Need help studying Forum

[collegebum1989]

Hi everyone,

When I first took a cold diagnostic my score was about 158, then after reading both the bibles and doing some practice questions I took a Kaplan-proctored exam I got a 154. I figured it was the timed settings which reduced my score.

I spent the last month drilling different types of questions based on the Cambridge By Type books for LR, LG, and RC. I was getting better at question types but I feel I may have spent too much time on certain question types (spent 3 weeks just on MBT, MSS) Today I took a untimed preptest and scored a 160. Majority of the questions I got wrong I reviewed were due to careless or passive reading and not due to lack of understanding of the logical structure. I tried to redo questions and got most of them right on the second try. I should also add that my section scores decreased as a result of one game/passage (-4 on one game, -5 on one passage), however, this just seems like rationalizing for a lower score.

I feel that over 2 months of prepping this hasn't been much improvement. What can I do to change my study habit to improve drastically in the next two months before the June exam?

[03152016]

.

[MLBrandow]

collegebum1989,

It sounds like your problem with slow improvement is due to lack of prep, not narrow focus or anything else. Spending 3 weeks on MBT/MSS bundles amounts to a paltry 13 questions per day, barely half a section of LR. I am not sure one could consider that "drilling" a question type so much as doing a few warm-up questions.

If you want to improve beyond that 160 (and you certainly can with 2.5 months remaining before the June LSAT), I would suggest devoting more time to actually doing questions and sections.

You should aim for north of 100 questions per day, and reach that number in any way you choose, whether it is with section practice or drilling question types. Then, be sure to review as you are doing. It sounds like you're putting the review in, but you're not actually doing enough with regard to actual questions.

I imagine it's difficult to have the mental endurance for a 100 question test when you are averaging less than 15 questions per day in your prep.

One thing that helped me really blow through the cambridge bundles was reorganizing them by most to least recent. I divvied up a given section by difficulty (four piles) then reassembled the list in something of a reverse chronological order. Doing this accomplished two things--it let me focus on the more recent questions first, and also by jumping around in difficulties, it wasn't as mentally draining as doing 50 difficult questions in a row, nor as boring as doing 50 easy questions in a row.

Set a prep plan and try to stick to it. While it's more important for quality review and understanding than doing questions, I think it goes almost without saying that looking at half a section's worth of questions per day is unacceptable if you desire a score in the 90th percentile or higher.

Good luck!

[collegebum1989]

LG: -6 (-4, -1, -1, 0)
LR1: -5
LR2: -10
RC: -8 (-1, -5, -2, -0)

As you can see there is much consistent performance in any of the sections. In LG, there was one weird game where there was an obscure spacing rule, in LR I did very differently on the two sections, and for RC there was one weird passage where the scope was not easily determined.

[collegebum1989]

collegebum1989,

It sounds like your problem with slow improvement is due to lack of prep, not narrow focus or anything else. Spending 3 weeks on MBT/MSS bundles amounts to a paltry 13 questions per day, barely half a section of LR. I am not sure one could consider that "drilling" a question type so much as doing a few warm-up questions.

If you want to improve beyond that 160 (and you certainly can with 2.5 months remaining before the June LSAT), I would suggest devoting more time to actually doing questions and sections.

You should aim for north of 100 questions per day, and reach that number in any way you choose, whether it is with section practice or drilling question types. Then, be sure to review as you are doing. It sounds like you're putting the review in, but you're not actually doing enough with regard to actual questions.

I imagine it's difficult to have the mental endurance for a 100 question test when you are averaging less than 15 questions per day in your prep.

One thing that helped me really blow through the cambridge bundles was reorganizing them by most to least recent. I divvied up a given section by difficulty (four piles) then reassembled the list in something of a reverse chronological order. Doing this accomplished two things--it let me focus on the more recent questions first, and also by jumping around in difficulties, it wasn't as mentally draining as doing 50 difficult questions in a row, nor as boring as doing 50 easy questions in a row.

Set a prep plan and try to stick to it. While it's more important for quality review and understanding than doing questions, I think it goes almost without saying that looking at half a section's worth of questions per day is unacceptable if you desire a score in the 90th percentile or higher.

Good luck!

Thanks for the help, I think I've been doing about 40 LR questions per day, along with either 4 games or 4 passages depending on the day. However, The reason it took me so long to get through MBT and MSS is because they have 200 something questions in the bundle and I ny moved onto the next question types after fully completing one. I figured this would lead to mastery of one type due to seeing trends n question types.

Do you recommend instead creating a study plan where I allot a specific amount of time (ex 1 week) to a question type rather than doing every single question? I also will start doing full sections in addition to the questions to get a feel for the endurance required for a section as opposed to questions of the same type.

Thanks for the help!

[03152016]

.