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180asBreath wrote:

suspicious android wrote:Instead of asking for new advice, why not just take the advice you previously ignored?

I was actually hoping for more meaningful advice (like from crumpets and tea), instead of being told "stop doing PT's and learn the questions".

i dont understand ur point here, as crumpets and tea also said to stop doing pt's or any section and go back and review, much like suspicious andriod suggested. If anything, he was more forcedful with advice since he made it all caps.

Look at his post again; while he said that I should stop taking PT's, he actually gave me a good strategy for reviewing wrong answers. He actually provided helpful, substantive advice.

I get it, a lot of you don't think I should take PT's right now. As I've said, I have good reason to take them; unless someone has a convincing argument about the drawbacks, I am going to continue taking them so it's really wasted bytes to just repeat the same thing without providing sufficient (or new) arguments.

180asBreath wrote: I get it, a lot of you don't think I should take PT's right now. As I've said, I have good reason to take them; unless someone has a convincing argument about the drawbacks, I am going to continue taking them so it's really wasted bytes to just repeat the same thing without providing sufficient (or new) arguments.

Why did you ask for advice if you are going to be stubborn and reject it while continuing to claim that your current strategy is correct? You are behaving like a typical recalcitrant student. You do have a long way to go to get from a highest practice test score of 167 to scoring 175+ on test day in real test conditions.

Please post the score you achieve on the December test. I wish you good luck.

Jeffort wrote:

180asBreath wrote: I get it, a lot of you don't think I should take PT's right now. As I've said, I have good reason to take them; unless someone has a convincing argument about the drawbacks, I am going to continue taking them so it's really wasted bytes to just repeat the same thing without providing sufficient (or new) arguments.

Why did you ask for advice if you are going to be stubborn and reject it while continuing to claim that your current strategy is correct? You are behaving like a typical recalcitrant student. You do have a long way to go to get from a highest practice test score of 167 to scoring 175+ on test day in real test conditions.

Please post the score you achieve on the December test. I wish you good luck.

I asked for advice on how to improve on LR, "stop taking PT's" is not proper advice on how to improve. Further, it is incomplete advice; do they mean "stop taking PT's and spend all of your time drilling and doing practice sections"? If that's the case, like I've said before, I would like to hear why I should do this. Sorry, conferring "expert" status on them does not make me want to blindly follow their advice. If it is stubborn to choose not to adhere to someone's advice because you don't feel that they've explained why you should, then consider me stubborn.

I have never once said my current strategy is correct, I just feel it is the best for me - at the moment. You're right, I do have a long way to go; never have I claimed otherwise. Like my tutor said today, I am on an upward slope; while I am climbing, I have to keep moving if I don't want to lose traction.

"I apologize for my arrogance, but here is some more of it!"

I'm a tennis player. When I struggle with something, or want to get better at something, I stop playing practice matches and start drilling or doing something other than live ball matches.

When I get comfortable with it, then I work it into live ball points, then eventually, practice and official matches.

All of us telling you to stop doing pt's is equivalent to this. We arent asking you to stop practicing, we're just asking you to stop playing matches so that you can drill and perfect whatever you are working on.

"Look at his post again; while he said that I should stop taking PT's, he actually gave me a good strategy for reviewing wrong answers"

that is my point....he still said to STOP DOING PT's....and that is my point as well, Stop doing pt's

From all your threads combined, you have about 20 different people telling you to stop doing pt's....we aren't all out to get you. Some of us actually would like for u to do well.

Lol 180 this is one of the reasons I'm telling you to relax on the PTs. I know you think you're going to lose motivations, but gains aren't gonna come every 3-4 days, and when you have an off PT it just ends up freaking you out.

Regardless, I know you're not listening to that so relax, take a breath, and just restart your drilling using the right methods. With LR you get extra practice essentially with RC due to the relatively similar structure between Dave's SPAM system and the 4x4, so that's always a positive.

Really though, if you can't do the 4x4 successfully throughout two full sections you need to focus on whatever one of those you can't get and really master that aspect. I'd also suggest considering reading the question first if you aren't already in LR once you've gotten that 4x4 down, because it allows you to zero in on the answers you're going to need immediately and ensure that you're looking for the vital keywords you need to be. Once you can look at a question and already anticipate the proper answer, it's going to eliminate a lot of that guess work.

Finally, you should go through those tips about choosing between answers when you've narrowed it down to two(e.g., MTB/Inference questions use small language, str/wkn using "middle language", MOR using qualified language, etc.). That will help give you confidence when you're choosing answers.

Don't get discouraged by a bad PT score, you've still got weeks to improve man. On the other hand, can't say I didn't warn you about this happening lol.

Edit: Also man, don't forget you already are scoring in the 90th percentile or higher. That was something I needed to keep in mind to stay grounded and also keep me motivated. Some people would kill to have your score, so definitely don't allow a score that's "only" in the 90th percentile to get you down.

Edit: DP sorry.

I think the point everyone is trying to make here is that you continue to ask for advice... and then you reject that advice. You claim "nobody can come up with a sufficient reason why." ...

If you ask for advice from people who have taken the LSAT already (and scored very well) and then reject that advice because they can't give you a sufficient reason for taking that advice (which they have numerous times, you have just chosen to ignore it) then you are going to get shit for it.

Oh,by the way,stop taking pts.

The LR Bible was a major waste of my time. My scores went down drastically because it complicated things for me. I read the 10 page summary in the LSAC Preptest (the one with 3 tests and explanations), and my score recovered and then increased. I took a bunch of practice tests and started seeing patterns. When I got a question wrong I re did it, then checked the right answer and compared it to the one I selected. The LG Bible helped immensely, but the LR did not help me. I also took a PHIL of Logic course, and it just was not for me. It depends on the person. Different people have different methods.

You asked for a legitimate reason why you should TEMPORARILY stop taking PTs, I will attempt to provide one for you.

As someone prepping for the December LSAT and also has 180 set as a goal I can empathize with your desire to take as many preptests as possible. Taking preptests is way more fun than spending time looking over a question you have already answered or drilling the same question type over and over. Once you finish grading a PT with a sub180 score, your competitive juices get flowing you and want to immediately take another one to advance your progress towards said goal of 180. All of this is rationally motivated but there are a few problems with such a plan.

Achieving a 180 on the DECEMBER LSAT is your ultimate goal, not just scoring a 180 on a preptest. If you separate these to distinct events you will realize that while taking as many preptests as possible may increase the probability that you score a 180 on one of them, it will not necessarily increase your odds on the real LSAT.

While there are many variables that may affect why you answered a specific question incorrectly (phone ringing, fatigue, misbubbling, etc…), the fact remains that you selected an incorrect answer. You NEED TO KNOW THE REASON WHY. Every question on the LSAT has 1 answer that is 100% correct and 4 answers that are 100% wrong. If you don’t know why a specific answer choice is correct or incorrect, then you will likely fall victim to a similar problem on a future LSAT, thus rendering the 180 goal unfulfilled.

Taking more and more tests may not only be unproductive, but actually detrimental if there are leaks in your strategy. The first reason for this is that the repetition of preptests increases your speed and reduces your score variance by reinforcing specific strategies. However, if your strategy has a leak you are only reinforcing that leak making it harder for you to plug in the future. Remember, there are only 63 available preptests, each one you take is one that you will never be able to take unbiased ever again.

While perfection =/= mastery, if you want to obtain your goal of a perfect score you either can hope for insane luck (in which case this thread is pointless) or YOU MUST MASTER EVERY ELEMENT OF THE LSAT.

Setting high goals is a healthy exercise, but if you fail to take the steps necessary to achieving that goal it is only one of futility.

Hope this helps,
Adam

d0nk wrote:You asked for a legitimate reason why you should TEMPORARILY stop taking PTs, I will attempt to provide one for you.

As someone prepping for the December LSAT and also has 180 set as a goal I can empathize with your desire to take as many preptests as possible. Taking preptests is way more fun than spending time looking over a question you have already answered or drilling the same question type over and over. Once you finish grading a PT with a sub180 score, your competitive juices get flowing you and want to immediately take another one to advance your progress towards said goal of 180. All of this is rationally motivated but there are a few problems with such a plan.

Achieving a 180 on the DECEMBER LSAT is your ultimate goal, not just scoring a 180 on a preptest. If you separate these to distinct events you will realize that while taking as many preptests as possible may increase the probability that you score a 180 on one of them, it will not necessarily increase your odds on the real LSAT.

While there are many variables that may affect why you answered a specific question incorrectly (phone ringing, fatigue, misbubbling, etc…), the fact remains that you selected an incorrect answer. You NEED TO KNOW THE REASON WHY. Every question on the LSAT has 1 answer that is 100% correct and 4 answers that are 100% wrong. If you don’t know why a specific answer choice is correct or incorrect, then you will likely fall victim to a similar problem on a future LSAT, thus rendering the 180 goal unfulfilled.

Taking more and more tests may not only be unproductive, but actually detrimental if there are leaks in your strategy. The first reason for this is that the repetition of preptests increases your speed and reduces your score variance by reinforcing specific strategies. However, if your strategy has a leak you are only reinforcing that leak making it harder for you to plug in the future. Remember, there are only 63 available preptests, each one you take is one that you will never be able to take unbiased ever again.

While perfection =/= mastery, if you want to obtain your goal of a perfect score you either can hope for insane luck (in which case this thread is pointless) or YOU MUST MASTER EVERY ELEMENT OF THE LSAT.

Setting high goals is a healthy exercise, but if you fail to take the steps necessary to achieving that goal it is only one of futility.

Hope this helps,
Adam

Incredible post. The words in bold - truer words have not been spoken (on this thread).

How long would you say I go without PT'ing? How do I effectively identify what my weaknesses are? I am of the mind that my LG is good (-0 on my last 4 PT's, even though there were some new game types I hadn't seen before), my RC is getting there (I'm using a new notation strategy that isn't impeding my comprehension and I feel sufficient practicing with timed sections will get me to where I need to be), and my LR isn't far off. Should I run an analysis on the last 7 PT's, figuring out which ones I got wrong? There may be a pattern, I'm not too sure.

I don't know if that would be the right approach or if I should spend the next 6 weeks re-going through the Velocity LR book.

I would much enjoy a discussion on this, with you; we can take it to PM or talk here. But thank you for the post.

180asBreath wrote:How long would you say I go without PT'ing? How do I effectively surmise what my weaknesses are? Should I run an analysis on the last 7 PT's, figuring out which ones I got wrong? There may be a pattern, I'm not too sure.

If you have taken 7 PTs thats 14 LR sections, make a list of every question type you got wrong the and # of times each. Start with the question type you got wrong and review whatever study guide you are using on the correct approaches to each question. Then drill 10-25 of each question of that type (one at a time), making sure that you zealously follow the correct approach in each. After you finish each - review them as explained in other posts here.

Like the LSAT, there is no definite answer on how long you should do this... you'll know when you feel like you've mastered a certain question type and are ready to return to PTs.

If you spent the rest of October reviewing/learning that would still give you a whole month to take PTs before December.

The correct schedule depends on the person. But spend at least a few days figuring what it is you don't know - if you are honest with yourself you'll soon discover how much you need to learn before taking more PTs.

Your goal should be to be able to answer all the questions correctly in the time allotted. For this to happen, you need to make your responses second nature. Instead of seeing a Strengthen question and thinking: how do I strengthen an argument, then going through the ways in your head, then approaching each answer choice trying to remember those ways, etc... You need to read, process, launch.

You can never achieve the exacting balance between speed and accuracy necessary for a 175+ without learning the optimal approach and then making that approach your second nature through practice.

With that i'm off to go over some LR myself, good luck!

OP,

Hopefully the way this thread started is now water under the bridge and you have gotten your frustrations out. I would appreciate it if you edit out the unwarranted derogatory comment you made about me. This is my 3rd post in the thread. I did not attack you in the other two, I only stated basic facts and my observation about how you have responded to and discarded the good constructive advice repeatedly given to you for free in this thread and in your '10 weeks to a 180' thread regarding your strategy of continuing to do the churn-and-burn take lots of timed practice tests routine.

Being under the pressure of preparing to take the LSAT and figuring things out to try to get admitted into a good law school is a stressful process that sometimes fuels emotional/illogical responses/behavior. $hit happens, no biggie.

To improve your logical reasoning performance, one of the crucial things is to become very familiar with commonly used flawed methods of reasoning, logically sound methods of reasoning, and how to identify/distinguish them from each other so that you apply valid reasoning when selecting answer choices. That is the central core of what LSAT logical reasoning questions are designed to test.

The volume of commonly repeated/tested methods of reasoning is not gigantic and can be learned by putting in quality -working the materials in slow motion- study and review time. Every incorrect answer choice, no matter the question type, is written in a way to act as bait to tempt you and determine whether you are applying valid methods of reasoning or a flawed method of reasoning when selecting an answer choice.

Nobody wrote up and posted a full quick-fix 'How to dominate LR easily' outline/synopsis for various reasons. One of them is that there is a character limit for each post combined with the fact that every good/comprehensive LSAT logical reasoning prep book/guide is several hundred pages long.

Again, I wish you luck and hope you have decided to adjust your strategy and spend more prep hours on quality study time of the type required to be able to achieve a 99th percentile score on test day. You are certainly motivated and trying to do whatever you can to succeed. That is great and certainly one of the necessary traits to ultimately knock it out of the park when it counts. One of the main important things everybody has been telling you in various ways boils down to quality study time over quantity of LSAT questions/sections/tests you burn through.

.

LOL at OP...Bro there is no magic tip for LR...only thing you can do is
1. make a word doc for each question you miss, find out which type of questions you missed, and figure out why or
2. keep doing what you are doing and stay being mediocre at best

I was just like you...the difference is I only wasted 4 PT's....how many you wanna waste is up to you

GL luck bro