Strategy for December LSAT

[karen_k]

Hi,

I am currently stuck in the 162/163 range on my practice tests. When I review my tests, I usually find that I have made a few silly mistakes and that there are other questions I could have gotten if I had paid more attention. I usually review my practice tests and make sure I understand questions that I got wrong. However, I haven't been making any progress in terms of score increase, and I really want to score in the high 160s on the December LSAT. I know I'm just a few points away from my goal, and I wanted to see if anyone could give me advice on how I could better improve my studying and increase my score. I really want to reach my goal score by December! Any insight/advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Karen,

Thanks for the question! Coincidentally enough, I just answered a similar question last night, over at http://forum.powerscore.com/lsat/viewto ... =12&t=7903. Both of you are in a similar score range, so my comments there apply to you as well. If you could take a look at that and perhaps reply with answers to some of the questions I posed there, that would be extremely helpful Also, so I have a better sense of how you have been studying, can you please give me an idea of how much you study per week, as well as how often you take practice tests? And I'm thinking you are self-studying using the LSAT Bibles, but if I'm wrong about that please do not hesitate to let me know! If I'm right, can you tell me which books of ours you have? That will help me make suggestions as we keep talking about this.

You also mentioned improving your studying. I did want to ask whether you review the questions you answered correctly, or is it just the ones you missed? Based on how you are reviewing questions, I may have a few suggestions for you there as well.

Ok, that's a start! Please let me know what you think and we'll take it from there. Thanks!

[karen_k]

Hi Dave,

Thank you for your response! I took the full-length course over the summer, so at first, I was studying with the books we get. I do own all of the Bibles but since a lot of that info was in our course books, I haven't really used the Bibles. More recently, I've been using the 10 official LSAT series books from LSAC to do timed section work as practice and to try to increase my speed in Logic Games since I usually just finish 3 games, so if I could get a couple more questions, then my score could go up.

As for logical reasoning, I tend to miss at least 2 in the first 10 but I usually miss more later in the section. According to my score reports on my most recent preptests, I tend to miss more questions in the Level 3/4 difficulty, usually only getting half of those questions right. As for types of questions, I haven't been missing a lot in any certain type but rather a few across all types, usually MBT, Weaken, C and E and sometimes Strengthen. In Reading Comp, my main problem is that I don't finish all the passages in time. When I review my tests, I usually only go over the ones I missed (though I'm assuming going over how I did questions correctly would be beneficial as well).

I usually study at least 4 hrs/day, if not more. I originally planned to take the October LSAT but decided to postpone. I didn't take any preptests in October but am now back to taking 2 preptests a week. I know there's room for improvement overall in all the sections and that I'm just a couple points away from my goal which makes it that much more frustrating that my score has been stagnant. I hope I answered all of your questions, and I look forward to your response! Thank you, Dave!

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Karen,

Ok, this helps a bit. With timing as a significant factor in how you are scoring, you need to find little efficiencies everywhere. One way to do this is to make sure that when you are answering questions correctly, that you are doing it as fast as possible. So, you should definitely be reviewing the ones you answered correctly in addition to the ones you answered incorrectly. Some of those questions you will have understood quite well and you won't need to spend hardly any time on. But for the ones you struggled with a little bit, those are the ones that require close examination. What could you have done to go faster, and how can you make sure that next time you answer these as quickly and efficiently as possible?

Next, do you feel like you lose focus at times during the section? Some of what you are telling me suggests that it isn't a particular type of problem but more a loss of concentration. that would explain some of the patterns, such as missing a few int he first 10 questions. Time pressure can exacerbate that as well, so it can sometimes be difficult to to fully determine what's happening, but if you feel that focus could be involved, then you have to work on that. Concentration is a skill (a muscle, almost) that can be exercised and improved. If this is paying a role, I'd bet that some relatively minimal work on your part would very quickly show results.

Your study time is very solid, as is your test taking plan. So, I'm not seeing any issues there. But the rest is really general, so at the moment I'm looking for broader solutions that have wide-ranging effects.

Please let me know what you think. Thanks!

[karen_k]

Hi Dave,

Thank you for your thorough response! I appreciate you taking the time to help me out. I think I get too caught up in the time pressure and sometimes begin to rush and lose focus, and that is when I end up making all the silly mistakes. I have tried focusing less on time and not getting caught up in worrying about how much time is left while doing my last few practice tests and have seen an increase in my score so I'm hoping I can continue and improve on this enough by test day to meet my goal. Thank you again for your help!