Paulshortys10's Dec LSAT log. Forum

[paulshortys10]

Just took PT 31, got a 163 (which i've gotten on my last 2 timed PT's)

-5 on LG. Went over by 5 minutes too. Pretty disappointed. I can usually get -0 to -3 within time limits, but I got stuck on 1 problem that took forever to diagram.

-3 on LR 1. Very happy with this. Never gotten under -5 on an LR.

-7 on LR 2. ... 5 of the 7 wrong ones were when i had to choose between my last 2 choices..So it could've been a -2 if i had paid more attention to stuff. I usually average -6 on LR sections though.

-8 on RC. Haven't really practiced this much, but should. Usually get -6, so this is bad. missed 4 on 1 passage that was kind of hard to comprehend fully in terms of its content. also went over by 2 minutes

I know a 170 is within my grasp....I just need to practice more and fine tune everything.

Any tips? Does anyone recommend doing UNTIMED practice to work on accuracy (maybe for RC and LR?)I have about 35 PT's I haven't done, and probably can't do all of them TIMED, so i might as well do some untimed while i'm taking a dump or at the gym just to squeeze in any practice? anyone recommend this?


Will update everytime I take a PT, to keep my self motivated I guess

[paulshortys10]

btw i got -23, I think I will meet my expected score on almost any PT IF i get under -15 wrong

[KevinP]

I would definitely recommend taking PT tests untimed. Most of my improvement in LR came right after I started taking PTs untimed. I would literally get stuck on one question, spend 20 minutes on it, take an hour break, come back to it and it made sense. Anytime I saw a similar question on a later exam, the right answer easily jumped out at me. Also, I would take a pen and paper and write out the entire question along with all the answer choices (I later got lazy and started typing them out) on any question I missed/was iffy about. I currently PT 168-173 w/ almost all of my misses in RC. I'm going to apply the same technique to RC soon and just start writing out the entire passage and answer questions to get a gist of it while taking it untimed. I don't have much to say about LG since that section was always easy for me but I'd definitely recommend paying attention to rules in December because LSAC is purposefully making tricky rules subtle to screw those people who use prep companies' mechnical methods. My apologies for a really long post and best of luck to you in December.

[paulshortys10]

I would definitely recommend taking PT tests untimed. Most of my improvement in LR came right after I started taking PTs untimed. I would literally get stuck on one question, spend 20 minutes on it, take an hour break, come back to it and it made sense. Anytime I saw a similar question on a later exam, the right answer easily jumped out at me. Also, I would take a pen and paper and write out the entire question along with all the answer choices (I later got lazy and started typing them out) on any question I missed/was iffy about. I currently PT 168-173 w/ almost all of my misses in RC. I'm going to apply the same technique to RC soon and just start writing out the entire passage and answer questions to get a gist of it while taking it untimed. I don't have much to say about LG since that section was always easy for me but I'd definitely recommend paying attention to rules in December because LSAC is purposefully making tricky rules subtle to screw those people who use prep companies' mechnical methods. My apologies for a really long post and best of luck to you in December.

Thanks man,
Would u recommend me reading another book on LG (was thinking of ATLAS LG), or should i just practice more and more?I can get -0 UNTIMED (lol duh who can't) but it's just I get stuck on 1 hard one sometimes when im timed.

[fosterp]

Don't neglect reading comprehension practice. You can lose points there just like any other section, and it is the hardest to improve on. Getting a 170 or better requires proficiency in all the sections.

On LR, its not really about figuring out the tough questions more easily, but its about getting the easy questions done as fast as possible to allow more time for the tough ones.

At least, in my experience. Tons of practice never really made me faster at doing tough ones, but made the easy ones faster. Of course, being too familiar with the test made ones that would seem hard to the untrained not really hard at all as well.

[paulshortys10]

Don't neglect reading comprehension practice. You can lose points there just like any other section, and it is the hardest to improve on. Getting a 170 or better requires proficiency in all the sections.

On LR, its not really about figuring out the tough questions more easily, but its about getting the easy questions done as fast as possible to allow more time for the tough ones.

At least, in my experience. Tons of practice never really made me faster at doing tough ones, but made the easy ones faster. Of course, being too familiar with the test made ones that would seem hard to the untrained not really hard at all as well.

Yea I'm noticing doing the easy ones accurately and quickly will help my overall LR game..

And i def need more practice on RC..can't neglect it...don't want to get -10 on test day just cause i was confident..

[KevinP]

I would definitely recommend taking PT tests untimed. Most of my improvement in LR came right after I started taking PTs untimed. I would literally get stuck on one question, spend 20 minutes on it, take an hour break, come back to it and it made sense. Anytime I saw a similar question on a later exam, the right answer easily jumped out at me. Also, I would take a pen and paper and write out the entire question along with all the answer choices (I later got lazy and started typing them out) on any question I missed/was iffy about. I currently PT 168-173 w/ almost all of my misses in RC. I'm going to apply the same technique to RC soon and just start writing out the entire passage and answer questions to get a gist of it while taking it untimed. I don't have much to say about LG since that section was always easy for me but I'd definitely recommend paying attention to rules in December because LSAC is purposefully making tricky rules subtle to screw those people who use prep companies' mechnical methods. My apologies for a really long post and best of luck to you in December.

Thanks man,
Would u recommend me reading another book on LG (was thinking of ATLAS LG), or should i just practice more and more?I can get -0 UNTIMED (lol duh who can't) but it's just I get stuck on 1 hard one sometimes when im timed.

I haven't used ATLAS LG. but I heard it was pretty good.. I read part way through the Powerscore LG Bible and found I already knew most of the stuff... so I don't really know whether to recommend another LG book... I think another poster should probably answer this one.

However, one way I really increased my speed is after doing games, I would look at how someone else diagrammed it and looked at any inferences I might have I missed (Cambridge LSAT is really good with their diagramming imo). I also tend to look for patterns that are really common in the LG section. For example, on In/Out games, if there was a rule that stated something like "If A is not selected, B has to be selected" I would immediately put A/B on my first open slot because I know that at least A or B has to be selected without having to work this out. The combination of "quick" inferences like that allow me to conquer games really fast.

[paulshortys10]

Yea I totally need to pick up on some of quick inferences..I definitely need to improve my diagramming as well

[typ3]

The difference between Atlas and LGB aren't huge. But they can help a lot.

Atlas uses 3 different diagrams for linear games. Powerscore uses one, despite there being more than one type of linear game. I found that the tree diagram, and 3d linear diagrams are really easy and make a lot of sense. Perhaps the most important diagram that Atlas gives you is the 'Pinball' diagram for conditional games. It made binary grouping games my favorite after mastering it. I can slay nearly every difficult binary grouping game in under 5 minutes the first time through now, and you don't need to make your own inferences on it. All you have to do is use the pinball machine to know what you have in and out.

[paulshortys10]

Yesterday i took PT 34
I missed -21 and got a 164 which I was happy with, although there are things that disappointed me.

RC. I got a -5. Missed 2, 2, 1, so my misses were distributed through the passages. Just gotta focus more on the passages. Went over by bout 3 minutes.

LR1. -4.
LR2 -4
- Very happy with the improvements I'm seeing in LR. This is the lowest I've ever missed on both sections combined. half the misses were when i was down my last 2 choices. the other half I just either missread something, or didn't understand a word i need to understand (english is my second language). I went over by about 2-3 minutes on both, So i have to work a little faster

LG-8
This was the section I was most disapointed by. I finished 2 of the games in about 15 minutes and got -0 wrong on those, but the 2 other games took me about 25 minutes, and i got -4 on each of the games. On 1 problem I misunderstood a couple rules, on another I think I was too lazy to draw a good diagram. Need more practice.

I'm very excited however with the improvements I've made On LR. If I can master LG's, I will be closer to getting a 170 in DEC.

[paulshortys10]

Have been doing some untimed practiced and reading Atlas LG guide the last couple days.
Just finished PT43....Missed 20 for a 164..

LG-Huge improvement from my last test. I got a -1 and finished on time. However i feel this section was extremely easy when compared to past PT's ive taken

RC- -8. This is where I did worst. I just can't seem to get any consistency with this. The passages where all pretty much boring, and afterwards I felt I could have easily missed more than 10. Luckily i only missed 8. Need to practice this more since i neglect it the most. Also when the 35 minutes were past I still had 5 questions left ( I answered them and included them in my total score anyways)

Both LR- -5 and -6 . Shows that I've made good improvements that hopefully are permanent. Not my best, but definitely up there.. Went over the minutes though on both times...by about 3-5 minutes each section

[robotclubmember]

I take strictly timed tests now. But I think at the beginning, you need to give yourself flexibility.

However, when my 35 minute timer runs out, I guess everything that I couldn't finish and score it like that, but I continue working on it just setting a new timer. Then I would have two scores, for example PT #33 LR2 -4 (-2, 2:45 over).

You should track these two different scores and use the timed one as your real indicator of progress. In the October bomb thread, I think a lot of the people were stunned to find they did much worse than they anticipated. Many of them likely had no accurate gauge of where they'd really test at, because they weren't tracking timed testing, just total score with flexibility built in. I was -0 to -1 when I was doing untimed LG's. Then I dipped back down to -3 to -1 on timed ones. It's humbling but if you really want that 170 you need to be realistic and beat yourself up on time. Give flexibility, but track your real score, not the fabricated one.

[paulshortys10]

Did terrible today...did pt 47 and missed 27 for a score of 158...

Rc- missed 10....I thought I did better than this....I'm getting worst...need more practice.
LG- missed 5...once again terrible....I believe I need to be -0 in Dec in order to get the score I want....I finally finished the atlas LG guide though so I should see some improvement..
LR- -12.....worst I've done on last couple tests but not too bad...going over the bible right now...

I have been improving on my timing though....30 more days to put it all together

[robotclubmember]

Did terrible today...did pt 47 and missed 27 for a score of 158...

Rc- missed 10....I thought I did better than this....I'm getting worst...need more practice.
LG- missed 5...once again terrible....I believe I need to be -0 in Dec in order to get the score I want....I finally finished the atlas LG guide though so I should see some improvement..
LR- -12.....worst I've done on last couple tests but not too bad...going over the bible right now...

I have been improving on my timing though....30 more days to put it all together

For what it's worth, I worked through the LGB first, then Atlas. I only used Atlas for the logic chain really, and because it was a nice supplement. LGB is the jam. If you really want to see marked improvements in LG, try incorporating LG only days into your schedule. At least one day every other week where you aren't doing full PT's, but just LG sections of old PT's (the older ones tend to be a bit harder, start from the bottom and work your way up). You can't really get into the groove of LG if you only do the books and then the full prep tests. At least that's what I feel, but it'll be different for everyone. I'm at -0 to -2 on LG right now and feel I wouldn't be there unless I had a few LG only days, each of which were serious breakthrough days for me.

[bee's vision]

Have you tried any of the books that group questions by type? I just got the new powerscore one that has every game from pt 1-20 but they're a bunch out there. I find its really helpful to see where your weaknesses are. Improving in LG is all about practice, doing tons of games and then redoing them.

For LR I recommend going through the LRB one chapter at a time, (and the same chapter in Atlas if you have it) and then drilling that question type untimed, paying attention not only to why the right answer is right but why the wrong answer is wrong. That's what I'm doing now and its really paying off.

[paulshortys10]

Did terrible today...did pt 47 and missed 27 for a score of 158...

Rc- missed 10....I thought I did better than this....I'm getting worst...need more practice.
LG- missed 5...once again terrible....I believe I need to be -0 in Dec in order to get the score I want....I finally finished the atlas LG guide though so I should see some improvement..
LR- -12.....worst I've done on last couple tests but not too bad...going over the bible right now...

I have been improving on my timing though....30 more days to put it all together

For what it's worth, I worked through the LGB first, then Atlas. I only used Atlas for the logic chain really, and because it was a nice supplement. LGB is the jam. If you really want to see marked improvements in LG, try incorporating LG only days into your schedule. At least one day every other week where you aren't doing full PT's, but just LG sections of old PT's (the older ones tend to be a bit harder, start from the bottom and work your way up). You can't really get into the groove of LG if you only do the books and then the full prep tests. At least that's what I feel, but it'll be different for everyone. I'm at -0 to -2 on LG right now and feel I wouldn't be there unless I had a few LG only days, each of which were serious breakthrough days for me.

yea i went over the LGB 3 months ago, but i felt my grouping and assignments games were going slowly. I really like the logic chain and I feel can solve games with conditional statements with ease now....And yea i just need to practice now to perfect it...I'll prob take saturday morning alone to practice games....I'm doing a PT tonight though

[paulshortys10]

Just did PT -53
Missed -23 for a score of 161.

Although this is below my average, I'm actually content with my score.

LG-this is why I'm happy with it. I got -0 AND finished the section with about 1 minute remaining. Never done that so I'm very happy for this part.

LR 1 and 2- -5 on 1 and -5 and the other. This is also very good for me. An Improvement over the last time. I missed 2 that were just complete freebies but I read the stem wrong. The Bad thing about this is that I had seen about 8 questions before on the ATLAS LR guide. Even though I got most of those right when I did them the first time. Still having timing issues though...I get stuck on some easy questions for about 2-3 minutes before things click...

RC-This killed me. -13. The common law passage massacred me. I made the mistake on not reading the passage as well as I should've since that passage had like 8-9 questions. The last passage on the mites also F'ed me up a little bit, missed like -4 on that passage. THe good thing is that It's the first RC section I did with a comparative passage and I feel it was easy. Just need to work more on reading the passages better. I lose focus and concentration when the passage is boring like the common law one.

This week I plan on taking 4 more Timed PT's, 2 of those with 5 sections so work on my endurance. I will also be using older PT's to work UNTIMED on RC

[minnbills]

Just did PT -53
Missed -23 for a score of 161.

Although this is below my average, I'm actually content with my score.

LG-this is why I'm happy with it. I got -0 AND finished the section with about 1 minute remaining. Never done that so I'm very happy for this part.

LR 1 and 2- -5 on 1 and -5 and the other. This is also very good for me. An Improvement over the last time. I missed 2 that were just complete freebies but I read the stem wrong. The Bad thing about this is that I had seen about 8 questions before on the ATLAS LR guide. Even though I got most of those right when I did them the first time. Still having timing issues though...I get stuck on some easy questions for about 2-3 minutes before things click...

RC-This killed me. -13. The common law passage massacred me. I made the mistake on not reading the passage as well as I should've since that passage had like 8-9 questions. The last passage on the mites also F'ed me up a little bit, missed like -4 on that passage. THe good thing is that It's the first RC section I did with a comparative passage and I feel it was easy. Just need to work more on reading the passages better. I lose focus and concentration when the passage is boring like the common law one.

This week I plan on taking 4 more Timed PT's, 2 of those with 5 sections so work on my endurance. I will also be using older PT's to work UNTIMED on RC

Get that reading comp down and you're golden man. Try some different strategies and force yourself to be interested/pay attention. One way to do that is to ask yourself questions about the text as you go.

[paulshortys10]

Just took PT 46 which has to have the worst curve ever. I missed 19 for a score of 162

RC- -10.... improvement from my last test, but still terrible. Timing was a little better. If I can improve this section in the next 3 weeks, I will be golden come test time. THe thing is the best i've scored is -5, and even untimed I don't score much better... So the questions also are a problem for me. THe ones that always kill me are the ones where you're asked to describe the structure of the passage. any tips?

LR1- -3. felt great. Finished on time too. 1 question i missed was stupid.

LR2- -6. Not too great, but still not too bad. I learned from my mistakes. My goal is to be -8 on BOTh sections. I realized i spend TOO much time on certain questions too. sometimes 2-3 minutes at a time.

LG- -0. Finished the first 2 games in like 15 minutes then my watch died. SO i did the other 2 untimed, but I prob would've finished on time anyway.

( I also did 2 timed sections on PT 32 in the morning and got a -5(LR) and -2(LG)(STUPID mistakes)...will take the other half tomorrow morning and count it towards my average.

Taking another PT tonight.

[paulshortys10]

Decided not to do a PT tonight ( a little sick). Instead I will do some Untimed RC passages I haven't done yet and skim through the RC bible i never bothered reading.

So we have about 24 days left. I have about 11 Relevant PT left(from 40-61.) I also have a couple in the 30's and a bunch form 1-20.

I think I will spread out the 11 evenly through the next 3 and a half weeks (like 4 a week). I'm also going to squeeze in some of those 30's and Timed sectioned practice. I have a bunch of EARLY LG games specific to a type(cambridge) that I'm going to be practicing with as well, untimed and timed.

how do ya'll suggest i spread these out?

I pretty much have all mornings available and most nights(not thurs and sat).

The thing that's worrying me is that I haven't done a single TImed PT before 8PM, and my test is at 830am....How do i go about switching to get acquainted with the AM?

[paulshortys10]

Finished PT44 last night.Prob the worst and most confusing PT i've taken yet

When I was done with the PT I was pretty confident that was probably my best PT to date.. On the other hand I missed -25 for a score of PT 159

RC-For the first time I was sure I had done well in this section. I thought I missed maybe 5 TOPS. I understood the passages well and finished in time and everything. It turns out I missed 10, even though about 8 of the missed ones came down to an answer i had changed or when I had 2 answers left and picked the wrong one.

LG- -1. Finished in time. I'm becoming consistent with LG, but i need to miss -0 in order to be prime in DEC.

LR. -6 and -8. Not worst, But I've done better lately. Really pissed about this section specifically. I can't consistently score good on LR...

[paulshortys10]

just finished Pt 32 which i Did in timed sections. -23 for a 163, thanks to the lenient Curve.

LG -2

LR -4 and -6

Rc -11 FUCKKK!

ready for another PT..

[paulshortys10]

Just Did Pt 33. Missed -23 for a 164. WTF???? Very generous curve, hope DEC is like this.

RC- -8. An improvement, Am much more focused on the passage and thus am better able to zone in on the answers(usually my wrong ones are between my last 2 choices). I NEED to get this under -5 in 20 days. Just bought the RC ATLAS guide...hopefully it works. MY timing is also STILL off by about 3 minutes. Hopefully the guide helps that.

LG- -2. Not good, This needs to be -0. i missed both on the stupid birds and wrens game, which i have done before. I did finish in time (did the first game, a sequence type, in like 3 and a half minutes).

LR--7 and -6. Unacceptable, even though i felt both sections were difficult. Also over the time limit, cannot seem to improve this.

I NEED to get -15 on the damn test. I have 12 PT's remaining, and plenty other PT's to do sectional practice with, So i'm not giving up.

[JazzOne]

Just Did Pt 33. Missed -23 for a 164. WTF???? Very generous curve, hope DEC is like this.

RC- -8. An improvement, Am much more focused on the passage and thus am better able to zone in on the answers(usually my wrong ones are between my last 2 choices). I NEED to get this under -5 in 20 days. Just bought the RC ATLAS guide...hopefully it works. MY timing is also STILL off by about 3 minutes. Hopefully the guide helps that.

LG- -2. Not good, This needs to be -0. i missed both on the stupid birds and wrens game, which i have done before. I did finish in time (did the first game, a sequence type, in like 3 and a half minutes).

LR--7 and -6. Unacceptable, even though i felt both sections were difficult. Also over the time limit, cannot seem to improve this.

I NEED to get -15 on the damn test. I have 12 PT's remaining, and plenty other PT's to do sectional practice with, So i'm not giving up.

You getting enough creatine? That shit stores energy in your brain cells too, bro. Try a protein shake right after you PT. That's when your brain cells can absorb the most MASS.

[paulshortys10]

Lol yea I take creatine, not helping me ... !