How to improve in my logical reasoning abilities

[Administrator]

We recently received the following question from a student:

I have been working extremely hard to improve in my logical reasoning abilities and can't get past an untimed score of minus 6 in a section. I'm entering week three of my studying and find myself really struggling with must be true and inference based questions. Do any of you have any advice on how to break past the hump, or just general thoughts on how people improve in this process? My goal is to be able to complete a logical reasoning section with a minus 2 untimed before I move on to working on timed tests.

Lastly, thank you for all of your help. This site has been a tremendous aide.

All the best.

The following PowerScore LSAT Blog Posts regarding speed on the LSAT are going to be a great place to start:

http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/lsat-sp ... -your-pace
http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/speed-d ... k-a-winner
http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/283 ... Bedfellows
http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/309 ... ing-Part-I
http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/311 ... ng-Part-II

An instructor will respond in more detail below! Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

Only minus 6 per section, and after only three weeks? That's fantastic! I have students that would kill for that level of performance! Review the suggested articles, for sure, but start by cutting yourself some slack. You're doing great, and things will get better with time. My advice would be to move on to other question types for now and to stop banging your head against the Must Be True/Main Point questions for the time being. Come back to them later, after an appropriate break, and see if they make more sense then.

I tend to advise my students against doing a lot of untimed test sections. Do practice questions untimed, sure, and an occasional untimed section just to get more practice with a variety of question types in one sitting, but most of your test section practice should be timed. You need to work not only on your accuracy, but on your strategies for dealing with the stress of the ticking clock, knowing when to guess and move on, moving around within a section, etc. If you wait until your untimed performance is at a minus 2 before going timed, you are probably going to find yourself very distraught at how much worse things go for you under the clock, and that will only add to your stress and set you further back.

My advice is to work on a few question types, learning the strategies you need to apply, and then, after you start to feel that you have a good grasp of those few concepts, do a timed test section. You'll encounter some of the types you've been working on, on which you will do your best to apply those strategies, and you'll also encounter less familiar types, on which you will do your best and, when stumped, guess and move on. You'll improve steadily over time, without experiencing a jarring setback like you probably would under your proposed plan.

Let go of that pre-set goal and try a section under timed conditions. Build your comfort and familiarity with what that feels like. Don't worry about your score right now, you have lots of time to bring that up. Focus on making small improvements here and there and on building your overall performance.

Good luck!

[PB410]

Thank you, Adam for putting things in perspective and anyone else who contributed to the response. At this point I have been relying on videos and blogs for advice, along with the three powerscore bibles. While there is plenty of information on the material necessary to reach a 170 + on the lsat, it is hard to find much insight on the struggles of mastering the material itself. Being able to figure out logical reasoning problems untimed is agonizing on its own. I almost assumed after going through the LG bible and completing two untimed tests I would be able to reach the minus two score on an LG section. Each day has been humbling, and has caused me to slow down in the process. Now I go over questions I get wrong and right, reviewing answer choices that looked tempting.

I'll go ahead and integrate the element of time in my studies, but before I do, I must ask if your advice applies to someone who NEEDS to get a 171 or higher since my gpa is below T14 standards? 169 or 168 won't cut it for someone in my situation.

I read the two blogs about prephrasing and found the emphasis on the practice to be helpful.

Thanks again!

[Adam Tyson]

My advice remains the same - I assume everyone wants to get into the 170s! But that takes a lot of work, as you're talking about doing what only 2% of all LSAT takers do. Reading an awesome book and taking a couple of tests is just the beginning, and you need to follow up with practice, analysis, reading additional materials like our blog and this forum, and considering whether a class or a tutor might be the right choice for you. As you learn more about the material, you need to pay close attention to any patterns that emerge in the questions that you struggle with, whether you get the wrong or get them right. Are there certain types that always get you? Do they tend to fall mainly in one family? Are you consistently prephrasing, sorting losers and contenders, and applying other strategies and techniques that you have learned? Finding those patterns and then correcting bad habits or shoring up your understanding of the best approach will lead to better performance. Be patient with yourself, and expect some backsliding and some plateaus along the way, because hardly anyone ever sees steady, unwavering improvement.

Keep at it. Slow and steady wins this race!