Improving LSAT practice test scores

[Nfontes93]

I completed the online 12 week course a couple of weeks ago and have been taking practice tests for the past month. I am scoring in the mid-160s between 163 and 165. My main goal is to score between 168 and 172. My weakest section is logical reasoning. I get between 2 and 4 wrong in rc and logic games. I have been going back through the books and redoing all of the problems I have gotten incorrectly. I am still not seeing any improvement. I took an un-timed test over a couple of days to test my level of comprehension and I scored a 172. So this tells me that my accuracy is significantly affected by the time. Do you have any advice on what I can do to improve? Thank you!

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi Nfontes93,

Thanks for your question, and welcome to the forum!

First all, congrats on reaching the mid-160's. I realize this is not the score you're looking for, but you definitely deserve a pat on the back for scoring in the top-5% of the test! Getting from the top-5% to the top-1% is perhaps the most difficult "jump" you can make: many high-scoring test-takers get stuck in the mid-160's, seemingly unable to move up. Why? For one thing, you probably reached the score you did relatively quickly - within a few months, or even less. If you started in the mid-to-low 150's, all you had to do is learn how to tackle the major game types, improve your Reading Comprehension speed a bit, and master the fundamental concepts in Logical Reasoning. As long as you were able to develop a strong conceptual understanding of the material, your score was certain to increase. With the right study regimen, you gradually became more efficient in how you tackled the various question types, improved your overall section strategy and time-management, and saw your scores creep up. There is a lot of low-hanging fruit on the LSAT, so to speak, which is why many test-takers mistakenly assume that they can maintain their initial rate of increase throughout their studies.

Unfortunately, once they reach the mid-160s, a lot of students hit a plateau. It goes without saying that, generally speaking, the more ambitious your target score is, the more effort it will take to get there. Oftentimes, the amount of effort it takes to get from the mid-160s to the low-170s is exponentially greater than the amount of effort it took to get this far. In other words, while absolutely doable, you will probably see diminishing returns on your investment: a 10-point jump may have taken only a month in the beginning; once you hit the mid-160s, it could take another two months to jump half as much! That’s when students often seek professional help - through online instruction, tutoring, or a combination of both - in order to identify and fix specific gaps in their skill set or knowledge base. You may also want to check the Advanced Logical Reasoning course, which is particularly well-suited to students such as yourself:

http://www.powerscore.com/lsat/advanced ... reasoning/

For more info on score plateaus, check out these blog posts:

http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/316 ... -Attention
http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/how-to- ... lsat-study
http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/243 ... Your-Score
http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/309 ... st-Go-Down

Also, check out the following blog posts to learn more about how to pick up your speed on LR, RC, and RC:

http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/lsat-sp ... -your-pace
http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/a-timin ... erformance
http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/153 ... ing-Almost

To wrap up, don't obsess about your target score: you may be improving without even realizing; in fact, you most certainly are, given the results of your untimed test. It is difficult (if not counterproductive) to worry about your pace to the exclusion of everything else: this almost always leads to rushing, and may lower your score. Focus on the process, and let it do its magic. With every practice test you take and review, you learn more about your strengths and weaknesses. Use that knowledge to your advantage, and you won't be disappointed.

Let us know if this helps, and good luck!

[Nfontes93]

Thank you for your response. I actually do feel I've been rushing...an observation that I've made when I review my tests. In the LR section, I am usually able to get 50% of the questions I originally answered incorrectly quite easily so in the future I should probably focus more on accuracy than answering every single question in the section. Perhaps I'll see some improvement after I adjust the way I'm approaching these two sections.