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Felt like posting everything I'm going to do here so people can give me pointers or glean what little bit of insight I may gain during this process.

Just got all my materials for studying in order. Planning to use:

LGB
LRB
All the preptests I can take.

Kaplan Mastery if time lets me.

Today was the first day (3/20/10). I took a practice test to see where I start and didn't kill myself focusing on time, but tracked it anyways.

I took PT 30.

The only section I went over on time was LG. Took 45 minutes start to finish. I finished 6 minutes under on RC, should have gone back, because my score here was lacking.

Section 1 - LG - 45 Minutes - 3 wrong
Section 2 - LR - 35 minutes - 6 wrong
Section 3 - RC - 29 Minutes - 6.5 wrong
Section 4 - LR - 31 minutes - 2.5 wrong

The .5's are, because as I write scores down, I mark the one I'd put on the test, but if there was another I thought it could be I'd mark it down. If the answer was the one I selected I only gave myself half credit, if it was the other "maybe" I marked down it was completely wrong. Just a way to keep myself from putting down more than 1 answer, because I won't give myself full credit if there's more than one marked. Even though I put down 2 answers with one highlighted more than once still!

Raw score - 83
Fixed score - 167

Now I get to go back and find out what went wrong. Especially in RC and the first LR section.

Tomorrow: Going to start going through the LGB.


Any tips? Should I be able to get the 167 higher even though I went over on time to start?

^^From what I've read I would say your 167 is really good for a diagnostic, though it's possible your score could have probably gone down if you had timed it properly. I wouldn't do the .5 thing if I were you, if you can't decide on the right answer then you haven't answered the question properly. I think it also gives you a misleading sense of confidence to see that 167 when that isn't really the case.

When I took it timed, I got a 161, raw score 77

LR1: -6
RC: -6
LG: -3 (ran out of time w/2 questions left, would have been a -1 otherwise)
LR2: -9

The low scores on RC pissed me off. I love to read all the "usual" stuff that is recommended for LSAT RC prep, like Economist, Atlantic, et al, so I'm guessing for me there isn't really much value in doing that and I need to find some better way to improve my RC performance.

That's pretty worthless as a diagnostic, considering you took an extra 10 minutes on logic games.

I actually mis-calculated my time, I only went 4 minutes over on logic games. This was a very rough first test I understand, because I didn't take it stone exact. Just wanted to give myself a ballpark figure.

Going to take another one in a day or two and keep doing that all the way until the test. Will start making sure I stay under time as well. One logic game question after reviewing is what killed me on time in the worst way. It was an easy game, but the last question added an object that required a ton of work to figure out. Next time I'll skip it and come back. It wasn't worth all the time it took or the stress it gave me for that 1 pt.

I dunno... not to hate or anything, but I have a feeling that you're one of those people that trick themselves into believing that they've achieved a score of xxx, when in fact they would have only had a score of xxx minus ten if proctored and scored properly.

I think it's best for you to be hard on yourself, and either 1.) cut yourself off as soon as thirty five minutes arrive, or 2.) give yourself a handicap by finishing each section within 32 minutes.

SilverE2 wrote:That's pretty worthless as a diagnostic, considering you took an extra 10 minutes on logic games.

It's not worthless insofar as it allows OP to see what he's capable of doing. You gotta remember, there's still a few months until testday comes.

Timing is insanely important. A huge percentage of LSAT takers could be in the 170s if they took as much time as they needed. The fact that extra time makes such a huge difference is evidenced by the fact that LSAC is so stingy with it when it comes to people with learning disabilities. Even just four extra minutes is huge on games. You should take all future diagnostic tests using real conditions so that you can get a realistic gauge.