October Retake Progress Forum

[Sandro]

Thought I'd make a thread to chart my October retake progress. Already have a 157 to my name from Sep 09 on a month or so of ineffective study time.

58 157 70/-31 Sep09 Administration. -15 LR, -5 RC, -11 LG

PT's below are from when I was still planning for June10 in early March. Havent touched a PT for well over 2 months. All 6 of these PT's have -10 or more in LG for the most part.

PT/Scaled/Raw/Missed Comments
31 164 81 20
32 162 76 25
33 162 75 26 -14 LG
SPA 163 82 19 -4 LR combined
35 164 80 21
36 168 87 14 Took a week or so off came back with highest PT to date. LG is still killing me, -9 on this PT. -3 LR -2 RC

Upcoming PT's will be dated. I'm shooting for 170+ to overcome 3.0ish GPA.

[Aggiegrad2011]

I am getting ready to practice for the October LSAT, so I'll make sure to post my progress in here also.

We can commiserate together. I took the Monday exam and cancelled. With finals going on (quarter system) and my highest honors being in jeopardy (Well, when is it not, with a 3.9200+ required...), I dedicated more time to school than the LSAT.

Looking forward to seeing your progress also.

[Ragged]

Hmmm. I'm probably gonna wait untill september to really study. Then I'll be trying to do 30 minute sections and such. Also do and analyze all the games I can get my hands on.

[Sandro]

get the hell out of my thread!!!!! lol

[World B. Free]

get the hell out of my thread!!!!! lol

ya, out!

[Ragged]

get the hell out of my thread!!!!! lol

yea sorry. consider it a friendly bump.

[Sandro]

I'm just kidding you guys can stay. But be warned I probably will have a hard time getting a PT in while the world cup group stage is going on....

[Ragged]

I'm just kidding you guys can stay. But be warned I probably will have a hard time getting a PT in while the world cup group stage is going on....

And who can blame you. I'm sure you'll be fine if you start studying after world cup. 3 months should be plenty, espessially since are already familiar with the test.

[Sandro]

right now I'm just going over my last PT (36) question by question and writing out why each answer is right/wrong and what's going on in the stimulus/stem for LR. I only missed 3 and of those three 2 were careless mistakes

[Ragged]

right now I'm just going over my last PT (36) question by question and writing out why each answer is right/wrong and what's going on in the stimulus/stem for LR. I only missed 3 and of those three 2 were careless mistakes

I tried doing this too. But I only end up doing it for the hardest questions, because I get bored easy doing it for ALL the questions.

[Sandro]

and here's all the PT's I have left fully untouched. I also have sections of some recent(47,54,55,57) and some sections of the 20's untouched.
14
15
16
18
19
20
26
27
Super B
29
30
Super C
37
38
40
43
44
45
46
48
49
50
51
June 2007
52
53
56
60(when it comes out)


What do you guys think I should do with the full/parts of PT's I have done in my prep for Sep09 back last august? While Im sure I might remember some of it I feel it could be valuable to take as individual practice sections? I also didn't "get" the lsat in LR and RC like I do now - and LG is a complete toss up because i never "got" it lol. Its kinda scary looking at old PTs and seeing questions where I wrote out all these unnecessary logical linkages and statements because I wasn't as good as I am now.

[Sandro]

right now I'm just going over my last PT (36) question by question and writing out why each answer is right/wrong and what's going on in the stimulus/stem for LR. I only missed 3 and of those three 2 were careless mistakes

I tried doing this too. But I only end up doing it for the hardest questions, because I get bored easy doing it for ALL the questions.

The first 10-15 seem kind of tedious and I find myself wanting to write "Obviously wrong" or "Irrelevant" for a lot of the wrong answers. But I think that getting these to a point where they become automatic will really help. Quicker on most of the stock wrong/right answers = more time for the more abstract harder ones towards the end....

[Sandro]

Update: Slow times at work so I'm starting back up into prep mode. Went through PT 36 and wrote out each question on flash cards, including stimulus prephrase-what is says and correct/incorrect answer explanations. Circled the ones that I thought were tricky/likely to be repeated on multiple LSATs and will be reviewing them on an ongoing basis. First PT in a while to come soon. Also working on LG sections untimed of the sections i've done previously.

[Sandro]

The first ~100 pages in the Superprep book is a good read. While it isnt as precise or efficient as say the Powerscore bibles it still helps. I think someone else mentioned it in their How to get a 175 study plan thread.

[3|ink]

Hmmm. I'm probably gonna wait untill september to really study. Then I'll be trying to do 30 minute sections and such. Also do and analyze all the games I can get my hands on.

30 minute sections? You mean to say that you reduce your time limit to improve speed? Does that help?

[Sandro]

I think the theory is that if you become accustomed to operating at 30min speed, that when given 35 mins on the real thing time shouldn't be much of an issue and you should have extra time to check answers.

[Aggiegrad2011]

Just wanted to check in with you all! This last week passed with my spending a little over 12 hours during the week on prep material (Mostly going over the PS Logic Games Bible, wow that is an awesome tool!) and then I took PrepTest 57 on Saturday morning, with a score of 168, a 9-point improvement over my previous LSAT cold score (Without having really ever even seen an LSAT)!

I am very thrilled with that progress. If I can break 170 more frequently, I will feel a lot better. Logic Games/Reasoning are still hammering me, and that is where I lost almost all of my points, whereas I perform exceptionally in RC.

How's everyone else? Taking 16 summer units is the pits!!

[Sandro]

Took PT 37 last night

RC -3
LR -5
LG -10
LR - 3

162. Same ole shit, -10+ on LGs, decent on the rest. Back to the LG drawing board. And not making excuses but I did take this at a crowded Borders and during the test a group of 8-10 large fat ladies started piling in right next to me to start their knitting club... Now I see why those with test center interruptions would be so pissed off.

[3|ink]

Took PT 37 last night

RC -3
LR -5
LG -10
LR - 3

162. Same ole shit, -10+ on LGs, decent on the rest. Back to the LG drawing board. And not making excuses but I did take this at a crowded Borders and during the test a group of 8-10 large fat ladies started piling in right next to me to start their knitting club... Now I see why those with test center interruptions would be so pissed off.

Have you read the Logic Games Bible from Powerscore? I highly recommend them. Games seem to be your weakest point and they are easiest to learn if you have the right source.

[Sandro]

Took PT 37 last night

RC -3
LR -5
LG -10
LR - 3

162. Same ole shit, -10+ on LGs, decent on the rest. Back to the LG drawing board. And not making excuses but I did take this at a crowded Borders and during the test a group of 8-10 large fat ladies started piling in right next to me to start their knitting club... Now I see why those with test center interruptions would be so pissed off.

Have you read the Logic Games Bible from Powerscore? I highly recommend them. Games seem to be your weakest point and they are easiest to learn if you have the right source.

Yes. Usually i'm fine on 2 out of 4 games but on both the games that give me problems I freeze up and end up having to guess for the majority of the questions. I will get to question 1/2 and be completely lost and wonder how i am supposed to know this.

I need to start tracking which types of games give me the most trouble. Mostly hybrids and groupings im sure.

[lawgirl333]

Hmmm. I'm probably gonna wait untill september to really study. Then I'll be trying to do 30 minute sections and such. Also do and analyze all the games I can get my hands on.

30 minute sections? You mean to say that you reduce your time limit to improve speed? Does that help?

NO

[Sandro]

Second PT of the renewed push for Oct 10.

PT 16
LG -8 (I'll take it considering I guessed on almost an entire game, slight improvement)
LR -6 Definitely out of norm for me
LR -3
RC -1

-18/83 Raw - 167 Scaled.

I know older tests have much better scales allowing you to miss more but I like where I'm starting the next 2 months at. Tomorrow I am going to start doing massive amounts of Logic Games in an effort to brute force my way out of the -8/10 wrong per LG. I also have a mental block with LG i need to consciously overcome in the form of freezing up on games that stump me instead of just making some hypotheticals and trudging through...

[Sandro]

Awesome. I'm still trying to explain this one, but my worst PT really since starting in earnest to study for a retake in March. Maybe getting up at 3pm today had something to do with it.... Something was up. I ran out of time on both LR sections, lately i had been finishing with around 3-5 mins left...

PT 44
RC -8 (most likely my worst RC score ever, even worse than Sep09 admin -5 )
LR - 7 (almost double recent PT averages)
LG -6 (1 game I had done before but I only missed 1 question outside of almost an entire game I guessed on)
LR -6

-27 - 158

To say this feels shitty is an understatement. I scored a 157 on my Sep09 LSAT. My last PT scores were164, 162, 162, 163, 164, 168, 162 and 167.

This was PT 44. I had taken PT 36 a couple months ago right before I decided to postone until Oct 10. I missed 9 LG on that one, and 5 combined on the rest of the test. This test I miss 6 LG and 21 combined on the rest of the test. I know not to let individual PT scores bring you down but it sure doesnt feel good to go from 157 sep09, to low 160 PTs, to mid/high 160's, back to 158. Especially when I did comparatively well in LG compared to my recent 167 and 168s.

[Anaconda]

You might have been mentally sluggish waking up at 3pm, a 9 point drop is huge. I think mental state + how you generally feel can make a huge difference on your performance. This is probably just an outlier.

Awesome. I'm still trying to explain this one, but my worst PT really since starting in earnest to study for a retake in March. Maybe getting up at 3pm today had something to do with it.... Something was up. I ran out of time on both LR sections, lately i had been finishing with around 3-5 mins left...

PT 44
RC -8 (most likely my worst RC score ever, even worse than Sep09 admin -5 )
LR - 7 (almost double recent PT averages)
LG -6 (1 game I had done before but I only missed 1 question outside of almost an entire game I guessed on)
LR -6

-27 - 158

To say this feels shitty is an understatement. I scored a 157 on my Sep09 LSAT. My last PT scores were164, 162, 162, 163, 164, 168, 162 and 167.

This was PT 44. I had taken PT 36 a couple months ago right before I decided to postone until Oct 10. I missed 9 LG on that one, and 5 combined on the rest of the test. This test I miss 6 LG and 21 combined on the rest of the test. I know not to let individual PT scores bring you down but it sure doesnt feel good to go from 157 sep09, to low 160 PTs, to mid/high 160's, back to 158. Especially when I did comparatively well in LG compared to my recent 167 and 168s.

[dub]

Nice progress, g