Retaking, all prep materials exhausted, suggestions? Forum

[xqhp82]

I've literally done every single question from PT1-60, at least once and many of them twice. I also read the three bibles and I don't think that helped me very much...I think I really need lots of drills for LR and RC.

I'm thinking of ordering the 'difficult questions' package from Cambridge LSAT for all three sections (already did LR for October). Is that going to be useful???

In addition to that I'll probably redo PTs from 45-60. But I still feel that I'll remember most of the questions...any other materials out there that I can use??

I also have an unused Princeton Review 'crack the LSAT'. but I heard that fake questions are useless...should I just do it anyway since I've got nothing else?

Really appreciate your advice!!

Edit: I'm looking for a 3-4 point increase in 1 month (163 to 166/167)

[Ascend]

I would recommend blueprint. If you can't afford the actual course, scour craig's list for someone's books. I recently picked up a full used set of them for less than the cost of one of the PS bibles. So far I've definitely found some methods that have helped me out in their materials.

[xqhp82]

Hmm what books are you referring to specifically? I'm not in the US so there're some limitations in terms of the kind of materials I can get. An actual course would be out of the question...

Any other suggestions?

[Deep Trench]

Re-doing the PT that you have already done can be very helpful. I would say that it can be more helpful than doing the fresh PT in some regards. After June test, I was in the same situation as you, not having any fresh PT to study. It was hard for me to be motivated to take the recycled PT because it seemed too easy. In order to motivate myself I set a new goal, which was to try to hit as many 180 as possible. I had never scored higher than 176 when I was taking fresh PT leading up to the June test. I used to think that low 170 was my natural average. However, by trying to hit 180 using recycled PT, I learned what it takes to score high 170's, and I was able to duplicate that during the real test in Oct. Doing the recycled PT was especially helpful for improving RC. RC is a section that is difficult to be taught conceptually, but I learned intuitively how to approach RC by repeating PT that I have done already. Granted, you won't be able to simulate the real test conditions and won't be able to gauge your true average score by taking the recycled PT. However, if your goal is to improve your LSAT skills, there is nothing better.

[typ3]

Here's a tip. Do less.

You said you've done 60 PT's but you're still scoring low. Either your diagnostic was low to start and you've hit your peak or you took the tests without thoroughly reviewing them.

I'm guessing it's the latter. You'd learn more from repeating 10 prep tests and studying your mistakes indepth than taking 30 and casually reviewing wrong answers.

Repeat old games and drill their set up. I will repeat a game 3 times in a row before moving onto the next one timing myself each time. Don't focus on remembering right answers, focus your attention on going through why every answer choice is wrong.

For LR write out the stimulus and answer choices for problems you miss, and write out explanations for why answers are wrong.

[xqhp82]

typ3, thanks for your solid advice too. I started with around a 151 and self-studied to a PT average of 164. Highest ever was a 168. I think 163 is a reasonable representation of my peak especially in exam condition but I don't want to settle with this score. I sometimes wonder too, that why am I scoring so low if I've done so much practice? I did review the tests thoroughly, but maybe just not thorough enough (never tried copying the stimilus, for example). I'll try your method and see how that goes. With one month left how many PTs should I be using as full timed practice and how many for untimed drills? Does a 10-10 split sound good?

[Deep Trench]

Re-doing the PT that you have already done can be very helpful. I would say that it can be more helpful than doing the fresh PT in some regards. After June test, I was in the same situation as you, not having any fresh PT to study. It was hard for me to be motivated to take the recycled PT because it seemed too easy. In order to motivate myself I set a new goal, which was to try to hit as many 180 as possible. I had never scored higher than 176 when I was taking fresh PT leading up to the June test. I used to think that low 170 was my natural average. However, by trying to hit 180 using recycled PT, I learned what it takes to score high 170's, and I was able to duplicate that during the real test in Oct. Doing the recycled PT was especially helpful for improving RC. RC is a section that is difficult to be taught conceptually, but I learned intuitively how to approach RC by repeating PT that I have done already. Granted, you won't be able to simulate the real test conditions and won't be able to gauge your true average score by taking the recycled PT. However, if your goal is to improve your LSAT skills, there is nothing better.

Thanks a lot, this is really helpful and encouraging. When you say you try to hit as many 180 as possible, were you doing that timed or untimed?Also I read that some people try to shorten the time from 35 minutes per section to 30 minutes, do you think that works too?
Also for drilling/improving skills purposes would you think that doing older tests (PT1-30) may also help?

I did them timed. I know some people advocate doing 30 min sections, but I always gave myself 35 minutes. Earlier tests are helpful as well, but I don't see how you can do them all before the December test.

[lsatextreme]

This is me too actually, I'm looking to improve 3-4 points at least by Dec, and Dec will be my 4th time taking it, so some of the more recent material i've done at least 3 times thus far (50s I've definitely done 3 times, 40s I've done at least twice), so I'm actually more afraid of how I'd go about studying for this upcomming month, but that link from LSD is pretty useful. Thanks!

[Shrimps]

Reading comprehension is nearly identical for med school, business school and law school admission tests, so there's a nearly infinite supply of those if you look for GMAT and MCAT RC prep materials.

GMAT also has a logical reasoning section that's identical to the LSAT sections, so there's some material there.

Unfortunately, there's nothing quite similar to the logic games in other modern tests (GREs used to have them, I seem to recall?)

If the games are your weakest section, consider redoing them (the trickiest ones will be memorable, but the routine ones can be put to good use a few times). There are also a number of fake games. Atlas games (on their website) and the Ace the LSAT games (available on Amazon) are reportedly the best of the fakes, but I haven't done them, so I can't vouch for them.

[xqhp82]

I think LG could be a tricky part, most of the time I could score a -0 but when one relatively harder game comes up I could easily get a -5 and that would ruin my overall score...I think I'll just keep redoing as many games as possible.

I really rely on LR sections to pull up my score now. I plan on spending around 3-4 hours (max) a day, 5-6 days a week, to work on PT46-61, and some difficult problems from PT1-38. Would it be too much?

[Traciela]

Make sure to redo the LG section of every single PrepTest. (You can never get enough LG practice.) Try to cut a minute off of your completion time for each game. Hopefully you've been using an error log to track the LR question types that you got wrong. Redo those questions. Redo PrepTests 50+ as 5-section practice tests.

Use unofficial LSAT material (from legitimate sources) to gauge your progress:
http://www.manhattanlsat.com/logic-games-practice.cfm
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