Anyone Break 170 Yet? Forum

[boaltbound]

Seems like bad-news bears on the forum so far....

:-\

[eudaimondaimon]

Yes, barely. :/
-5 pts from my average of last 5 PTs.

[whitman]

Just did. -1 from practice average.

[ShiftyOne]

I had a 5 point jump into the 170's.

[tomwatts]

I appear to have scored a 180.

[CMDantes]

I appear to have scored a 180.

Grats! Are you available for free tutoring? In Texas?

[xcountryjunkie]

Unfortunately I did not. -6 from PT average, -4 from Sept score. Ugh. I seriously considered canceling, I shouldn't have talked myself out of it.

[ConsideringLawSchool]

I appear to have scored a 180.

If you don't mind, may I ask why you retook a 176? (I'm debating retaking 177)

[skip james]

he's an lsat teacher. there is really no good reason to retake a 176+ except for that, in my opinion.

[s0ph1e2007]

I did but -8 from PT average argghhh

June here I come


I have heard of two people so far that got 180s. so impressed. sad/majorly jealous

me=choke on lg

[Close Diamond]

me=choke on lg

LG choke here too.
-3 my PT average. Still thinking about June.

[TheLuckyOne]

I appear to have scored a 180.

Grats! Are you available for free tutoring? In Texas?

Tom, TLSers appear to be bitching about it, do you think it was considerably harder/trickier etc comparing to the previous administrations? Does it look like LSAC further modifies it? Any noticable differences?
Thanks.

[whitman]

Yeah, I had been hitting -0 on the last 9 or 10 PTs and then left 4 blank on the real deal. I'm vaguely toying with the idea of taking June to try to get those 4 points and go for upper 170s, but it is a huge relief to have it done.

[TheLuckyOne]

Yeah, I had been hitting -0 on the last 9 or 10 PTs and then left 4 blank on the real deal. I'm vaguely toying with the idea of taking June to try to get those 4 points and go for upper 170s, but it is a huge relief to have it done.

What's your score? The curve must be tight assuming you performed well on all the other questions.

[Fevsi]

I appear to have scored a 180.

If you don't mind, may I ask why you retook a 176? (I'm debating retaking 177)

Wow! Remember the days people were ridiculed for thinking about retaking a mere 175? What do you hope to gain from >177, given its already above or level with any single school's 75%?

[whitman]

172 with 4 blank on logic games. I felt very very good about the other sections, but I generally miss 1 or 2 on logical reasoning and reading comp - those duh! kind of questions.

[TheLuckyOne]

172 with 4 blank on logic games. I felt very very good about the other sections, but I generally miss 1 or 2 on logical reasoning and reading comp - those duh! kind of questions.

Looks like you missed a bit more, though, I still doubt the curve was very forgiving. Prolly somewhere around -9.

[macaulian]

178.

[tomwatts]

Grats! Are you available for free tutoring? In Texas?

Heh. I do online tutoring, but it isn't free.

If you don't mind, may I ask why you retook a 176? (I'm debating retaking 177)

Why on Earth would you retake a 177? If I know my stats correctly, the highest 75th percentile out there is a 177 (for Yale), so what good would it do you to retake? My reason is below.

he's an lsat teacher. there is really no good reason to retake a 176+ except for that, in my opinion.

Yeah. I was part of our (The Princeton Review's) Test Assessment Program. We TAP most major standardized tests every time they're offered to make sure that what we teach is still relevant and that nothing weird happens on test day. The most important thing we watch for on the LSAT is clues for the experimental section, because our students always want to know that right afterwards. So I got paid to retake a 176, and I figured I might as well make it count.

Tom, TLSers appear to be bitching about it, do you think it was considerably harder/trickier etc comparing to the previous administrations? Does it look like LSAC further modifies it? Any noticable differences?
Thanks.

As I said on test day, this felt a lot like PTs 57-59, especially in the games. The preponderance of In/Out games, the "switch a rule for an equivalent rule" question, the types of games and deductions and so forth were all very reminiscent of the other tests in the past year. The rest of the test felt the same way. Now, PT 57 was hard. That was a jolt, compared to previous tests; I suspect that it was the beginning of the new trend in game types and such. Anyone who didn't work PTs 57-59 carefully and go over them carefully would've felt that jolt in February, and that's probably a big part of the reason that people have been saying that February seemed awful. If you only prepped off of PTs 1-56, you might have found February to be awful. But people who say that February was much harder than 57 or 58 are nuts.

I do get, in hindsight, how presenting the juicers, mixers, and the rest could have thrown people off. I had a huge advantage because I've taught the similar (and worse) game in PT 38 so many times that this game didn't surprise me in the slightest. Anyone who hadn't done that game might've been at a small disadvantage. Anyone who ran out of time on the last reading passage (which was the easiest) probably screwed himself over. And there were easy ways to go wrong in the LR, too. However, I don't think that makes this test any different than any other.

My conclusion is this: This test was another one much like the three that preceded it. It was hard, but the LSAT is always hard. It wasn't unusually hard, nor was it exceptional in any other way. This is what the LSAT normally looks like, with recent trends manifested well.

[TheLuckyOne]

Thank you so much, Tom. So what you're saying is that you have not noticed implementation of any new trends, right? Not even in the experimental section, right?

I do get, in hindsight, how presenting the juicers, mixers, and the rest could have thrown people off. I had a huge advantage because I've taught the similar (and worse) game in PT 38 so many times that this game didn't surprise me in the slightest.

Which game? Which ones are worse?

[HiLine]

If we don't count LSAT teachers/tutors, I wonder how many 180 scorers are left out there.

[tomwatts]

So what you're saying is that you have not noticed implementation of any new trends, right? Not even in the experimental section, right?

I had experimental games (and was pretty sure it was experimental at the time — didn't fit the recent trends), and the distribution of types was different. No In/Out game. Had a "swap this rule for an equivalent rule" question. Looked like something more out of the 54-56 era than the 57-59 era. But nothing dramatically shocking (well, except that the fourth game was pretty awful).

So no, no new trends yet. That's not to say that there won't be something different in June, just that it hasn't already happened.

I do get, in hindsight, how presenting the juicers, mixers, and the rest could have thrown people off. I had a huge advantage because I've taught the similar (and worse) game in PT 38 so many times that this game didn't surprise me in the slightest.

Which game? Which ones are worse?

Oh, er, the third or fourth (I forget which) game in PT 38. Involved Nexus, Tailwind, flute, so forth. That game was somewhat like the hardest game on the February test, but PT 38's incarnation was worse.

[TheLuckyOne]

So what you're saying is that you have not noticed implementation of any new trends, right? Not even in the experimental section, right?

I had experimental games (and was pretty sure it was experimental at the time — didn't fit the recent trends), and the distribution of types was different. No In/Out game. Had a "swap this rule for an equivalent rule" question. Looked like something more out of the 54-56 era than the 57-59 era. But nothing dramatically shocking (well, except that the fourth game was pretty awful).

So no, no new trends yet. That's not to say that there won't be something different in June, just that it hasn't already happened.

I do get, in hindsight, how presenting the juicers, mixers, and the rest could have thrown people off. I had a huge advantage because I've taught the similar (and worse) game in PT 38 so many times that this game didn't surprise me in the slightest.

Which game? Which ones are worse?

Oh, er, the third or fourth (I forget which) game in PT 38. Involved Nexus, Tailwind, flute, so forth. That game was somewhat like the hardest game on the February test, but PT 38's incarnation was worse.

Yeah, I remember this game. Tom, thanks again.
I trully hope nothing wierd will pop-up in June.

[tomwatts]

While we're at it, today is my day to do this.

Sometimes people say that Princeton Review methods are not designed to get you to the 170+ range. I call BS. I've never looked at anything but Princeton Review materials. I've never seen Kaplan Mastery, Powerscore anything, or a Testmasters or Blueprint class, or whatever. I used Cracking the LSAT originally and have been working with Princeton Review course materials ever since. I know nothing but Princeton Review methods, so I can't help but use Princeton Review methods.

AND I GOT AN F-ING 180.

And I'm not the only one. The person who develops our materials is named Andrew Brody (semi-famous for his "LSAT Logic in Everyday Life" podcast, which I quite enjoy), and he got a 180, too. My students routinely (well, a few of them) score in the 170's. So anyone who says that our methods aren't good enough or aren't designed for whatever score, THEY'RE FULL OF IT. Your mileage may vary, depending on your individual teacher, but the methods are sound.

Okay, glad I got that out of my system.

[HiLine]

Someone who applies Princeton Review's methods CAN score 170+ or even 180, as tomwatts stated.
The percentage of Princeton Review's students that actually score 170+ is unknown however. Also unknown is how high that percentage is compared to those from other test prep companies.