Disappointed June LSAT taker looking for advice Forum

[nygrl]

First time poster, long time lurker.

I received a 162 on the June test which is far below the median of any school that I would consider applying to. My PT range was 165-169, so I think a retake is appropriate in my situation.

At this point, I’m trying to figure out the most effective way to re-study.

My main concern is RC. Throughout my studies, I made substantial improvements in LR and LG but have had a very difficult time adjusting to the new RC questions. When I studied in June, I purchased the RC Bible and read TLS posts for ways to increase my score. I’m open to the idea of a private tutor or a class but would these means be able to effectively help me increase my RC score?

Another concern of mine is careless errors – particularly with LR. I noticed that when I take full PTs I typically miss the last 4-5 questions from pure fatigue. Other than taking full PTs and drilling, is there an effective way to build up stamina?

[gaud]

First time poster, long time lurker.

I received a 162 on the June test which is far below the median of any school that I would consider applying to. My PT range was 165-169, so I think a retake is appropriate in my situation.

At this point, I’m trying to figure out the most effective way to re-study.

My main concern is RC. Throughout my studies, I made substantial improvements in LR and LG but have had a very difficult time adjusting to the new RC questions. When I studied in June, I purchased the RC Bible and read TLS posts for ways to increase my score. I’m open to the idea of a private tutor or a class but would these means be able to effectively help me increase my RC score?

Another concern of mine is careless errors – particularly with LR. I noticed that when I take full PTs I typically miss the last 4-5 questions from pure fatigue. Other than taking full PTs and drilling, is there an effective way to build up stamina?

I did worse than my PT average as well... and our level sounds fairly similar.

I would maybe look into the Manhattan RC guide (I thought it was more helpful than the PS). I really think that a tutor would be useless for RC prep (assuming your average misses in that section would be around -5 or so with PT scores in the upper 160's)

[NYCLSATTutor]

The RC Bible is not that helpful unless you are scoring abysmally low on RC.

Generally people who are doing really well on LR/LG and messing up on RC have something systemic going on for the RC. This can be hard to figure out exactly what it is because oftentimes its psychological/something about you. Its unlikely that your reading comprehension skills are not good enough to do well on the test if you can do well on the LR.

That being said I would say that you need to try to figure out why you aren't doing well on the RC. Not easy to do, but spend some time thinking about it. In my experience the most common problem with people who are doing poorly on RC is that they don't realize that the section is very different than LR. Its not logical, the logic and language aren't tight and exact. The Reading Comp is more of a "well yeah X seems to make sense" type of deal than the LR is. If your RC has gone down over time, its probably because you started thinking more logically (which can be bad for the RC). I took the June test as well, and I remember looking at some of the RC questions and thinking "fuck this makes no sense....but it has to be this answer choice, even though it seems somewhat nonsensical". I ended up getting them all right....but if you find yourself thinking that on a LR question, you are almost always going to get it wrong.

[minnbills]

There is no foolproof method to stop making careless errors. All you can do is keep drilling, drilling, and drilling LR to get as good as possible. Over time, you'll make less. But it's also important to not over-study.

For RC, remember that this test was a bit of a fluke, the Chopin RC section absolutely murdered just about everybody. My advice is to keep doing what you're doing. If you were PTing in the range you say you were, your problem is not that you're not good enough to get a high score, it's just that you need your head to be in a good place on test day.

[lawschool12345]

the powerscore logic games got me to -0 on the june test i thought it was great

[jeninamillion]

I got my ass kicked by the June RC as well. I just retook that section and went over my errors and it seems like the difference between a right answer and a wrong answer that I picked was sometimes just a single word. For me at least, I missed the questions not because the passages weren't significantly harder, but because I didn't pay enough attention to the wording of the answers.

[nygrl]

Thanks for the advice - it's much appreciated!

[MrBain_]

I could have easily written this post myself: same pt range, same June score, everything but the fatigue part. Im gonna spend the rest of the summer making sure I've got RC down by the time Oct. rolls around. Retake for me aswell Good luck in October!