How difficult is it to go from 160 to 170s by January test date?

[TootyFrooty]

I know I’ve only got a few days and I’m re reading a few chapters like assumptions and flaw which are my weakness. I’m also slightly weak with rc and have some polishing on games to do primarily sequence and patterns.
Can I raise my score by jan? If so what should be my attack plan

[Jeff Wren]

Hi TootyFrooty,

How much any student improves in a given amount of time varies tremendously based on a number of factors.

Having said that, going from a 160 to any score in the 170s is very difficult and usually requires significant amounts of studying/practice.

Most students seriously underestimate the amount of effort/time that it requires to improve their LSAT score to their desired target score. Unfortunately, the higher up the score range you go, the harder it becomes to increase your score (diminishing margins of return), so it's much harder to go from a 160 to a 170 than to go from a 150 to a 160, for example.

The Jan. LSAT is about 3 weeks away. This is a decent amount of time to continue studying/improving your score, but a lot also depends on how much quality studying/practicing you can do in that time period. (In other words, 3 weeks for someone very busy with other responsibilities such as working full-time is very different from someone who can really focus on LSAT studying.)

My recommendation is to continue studying in the next three weeks at a good pace without burning yourself out. Trying desperately to "cram" to get to a 170 by January if it's not happening is only going to frustrate you/stress you out.

See where you are in the week leading up to the January LSAT. I'd recommend getting Score Preview. If you get the score that you want, great! If not, you will have the option of canceling, so there's nothing to really worry about. You can always take the LSAT again, and most people do better the second time anyway.

[TootyFrooty]

Thanks so much. I am studying full time.

I’m a little blotchy with conditional reasoning in LR like justify and assumption questions. Any tips on how to work on this?

And any tips for RC? I’m losing about 8 or 9 on those

Sometimes in logic games depending on the game wording can throw me off otherwise I’m really good with this section.

Do you have any recommendations for me? I’ve read through the Bible’s and am reviewing some concepts again but the Bible’s are so dense that it takes me days to review them.

Should I focus more on taking practice exams or first reveiwing these concepts again?

Like what would help in improving my score at this time?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi TootyFrooty!

I’m a little blotchy with conditional reasoning in LR like justify and assumption questions. Any tips on how to work on this?

If you have PowerScore's lesson books, I'd recommend taking a look at Lessons 4 and 5. Lesson 4 goes in depth into justify, assumption, and strengthen questions, and Lesson 5 focuses more on assumption questions. In addition to reviewing PowerScore's concepts and strategies, I'd encourage you to do the drills in these lessons. Doing several of a particular type of question in a row can help you feel more comfortable with that question type.

And any tips for RC? I’m losing about 8 or 9 on those

Without knowing more about your reading comprehension strategy, it could be helpful to look at Lesson 2, which provides PowerScore's broad strategies for tackling reading comprehension passages in general. As is discussed in that lesson, it can be especially useful to mark up the passage if you aren't already doing so. This should be done with care and sparingly, but having arrows, numbers for lists, etc. marked up in the margins of the passage can be helpful for quickly directing you where to look in the passage when you are answering questions.

Sometimes in logic games depending on the game wording can throw me off otherwise I’m really good with this section.

That's great to hear that you're doing well on this section, but keep up the practice! If possible, it's great to try to shoot for getting zero wrong on logic games, which is feasible if you diagram them correctly and give yourself enough time.

Should I focus more on taking practice exams or first reviewing these concepts again? Like what would help in improving my score at this time?

I'd recommend doing both! You mentioned that you are studying full time. That gives you enough time to take a practice test every day, which I'd highly recommend if you're able to do so. You could then review the test later in the day, trying to understand why you selected the incorrect answer on ones you got wrong, and trying to understand why the right answers are correct. Then, after taking and reviewing your test, you could look at particular lessons to dig deeper into problem areas. Beyond hopefully boosting your score, taking all those tests should make you more comfortable with the exam and also gives you a good projection of how you're likely to do on test day.

[TootyFrooty]

Thanks so much! I am re reviewing flaw and assumptions in LR book by the chapter they’re pretty lengthy chapters and I had to write down notes which is unfortunately taking me a lot of time. I haven’t started practice exams yet.

Another problem is I think the stress has gotten to me and I’m having sleeping issues all of a sudden the past one week where I wake up after 3 hours of falling asleep. Then I’m awake for hours and finally sleep around 7 wake up at 10. This is catastrophic for my exam. Any tips?

And which exams do you recommend I take since I only have a short period of time?

I really want to push the exam to feb but fear I’ll lose spot in this cycle I’m a massive splitter, with 12 years of work experience

[Luke Haqq]

Hi TootyFrooty!

Another problem is I think the stress has gotten to me and I’m having sleeping issues all of a sudden the past one week where I wake up after 3 hours of falling asleep. Then I’m awake for hours and finally sleep around 7 wake up at 10. This is catastrophic for my exam. Any tips?

It's pretty normal for stress and anxiety to affect sleep. Without knowing more about your study patterns, one thing that might be worth trying is ensuring that you aren't studying late into the evening. Unless you're working at the same time, studying full time is something that you can do during normal work hours, meaning that you should be able to unplug in the evening--that might not mean entirely forgetting the exam for some people, but it could involve doing something else.

And which exams do you recommend I take since I only have a short period of time?

The most recent tests. If you had more time and had been planning to take, say, most or all of the available LSATs, I would have recommended to mix them up. But given the limited time, the most recent ones are certainly the most relevant ones to take.