Hi Tonya!
This is a tricky test and I know it's frustrating when you feel like you're not scoring as well as you should be! So let's talk about your test prep options. Our Advanced Courses are really geared at students who have already been through one of our other courses or have at least been through our LR/LG Bibles so that they have had experience with our strategies. Since it doesn't sound like you have any experience with our methods yet, I wouldn't recommend these courses for you at this time. The Accelerated Course is a great crash course intro to PowerScore's strategies and is aimed especially at students who are short on time, so this would be a great fit for you (in fact I'll be teaching the one starting next weekend that is aimed specifically at LSAT-Flex takers).
That said, since you've already been studying for awhile and have reached a score plateau, it might take you a little bit longer to see the bigger gains you'll need if you're hoping to be scoring in the 160s. I always tell my students that they're not studying for the LSAT, they're
training for it.
Think of it as if you are in training to become an Olympic gymnast (the LSAT is like mental gymnastics!). You don't just watch Simone Biles spin around the parallel bars and then immediately jump up on those bars and start doing all sorts of flips yourself. You start with strength training and some basic skills. Once you perfect the basic skills, you work up to more intermediate and then advanced skills, all while continuing to build up your strength and stamina. You repeat the same movements over and over because they're difficult and take a lot of concentration at first. But the more you do them, the better you get at them. You put all of your skills together in a routine that you practice over and over. It goes slow at first because you don't quite have all the steps down. But getting that correct form down is important and the more you repeat it, the more it just becomes second nature and you can do it naturally without having to think about each step. Then you get faster and better until you're ready for your Olympics performance! That's how the LSAT is, except you're working those brain muscles instead. It's all about slowly building up your skills and stamina and working on those incremental improvements until you're ready to start doing (mental) back flips!
So when you're thinking about how you're going to score significantly higher on the LSAT, you need to keep in mind that big score jumps require a lot of practice and training. Our Accelerated Course will lay the foundation for you, giving you the skills and strategies that will help you answer the questions effectively and efficiently. But it will take a lot of practice on your part before you have really mastered those skills.
Here's a blog post by a former PowerScore student who, like you, was struggling to get out of the low 150s. He details his LSAT training regimen and it might offer you some inspiration, as well as give you an idea of what might be required to get into the 160+ range (it's a 5 part post, I've linked you to Part II because I think it might be most relevant to where you're currently at but I encourage you to read the other parts which it links to!):
https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/my-lsa ... en-part-2/
So you might consider taking the LSAT later, after you've had more time to continue practicing and honing your skills. You also might consider getting a tutor for either a couple of hours to offer some personalized insight and help you set a study direction, or for a larger number of hours to coach you through each step of your LSAT journey.
In sum, my advice would be to take the Accelerated Course and see how you do on the May LSAT-Flex. Then, if you don't reach the score you want, the Accelerated Course will have laid the foundations you'll need to continue to study either on your own or with a tutor to get that score as high as possible!
Best,
Kelsey
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