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For the last two Sat. PT's, I've received a 171 and a 170, respectively. During last week I took another PT and scored a 170 as well. These were on 47, 48, 49. I had never seen these tests before. Than, this week, I redid PT 50 and PT 52, and got a 163 and a 161, respectively.

I know there's a difference in tests between the 40s and 50s. But here's the thing: I took a prep course over the summer and used the 50s as practice, and after the test our instructor would go over every question, game, etc. So I'm familiar with these questions, and I think it's screwing me up. I had planned to be doing these 50s tests the last week, but I'm terrified the test has changed too much, or that my familiarity will give me low scores. I didn't think the 50s would be a problem- I scored 167 on PT 59 mid-August. All through Sept. I've been at a 166 or higher.

Do you have any thoughts about what's going on? Any advice? Should I just keep working on PT 50s and record my mistakes, and then learn from them, even if my scores are lower than have been in months? Or should I just study, and not do the 50s PTs, as I may be too biased against them?

You have me a little spooked haha. I haven't been below 170 in a few weeks, but when I go to take a PT today (52 ironically) I half am expecting to plummet

47 and 48 were outliers for me too: 174 and 176, respectively, and -0 on LG, the only time that has happened.

With the early 50's, I was down to my irritatingly stable 169-172 range that I hit whether I'm taking PT 7 or PT 57.

See that makes sense to me, but on 30-49 I didn't dip below 166 once. That's what's causing this confusion- why so low? And how to fix it?

Early 50's RC and LR are a b*tch. Switch up your tactics and be prepared for tricky questions in the early part of LR and try reading the passage carefully before you start answering the questions on RC. Skimming doesn't work anymore, and lots of questions will try to trick you.

On LG, I don't know what to tell you. It's not really my strong section, so others could probably offer better advice.

Thanks- that was really good advice. I'm used to kind of moving quickly and confidently through the questions, and I think I need to remember my fundamentals and move slowly and cautiously. Are you implying that it's only in early 50s this occurs, or should I prepare for this on test day?

niederbomb wrote:Early 50's RC and LR are a b*tch. Switch up your tactics and be prepared for tricky questions in the early part of LR and try reading the passage carefully before you start answering the questions on RC. Skimming doesn't work anymore, and lots of questions will try to trick you.

On LG, I don't know what to tell you. It's not really my strong section, so others could probably offer better advice.

Does RC get at all easier in the upper 50's? I'm getting smoked right now.

Yes, after June 2007, you have a double passage, which is very easy. So that's a gimme.

Otherwise, I'm not sure. I went from -3 RC, PT 50 to-4 RC on 51 (a shocker) to -1 by June 2007. I found out that on the first two 50's PT's, I made lots of careless errors because I was used to racing through a passage. When I slowed down, it got better. Or maybe the test go easier.

LR gets easier after June 2007, though.

In the early 50's I am confident that RC got "trickier", but I don't think the LR has changed much and I expect equally hard LR on test day

sanetruth wrote:

niederbomb wrote:Early 50's RC and LR are a b*tch. Switch up your tactics and be prepared for tricky questions in the early part of LR and try reading the passage carefully before you start answering the questions on RC. Skimming doesn't work anymore, and lots of questions will try to trick you.

On LG, I don't know what to tell you. It's not really my strong section, so others could probably offer better advice.

Does RC get at all easier in the upper 50's? I'm getting smoked right now.

Ditto.. I've been at -2 to -3 on RC and got torched on PT 52 and 53 (-7 then -5!!!). I don't know what's going on but I can assure you it's a little scary when I'm a week away from testing.

LR hasn't gotten harder imo, but it has gotten a bit different than what we had seen from mostly the 30s and 40s. You see a lot more role questions and assumption questions. The stims tend to use less convoluted language but they contain subtler shifts in words and tend to be a little longer. Also, you'll sometimes even see trickier prompts that you rarely saw outside of the 50s. Oh, and I think they use a lot more formal logic these days than they did in the past.