ChicagoBullsFan LSAT Prep Tracking Thread Forum

[chicagobullsfan]

Following in the footsteps of KnockGlock, I am starting my own LSAT tracking thread, primarily to keep myself honest and accountable.

I finished the last of the LRB yesterday (finished the games bible about 2 weeks ago), began to hone in on games and LRB problem types that have been giving me grief as I've done some practice tests. I'm especially nervous about advanced linear games killing me in terms of time. The grouping ones seem to be OK.

Did PT 38 game section last night, -2 untimed. I was pretty surprised, but then both mistake turned out to be an instance of me misreading a question (the grouping Q, I think and the musicians question).

+ tons of games here and there (focusing primarily on advanced and games from some of the "10 actual" series), and some RC sections...the two above were the only complete, timed test attempts though. Also have started honing in on specific types of LR questions that are giving me trouble.

This is obviously going to ramp up now that I've finished the green and blue books. I've got the big orange from Kaplan which will be a nice resource to try to understand concepts, etc...might be more handy for RC though.

What I've done is devised a plan where starting on 4/11/10, I will do a PT timed, and then spend 2 days dissecting it and reviewing every concept I got wrong in it and attacking old problems that feature similar concepts.

Until then, I've planned on doing some PTs from 1-28 as warmup and keeping the rest as practice for the future. I've scheduled this so it leads me to 6/5 as my last "review day." Weekends, I will be spending a full day doing and reviewing a PT that I'd normally spread out over 3 days...Friday, same. This is a pretty tough schedule on paper, but I think it will work out fine.

Feel free to chime in, or start yer own threads. This should be fun

Results so far (all PTs timed unless stated otherwise):

3/8/10 - PT 20 - 161 (my initial Diag) - RC = -6, LG = -3, LR1 = -6, LR2 = -9
3/22/10 - PT 7 - 165 - RC = -5, LG = -2, LR1 = -5, LR2 = -10
4/6 - 4/7/10 - PT 2 (untimed) - 165 - RC = -2, LR1 = -5, LG = -4, LR2 = -6
4/14/10 - Superprep A - 156 - LR1 = -6, RC = -9, LG = -11, LR2 = -6 (read it and be scared). I ran out of time on the LGs and the last LR. I have no clue what happened on the RC.
4/15/10 - Superprep B - 162 - LR1 = -7, RC = -1 (woot), LG = -11 (wtf, again?), LR2 = -7 (sigh)...at least this one had a nicer curve, but how about that RC score. Yeaaaa
4/17/10 - Superprep C - 168 - LR1 = -2, RC = -2, LG = -9, LR2 = -4...if it wasn't for one game that I had to guess on because I was running out of time, this would have been 170+. But as with the other two superpreps, I went back and tried to re-do the games that I didn't get through. What I did find encouraging was that when I re-did them, I was able to get everything. With one of them, I couldn't do it in the allotted (8:45) time per game, but in one of the others, I could.
4/18/10 - PT 39 - 162 - Should I be getting worried that I'm still doing PTs like this and coming up only 1 above my diagnostic? Or is it just because I took the 3 Superpreps and summarily screwed my "averages"?

Averages after 7 PTs:

Overall LSAT: 162.7
RC: -4.6
LR (both sections total): -11.6
LG: -8.75 (over 4, ""): -7.2

4/19: Well, I'm pretty confident in the LR work I've been doing and the improvement seems to be showing in scores that now are lower than 5 (instead of the crazy -10s I had before), but the games situation is getting pretty dire. Why is it that when I do intense review on one section type, the other decides to take an immediate hit. As for RC, I think it will be OK, despite the -7 I just got.

Scheduled:

Sunday - 4/18/10 - PT 39 (timed + with a 5th section experimental - nice thing about not having done all of the old PTs in their entirety is that you have host of stuff you can use for this part that you've never seen before) + Review
Monday - 4/19 - Review
Tuesday - 4/20 - PT 40 (timed w/experimental)
Wednesday - 4/21 - PT 40 review
Thursday - 4/22 - Review
Friday - 4/23 - PT 41 (timed w/experimental)
Saturday - 4/24 - PT 41 review + general review

[chicagobullsfan]

So tonight I took a stab a PT 2. I managed 3 of the 4 sections, and even though I told myself this would be untimed, no pressure, I ended up finishing just at the right times anyway.

1--RC: -2 -- this was my highlight. It was incredibly satisfying to see a -5 (on my first diag) go from a -3 to now a -2. Believe it or not I think after studying for LR you develop skills that will help you with RC also. At least in my opinion.

2--LR: -5 -- mehh. I have to go over these tomorrow. Pretty disappointing considering I had just finished the LRB. Sounds like the skills are going to need to be revisited.

3--LG: -4 -- yep, you guessed it, the pure numerical dist. game killed me here. 3 wrong in that one alone. After looking at it again, one was a silly mistake and the other two mistakes were due to an incorrect assumption I made that seemed to have come out of nowhere (that there she needed to visit 5 cities instead of 6! huh, where did that come from...I looked back at my notes and saw that I appeared to have made this assumption half-way through the game.) The other mistake I made was the first problem on game 2 where I found an answer that I liked, picked it, and of course forgot to review the rest, not noticing that an answer with information from the stimulus was staring right at me.

Ran out of time to do sec 4, LR (library was closing). Will do it tomorrow.

[Knock]

Following in the footsteps of KnockGlock, I am starting my own LSAT tracking thread, primarily to keep myself honest and accountable.

I finished the last of the LRB yesterday (finished the games bible about 2 weeks ago), began to hone in on games and LRB problem types that have been giving me grief as I've done some practice tests. I'm especially nervous about advanced linear games killing me in terms of time. The grouping ones seem to be OK.

Did PT 38 game section last night, -2 untimed. I was pretty surprised, but then both mistake turned out to be an instance of me misreading a question (the grouping Q, I think and the musicians question).

So far:

3/8/10 - PT 20 - 161 (my initial Diag)
3/22/10 - PT 9 - 165

+ tons of games here and there (focusing primarily on advanced and games from some of the "10 actual" series), and some RC sections...the two above were the only complete, timed test attempts though. Also have started honing in on specific types of LR questions that are giving me trouble.

This is obviously going to ramp up now that I've finished the green and blue books. I've got the big orange from Kaplan which will be a nice resource to try to understand concepts, etc...might be more handy for RC though.

What I've done is devised a plan where starting on 4/11/10, I will do a PT timed, and then spend 2 days dissecting it and reviewing every concept I got wrong in it and attacking old problems that feature similar concepts.

Until then, I've planned on doing some PTs from 1-28 as warmup and keeping the rest as practice for the future. I've scheduled this so it leads me to 6/5 as my last "review day." Weekends, I will be spending a full day doing and reviewing a PT that I'd normally spread out over 3 days...Friday, same. This is a pretty tough schedule on paper, but I think it will work out fine.

Feel free to chime in, or start yer own threads. This should be fun

Results so far:

4/6 - 4/7/10 - PT 2 (untimed) - ??? - RC = -2, LR1 = -5, LG = -4, LR2 = TBD

Just wanted to pop in and wish you good luck! We seem to be pretty similar as of so far, I've been averaging -0-2 RC, anywhere from -2 to -5 LR, and LG can be anywhere it seems lol. Keep up the hard work and I know you will get your goal score! what are you aiming for?

[chicagobullsfan]

^^Thanks! I'll be content with a 170, I am shooting for a 175, 180 would be gravy .

-----

I'll be back in the library tonight after taking a break yesterday to wrap up my taxes. Gotta finish the last part of PT 2.

Plan on starting PTs 42-59 on 4/12 onwards, complimented with experimentals from the rest of the PTs that I have not gotten to yet (therein lies the advantage of not doing every single PT!).

Before I get on the final run (42-59), I want to do at least 3 more PTs.

[chicagobullsfan]

Finished PT 2 the other day, was fairly disappointed as I got a 165 (again) total. LR was -6 on that second section.

This weekend I spent digging into the question types I had been having the most problems with. I will be getting to the superpreps now and going from PT 39 onwards after that. I will be getting into 5 section attempts starting with PT 39, incorporating some of the tests I had not already done as practice (I must have done about 50 games timed, not as tests up until now and it's helped me get my game score down to anywhere from -1 to -3, something I'm pretty pleased about.

[chicagobullsfan]

Wow, I am stuck in Superprep Hell. Holy crap. And I've unfortunately run into some personal things that have thrown off my schedule completely.

I believe in fully timing this, but after finishing B today, I will be spending tomorrow going through A and B before "using up" C again. I am freaked out by these beasts. See my original post to see how bad things were and how low my score went (for me).

[Knock]

Wow, I am stuck in Superprep Hell. Holy crap. And I've unfortunately run into some personal things that have thrown off my schedule completely.

I believe in fully timing this, but after finishing B today, I will be spending tomorrow going through A and B before "using up" C again. I am freaked out by these beasts. See my original post to see how bad things were and how low my score went (for me).

Don't worry man, I went through the same thing! The games are absolutely incredibly difficult. I would say just do them untimed and make sure that you can do them. Good luck! If anything, it should make you feel better/more confident when doing normal LG sections after tackling those beasts. Just took my first LG section since finishing the three SuperPrep's, and although I haven't graded it yet, I was able to finish it in time (although just barely ). Haven't graded it yet, because i'm on my 15 minute break between sections 3 and 4, but I will post my score in about 35 minutes.

Good luck, and stick to your schedule! At least as best is possible. I'd expect you to say the same for me haha

PS: Try not to be discouraged or hold too much value from your SuperPrep results. I got pretty discouraged as well, but someone told me to just chalk it up as extra-difficult LG practice, and that seemed to make me feel a little better.

[chicagobullsfan]

^^Thanks for the encouragement Knockglock. Just finished up C today (did B a few days ago) and I'm feeling confident again!

I realize these games were extremely hard, but now I also see the possibility that everyone mentions, that the LR and RC are much easier. I don't know what happened on the first superprep (A), but I did better on B (in RC), and in C all 3 section types showed improvement. I'm not sure which is considered the hardest, but I feel better about the gradual improvement.

I found something interesting today in doing Superprep C in a crowded, loud, kid crying environment (Bookstore) as opposed to A and B and pretty much all the other PTs in a library. I actually got my best score so far on any PT today, on Superprep C. It's supposed to be hard, but this makes me feel much better as tomorrow I plan on getting into the fun stuff - 39, with experimentals, and onward. Time to party.

[chicagobullsfan]

I took the hard-to-find-until-Cambridge-LSAT-came-along PT 39 yesterday. Once again, I got summarily slaughtered on games. This is started to become a theme, and I don't like it one bit, especially after doing reasonably well on them in the past.

I have heard this is a pretty hard PT, but I can't afford to depend on that being true. Gotta improve games. I think I'm going to revisit the LG bible if I take 40 (tomorrow) and the score still does not improve.

On the other hand, it's nice to see the LR getting better for me. RC continues to alternate crazily. One test, I'm doing -9, the other, I'm doing -1. WTF.

[Knock]

I took the hard-to-find-until-Cambridge-LSAT-came-along PT 39 yesterday. Once again, I got summarily slaughtered on games. This is started to become a theme, and I don't like it one bit, especially after doing reasonably well on them in the past.

I have heard this is a pretty hard PT, but I can't afford to depend on that being true. Gotta improve games. I think I'm going to revisit the LG bible if I take 40 (tomorrow) and the score still does not improve.

On the other hand, it's nice to see the LR getting better for me. RC continues to alternate crazily. One test, I'm doing -9, the other, I'm doing -1. WTF.

I was in a very similar situation to you a few days ago. Games were my biggest weakness, and I thought that I should drill them hard at the expense of the other sections. Then I got to the newer PT's, and the games weren't too hard, i've gone -1 over PT 43 and 44 on LG, although I was usually averaging 3+ misses, if I could even finish in time. The newer PT's i'm finishing early (less than 30 minutes on PT 44, and my one mistake was just a slightly sloppy one). I'd say take some of the newer PT's and see what you think.

[D. H2Oman]

I'm guessing you're taking the June test (?) I did this last year, my advice is to take a long break from now until about May 27th. Don't think LSAT, don't study, don't do anything. Trust me on this one, I've been here last year (and teach an LSAT course) and your scores are really showing a strong upward trend. You're doing so awesome, that you should only be focusing on burnout and test day strategies (practice your page turning, drive the center a few times to make sure you know the route, practice bubbling neatly, etc.) Good luck man, see you in a month.

[09042014]

I'm guessing you're taking the June test (?) I did this last year, my advice is to take a long break from now until about May 27th. Don't think LSAT, don't study, don't do anything. Trust me on this one, I've been here last year (and teach an LSAT course) and your scores are really showing a strong upward trend. You're doing so awesome, that you should only be focusing on burnout and test day strategies (practice your page turning, drive the center a few times to make sure you know the route, practice bubbling neatly, etc.) Good luck man, see you in a month.

Burn out cost me my dream school.

[Knock]

I'm guessing you're taking the June test (?) I did this last year, my advice is to take a long break from now until about May 27th. Don't think LSAT, don't study, don't do anything. Trust me on this one, I've been here last year (and teach an LSAT course) and your scores are really showing a strong upward trend. You're doing so awesome, that you should only be focusing on burnout and test day strategies (practice your page turning, drive the center a few times to make sure you know the route, practice bubbling neatly, etc.) Good luck man, see you in a month.

I disagree (I assume you're talking to ChicagoBullsFan). First, his scores don't show an upward trend ? Second, he has only taken a handful of PT's. I strongly believe that he should keep on studying and take PT's. It's not like his only two options are study and burnout, or take a break essentially until the last 2 weeks before the test.

[chicagobullsfan]

I'm guessing you're taking the June test (?) I did this last year, my advice is to take a long break from now until about May 27th. Don't think LSAT, don't study, don't do anything. Trust me on this one, I've been here last year (and teach an LSAT course) and your scores are really showing a strong upward trend. You're doing so awesome, that you should only be focusing on burnout and test day strategies (practice your page turning, drive the center a few times to make sure you know the route, practice bubbling neatly, etc.) Good luck man, see you in a month.

I know you're trollin' me (don't worry, I saw Desert Fox's call to arms ), but still, LOL.

[chicagobullsfan]

I'm guessing you're taking the June test (?) I did this last year, my advice is to take a long break from now until about May 27th. Don't think LSAT, don't study, don't do anything. Trust me on this one, I've been here last year (and teach an LSAT course) and your scores are really showing a strong upward trend. You're doing so awesome, that you should only be focusing on burnout and test day strategies (practice your page turning, drive the center a few times to make sure you know the route, practice bubbling neatly, etc.) Good luck man, see you in a month.

I disagree (I assume you're talking to ChicagoBullsFan). First, his scores don't show an upward trend ? Second, he has only taken a handful of PT's. I strongly believe that he should keep on studying and take PT's. It's not like his only two options are study and burnout, or take a break essentially until the last 2 weeks before the test.

lol, thanks for the defense dude, but it's ok. he was joking.

[samer]

1. Go Bulls!

2. Try not to take the LSAT until you've mastered logic games (like -0 or -1) because they really are easy to learn. RC is what killed me so I have no idea how to score better there lol

Good luck!

[Knock]

I'm guessing you're taking the June test (?) I did this last year, my advice is to take a long break from now until about May 27th. Don't think LSAT, don't study, don't do anything. Trust me on this one, I've been here last year (and teach an LSAT course) and your scores are really showing a strong upward trend. You're doing so awesome, that you should only be focusing on burnout and test day strategies (practice your page turning, drive the center a few times to make sure you know the route, practice bubbling neatly, etc.) Good luck man, see you in a month.

I disagree (I assume you're talking to ChicagoBullsFan). First, his scores don't show an upward trend ? Second, he has only taken a handful of PT's. I strongly believe that he should keep on studying and take PT's. It's not like his only two options are study and burnout, or take a break essentially until the last 2 weeks before the test.

Sometimes it's hard to tell on the internet -.-

[RPK34]

When I first did games, I was getting 11-13 tops. Just really struggled with it, I think mostly because I just pysched myself out. Either way, I turned off the timer, and just did a whole bunch of games, making sure I got 100% right. If I was 90% sure, I kept looking at it till I had it 100% sure. I was doing the games in about 50 minutes, but I got 100%. I did a few more, and it just naturally started going down in time till it was at about 40-45 minutes. From then, I just perfected the speed of each section, cut a few corners, learned to recognize which problems I could solve if I spent another 30 seconds on it and which problems would take another 2 minutes to solve (aka just guess and move on and come back if I had time).

I got my first 23/23 yesterday and have consistently been around 20+, only missing stupid mistakes. Just a method I found that really worked. It calmed me down and also really taught me how to think through each problem

[chicagobullsfan]

When I first did games, I was getting 11-13 tops. Just really struggled with it, I think mostly because I just pysched myself out. Either way, I turned off the timer, and just did a whole bunch of games, making sure I got 100% right. If I was 90% sure, I kept looking at it till I had it 100% sure. I was doing the games in about 50 minutes, but I got 100%. I did a few more, and it just naturally started going down in time till it was at about 40-45 minutes. From then, I just perfected the speed of each section, cut a few corners, learned to recognize which problems I could solve if I spent another 30 seconds on it and which problems would take another 2 minutes to solve (aka just guess and move on and come back if I had time).

I got my first 23/23 yesterday and have consistently been around 20+, only missing stupid mistakes. Just a method I found that really worked. It calmed me down and also really taught me how to think through each problem

I think I'm gonna try that, thanks for the advice. especially considering I was doing so well on the games after doing about 30-40 (equivalent of 10 PTs worth of games) before launching into full PTs, where everything seems to have progressively gone to hell.

EDIT: Yep, just tried PT 30's last game and got a perfect. This was the game about the fish for the aquarium. I think I did it in < 8:45, too. Man.