Improve by 10 points 'till Dec. LSAT

[aliu0204]

Hi Powerscore,

I have taken the June 2015 LSAT and scored a 151. And now I am registered for the Dec. LSAT. I have used the 1991-2000 tests as drilling practice for LR, RC, and LG, and yesterday I have just done one recent PT, and have scored a 149 -- 2 points below my June test score. I am getting extremely worried now, because this means that the review I have done recently has NOT helped at all. I can usually finish only 3 RC passages and 3 games, and around 20-25 questions for LR. My target it to at least score a 160 or higher in this Dec. test, which means that I need to improve by ten points!! I don't know if that would be possible in this little short time left, so I need some advice/suggestions from you.

I feel like on these threads, so many students are trying to score above a 165, but for me, even scoring a 160 is so hard. I do feel that I worked quite hard, but there is just no improvement. I have previously hired a tutor too.

Thanks a lot in advance!!

[Dave Killoran]

Hi A,

Thanks very much for the questions. Talking about practice test results, score increases, and the potential of increasing are a few of my favorite things, so I have a lot to say on these subjects

Let me start by talking about the scoring range you mention. Yes, there's a lot of talk on this Forum about scoring 165 or above, but there are also a number of people in the 140s or 150s trying to move to the next quantile. We've been fortunate that a lot of these PowerScore students did well enough to then jump into the 160s, so sometimes it makes you feel that everyone is scoring there, but that's certainly not the case! Most of the time, the advice that I give would apply to every student regardless of score. If it doesn't, I typically will qualify the advice and explain which score levels it works for best.

Let's start by addressing the 149 that you just posted recently. I can tell that it threw you off, and I don't want a single test result to make you think that all of the work you just did has had no value. It didn't, and sometimes we study hard and don't see immediate results, but the studying you did will ultimately help. I wrote a lengthy reply to another student when she had a 6-7 point decrease on a single practice test, and I think what I wrote then applies here as well. It's at http://forum.powerscore.com/lsat/viewto ... 59&p=20048. There's a solid discussion of score variation in that post, and also a second portion about test mentality. I think that both sections and the related links would be useful for you to read. I would go through all of that information now, before finishing the rest of this post. If anything within those discussions strikes a chord with you, please let me know in your reply.

Next, let me ask you a few questions about your typical testing experience. That will help me assess your current score as well as your potential for hitting 160 or higher. You mention finishing 3 games and passages, and about 20-25 LR questions. When you go into LG and RC sections, how do you decide on the games/passage you will do? Do you just do the first three, or do you choose the ones to do? If so, how do you make those choices? And, can you talk to me about how much time it takes for you to set up each game, diagram the rules, and make inferences? In RC, how long does it take for you to read each passage, and does that vary with the topic? If it does vary, how does it change and by how much times? Do you make a lot of notes on a passage, or none at all? In LR, what questions types give you the most trouble? Which ones take the most amount of time? Same for reasoning types? and do you try to diagram every problem, or is it pretty hands off? Basically, any information you can give me about how you attack each section and the problems/strengths you have would be fantastic. Once I have some of that information, it will help me give you more specific advice on getting that score increase you need, as well as how to go about achieving that.

Ok, that's a start. I look forward to hearing back from you and once I have that info we will keep on talking and hopefully I'll be able to give you more specific advice at that point. Thanks and have a great evening!

[aliu0204]

Hi Dave,

That's a very long post with a lot of suggestions! I've enjoyed reading every sentence of it, thank you so much!!!

I have previously been a student of Powerscore, and have taken the 3-month long summer LSAT course, and I found the bibles to be extremely helpful in preparing me for the LSAT, especially the LG and LR sections. I pretty much learned how to do the LSAT from them.

- For the LG section, usually I just do the first three games sequentially, without attempting the fourth game. But sometimes I do find the second or third game to be challenging, therefore I just jump directly towards the fourth game and attempt this one instead. It takes around 3-4 minutes for me to diagram the games out. In total it takes me around 9-12 minutes to finish one game. Sometimes I feel that I not very good at making inferences at the beginning. I have done all the games from 1991-2010, however I feel that I am just mechanically doing them, but the speed is not improving, and that I am not learning too much. Usually I like to look at the 7sage LG videos, as I think that they are very helpful in teaching strategies. I think one thing lacking for me might be to categorize, summarize, memorize the games and the reasoning behind each of them. I am a science double major, so usually LG should be the easiest section for me, but it seems that in this case it is not. If there is unlimited time, I think that LG would be the section I would score the highest on, as I will probably be able to do all the games accurately (unless it's a killer or weird game), BUT speed is a very big problem. So because of the time factor, though my accuracy is okay untimed, my LG section timed score is still very low.

- For the RC comprehension section, usually I do the first and second passages for sure, and then choose between the third and fourth passage. But usually I just do first, second and third passages sequentially, because I feel that the fourth passage is harder than the third comparison passage. I usually take around 3-4 minutes reading each passage and annotating it, but I spend way too much time doing the questions and I always need to refer back to the passage. I need to make annotations throughout reading the passage, otherwise I can't follow up reading and understanding the passage. I usually circle the keywords and underline other stuff with a pencil. While reading I do try to think about the main point, author's perspective etc.. but then i forget about this later, because I become too concentrated reading the passage, and feel that thinking about those things would delay my reading speed. As for the topic of the RC, my weakest topic would be something about art, music, or even law. I feel that I just sometimes cannot even understand the passage properly, and I take a lot of time reading it (~4 mins) and answering the questions. I feel that minority/diversity passages about a minority ethnicity author OR science passages are okay. I do not see a huge disadvantage or advantage doing a comparison passage vs. single passage. Usually the score is around the same. My average time for each passage is around 10-12 minutes.

- For the LR, I basically have no specific strong or weak point for a type of question. My mistakes are quite spread out. But usually I can get the Main point questions correct. I can usually finish 20-25 questions within the 35 minute period, and the total score for one LR section is around 15-18, with 15/25 being the average score, and 18/25 being the best score. And after I score myself, and circle the wrong questions I go back to the wrong questions, and try to choose the correct answer. Usually I can get most of them correct, and can increase from 15 /25(original score) to 20ish (after corrections score). While trying to getting the wrong questions correct, I do analyze each answer choice and ask myself why the other choices are wrong. While i do the questions, i usually put a note next to the questions that I am unsure about, and after scoring myself, I return back to these questions even if I have chosen them correctly, and try to understand why this is the correct answer.

Overall, I am a slow test-taker. In college, I always finish the exams at the last minute, BUT usually I can still score very well, because the time given for the exams is generous. I have already graduated from college, and I am working now. I graduated from a top 20 university, with a STEM double major.

Sorry for this extremely long post!! I would love to hear advice from you regarding my LSAT preparation for Dec., but I am just wondering, do you personally do LSAT tutoring? I have read many of your articles and replies to students and found them to be very helpful, so I was just thinking that if you do teach personally, perhaps you could help me better by guiding me through the LSAT preparation for Dec.? I have previously hired tutors to help me with my LSAT, though I don't think that they were very helpful. The tutor that I have hired was a student who has scored above a 178, and is attending a Yale.

Thank you in advance for your time and patience in reading through this post!!! I really really appreciate it!

[Dave Killoran]

Hi A,

Thanks for the helpful reply! I really appreciate all of the information, and it makes it easier for me to give advice Let's dive right in and see what we have:

• Logic Games
  
  With speed a known problem, there are a few things you need to do:
  
  1. I think you should choose the games you do instead of just doing them in the given order most of the time. You simply can't rely on LSAC to give you the best three games as the first three games, so this allows you to take some control in the matter. Better to impose your will on them than the other way around! In connection with taking that approach, you have to work on step 2 below.
  
  2. You mention needing to "categorize, summarize, memorize the games." I'm not sure how deep your knowledge is of the games, but the more you know, the better! And, if you are going to apply step 1 above, you will need to be able to very quickly analyze a game and sense whether it will be easier or harder for you. You can't take the time to read the whole thing slowly and then decide; instead you need to go through all the games you've done, and identify which ones you thought were easiest. Perhaps it's Basic Linear games. When you read a game scenario, you can pretty quickly see if it's a Basic Linear game, so then the concern would be if there are other strange or unusual elements that would increase difficulty. This is one huge benefit of being able to study all these past games: you get to see what they've done before, and that will help you recognize it when it comes up again.
  
  3. One of the comments you made—"I feel that I am just mechanically doing them"—concerns me. Just doing games is a start, but you have to learn from them otherwise you aren't getting the most out of your time. I'd rather you did four games very slowly and studied them carefully instead of doing twenty games and just glossing over them and not really reviewing them properly. So, you might consider changing your study and review approach. You have a science background so I agree that LG should be a strength. It may be that the way you are going about studying LG (volume) should be adjusted just a bit so you can get maximum return from the time you spend. what are your thoughts on that?
  
  
  Reading Comprehension
  
  This is a tough one. The amount of time you are spending on the questions suggests to me that you should actually spend less time on reading/marking the passage (because you are going back into the passage for long periods of time anyway). But, you note in your comments that you feel the need to mark up the passage otherwise you can't understand it. I'd like to try a test, just to see what happens. What I'd like to see you do is: read through a whole RC section and use minimal notating and underlining (honestly, this is what almost everyone should be doing anyway), and while reading simply focus on getting the big picture. what is the author talking about? What's the main point? What's said where in the passage? Who said it (in general, not specific)? In other words, strip away all the stuff around the passage and just focus on the big picture elements. Would you mind trying that? There's no guarantee it would work (and it might make things worse), but then we'd know whether that is a viable avenue to explore
  
  And, as with LG, I do think that choosing your passages—primarily based on the topics that appeal to you—is the best approach (and I don't think the 4th passage is necessarily the hardest, just fyi, so I wouldn't automatically choose to skip it).
  
  
  Logical Reasoning
  
  It's very rare that someone wouldn't have any specific strengths or weaknesses within LR. Can you tell me how closely you track your performance from test tot test? do you keep a spreadsheet of questions missed and why? Do you closely review the questions you answered correctly as well as the ones you answered incorrectly?

Last, thanks so much for asking about tutoring. I really don't tutor very often any more, as I prefer to instead answer Forum questions, work on seminars, train instructors and staff, and write various articles. But, with the information you've provided, I am happy to direct you to one or two specific tutors that I think would be a great fit for your situation! If you are open to that idea, I'll copy on an email with some thoughts. Please let me know what you think.

I hope this is helpful. Thanks!

[aliu0204]

Hi Dave,

I am very sorry for the late reply. I just saw your reply now! Your suggestions are immensely helpful!!

I am indeed interested in studying with one of the tutors from powerscore, and at the same time, I have some personal concerns which I would like to ask you through email. Would you mind giving me your email, so that we can discuss further about the tutoring and my concerns by email? Thanks a lot!!

[Dave Killoran]

Hi A,

I just sent you a direct message. Thanks!