Score improvement

[James2020]

Hi powerscore, I have a few questions today I was hoping you guys could help on. I am taking the August LSAT next week and set a target goal score of 160. On my last 3 practice tests I have gotten 157,157,156 and can't quite seem to get over the hump to a 160 but I do know I have it in my to get a 160+. Do you have any suggestions to get over that hump in my final stretch of studying before I take the LSAT?

Also, do you have any suggestions on what to do this final week of prepping to really laser focus my mind in, so I am giving myself the best chance possible to succeed on test day on every section without any lapses?

Thanks!

[Frank Peter]

Hi James,

One general piece of advice I give to students is to play to your strengths. At your score level it's possible that you may be leaving points on the table by spending too much time on higher difficulty questions and foregoing easier questions. Don't over-invest your time in more challenging questions if you haven't attempted questions you are more comfortable with. This general advice also holds true for logic games and reading comp.

Could you provide some more details? What sections are you struggling with the most?

[James2020]

Hi Frank thanks for the reply. I would say my biggest weakness is still RC while my Logic games is strong and for the most part expect a few question types my LR holds fairly strong.

[Luke Haqq]

Hi James!

I can offer some suggestions about RC. First, if you have PowerScore's course materials, I would encourage you to look back at Lesson 2, starting at page 2-19. These pages provide a lot of useful advice about how to attack the RC section.

In line with the advice that Frank provided, in that score range you might find that you'd be able to raise your score by strategically thinking about harder versus easier questions. In the case of the RC section, this can also apply in terms of thinking about which passages to read first. If, for example, one of the passages was about dinosaurs, that might be a good reason to start with it if you're interested in dinosaurs. Additionally, many students find the comparative reading passages to be easier because they involve two smaller chunks of text, and because many find the questions about similarities and differences between the passages to be easier questions to tackle. So, think about doing the passages out of order--potentially starting with the comparative reading passages, and then addressing them in order according to which ones interest you the most. This should only take a handful of seconds to look at each passage and decide what order you'll do them in.

It's also important to pause after reading a passage and use PowerScore's VIEWSTAMP acronym (Viewpoints, Structure, Tone, Arguments, and Main Point). Many people move straight from reading a passage into the questions, which is understandable given the time pressure. However, it's worth taking a moment after having read a passage to reflect on what you just read--and the VIEWSTAMP acronym provides a great structure for doing so. This certainly doesn't need to be as long as one would spend on logic games in the process of diagramming and finding inferences. Rather, even if you spent 15 seconds after reading a passage to digest and organize it, that can give you a significant leg up when you start on the questions.

Lastly, given that LSAT administrations are currently in the LSAT-Flex format, I've suggested to some of the students I tutor that they might find it helpful to draw a box for each paragraph on their scratch piece of paper. This is because marking up key aspects of the passage (definitions, enumerated lists, examples, etc.) is important for being able to find what you're looking for quickly, when you're doing the questions. Since all one is able to do on the LSAT-Flex is highlight text (as well as flag questions), drawing a box for each paragraph allows you to make much more nuanced notations if you want to. So, for example, if a new term/definition are given at the bottom of the first paragraph, then on the scratch paper, you could write a "def" next to the bottom of the first box on your scratch paper.

Hope those thoughts help!