think I got through fast enough (wasted time trying with templates that didn't pan out), but I didn't get any wrong, and left myself about 15 mins for the last two games. The third game had a lot of conditional reasoning, and I got one wrong there. The fourth game I was rushed, but I managed to get them all right.

Overall, I feel pretty good about this test, as I see that I'm improving in LR, I see that I'm getting a little bit better and more poised in LG, and I see that biggest weakness is still RC.

But what advice can you give me to overcome that weakness? And what would you answer to my questions earlier? What should daily to really fix that RC weakness, and what should I do in the other sections to keep improving?

I plan on taking another test on Tuesday. Should I push it off to maybe next Thursday instead? Which PT should I take? Should I move forward to more recent ones or should I take the next most recent after Dec '04? And is there a point in going over the RC section of this past test? If so, how should I analyze it?

Thanks for your help!

-Moshe

[moshei24]

Also, my current goal score is a 173, and I'm taking the LSAT on October 10th.

Thanks!

[moshei24]

Would there be a point in me looking online for tips on how to read faster in general?

[moshei24]

Also, do you know of any RC courses that would be worth taking to improve me RC score? Or would that be pointless?

[Adam Tyson]

I don't know that I can answer much of what you're asking, moshei, but I can take a stab at a small piece of it. I am going to reiterate some advice I gave you previously, which you rejected, and that is to stop trying to finish every question on the test. There is no prize for finishing a section - the prize is in getting the most right that you can. Your performance on the RC section you discussed here is a perfect example - how much might your score have improved if you had spent 15 minutes each on two of the passages, taking careful and thorough notes, prephrasing the main point, tone, and structure, and really getting them down solid and getting every question right, and then randomly guessing on the rest? Maybe 14 right due to your careful approach, and perhaps 2 or 3 more from the guessing strategy? I would suggest you try that on one RC section and see what it does for you. You have nothing to lose by trying it. If that goes well, then do another section where you give yourself 11 minutes each on three passages, guessing only on the fourth. The very act of slowing down and removing the pressure you've been putting on yourself to hurry up and finish may allow you to improve your focus. I've tutored several students who tried this method and they found that their scores improved and their speed increased.

I do think you should keep timing yourself on full sections and tests, but perhaps not so much on individual passages, games and questions. Focus on the techniques, then do a timed section; then focus on techniques again, and then a timed test, and keep repeating that cycle.

One last suggestion - consider private tutoring. There's only so much that we can do in this forum to help you. A tutor who can meet with you, talk to you, watch the way you work and develop a plan of action for you could be worth their weight in gold.

Keep up the good work.

Adam M. Tyson
PowerScore LSAT Instructor

[moshei24]

Thank you.

First off, I could get through three passages without really rushing, so to do two passages would be pointless. Also, I've done a test where I only got six wrong while doing all four passages, so to go and give up on six questions right off the bat does not makes sense to me. Why aim to not finish as my technique as opposed to working on improving my speed? I can't rely on getting my scores in LR and LG over the next two months to at most 2-4 wrong on those three sections total.

I'm trying to figure out how to go about improving my speed and score. When I do practice passages, I don't time myself, and that's how I'm improving my technique. I disagree that taking a timed test where I only do 2-3 passages will help me improve my speed. If anything, it will get me accustomed to a slow pace as opposed to pushing myself for a faster pace.

I'm really looking for advice on how to I should be studying RC passages in a non-test situation.

And in terms of a tutor for RC, I've been thinking about that, and I likely will at some point, but prices on tutors are high. So if I could improve my RC score on my own, I'd rather not have to spend the hundreds of dollars it will cost.

Thank you for your advice.

-Moshe

[Adam Tyson]

I don't know of a way to improve your speed other than practice. Part of my point is that I think you are trying too hard to rush through, and that if you relax and give yourself permission not to finish the section you may find that your accuracy and speed actually improve. That's what many of my tutoring students have found when they tried this approach. It's not that your aim is to not finish - it's that finishing is not your aim. See the difference?

I understand that you can get through three without rushing - but can you do so with 100% accuracy?

I've given you the same advice twice. If you don't want to try it, don't, but if what you've been doing hasn't been working, why not give it a shot?

Adam M. Tyson
PowerScore LSAT Instructor

[moshei24]

You overlooked part of my response to you. It has worked. I've had a test where I got only 6 wrong. I've had a test where I got 9 wrong. I'm inconsistent in the section. It usually comes down to if I get stuck on one passage or not. If I try that new way of going about it, especially if I do two passages, I will be guaranteeing myself that I'll do worse than I usually do in that section. If I do three passages, it's another story. But I can't guarantee myself 100% accuracy in three passages if I only do three. Usually, I do pretty well on three out of four and then bomb the last because of time. By pretty well I mean that I usually get 3-6 wrong on the first three passages. That's only going to improve, but with less than two months until the test, it would likely be detrimental for me to start using a method that I will not be using come test day. I'm not going to decide, or make it likely that I will be guessing on 6-7 questions on test day. That just doesn't work.