anyone go from sub155->~170? advice? Forum

[toiletpaper55]

does anyone who has drastically improved from the mid 150's to the high 160's/low 170s' have any advice on how they did it? i know a lot of members on here start relatively high (in the mid 160's) but i was wondering if anyone had encouraging experiences from lower diagnostics to share...

i just started studying for june, got through the LRB but when i went to do some PT sections, a lot of the concepts went out the window and i have yet to start the LGB...its going to be a shit-ton of work but im aiming for around 170...

[tyjole]

I went from 155 to 167. Here are a few pieces of advice that helped me. I don't have anything really to offer in the reading section, but the games and reasoning went very well for me.

In games to go a lot quicker I took an approach to apply each rule to every answer choice, not applying all the rules to each answer choice and move that way. By taking one rule and going down the list of choices, each rule eliminates some choices, thus when moving onto the next rule, you have less choices to review, thus saving you time. If you go each choice and apply all the rules you waste a ton of time, especially if the correct answer is E. Other than that, details are huge in games, remember them all.

In the reasoning section focus on the tips on your study guides; no one in particular stood out to me. My biggest help was studying each question type, ie.. method of reasoning, weaken, main point, etc. Figure out the common answers in each type, the test is consistent to use the same reasoning for the correct answer. Good Luck!

[PoliticalJunkie]

I took a course, BP the Movie and it helped me a lot. I also put in significant time (2-3 hours per day with roughly 8-10 hours on the weekends for about 2.5 months). Went from sub 155 to above 170.

For me, I needed the drill my brain with the same question types, I didn't have the time, nor the patience to go through each of the PT's on my own and differentiate Q-types so having a course do that for me so I can drill 100+ Assumption questions, 100+MI questions, etc helped me see the pattern in LSAT testing.

GL

[lawschoollll]

does anyone who has drastically improved from the mid 150's to the high 160's/low 170s' have any advice on how they did it? i know a lot of members on here start relatively high (in the mid 160's) but i was wondering if anyone had encouraging experiences from lower diagnostics to share...

i just started studying for june, got through the LRB but when i went to do some PT sections, a lot of the concepts went out the window and i have yet to start the LGB...its going to be a shit-ton of work but im aiming for around 170...

I'd bet it's more common than you think. My diagnostic was something atrocious like a 149 or 151 (I forget exactly) and I brought it up to a pretty steady 175 on PTs including a handful of 178s and hit 172 on the real thing. Just take all of the PTs under test conditions. You'll be surprised at the jump.

[lawgunner75]

I took the TestMasters course in New York, and the woman who tutored me went from a 147 to a 172 after taking the course. She's at Columbia now.

[dshirs32]

Testmasters is a great course, it will provide you with a very solid foundation, but outside practice is what really counts

[dynomite]

does anyone who has drastically improved from the mid 150's to the high 160's/low 170s' have any advice on how they did it?

Mid-150s to 171 thanks in part to Blueprint.

Work incredibly hard, tear apart your PTs afterwards and rework every question you struggled with. Why did you struggle? Did you miss a word? Did you forget the question stem? Were there two good answer choices? Why was the wrong answer choice wrong, and why was the right one right? Did the question remind you of any others that you've struggled with? Etc

[toiletpaper55]

does anyone who has drastically improved from the mid 150's to the high 160's/low 170s' have any advice on how they did it? i know a lot of members on here start relatively high (in the mid 160's) but i was wondering if anyone had encouraging experiences from lower diagnostics to share...

i just started studying for june, got through the LRB but when i went to do some PT sections, a lot of the concepts went out the window and i have yet to start the LGB...its going to be a shit-ton of work but im aiming for around 170...

I'd bet it's more common than you think. My diagnostic was something atrocious like a 149 or 151 (I forget exactly) and I brought it up to a pretty steady 175 on PTs including a handful of 178s and hit 172 on the real thing. Just take all of the PTs under test conditions. You'll be surprised at the jump.

correct me if you feel differently, but i feel like if i do timed practice exams so early on, ill run out of questions/exams rather quickly. for most people, was it the repetition of the exam that helped the most? at this point, even untimed, im getting answer choices wrong for LR (cant speak about LG yet)

upon reviewing correct and incorrect answers, should the correct answer be easy to pick out and justify? are there any answer key resources w/ explanations to help me reaffirm my choices/wrong choices?

and for me, a prep course isnt really an option. im currently studying abroad (which, btw, was not a good choice if lsats are my first priority...)

[dynomite]

and for me, a prep course isnt really an option. im currently studying abroad (which, btw, was not a good choice if lsats are my first priority...)

It sounds like you need to take an online prep course. Blueprint worked for me, but I think Kaplan, Princeton Review and others also offer online coursebooks.

One of Blueprint's features is a video explanation for every logic game on the LSAT. Here's their YouTube video for the infamous dino game from PT 57: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YttKYUmMPsg

[SilverE2]

I went from a 155 to a 168 (was preptesting in the mid 170s though). I went through the logic games bible, then took testmasters, then I went through preptests 1-30 once, and 30-the latest twice.

[acdisagod]

I went from 154 to 171 with a somewhat unorthodox studyign method. I took a ton of practice tests, but especially for the first 20 i did it a little differently than most people. If I was unsure of an answer while taking the test, I would immediately look up the answer and the kaplan explanation. I felt if I waited until the end to look up what i didn't know or got wrong I would do it sloppily or too quickly. the key to sucess is knowing what you got wrong and why you got it wrong

[Aias]

155-->169
Go through both bibles and do as many PTs as you can under test conditions.

[toiletpaper55]

this is pretty encouraging to hear its not impossible. what were your time frames for studying and how many hours did you put in? total? per week? and how soon did you see your scores improve from your practice exams? and how did you improve in LR?

[kinch]

153-->173

Read the bibles, do the PTs in order (save the new ones for last).

[pleasetryagain]

153-->173

Read the bibles, do the PTs in order (save the new ones for last).

148 first cold diag--> 170 (retake)

same advice though I never read the LRB - wish I had. RC bible didnt help.

[skip james]

150ish to 177. took almost an entire year though.

[toiletpaper55]

regarding doing timed PTs, what did you do with the problems you didnt get to finish? did you just save them for later? or did you review/look at the answers when you looked over the ones you did finish?

[acdisagod]

It took me from early june all the way until september 25th. I would say I averaged 2 hours a day pretty much everyday over the course of three months.