high 150s/low 160s improvement for December exam Forum

[afa1207]

Im scoring between 158-161 on practice tests. I took Kaplan course- helped me a decent amount. Read powerscore LR bible
i struggle most with LR...RC has its good and bad days..LG usually only miss 3-4

LR is never one specific type of question..its always a mix between assump/strengthen/weaken/inference
Ive taken several PTs and timed sections...read explanations after I take them...But I cant seem to move out of getting between 8-10 wrong in a section..

I'm aiming for a 166/167 so I need to get at least 12 more questions right

December exam in a week and a half so I dont know what else to do/what other strategies might help on LR

[Grizz]

Advice? Don't blow one of your retakes this Dec. You're almost assuredly not gonna get anywhere close to a 166 or 167. Take Feb. or June and apply next cycle.

[afa1207]

yeah but what's more time gonna do? ive basically used strategies ive learned from Kaplan and LR bible

[afa1207]

also-- i usually take 1 pt a day -- or 4 sections (no exp or writing) of a PT in a day and review it
dont know how else to study or what more to do in a days worth

gonna wake up at 8am starting this weekend and practice early in the morning

[Anomaly]

Taking PT's every day is probably not the best use of time unless you are scoring in the 99th percentile consistently. You should methodically review every stimulus and all 5 answer choices after taking a timed test. If an argument is confusing, or if you have to reread an answer choice to understand it, then spend some extra time on those questions until you really see it clearly. Over time, your way of thinking will conform to that of the test makers and you will see your score increase. This will also greatly increase your speed as you become more familiar with classic wrong answer choices ("Most other minerals were located north..."). Keep in mind that every mistake is an oppurtunity for a lesson.

If I were you, I would take a test every other day and do a very careful review on your days off. You can take tests every day if you want, but since you are still scoring in the low 160s I suspect you don't truely understand a lot of the arguments/answer choices (which means your review will probably take at least 2-3 hours). Do this up until test day along with consistently practicing extra games sections and you can definitely meet your goal.

[Anomaly]

Also don't use the Kaplan explanations as a crutch. You can figure out why an answer choice is wrong on your own.

[afa1207]

Thanks Anamolay.

Ive taken a lot of PTs, especially recent ones...will it be useful to do the older ones? or re-do ones Ive done like 2-3 months ago

[Anomaly]

It's up to you...I would start by simply reviewing your most recent prep test as thoroughly as possible and making sure to learn a lesson from every problem. Then go back and re-do an LR section from a test you did last week or so. Did you make any of the same mistakes? If so, there are still oppurtunities to learn and you want to take advantage of these lessons. Pretty soon you will love making mistakes because that is how you can really start increasing your score.

One thing that might help for those really tough questions is writing out lessons/explanations, or emailing your Kaplan instructor with specific questions. I found that whenever I started typing up a paraphrased breakdown of an argument, the answer became very plain to see.

Spend as much time as possible doing these things from now until test day. If you take the time to learn from your mistakes (which is what a lot of people who just take test after test forget to do) then your score has to go up.

[afa1207]

Sounds good, I'll def do that this week and next. Thank you

[thegarciab0y]

I have just started using this strategy and it really gives you a solid understanding of the format of each argument in more importantly, why each answer choice is wrong. After typing out the complete stimulus, questions stem, and answer choices I write in a separate paragraph below what I think the stimulus means. This way, I can really understand my own thinking patterns and change maybe the way I used to think to the new way I should be thinking. I also write why each answer choice specifically is wrong and why the right one is right. You should try this out, it may be very time-consuming, but if you are not understanding logical reasoning after this I'm not sure what else could help more. It has been helping me greatly. If this strategy seems to time-consuming before the December exam, then I would definitely consider using it if you decide to retake in the near future.

[afa1207]

are there any other books/strategies i can study for LR? after taking a kaplan course and reading the powerscore LR bible
what about testmasters books or any others? i want to try to find more ways of attacking questions in addition to studying my mistakes so i make less errors