10 official preptests (7-19??) does this go away? Forum

[pattymac]

I've been taking a PT once every 2 days for the past three weeks now, and I'm ranign in between 155-161 with a low of 153 once . My raw scores have been around 68-71.

It seems as though these effing PTs have one game that I simply cannot understand. Like the beakers game, the datacom game, the restructiring game, city 1-6, etc. The rest of them I have absolutely dummied. But I always go 0/7 (or i'm lucky, I'll go 1/7 on them) and it's pretty much holding me back from constantly being in the 160 range consistently. I've heard older games are harder, and these tests are from 93-95 I believe.

Can anyone who started on the earliest PTs and worked their way up offer some insight here? FWIW, I'm like maaaybe -1 or -2 at MOST on the other games. I think on two PT's I didn't miss a question in any other game except these stupid ones.

Thanks in advance!

[blerg]

Have you used any study guides? Powerscore, etc

[typ3]

I would say if you've gone through that many tests and haven't seen a sizable increase, stop doing PTs. You're just wasting prep material. Pour over the old exams, redo the games you didn't understand and those that you did for speed and accuracy. Go over every problem in those tests you missed and got correctly. One method I use for LR is always bracket the conclusion and number the premises and bracket them. My Conclusion gets a [ .... ] bracket around the text. My premises get, <......> with a number super script. I also note the indicator words, but slow down and learn what you scored incorrectly before you keep mowing through tests.

PT's in themselves are not the key to a higher score, understanding the question types, traps, and phrasing is the key to getting a top score. As many people have noted, the games can be -0/-1'd with doing the LGB and forcing yourself to spend about 30-50 hours studying them and rediagramming the problem types.

[HiLine]

+1. Practicing alone is not sufficient. Practicing with the correct method is what counts.

[pattymac]

Yeah, I've gone through both bibles. Went through Kaplan mastery too.

Thanks for the advice. I have been reviewing my PT's, although I didn't really review the last two in depth. I'll take a look through tonight!

[Kobe_Teeth]

Personally, I think the early games are super time consuming. Mix them in with the newer games which are as difficult but less time consuming.

Actually, in general it might not be bad to mix the tests up order-wise. The LSAT seems to go through trends and doing this might make you more resistant to being tricked by a changing trend.

[Kobe_Teeth]

Also, what helped me the MOST...was taking LG sections more than once. I took a couple LG's a day. One that I had done and one that I had not. Sometimes I did three or four all that had been done before. It helped a lot. Yu start to recognize the leaps that you missed.

I went from a -9 to a -5 and that's with completely choking on the last game. I was PT-ing around -1 to -3 (avg) with this method.