Why have I seen barely any improvement?

[Mta14]

Hello,

I am writing this post because I am very concerned and discouraged. I have been studying for LSAT since the second week of August 2016, and now will be taking the December 3rd test tomorrow. Now here's the story: I have taken both the power score intensive online class in September and the advanced LR online class, as well as read both the logic games and logical reasoning book front to back, and most of the reading comprehension. I have also completed an entire practice book from the power score intensive class as well as the entire LG test type training, and most of the LR and RC test type training books. I followed the schedule posted on powerscore website for the first 2 months and was putting in many hours of study. The past month nearly 40 hours a week to be exact. I am currently a senior studying economics with a 3.4 gpa at a top ranked school and did average to above average on standardized testing my whole life.

Here's where the dilemma lies: I can not get more than 15 questions right during practice tests under times conditions. That is in any section. My score in logic games is the best with 5/6 right on most games and completing only 3 games per test.

I have not scored over a 152 on any test and that is on a good day.

My last test was Monday of this week and I scored a 145 with the test coming up tomorrow. I feel sick to my stomach and at a dead end. I have no idea why this is happening, it's like I lose all of the methods to approaching questions once under timed conditions, in LR for the most part. I know with reading comprehension my problem lies on the fact that my timing sucks (my worst section). I usually complete only 17 questions in each LR section and guess the rest based off of the recommended guessing strategies in the powerscore books. This puts me usually at 14-15 questions correct and sometimes as low as only 8 right. I also have. Never seen more than 13 questions correct on RC and no more than 15 right on LG.

After taking each test I study what I got wrong and then resort to practice problems targeting those questions. During practice I see more correct than during full tests. I have taken about 8 full practice tests now and many times isolated sections since September.

I feel like an idiot and have devoted so much time and money to this test as well as sacrificing my social life this semester in order to succeed and focus. I have no idea what to do from this point or what will happen to my chances of being accepted ANYWHERE if I come out of my test tomorrow with a score as low as 145. I have turned to meditation and physical activity to try and assure my stress level is low and my head is clear, so I'm assuming it really is just basic skill under time conditions that I am lacking. I do not have the money for a private tutor or I would resort to that option. I installed trust in powerscore as I have heard glowing reviews from friends and other sources.

Have you ever heard of anyone in my situation? What suggestions do you have for me? Not attending law school is not an option. This has been my dream for years and I have centered my education and work experience around this career path. I want this so bad and I feel like an idiot and a failure.

Help.

Thank you,
M

[Adam Tyson]

I feel your frustration, M, and share it whenever I encounter students in similar situations. Know that you aren't alone - many folks preparing for this test have been where you are now.

There's only so much we can do at this point, the day before the test. It's not a good time to make radical changes to your approach. I usually suggest frequent breaks in your study schedule, but at this point just taking today off isn't going to make much of a difference. That's something to do along the way to avoid burnout, and you may be past that point already.

If you know that you are not ready, and that you won't be ready to get the score you need tomorrow, you should consider withdrawing and rescheduling for February or even June. You don't want to "burn" one of your three attempts if you know it won't be good enough to get you where you want to go. On the other hand, going forward with your plan to take the test tomorrow gives you the chance to get some more timed practice, and you might come away from it feeling better than you do right now. For more thoughts on the subject of withdrawing, check out this blog post:

http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/335 ... difference

If you are going to go ahead with the test, consider making an adjustment to your pacing. If you are currently getting no more than 15 questions right per section, then set your pace to answer just 15 questions per section. Go slowly, meticulously, and apply every strategy you've been taught and read about. When time becomes much less of an issue, stress tends to let up. If you could do 15 questions, and get 14-15 of them right because of your additional care, focus, and reduced stress, then you could, with a minute or so left, pick one letter and bubble it in for the rest of the answers. Out of the remaining 10 questions or so, you should expect to average 2 more right answers that way, bringing you up to 16-17 right per section. Over 4 sections, that could be a score as high as a 156 or so, a real improvement. There is no prize for answering more questions on this test, M - the prize is for answering more questions correctly. Slowing down often leads to higher scores, as counter-intuitive as that may seem at first. Rushing is always the wrong way to go.

For logic games, you may not have time to get to the 4th game, but if it has a list question in it you can answer that with no diagram just using the rule-by-rule method to eliminate wrong answers. In reading comp, if you are short on time and know you won't be able to complete a full passage, try just skimming the first and last paragraphs, and that may give you enough info to answer the main point and tone questions. If you are almost out of time when you get to comparative reading, see if there are a couple questions about just one passage, and if so you could read just that passage and answer those questions. All of these are less than ideal strategies, but they can help in a time crunch and are potentially better than making blind guesses. Use them as a last resort, not a first plan of attack.

You hit it on the head in your posts, I think, when you said your methods go out the window when the timer starts. You need to make a conscious decision to not let that happen, and to do what you've been taught and read about. Prephrase every answer, always sort the answers into losers and contenders before spending any time analyzing any one answer choice. Use techniques like Assumption Negation, Agree/Disagree, the Fact Test, etc. on every question that has a clear strategy. Take the time to do it right - you aren't in a hurry here. Diagram the conditional arguments, because the extra few seconds it takes to do that turns those questions into child's play, connect-the-dots puzzles.

If you decide not to test tomorrow, or if you take it and feel like you might want to try again in February or later, take a week off. Forget the LSAT for a while - go see a movie, take a nap, read a trashy novel, play Cards Against Humanity with friends, etc. Walk, ride a bike, swim, meditate, work out. Then, come back to the material with fresh eyes and a study plan that includes frequent rest breaks and meticulous attention to detail. Don't ever try to go faster, just better. Speed will take care of itself if you focus on accuracy and applying your strategies.

Try to relax the rest of the day today. Give some thought to these ideas, and if you choose to withdraw don't beat yourself up about it. If you choose to go forward, stay focused and relaxed and know that you will get something good out of the experience no matter what, even if it is just the opportunity to see what it's like to do it "for real" and then get useful feedback later when you get your answer sheet and a copy of the test. And who knows, you may hit your stride and surprise yourself! It happens, and it can happen to you. You can make it happen.

Good luck, and stay strong, M! Come back to us here in this forum if you decide to resume your studies later, and we'll be here to help. We can't do everything that a private tutor can do, but we can and will do what we can to help.

[Mta14]

Wow. You have no idea how much I needed that right now. Thank you for taking the time to reply. I will go through with taking it. It is what it is, if I need to write an addendum, so be it.

What should my next approach be to studying? Just taking timed tests and analyzing wrong answers over and over? And when analyzing, should I be making notes of why that answer is wrong and what the right answer is and why that is the right choice instead? That's how I have been doing it and I'm not sure if that's what I should continue doing. Should I be using any more practice books or just stick to the practice tests?

Sorry for all the questions, I just want to make sure that my future approach is the most efficient this time around.

Thanks again!

[Adam Tyson]

Analysis of practice tests is an important component of your continued studies, but it's not all there is, and it needs to go beyond just reviewing the wrong answers. I like to say you should study the ones you got right so that you can learn to repeat those successes. Figure out why you got them right, what patterns you saw, what strategies worked for you, and reinforce those good techniques and habits.

Study the ones you struggled with, that took time and caused confusion, even if you got them right, because you want to better understand them so that next time you encounter something like them you will be better equipped to handle them quickly and efficiently. Did you stop and spend time thinking about a particular answer choice before you had finished sorting the answers into losers and contenders? Was there some strategy you could have employed, like doubling the conclusion on a parallel reasoning question, that you forgot to apply? Was there a point at which you should have just guessed and moved on, instead of allowing yourself to waste time going back and forth between two or three answers?

Of course, study the ones you missed to identify your weaknesses for much the same reason that you study the ones with which you struggled.

After all that, you need to put that analysis to good use through timed and untimed practice and focused study. If you see a pattern of missed questions in the second family (like strengthen, justify, and resolve), revisit the texts and related homework and practice questions to improve your grasp of the right strategies for those types. If you notice that a certain type of game - say, grouping/linear combination - went badly, return to your resources to review what makes those games tick and how to tackle them more efficiently. If you just dive into another practice test, you are much more likely to keep repeating the same mistakes instead of showing real improvement.

For more info on reviewing practice tests, take a look at these blog posts:

http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/the-bes ... tice-tests

http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/getting ... est-review

http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/cogniti ... -be-stupid

Some of these have additional links within them that you might want to follow up with.

Look to other resources, too, like our free help area which has some study plans you can use and modify to your needs, and of course this forum to bounce ideas off of us or to read what others have already said about the questions, games and passages that have given them trouble.

Like I said before take appropriate breaks, and to me that means at least one day off every week. Not everyone agrees with that schedule, but I think all the experts agree that breaks are important. The LSAT is not a knowledge-based test, so cramming isn't the right way to go. Instead, it's about a different way of thinking than most people have ever engaged in, and that means your prep is largely about changing the way you think, not adding to what you know. You're rewiring your brain, making it do things in new and weird ways (much like you will need to do in law school in order to come out thinking like a lawyer instead of like a human), and that rewiring can be a strain. Breaks are needed to let your brain recover from the damage you are inflicting on it while in training.

Good luck tomorrow! Don't worry, be happy, and try to have some fun!

[Mta14]

Okay so that was horrible and I'm super discouraged. My options are to stick only to practice tests or include another practice manual to my study routine since I maxed out powerscore materials. What should I do? Would it be more beneficial for me include another manual, possibly one developed by LSAC, along with my powerscore material? I just don't know and I feel defeated. I would redo my powerscore workbooks but I tried that and found that I am prone to remembering the question and finding a biased toward answers that I "swear" were right last time I saw the question.

On the plus side, my essay was outstanding lol.

[Dave Killoran]

Okay so that was horrible and I'm super discouraged. My options are to stick only to practice tests or include another practice manual to my study routine since I maxed out powerscore materials. What should I do? Would it be more beneficial for me include another manual, possibly one developed by LSAC, along with my powerscore material? I just don't know and I feel defeated. I would redo my powerscore workbooks but I tried that and found that I am prone to remembering the question and finding a biased toward answers that I "swear" were right last time I saw the question.

On the plus side, my essay was outstanding lol.

Hi MTA,

If you don't mind, please allow me to add a few thoughts here

First, you have my sympathy on being stuck. I know how frustrating that is, and I can see it's making you feel really bad. don't let it affect your outlook or self-esteem! The LSAT is not who you are, and your score is just a score, nothing more. We're here to help you, and together we can break out of this plateau you are at.

Second, although I see that you've completed a lot of the PowerScore course material and are naturally concerned that in re-doing the questions you are biased by already knowing the answer, let me suggest that this the exact spot where you can actually change the situation you are in right now. From my perspective, having done the questions puts you in a spot where you can focus on the next-level issues and look more deeply into how the test makers are operating, and the optimal ways to solve these questions. I talk about this a bit here: http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/239 ... -questions. It's an approach that can be incredibly helpful, and many of the students who have used this approach have told me it fundamentally changed the way they analyzed and solved questions. When you get a chance, read that article and let me know what you think.

In connection with the approach linked above, I would recommend that consider getting the two SuperPreps from LSAC. (The Official LSAT SuperPrep and the Official LSAT SuperPrep II, as listed here: https://www.powerscore.com/lsat/publications/#preptests). The reason is that these are the only two books published by the makers of the test where they explain how they break down the questions. that can be immensely valuable because it shows you how they think, which allows you to use a form of reverse engineering to help you improve what you look for when solving questions. One caveat: LSAC tend to play hide the ball when it comes to actual techniques, so as you read, think about connecting their explanations to the PowerScore techniques. For example, when they talk about Necessary Assumption questions (which we call just Assumption questions), they sometimes refer to a process that would equate to the assumption Negation Technique, but of course they don't use that phrase or explain the process all that clearly. It's like they don't want to give too much away, which is understandable Just keep an eye out for situations like that, as it will help you realize that many of the approaches we advocate are built on how LSAC themselves would break down a question.

Fourth, your situation suggests that maybe working with a tutor for a few hours would be helpful. There could be a few fundamental things you are doing wrong, and that those errors are propagating throughout the exam and causing a huge number of missed questions. I feel like someone knowledgeable who knows your situation (like Adam Tyson above) might be able to make just a few changes and have a big effect. Given your academic background in econ (and, shoutout to you on the Econ major—I was one as well!) you should be able to improve. Econ requires a good deal of analysis, and in that field there is a tremendous amount of dealing with uncertainty, which is the same as on the LSAT. You have the background; now we just need to bring your ability to the fore.

And last but certainly not least, congrats on writing a killer essay I like your attitude there, and it's good that despite being understandably bummed out over your scoring that you can still have a laugh at the expense of the test. I know you were being sarcastic, but that's ok—some people get so down they can't wring any enjoyment from the test. Those people are in a really bad spot and it's one that's hard to overcome. you're in a much different mindset, and so it's a great sign to me to see that!

Please let me know if that helps, and please keep posting here. We're here to assist and make you better at the LSAT, and I know you can improve given time. Thanks and keep working hard!

[dulin]

I am really sorry to hear that you are discouraged but I hope that you did your test well.