- Wed May 30, 2018 4:52 pm
#46043
Hi Esquiregirl,
What material are you working from? There is so much LSAT material out there that even someone who has been studying for months will have something to work with, so I would be surprised if you needed to conserve material already.
As for your question about expected time frames on score increases, there is such a large variation in score increases that it is not very valuable for you to compare your progress to the "norm" or the average student. There are however some typical patterns we see in score change over time.
One type of student we may call an "early adopter." This type of student might see a relatively large gain quickly on the exam, perhaps over 8 points within the first month of study. For this type of student, a few of the strategies presented in the books were easy to apply, and they translated well into a score increase.
Another type, you can call a "later bloomer." Students who fit into this category have a harder time in the first month or even in the first two months of study. If you are one of these students, you might not see a score increase of more than a few points for what seems like forever. If you are in this position you may have had a harder time applying strategies to the exam, you may have been overwhelmed by all the new material that you encountered in the books, or you may have read through the material too quickly or superficially. Regardless of the reason, there are many students who only start to see score increases 6 weeks or longer after they begin studying.
The third group is a bit less common. We can call this group the "steady riser." A steady riser is probably what you expected to see on your practice exams when you first started studying; that is small but steady improvement every week you take a new practice test. This type of learner is rather rare. Among the students I work with, I usually only see one student out of eight or ten displaying this score increase pattern.
What you should keep in mind is that score plateaus and variation are incredibly common. You may work at understanding the material for weeks on end and not see your score increase, only to find an unexpected jump of five or six points on a practice test. This happened to me when I was studying. After getting a quick boost of seven or eight points, I was stuck at roughly the same score for over a month straight, before I saw my next clear score increase. If you find yourself in this position don't be afraid to go back over concepts you thought you mastered already and don't be afraid to take a break for a few days or change your approach to studying.
