How much can I expect to raise my score on actual test? Forum

[nick1792]

Hey everybody,

I'm a computer science major in my second semester, Junior credits-wise. I chose CS because I'm decent at it and I haven't really decided what I want to do but something that piqued my interest recently was the potential to do CS/IT patent law. I haven't looked into it much, but when I saw my school was doing practice tests I went ahead and took one earlier today. I ended up getting a 163 with 96% Logic games, 88% reading comprehension and 65% logical comprehension. I'm going to be studying abroad next year, so I'll probably be waiting until the next summer to take the test, but two questions about this score.

1. How good is it?

2. How much could I potentially expect to raise it if I had actually spent any time studying for it or if I were to get a tutor?

Thanks!

[VasaVasori]

.

[t14fanboy]

Hey everybody,

I'm a computer science major in my second semester, Junior credits-wise. I chose CS because I'm decent at it and I haven't really decided what I want to do but something that piqued my interest recently was the potential to do CS/IT patent law. I haven't looked into it much, but when I saw my school was doing practice tests I went ahead and took one earlier today. I ended up getting a 163 with 96% Logic games, 88% reading comprehension and 65% logical comprehension. I'm going to be studying abroad next year, so I'll probably be waiting until the next summer to take the test, but two questions about this score.

1. How good is it?

2. How much could I potentially expect to raise it if I had actually spent any time studying for it or if I were to get a tutor?

Thanks!

180.
But seriously why are you asking a question that only God knows the answer to. Keep at it until you break 170 on the actual test.

[nick1792]

If that's your score having never looked at any prep materials before, that's pretty good. Unfortunately, the sections that you didn't do well on tend to be the hardest to improve upon, but it shouldn't be too hard to get your score up into the 170s (which is generally top 1-2%).

This was without any prep materials, my school sent out emails a few days ago about the practice test and I hadn't really thought about law school before until last week. If I decide law school is something I want to do(sometime within the next year) I'm definitely going to get a tutor when I get back from study abroad.

With a tutor I was hoping that I could get the logical comprehension up to around how I did on reading comprehension, which I hope would get me at least a 170. If I did I was hoping that would be able to get me into a school like BU or Southern Cal.

[t14fanboy]

If that's your score having never looked at any prep materials before, that's pretty good. Unfortunately, the sections that you didn't do well on tend to be the hardest to improve upon, but it shouldn't be too hard to get your score up into the 170s (which is generally top 1-2%).

This was without any prep materials, my school sent out emails a few days ago about the practice test and I hadn't really thought about law school before until last week. If I decide law school is something I want to do(sometime within the next year) I'm definitely going to get a tutor when I get back from study abroad.

With a tutor I was hoping that I could get the logical comprehension up to around how I did on reading comprehension, which I hope would get me at least a 170. If I did I was hoping that would be able to get me into a school like BU or Southern Cal.

GPA? If you have high enough of a GPA, you don't necessarily need a 170 to snag a t14 acceptance.

Also, you are in a good spot as logical reasoning is very learn-able with enough practice.

[gloriouscause]

My first ever diagnostic was a 152. I ended up with a 171 on the actual test. You have nothing to worry about.

[bernaldiaz]

There is no amount you can "expect" to raise your score. It will entirely be a function of effort. If you mail it in I wouldn't be surprised if you only went up a couple points (since as a poster mentioned above you did the worst in the sections hardest to improve), but if you put in the time the upper 170's will be in reach.

[nick1792]

If that's your score having never looked at any prep materials before, that's pretty good. Unfortunately, the sections that you didn't do well on tend to be the hardest to improve upon, but it shouldn't be too hard to get your score up into the 170s (which is generally top 1-2%).

This was without any prep materials, my school sent out emails a few days ago about the practice test and I hadn't really thought about law school before until last week. If I decide law school is something I want to do(sometime within the next year) I'm definitely going to get a tutor when I get back from study abroad.

With a tutor I was hoping that I could get the logical comprehension up to around how I did on reading comprehension, which I hope would get me at least a 170. If I did I was hoping that would be able to get me into a school like BU or Southern Cal.

GPA? If you have high enough of a GPA, you don't necessarily need a 170 to snag a t14 acceptance.

Also, you are in a good spot as logical reasoning is very learn-able with enough practice.

I kind of screwed myself over on this one. I came into college at the start of this year with three semesters worth of ap credits that didn't affect my gpa and I'm studying abroad the next academic year, which only comes back pass/fail. So my gpa is based on this year, and then fall 2013, I got a 3.21 last semester and I took more computer science courses than my advisor said most people should take this semester. I expect I can get somewhere between 3.1-3.3(3.4 if I do really well)

[PDaddy]

If that's your score having never looked at any prep materials before, that's pretty good. Unfortunately, the sections that you didn't do well on tend to be the hardest to improve upon, but it shouldn't be too hard to get your score up into the 170s (which is generally top 1-2%).

You improve on RC by simply doing a lot of it. Read dense materials like The Economist, Scientific American or the Wall Street Jornal. You can also improve just by doing a lot of the more difficult passsages. Learn to isolate the information needed to answer the questions. Take it slow and get the method down before doing them under timed consitions.

As far as LR goes, those two sections are half of your score, which means you must make them a priority. Your goal should be to miss no more than 1-2 questions per LR section. I say "goal" because many people have scored 170+ while missing 4-5 questions per LR section. But it leaves little/no room for error in the other sections. Do the parallel reasoning questions last; they are designed to eat your time. You can gain 5-10 additional minutes for the other questions just by doing them last, and by the time you reach them, you're able to eliminate two answers right off the bat, so you have a 33% chance of guessing correctly if you need to. If you approach Parallel Reasoning questions with lots of time on the clock, you are more likely to try to work through them, which you don't want to do. Get your points! Do PR questions last.

The good news is that your improvement in LR will pretty much put you in the range you are looking for: to miss no more than 5-10 questions and score above 170.