Closing the Blind Review Gap

[mbeattheheat]

Hello!

I've been studying for about 2 and a half months now and I'm taking the September LSAT! I've read through each of the Bible's twice and then spent about a month just drilling to make sure I understood RC, LR and LG's before I began to put time restraints on myself. Without time restraints, I was averaging about -3 per section. As expected, since I've begun timing myself my score has dropped. I figured it would start to improve as I got more comfortable with timing and as I start speeding up.

I've just taken my first full timed PT using PT 66 (besides my diagnostic which I scored a 149 on) and I got a 156. I took Powerscore's advice and did a blind review and that score was a 167. This is a huge gap! Unfortunately, I lost an entire game and a RC passage due to timing alone. LR was a bit easier and I only lost -3 to the time but in my review I've found that I wasn't able to fully read and understand everything with a time constraint. I chose answers with simple scope issues and missed AC's that were right due to one or two words. In RC, I wasn't able to fully understand the passage as well as I would have been able to with ample time.

I need advice on how to close this large gap between my PT and blind review! I'm worried that I won't be able to score my 167 (or higher) due to the time constraints! I know I fully understand most, if not all of the concepts, but once I'm rushing with a time constraint, I'm not reading as carefully and missing out on questions that I would have otherwise gotten!

[Adam Tyson]

Speaking for myself, mbeattheheat, I don't score a blind review, because it tells me very little and that's not the purpose of the blind review. Rather, the purpose is to take the opportunity to teach yourself the right way to approach each question. When you review, you should be asking yourself "now that the pressure is off, would I do anything differently? Would I select a different answer? If not, why not, and if so, why?" This isn't about scoring, but about learning! The way you close the gap is by learning from the experience, identifying weaknesses, studying the areas where you have the most room to improve, and then doing another practice test and repeating the process. Of course you are going to do better on blind review! Who couldn't do better with no time limit?

What you should take away from this experience is the great news that you know how to answer correctly a lot of the questions that you missed the first time around. Now you just need to figure out what you can do differently when the clock is ticking to apply the correct strategies and techniques, and do so efficiently, so that you are able to get those right answers with no time wasted, increasing your overall accuracy and also picking up your speed due to less confusion and uncertainty.

Unfortunately, the time limit is what it is, and it is usually not productive to focus on time and speed. Instead, you need to focus on confidence, accuracy, and efficiency. What can you do to get to the same correct answer with less time wasted?

Congratulations on the great improvement you have already attained, and on the good news that you are capable of much more still to come! Now take the lessons learned from the blind review and apply them to your studies and your next PT, and then again, and then again.

Good luck, and keep at it!