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i went up 11 points in about 6 weeks. I was taking a prep course, but even if youre not, don't lose hope. 7 weeks is ample time if you study and stay on track. from my first dry-run test, to the last practice before my lsat, i went up 14 points total, in about 8 weeks.

uhh first timer here, but my last three tests were 167, 167, 166. 167 is also the highest i've ever scored (completed maybe 10 ptests total). i've been on a pretty strong upward trend though, so i'm optimistic i'll be able to do something at least around 170-171 on game day.

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7 weeks out, I was doing my cold diagnostic, having never before even glanced at a sample question. Cold diag: 164. Seven weeks later: 171 on the October exam. That's a 7-point improvement while working full time. I now know that I studied all wrong (didn't have the bibles, didn't review my answers, didn't track question types). I definitely feel like I could have improved at least 3-4 more points in that 7 weeks if I'd done the thing properly.

However, it is definitely a case of diminishing returns. If you've already been studying for months and months and have made improvement, squeezing another 5/7/10 point jump out of the last seven weeks before the test is a tall order.

BTW, "looking at" the bibles will not achieve what they're meant for. You need to read them thoroughly (possibly more than once) and work through everything.

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TIKITEMBO wrote:Thanks for the response, I really appreciate it. Could I ask if the 11 point increase was after you had gone through prep materials and felt comfortable with the questions? I have been studying on and off for awhile but was only recently able to actual narrow in and focus on the materials to make sure I understood what was being asked. The downside of moving/having to find work/work.

from the 1st dry test, to the next one (in the classes) I went up 4 points, and then slowly kept increasing as I learned new concepts and new ways to dissect the questions and attack the games. It sounds really simple, but honestly, the more I studied and read and practiced, the better I felt about the test, and the better I did. Even aside from the classes, on my own time, I found that reading unrelated articles and then asking myself lsat-like questions really helped the methods sink in.
If youre really distracted from prepping, consider putting it off. Honestly. You should give yourself a fair shake at being as well prepared as possible.

I would HIGHLY recommend doing prep other than full tests where you're at. That's really where all my gains have come from since studying. I've found that just taking practice tests lets you sit back and wait for the next one. You get some questions wrong, review them, maybe learn some, but then take another and just start to feel really stalled out. Drilling, on the other hand, really helps master specific sections and question types. Can't recommend it enough for big gains.

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I think I was reading PS bibles by the pool. Didn't find out about TLS till around the 4 week mark, and that's when I got most of my real studying done.

I did a warm diagnostic at Kaplan and got a 161, which I then improved to a 169 on the real thing. I don't think it is unreasonable for you to get up past 166. You've got time.

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TIKITEMBO wrote:Wow, that's a fantastic improvement! Was that 164 timed or untimed? Good to hear you were working at the time as well.

The 164 was timed, but LG was the only section I ever had a timing problem on. The other sections I could finish in 25 minutes from the beginning (I read really fast and have good visual recall of where in a reading selection I saw something mentioned).

When I first started LG, I could finish 3 whole games (getting 1-2 on each game wrong) and get the first 2 easy questions on the 4th before I ran out of time. By the end of the seven weeks (I worked through Logic Games for Dummies instead of the LG Bible), I could just barely finish all 4 games. On the real test, I got a -1 in LG, my best ever.

LG is by far the easiest to improve in a short time period. If you have significant room for improvement in it, I'd put in some serious effort getting it as close to -0 as possible. That's a lot more realistic than suddenly becoming a faster reader in seven weeks (not that you should neglect RC and LR).

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TIKITEMBO wrote:Wow, so that's an 8 point increase in 4 weeks? Not bad at all and a very respectable score. I'm not planning to take a class, but I will be consistently studying up to test day and am feeling better about the test as a whole.

Nope. Kaplan will administer a real test for free. They'll try to sell you the class afterwards, but you don't have to take it(I definitely didn't).

It wasn't exactly 8 points in 4 weeks though. The Kaplan test was in the spring, but after that I didn't do much studying until the weeks before the test, so that is when all my real improvement came.

Really, until I came on TLS, I had no understanding whatsoever of the kind of rigor you need when studying to get these high scores, and then I started cramming, burning out before the test. With 2 weeks to go I started panicking about RC and just stopped doing any LR and LG(I was scoring -2 or less consistently) and crammed RC. On the real thing I got -1 RC, which was nice, but I massively underperformed on LR and LG.

Interestingly, I just took a diagnostic and finished my 7th week in. I started out with a 138 cold and recently got a 148.

10+ increase...but it's still horrible. I haven't done much practice with time (have mainly been doing drills). I'm almost 100% sure I'm going to postpone the Oct test and possibly take it in Dec or even February.

I did 6 weeks of study and went +12 from diag.

As has been said already, the key is smart study, not mountains of studying.

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TIKITEMBO wrote:I think I didn't get what drilling meant before I sort of accidentally stumbled into it yesterday. I didn't really get how someone could do a game and then immediately re-do it to get familiar with the set up because that seemed pointless to me since you would know some of the answers. But, I've just concentrated on making sure I take myself through the steps of finding the answer in my head and writing down the steps/diagrams on a new sheet of paper.

Yeah, for games the Pithypike model in this forum is ideal. Some say you need days or even weeks between the games, but I found it most effective to do each game three times, in three consecutive days. After you do the first one review it and don't just say "oh, I didn't do X, I should've Y," DO THOSE THINGS. Redo the game slowly in the most efficient and ideal way. Then when you retake it the next day or whenever do that way and try to be quick about it. The third day should, with few exceptions, be at or under 7:00 and perfect. It really teaches you how to do games fast.

Drilling is where it's at, especially for games and logical reasoning. Drill by type for LR. If you do it comprehensively it does the same things that LG drilling does--increases accuracy and speed. Also, referencing back to the bibles or the pertinent Manhattan guide helps you understand patterns and such more easily. I've been studying for this since like February. I've done one round of LG drilling and now two of LR. It took me longer to really get LR to a place I'm happy with but it was definitely the drilling that made it happen.

Super Prep A is also one of the worst. I did my worst score ever on that PT. 157 or something- it almost destroyed my confidence completely. I got over it by realizing a lot of people had issues with that test.

Just FYI.