End of prep course and almost NO score increase???

[ege222]

I'm freaking out. I am signed up to take the test in June, and am at the end of my power score full length course.

My overall score has increased by ONLY one point, started out with a 146 and on the third practice test I was at 147??. I am no where near where I need to be to even get into a half way decent school.

I have learned so much and have a completely different view on the test. My accuracy has tripled in Reading Comp but my LR and AR sections have remained mainly remained the same. At one point there was an increase in accuracy in LR but not an increase in number of questions correct.

I don't know what to do. I feel really discouraged. I have a high GPA, experience interning in law offices, am in 5 honor societies.. of course I walked into the room thinking I would be in the 99th percentile and was greatly humbled. But I'm not even scoring the average????? What am I doing wrong? I have set up a schedule for the next month taking 3-4 practice tests a week and then studying a different section of the test a night on the other days. But not thinking I can pull of the increase I need to in a month if I've been unable to really increase at all in two months of studying. HELP! I need some guidance.


RC- Pretty darn accurate when I only do three passages. 18 on last practice test
LR- tried slowing down and doing less questions but the number oddly still stayed the same. Anywhere from 12-16 questions correct.
LG- I haven't been focusing on these as much...Have gotten 10 correct on every single test. I know I have more room for increase in LR than logic games. I highly doubt I'll do more than three games, and have been putting that off trying to focus on LR since it makes up 50% of the test.

[Lucas Moreau]

Hello, ege,

My very first advice is simple: DON'T PANIC.

Seriously! Stressing won't make you do better and could very probably make you do worse. So first, relax, take a few minutes, and try to freak out a little less, lol.

My first substantive advice would be to go back through practice tests, practice sections, and practice questions you've been doing over the run of the Full-Length Course. What you're doing here is looking for patterns. Patterns like:

• Which types of questions you got more right (Weaken, Must Be True, etc)
  Which types of questions you got more wrong
  What percentage of, or how many, questions you answered per timed section
  What order you did questions in (if you can remember)

You're looking for common threads across the work you've done so far. For instance, if you notice you're consistently getting almost all Weaken questions right, then you needn't spend too much time studying Weaken questions. Or vice versa, of course.

This leads into my second piece of advice, which is determining exactly which source of your wrong answers is most significant - from incorrect choices or from not finishing in time to get to them? You mentioned you had an increase in accuracy but not an increase in number of questions correct...were you answering less questions more correctly? Speed is tricky to train for, but far from impossible.

Since you seem to be indicating that you're not finishing sections, there's some time training that might prove helpful. First, do a single section untimed (though as fast as you can), until you finish every question. Time yourself, but only in the sense of recording how long it takes, not racing a clock.

Then set a timer for 5 minutes less than the time you just got and try to fully complete another section in that amount of time. Once you can do that consistently, subtract another 5 minutes, and keep going that way until you've whittled your way down to 35 minutes. Or at least a lot closer than before!

Feel free to ask any more questions you have. That's why we're here.

Hope that helps,
Lucas Moreau

[ege222]

Thank you so much for your reply!! I am doing exactly what you've suggested.

I've gone through the tests and studied the patterns, especially in logical reasoning. I'll start the timer training tomorrow most likely and study the type of questions I suck at.

I took my last practice test in my powerscore class today and scored 152. How many points do you think I can raise my score in the next four weeks? I have a lot of time now that spring semester is over, and will mainly be studying for the LSAT and interning a few days a week at a law office.

I will probably be posting on here a lot. I'm sure I will have more questions and I'm not one to be afraid to ask for help. I hope I can find some serious improvement in more score soon.

Thanks for the encouragement. I need it I don't want to get so discouraged that I give up and it turn out that I could've increased my score exponentially over the month.
Elizabeth
Elizabeth

[Ron Gore]

Elizabeth,

Lucas gave some great advice, as usual! So, let's build on your progress.

The first thing I would say is that at this point there is no way to know what your final score will be. I understand test anxiety, fear of failure, and Type A-ness, and I sympathize with where you find yourself. However, please trust me when I tell you that you can improve significantly between now and test day. You have the foundation set. Now you just need to improve how you are implementing what you know.

If you have not done so, I want you to watch our free test mentality seminar. This link will play the seminar. If you want to check out all of free seminars, click here. If you're like I was initially, you probably don't think too highly of all the touchy-feely mentality stuff. But, I've become a convert over the years, and I urge you to check it out. Also check out this test mentality post from our blog. You've got to get in the right emotional/mental place before you can reach your full potential.

Next, in terms of practice tests, more is not necessarily better. Consider the one-month study plan posted by my colleague Nikki earlier this year. Also, you want to make sure that you are getting the most out of each practice test.

I tend to find that people who experience plateaus are not preprhasing properly and are not paying enough attention to the language details that create nuance and complexity withing the Logical Reasoning section. Jon has a fantastic blog series on how to improve your prephrasing that you might want to check out. And I wrote an article last year about selective attention and change blindness that might help your prephrasing as well.

Try out these resources. Be creative and aggressive in trying new ways to improve your prephrasing and your speed on the test. Please continue to check in with us and let us know how you're doing, and how else we can help.

Good luck!

Ron