What should I do in my situation?

[Jleon25]

Hello Powerscore Staff,

I am going to apologize ahead of time for this extremely long post. If anything I am asking is out of scope for this forum, please just let me know. I am hoping Mr. David Killoran will be able to respond to this post. I have read many of his blogs and truly admire his work. Here we go...

I have been studying for the LSAT nearly an entire year now using only Powerscore material; I began by studying periodically for the first 8 months (10-15 hours per week with taking certain weeks completely off). Since April of 2015, I’ve been studying 5 days a week for approximately 6 hours a day. Throughout this year of studying, I have read all three Powerscore Bibles (twice), taken an online course with Powerscore, and taken both advanced courses for Logic Games and Logical Reasoning. I really am truly grateful for Powerscore. I believe in this company’s techniques; they have already significantly led me towards my goal of a LSAT score of 172+. I started out scoring in the low to mid-150s. Currently, I am averaging anywhere from a 165-169 on my practice tests. I have maxed out at a 171 (twice). My raw score averages from anywhere between 82-88. I really desire to score a 172 or above on the actual test day, which is the October 2015 LSAT.

However, I have lately been noticing a DECREASE in my scores. Today, for the first time in a month or so, I scored below a 165. I took the June 2002 test and scored a 164. I really feel like my ability to perform on this test is not showing. I am not sure what is going on. Maybe it is because I am now taking practice tests from after the year of 2000?? After a thorough review of each test, I almost always get the missed questions correct the second time around (feeling like I made a careless mistake). I average 2-5 incorrect on each LR section, 1-3 incorrect on LG, and usually 4-6 incorrect on RC. RC is almost always my worst section.

I do not feel fatigued in any sense; so, I do not think burnout is a problem…. (maybe I’m fooling myself though). I’ve actually learned to love the challenge of the LSAT. As a Philosophy student, I enjoy anything intellectual. I am likely one of the most motivated students to ever come across this test (not saying this to brag in any manner). I know that I can achieve this 172+ score. I believe (maybe naively) that I can even get close to a perfect score on this test. However, I am currently lost on how to improve. So, I am seeking advice with my situation. I am using the Powerscore self-study site to enter my answers and evaluate my performance. Is there anyway the Powerscore Staff could review my results and maybe lead me in the right direction? If this is not possible, I would appreciate ANY ADVICE.

I do not have funds for a private tutor since I am financially independent, have quit my job, and taken out enough loans only to pay my bills until October.

Any help or time from Mr. Killoran or the Powerscore Staff would be DEEPLY APPRECIATED.

Thanks for your time and reading this post!!!
Jacob L.

[David Boyle]

Hello Powerscore Staff,

I am going to apologize ahead of time for this extremely long post. If anything I am asking is out of scope for this forum, please just let me know. I am hoping Mr. David Killoran will be able to respond to this post. I have read many of his blogs and truly admire his work. Here we go...

I have been studying for the LSAT nearly an entire year now using only Powerscore material; I began by studying periodically for the first 8 months (10-15 hours per week with taking certain weeks completely off). Since April of 2015, I’ve been studying 5 days a week for approximately 6 hours a day. Throughout this year of studying, I have read all three Powerscore Bibles (twice), taken an online course with Powerscore, and taken both advanced courses for Logic Games and Logical Reasoning. I really am truly grateful for Powerscore. I believe in this company’s techniques; they have already significantly led me towards my goal of a LSAT score of 172+. I started out scoring in the low to mid-150s. Currently, I am averaging anywhere from a 165-169 on my practice tests. I have maxed out at a 171 (twice). My raw score averages from anywhere between 82-88. I really desire to score a 172 or above on the actual test day, which is the October 2015 LSAT.

However, I have lately been noticing a DECREASE in my scores. Today, for the first time in a month or so, I scored below a 165. I took the June 2002 test and scored a 164. I really feel like my ability to perform on this test is not showing. I am not sure what is going on. Maybe it is because I am now taking practice tests from after the year of 2000?? After a thorough review of each test, I almost always get the missed questions correct the second time around (feeling like I made a careless mistake). I average 2-5 incorrect on each LR section, 1-3 incorrect on LG, and usually 4-6 incorrect on RC. RC is almost always my worst section.

I do not feel fatigued in any sense; so, I do not think burnout is a problem…. (maybe I’m fooling myself though). I’ve actually learned to love the challenge of the LSAT. As a Philosophy student, I enjoy anything intellectual. I am likely one of the most motivated students to ever come across this test (not saying this to brag in any manner). I know that I can achieve this 172+ score. I believe (maybe naively) that I can even get close to a perfect score on this test. However, I am currently lost on how to improve. So, I am seeking advice with my situation. I am using the Powerscore self-study site to enter my answers and evaluate my performance. Is there anyway the Powerscore Staff could review my results and maybe lead me in the right direction? If this is not possible, I would appreciate ANY ADVICE.

I do not have funds for a private tutor since I am financially independent, have quit my job, and taken out enough loans only to pay my bills until October.

Any help or time from Mr. Killoran or the Powerscore Staff would be DEEPLY APPRECIATED.

Thanks for your time and reading this post!!!
Jacob L.

Hello Jleon25,

It sounds as if you have been putting in a lot of work! And thank you for your kind words about PowerScore.
Other people might want to jump in, but for now, let me just note, that even if someone does not feel burned out, he may be burned out anyway. Perhaps taking a few days off from study might actually be helpful? With all the work you have put in, there may be fatigue setting in that one is not fully aware of. Just a thought.
Best,

Hope this helps,
David

[Jleon25]

Hello Mr. Boyle,

First of all, thank you very much for the quick response! You are welcome for the kind words, as they are much deserved. I almost always take off Saturdays and Sundays, but maybe a 5 or 6 day break could do me some good! (Even though it will be extremely hard for me to not look at material for almost a week lol)

By the way, I just finished the October 2002 test a few minutes ago; I scored a 167. This relieved some stress to see my score rise from my previous test and back around my average.

Thanks again for your time!!

[Dave Killoran]

Hey Jacob,

Thanks for the question, and my apologies for not replying to this sooner. I just happened to be reviewing the answers we have given on the Forum this week, and only now noticed that you mentioned me specifically. So, here I am

First, thanks for the kind words about about my work, and also for being a dedicated student of ours. I personally appreciate it!

Second, I'm glad to hear that you posted a 167 shortly after posting your initial question, simply because I know it made you feel a bit better to bounce back up several points. One of the things I was going to say to you was that the score variance you are seeing is natural. In fact, this exact discussion came up a few weeks ago on this Forum, and I think the post I made there about score fluctuations would be helpful for you, because you are seeing some of the same issues: http://forum.powerscore.com/lsat/viewto ... f=2&t=7473. The bottom line is that this seeming dip you just experienced is not cause for alarm, and it should not overly worry you.

Third, I really like some of the positives I see in your post, especially your attitude that you love the challenge of the LSAT and that you know you can score a 172+. That is exactly the way you should be thinking, and it's a GREAT sign for you making that happen! If you told me that you didn't think you could do it, that would really worry me. So, keep the positive attitude intact—it's one of the strengths you can use to achieve that score!

Fourth, I glanced at your test results, and one thing I immediately noticed was that recently you are taking tests too frequently. For example, in August alone, you took tests on:

8/4
8/5
8/7
8/10
8/11

5 full tests in 7 days is a lot! That high pace alone helps explain why you might see a bit of a drop at times. There's a point where your brain gets saturated and just says, no more! There's also a question of whether you are able to fully review those tests. I feel like the process of properly reviewing a practice LSAT takes at least 2 days, so make sure that you are getting through every question on the exam, including the ones you answered correctly. I wrote a blog post on a related topic that I think might help here: http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/239 ... -questions. That's for people who have seen all the questions already, but the basic idea of how to review questions and how to think about them holds true for all test takers.

Last, as far as burnout, David Boyle is right in saying that sometimes you aren't in the best position to diagnose how you really feel. As I've written on our blog, breaks from the LSAT can help increase you score, and so my question to you would be, when did you last take a few days off? Because if it's been a while, now would be a good time to give yourself a mini-break from the test.

Alright, please let me know if that helps! And if you have any other questions, I'd be happy to cover those as well. Once again, my apologies again for the delay in replying.

Thanks and have a great weekend!

[Jleon25]

Hello Mr. Killoran,

First of all, thanks for the time you have taken to answer my questions; the small wait for a reply was no problem whatsoever! Your reply was extremely helpful. I know I am asking plenty of you guys to help me solve a problem that could be resulting from many different things. I read all of the links you provided and the posts dealing with score fluctuations. The information was interesting and stress relieving as well! After reading your reply, the main sentence that stuck out to me was:

“so make sure that you are getting through every question on the exam, including the ones you answered correctly”

As of now, I have taken approximately 15 practice tests. When reviewing each test, I have only been going over the problems I answered incorrectly each test. Occasionally, I would review problems answered correctly only if they gave me a REALLY TOUGH time during the test. Should I be reviewing all 100 or so problems after each test??

To answer your question about my break schedule, I take two days completely off every week from practicing or reviewing anything (in attempt to avoid burnout). The last time I took more than two days off in a week were the days of July 31-August 3. Referring to my practice test days you provided, I was really ready to get back in the groove on August 4th after the extended break (hence, the 5 tests in 7 days lol). Thank you very much for pointing out that I took 5 tests in one week!! I did not notice that I was taking SO MANY tests in such a short time span. Do you still recommend an extended break even though I take two days off every week??

As a side note, I calculated the overall statistics of my past ten practice tests using the Powerscore self-study site. I found some interesting things. The only question types in LR I am answering correctly under 80% of the time are Flaw and Weaken questions. I also noticed a dip in my percentage correct in Causality questions for the past few tests. So, Wednesday and Thursday of this week, I reviewed some lessons from the advanced LR course on prephasing and those two question types (Flaw and Weaken).

Also, I read a post by Nikki Siclunov from Powerscore that spoke of how students sometimes slack on their “process” for each question after studying for so long. I felt that this could be relative to my situation. Thus, to see if this could be a problem for me,I took the September 2007 test UNTIMED to work on my process and being more mechanistic with each question. For each question on the Sept. 2007 test, I said my process and prephase out aloud. I scored a 177 on the test and only missed one LR question total of the two sections. I’m not sure if this means much since it was untimed, but it sure felt good to see that score. Even though I have no doubt I can do this, it is always relieving to actually score in the 172+ range!!

Once again, thanks for your time. Have a great weekend as well.
Jacob L.

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Jacob,

Thanks for the reply and I'm glad I could help so far! I appreciate the additional information, and now that I know a bit more, let's talk about some of the questions you raised:

Should I be reviewing all 100 or so problems after each test??

The answer to this is a resounding yes! You need to review the questions you answered correctly for two compelling reasons:

• 1. Reviewing every problem allows you to carefully examine how the test treats each concept, and fills out your LSAT knowledge. As I wrote in one of the blogs linked in my last post, it often takes two or three readings to full capture every aspect of an LSAT question. Seeing it just one time robs you have that full understanding.
  
  2. You might have gotten lucky, or you might have not been as efficient as you could have been. Reviewing every questions helps you make sure you did it the right way. And if not, you can learn what occurred and get better.

My colleagues Jon and Nikki wrote two blogs related to this topic that might be of some help here:

• http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/how-to- ... oblem-sets
  
  http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/153 ... tice-tests (See Steps 6 and 7)

Do you still recommend an extended break even though I take two days off every week??

The two days a week off is a great, but even people working 5 days a week want a slightly longer break sometimes. And, since you will likely ramp up your time in the month before the LSAT, I'd say now is the right time to take 3-4 days off. Breaks are incredibly important in the studying process, and although you've done a great job thus far, taking one slightly longer break is still good, I think.

I’m not sure if this means much since it was untimed, but it sure felt good to see that score.

It does mean something! It shows that you have the capability to answer the questions. That extremely important to know! You simply need to work on timing—which is often a matter of practice and small improvements—and you'll be in a good shape.


Keep on the path you are on—you are doing well and all the signs are positive Thanks again!

[Jleon25]

Hello Mr. Killoran,

Thanks again for answering my questions! I am going to fully follow the advice you gave in your recent post. From now on, I will review every question from each practice test. I have not looked at any material from Saturday-Today (Monday). I will likely take off a majority of tomorrow (Tuesday) as well. The break has been nice; however, I am realllyyyy ready to get back to practicing for the LSAT .

In addition, I just wanted to give you a special thanks for the kind words and the motivation. If any thoughts pop up that you feel might be relative to my situation, please let me know!

Have a good week!!
Jacob L.

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Jacob,

Awesome, that sounds good. If you are already wanting to get back to it, that's a great sign

I'm glad I could help so far, and as other questions come up, just let me know. And, please call me Dave. We're pretty informal around here!

Thanks!

[Jleon25]

Alrighty, I will certainly do that!!

Thanks again!