A bit stuck!

[CMurray2121]

Hi all,

So I'm studying for the September LSAT this year (I started last September) and despite being nearly halfway through my 12-month study plan (which is a personalised version of the PowerScore one) I don't feel as though I'm improving as much as I want to be. One of the things making it more difficult is that I'm actually a UK student, so many resources generally available to test-takers are out of reach for me.

I'm aiming pretty high; ideally I'd like to get into Harvard/Columbia/Chicago. Naturally this means I'm going to need a score of at least 172 or so and obviously to be more comfortable about my chances of admission a touch higher would be lovely. I did a cold test before I started my studies of 160, and have done a further 5 since. They've ranged between 158 and 162 generally (although I did do a 164 yesterday in my most recent attempt). I suppose I'm just starting to get slightly concerned as I had hoped I'd be further along by this point.

I'm just not sure what I'm not quite getting. I tend to be very meticulous with reviewing my tests, making notes on the bibles and taking my time to complete all the assignments. I find the majority of the material fairly easy to understand (except conditional reasoning, for some reason that confuses the hell out of me). My performance in the sections is pretty consistent. I'm usually around a -7 in LGs (mainly timing issues), a -3 in both LR sections and a -8 or so in RC.

I suppose I'd like to know if there's something else I can do to kickstart more of an improvement. I'd really like to be hitting 170s in another 3 months or so.

Cheers
Chris

[Luke Haqq]

Hi Chris!

That's great to hear that you were already hitting the 160s since your first test. I can definitely understand the frustration, though, when you don't see your score consistently moving up. Being this far out from the test and having a great score already, I certainly think you can bring it up into the 170s!

As a first point, it's been my experience that using the new tools, techniques, and tricks that you can learn through the bibles often doesn't equate to an instant increase in score. For example, the Logic Games Bible helps students learn about the variety of games they'll encounter on the LSAT--understanding the different varieties of games is essential to doing well on the test, but that categorization might be something that takes time to sink in before it becomes effective for a student. Similarly, if you continue to take practice tests, continue to apply the various methods and categorizations PowerScore suggests for the arguments, games, and reading comprehension sections, part of that process is getting more familiarized with the methods until they've become routine habits.

That's my advice especially for arguments and logic games--if you keep at it, hopefully the methods should start to sink in. As for reading comprehension, while PowerScore does offer some useful ways for thinking about looking for the right information in the passages, much of doing well on that section hinges on being able to read and understand dense material quickly. To that end, you can certainly be working to improve by finding things to read in your free time that you find challenging (say, The Economist, or James Joyce's Ulysses), and then working towards speeding up your reading time.

Abroad bit of advice I'd suggest is that you consider focusing the majority of your energy studying in the last month or two before the test (perhaps this is what you already intend to do). If you're taking a test here and there for diagnostic purposes and to stay familiarized with the test, I think that's fine. But if you're studying as intensely as possible now, for the June test administration, you might risk burning out. Rather, what I encourage people to do, especially if they're gearing for a score in the top 1%, is to study as intensely as possible for those one to two months before the test. That strategy isn't just one about conserving your energy, I also believe it's the most effective strategy for raising your score. If you take tests here and there several months out, at a casual studying pace, there's a good chance that setup isn't one conducive to raising your score. Further, you might also start running out of materials (e.g., you might start seeing questions in the tests that you've confronted in homework materials), if you do intend to do intensive studying in the two months before the test. In sum, the best way to raise your score in your situation is intensive studying, but intensive studying can lead to burnout if you start too far out from the test.

Hopefully those suggestions are helpful. Best of luck on the studying!

Cheers,

Luke

[CMurray2121]

Hey Luke,

Thanks for taking the time to read my post and write such a detailed and helpful reply! I hadn't actually considered that there would be a sort of educational delay between initially approaching the material and being able to internalise it to the point where it actually helps my score.

I do feel very confident in LR, the ones I miss are far and few between and are generally the types of questions I haven't begun to study yet. Likewise I'm not worried about LG because my main issue is timing which comes with practice (I can usually get to -1 or so if I do a section untimed). I am concerned about RC however; so thanks very much for providing tips on that! I do already read the Economist (for fun!) but I try to stay away from non-political (my degree is politics) dense literature as a rule of thumb. Seems like I need to start with that though!

Finally, on the intensity issue, I totally agree, but hadn't considered I might run out of material so thanks for that. I haven't been doing super-intense study thus far (5 hours a week, with one test a month on average). My rough plan is to sort of finish off the bibles by May (whilst occasionally doing tests and also working on the training trilogy) and then purchase the workbooks to do between May and September and finish off the training trilogy. Hoping to spend less time doing those and more time doing practice tests (I'm trying to save the most recent PTs for the 6 weeks running up to the test), so yes, I think I'll end up increasing the intensity drastically closer to the test.

Thanks very much for your advice!

Chris

[Robert Carroll]

Chris,

I'm just supplementing Luke's excellent advice with something relevant to your most recent post. You said that you already read The Economist and that your degree is in politics. This means you're doing something very right, but it occurs to me that the Reading Comprehension content on the test will not always involve the kind of subject matter that might be in your comfort zone, given your background (and current habits). It would probably do you a lot of good to add some reading of science and humanities content of the type often seen on the test, so you're ready for a diverse range of RC passages. I've noticed that the London Review of Books has some good humanities content in it, and I'm aware of at least one book review in it that was actually adapted for a RC passage by LSAC. Find a source for science writing intended for non-specialists (Scientific American is the publication usually brought up for this) as well.

Hope this helps!

Robert Carroll

[CMurray2121]

Hi Robert,

That's great advice; you're totally correct in asserting that I don't feel at all comfortable with some of the scientific and literary-based passages. I will certainly try to supplement my reading with publications from those disciplines going forward. I've been working a lot on RC over the past week and I am starting to feel like I'm 'getting it' a lot more. Using the active reading strategies in the bible and actually allowing myself to be immersed and interested in the reading has really helped. I do feel like it is harder for me to do this with passages that aren't in my areas of interest (law, humanities) so I suppose practising reading that type of material is the best way forward. Thanks for the advice!

Best Wishes,
Chris