The 160s Club! Join all ye 170 hopefuls!

[LawToMe]

PT 50 today (the one with riddled basins of attraction RC)

-1LR, -2LG, -1RC
Raw: 96
Scaled 177



If I wouldn't have missed those two LG questions I would have gotten a 180 (funny thing is, I finished the section with 8 minutes and change remaining and didn't go over the questions bc I was sure I had gotten them all correct ). Anway, the weirdest thing is the last 4 or 5 days my LSAT prep has been nearly non-existant with me only doing 1 timed section a day or just reading an entire issue of The Economist. And I was stuck in the low 170 rut for the past few PTs. Anyway, I'm extremely happy bc I felt very confident during the test and made sure to thoroughly read each stimulus and answer choice in LR so as not to get tripped up on a difficult question.

This has become the study method of choice for me as well. I think its a good one for those who are at that point in their study habits where they generally feel comfortable with the test... just enough material to keep you comfortable, confident and relaxed but not enough to burn out. Plus that feeling that I'm not studying enough has made me more aggressive during the test without losing a step in accuracy.

[Unitas]

You're missing my point. This holds true for even high scorers. A hard test could make a person averaging a 175 drop down to a 173/2, and an easy test could make that sae person go up to a 177/8.

Not really. The point of the curve is to make this not the case. A harder test has a lighter curve and an easier test has a harder curve. A hard test should not change your equated score it should just change your raw score.

[sayan]

You're missing my point. This holds true for even high scorers. A hard test could make a person averaging a 175 drop down to a 173/2, and an easy test could make that sae person go up to a 177/8.

Not really. The point of the curve is to make this not the case. A harder test has a lighter curve and an easier test has a harder curve. A hard test should not change your equated score it should just change your raw score.

I think everyone scoring 170+ can agree the "easiest" tests with a -8 curve are actually the hardest, ironically.

[dakatz]

Took Preptest 52 today (September 2007). I was hoping to improve on the 169 I got on my most recent test. And I was well on my way...until I hit the RC section.

LG -1
LR1 -3
LR2 -3
RC -6 (AHHHH!!!)

I'm pretty set in my logic games. I typically get between -0 and -2 wrong, especially on the newer tests, which I find to have far easier and more manageable games. If anything, its one silly mistake, never for lack of understanding. With LR, I feel like I'm improving. I used to get 5 or 6 wrong in every section. I now find that I never get more than 3 or 4 wrong, with the occasional -2. Still drilling the particular question types I find to be the most difficult. But RC, man oh man, I am just a mess with this. I typically get between -4 and -6 wrong, so its not like this -6 is so out of the blue for me. This is the sole reason I have yet to reach a score in the 170's (as I mentioned, my past best was 169). Any advice on how to approach the final 2 weeks or what I should focus on? I really want to break that elusive 170 once during practice because that would at least convince me that its at least a possibility on test day.

[lawduder]

PT51 today..

LR -5
RC -8 (uh, ok?)
LR -5
LG -0

raw 82
scaled 165

awful, dropping in scores makes me want to scream this late in the game, hopefully my last five pts (52-56) will be better...

[nyyankees]

UGGGGGGHHHH

PT 51 today

LR1: -4
RC: -9!!!!! (ran out of time and just blindly guessed on the last passage, outside of that passage, i had a -3)
RC2 (Exp): -3, why couldnt this have been the real one??
LR2: -3
LG: -0 (For some reason, i flew through this, finished in 24 mins and change, if only i could use the time however i wanted to...)

166

My first test above PT43

Obviously the RC needs serious amount of work, i was barely making it under the gun on the old RC, and i just got crushed today. I think I am going to just work on RC for the rest of the day, until i can crush these passages quickly and correctly.

LR is a disappointment too, I was typically in the -2/-3 range, per section so this sort of hurts.

LG was crazy easy...

[dakatz]

PT51 today..

LR -5
RC -8 (uh, ok?)
LR -5
LG -0

raw 82
scaled 165

awful, dropping in scores makes me want to scream this late in the game, hopefully my last five pts (52-56) will be better...

I hear ya. Was doing fine until the RC had its way with me. Seeing as we are in pretty much the same boat (had slight score decreases due to bad RC) what do you plan to do to improve your RC, since it is the only thing keeping us from truly high scores?

[nyyankees]

PT51 today..

LR -5
RC -8 (uh, ok?)
LR -5
LG -0

raw 82
scaled 165

awful, dropping in scores makes me want to scream this late in the game, hopefully my last five pts (52-56) will be better...

I hear ya. Was doing fine until the RC had its way with me. Seeing as we are in pretty much the same boat (had slight score decreases due to bad RC) what do you plan to do to improve your RC, since it is the only thing keeping us from truly high scores?

I think the three of us are in a relatively similar position, I think I am just going to go back and just keep doing RC passages. At least for me, I am going to get back to the basics of Accuracy -> Speed -> Endurance. I am just going to look at lets say 20 passages and look for answers to a handful of questions: What is the right answer? How was i supposed to get to the right answer in the fastest way possible? What keywords was I supposed to have picked up? Exactly where am i spending the majority of my time? What kinds of things keep getting asked? What details are worth remembering (if any)? Once i get pretty confident in my answers, I am going to work on getting them faster. Maybe ill try out the double read technique, though I am not sure I entirely get how to pull it off successfully.

Hope this helps, let me know if you are doing it too and we can do the same passages/share our findings etc.

[lawduder]

PT51 today..

LR -5
RC -8 (uh, ok?)
LR -5
LG -0

raw 82
scaled 165

awful, dropping in scores makes me want to scream this late in the game, hopefully my last five pts (52-56) will be better...

I hear ya. Was doing fine until the RC had its way with me. Seeing as we are in pretty much the same boat (had slight score decreases due to bad RC) what do you plan to do to improve your RC, since it is the only thing keeping us from truly high scores?

My RC hasn't been more than -5 for a couple of recent PTs now, I think I just lost focus during this one. I'm more concerned with my total -10 LR. My last PT was 169 with -4 RC, -7 LR and I genuinely thought the RC from that PT was harder than this one... I'm looking forward to comparative reading as I think I'll do better on it (I've done better on June 2007 and PT57) passages. Anyways, time for some serious review today/tomorrow and retest on Friday with PT52.

[solotee]

I decided that I will take a big risk w/ RC on test day. Instead of trying to do all 4 passages, I will try to accurately complete 3 passages in 35 minutes and guess all D's on the last passage. I realized that some passages have only 5 questions on them. If I can accurately complete the 3 longest passages, and guess on the last one, then I figured that my RC will at best be a -4. On a worst case scenario, it might be a -8, but I'm willing to take the risk because I lose focus if I try to complete all of the RC within the 35 minutes and miss anywhere from 8-12 on that section.

So this will be my attempt to mitigate the damage with RC on test day. If I know I have 11 1/2 minutes for each passage, then I can answer all the questions to those passages almost perfectly. I'm about to take PT 54 and will let you know how that went, tell me what you guys think of this approach.

[02082010]

I decided that I will take a big risk w/ RC on test day. Instead of trying to do all 4 passages, I will try to accurately complete 3 passages in 35 minutes and guess all D's on the last passage. I realized that some passages have only 5 questions on them. If I can accurately complete the 3 longest passages, and guess on the last one, then I figured that my RC will at best be a -4. On a worst case scenario, it might be a -8, but I'm willing to take the risk because I lose focus if I try to complete all of the RC within the 35 minutes and miss anywhere from 8-12 on that section.

So this will be my attempt to mitigate the damage with RC on test day. If I know I have 11 1/2 minutes for each passage, then I can answer all the questions to those passages almost perfectly. I'm about to take PT 54 and will let you know how that went, tell me what you guys think of this approach.

This is the advice I gave to my sister who is scoring in the high 140s/low 150s right now. She's URM as well, but unlike me, has a respectable 3.5+ GPA. I told her if she can hit 160 she'll be pretty comfortable and this strategy is a good way to do that. Def let me know how it works out for you on 54.

[teaadntoast]

I decided that I will take a big risk w/ RC on test day. Instead of trying to do all 4 passages, I will try to accurately complete 3 passages in 35 minutes and guess all D's on the last passage. I realized that some passages have only 5 questions on them. If I can accurately complete the 3 longest passages, and guess on the last one, then I figured that my RC will at best be a -4. On a worst case scenario, it might be a -8, but I'm willing to take the risk because I lose focus if I try to complete all of the RC within the 35 minutes and miss anywhere from 8-12 on that section.

So this will be my attempt to mitigate the damage with RC on test day. If I know I have 11 1/2 minutes for each passage, then I can answer all the questions to those passages almost perfectly. I'm about to take PT 54 and will let you know how that went, tell me what you guys think of this approach.

You might want to tweak this a bit to play to your strengths.

That is, if you tend to miss more questions on comparative passages, skip them and focus on the other three.

This might not work though, depending on how many questions are assigned to a given prompt.

[Tangerine Gleam]

I also took PT 51 today, but for some reason it was actually EASY for me. I don't know why -- I got a 171 on Saturday (42) and a 170 Monday (46).

PT 51 -- Raw: 98 Scaled: 180
RC: -1
LR: -1
LG: -0

I'm getting drunk tonight.

[02082010]

I also took PT 51 today, but for some reason it was actually EASY for me. I don't know why -- I got a 171 on Saturday (42) and a 170 Monday (46).

PT 51 -- Raw: 98 Scaled: 180
RC: -1
LR: -1
LG: -0

I'm getting drunk tonight.

I got a 170 on this PT a few weeks ago. Congrats. I remember I def celebrated the first time I broke 175 on a PT... the 180 still alludes me though.

[nyyankees]

I also took PT 51 today, but for some reason it was actually EASY for me. I don't know why -- I got a 171 on Saturday (42) and a 170 Monday (46).

PT 51 -- Raw: 98 Scaled: 180
RC: -1
LR: -1
LG: -0

I'm getting drunk tonight.

didnt you make an entire thread about this 5 hours ago in which everyone disagreed with you and congratulated you on how good a score that is? Congrats, but come on dude dont fish here

[keg411]

Damn, I knew that "riddle basins of attraction" RC was an easy section. Makes me fee all "iffy" again .

I'm definitely in "way too much stress" mode because I bombed a LG section last night (and from PT 45, which isn't even one of the tests in the 50's).

Meanwhile, tomorrow I get Dino's and Fractals and Willa Cather. Whatever score I get, I'm going to be a little pessimistic on it because I know what to expect.

[Tangerine Gleam]

I also took PT 51 today, but for some reason it was actually EASY for me. I don't know why -- I got a 171 on Saturday (42) and a 170 Monday (46).

PT 51 -- Raw: 98 Scaled: 180
RC: -1
LR: -1
LG: -0

I'm getting drunk tonight.

didnt you make an entire thread about this 5 hours ago in which everyone disagreed with you and congratulated you on how good a score that is? Congrats, but come on dude dont fish here

Thanks -- I'm not trying to fish/brag, though.

I started off in the low 160's, still dip down there (as recent as last week), and I have posted every PT score of mine in this thread for the last few months, since it started. I'm stoked on today's score but do NOT score consistently enough to consider myself "not a member" of the 170 hopefuls!

[mountaintime]

I just finished 51 and got my highest yet raw and and scaled scores: 92 / 173 . I think that everyone is finding this test easy because all, or at least most, of its games were disected in the LGB.

[lawduder]

I just finished 51 and got my highest yet raw and and scaled scores: 92 / 173 . I think that everyone is finding this test easy because all, or at least most, of its games were disected in the LGB.

I definitely didn't remember a single game on this test... maybe it's because I went through the LGB a long time ago. The jacket/overalls game, however, was unbelievably easy.

[Tangerine Gleam]

I just finished 51 and got my highest yet raw and and scaled scores: 92 / 173 . I think that everyone is finding this test easy because all, or at least most, of its games were disected in the LGB.

The games were WAY easy, I thought.

However, when completing the LGB, I strictly avoided any games which were post-2000 for this exact reason. I didn't want them to influence my 50+ PT performance. So I had never seen any of these games before.

[02082010]

Damn, I knew that "riddle basins of attraction" RC was an easy section. Makes me fee all "iffy" again .

I'm definitely in "way too much stress" mode because I bombed a LG section last night (and from PT 45, which isn't even one of the tests in the 50's).

Meanwhile, tomorrow I get Dino's and Fractals and Willa Cather. Whatever score I get, I'm going to be a little pessimistic on it because I know what to expect.

No. It is infamous as one of the most difficult RC passages ever. I got -0 on it last night though.

[mountaintime]

I just finished 51 and got my highest yet raw and and scaled scores: 92 / 173 . I think that everyone is finding this test easy because all, or at least most, of its games were disected in the LGB.

The games were WAY easy, I thought.

However, when completing the LGB, I strictly avoided any games which were post-2000 for this exact reason. I didn't want them to influence my 50+ PT performance. So I had never seen any of these games before.

.... for you at least

[keg411]

Damn, I knew that "riddle basins of attraction" RC was an easy section. Makes me fee all "iffy" again .

I'm definitely in "way too much stress" mode because I bombed a LG section last night (and from PT 45, which isn't even one of the tests in the 50's).

Meanwhile, tomorrow I get Dino's and Fractals and Willa Cather. Whatever score I get, I'm going to be a little pessimistic on it because I know what to expect.

No. It is infamous as one of the most difficult RC passages ever. I got -0 on it last night though.

Really? I don't remember how I did overall, but it was my best RC score. Maybe I just did well on all of the other passages.

[lawduder]

Damn, I knew that "riddle basins of attraction" RC was an easy section. Makes me fee all "iffy" again .

I'm definitely in "way too much stress" mode because I bombed a LG section last night (and from PT 45, which isn't even one of the tests in the 50's).

Meanwhile, tomorrow I get Dino's and Fractals and Willa Cather. Whatever score I get, I'm going to be a little pessimistic on it because I know what to expect.

No. It is infamous as one of the most difficult RC passages ever. I got -0 on it last night though.

Really? I don't remember how I did overall, but it was my best RC score. Maybe I just did well on all of the other passages.

http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/ha ... sages.html

[Veritas]

In case anyone is interested, I recently started doing LR sections from back to front. LR has been my toughest section and I missed most questions in the last half (no surprise). So I start in the back when I have the most focus and work towards the front where the easier questions are, as I lose focus. So far I have in no way compromised my score on the earlier questions and I have seen very good gains in the latter half of the test.

For me, this is something that could be the key to an overall higher score, so I thought it might be applicable to someone else.