question about hitting your potential on the LSAT Forum

[jackson6]

at what point do you say my score won't get any better? I did the Bibles in a month and did like 10 PT's. Do I have a shot still at increasing my score? I am willing to forgo law school this year to try to improve my score and reapply

[Nothing but the Funk]

Yeah you have a huge chance of still improving 10 PT's is a good start. From what I've read on this forum it seems to be that most people who are taking it seriously do 20-30 before test day, some even more.

[TheMostDangerousLG]

at what point do you say my score won't get any better? I did the Bibles in a month and did like 10 PT's. Do I have a shot still at increasing my score? I am willing to forgo law school this year to try to improve my score and reapply

Dear god, yes. A month in and and after 10 PTs, I was scoring around ten points lower than where I'd end up PTing at, a few points below my first, take, and a considerable amount of points below my second. This thing takes a lot of time and energy; this far in, you're just warming up.

[heythatslife]

You max out your potential when you've been through PTs 1-68 three times each. Beyond that, though, I think there's diminishing returns because you start to recall the answers choices without actually solving the proeblems. You are nowhere near close.

[Pneumonia]

You are nowhere near close.

[koval]

What about someone who's studied 3 months and has done 10 PTs?

[mvonh001]

What about someone who's studied 3 months and has done 10 PTs?

It's not so much the amount of time you spent, its the fact that youve only sat down and took 10 PT's that makes us skeptical that you have hit your potential.

[akg144]

You are nowhere near close.

I don't think its actually even possible to max out personal potential unless you've already mastered the test. If you score 180 every time then I guess in theory you've plateau'd but unless your there if you dedicate yourself day and night even if you took EVERY PT 1-68 and knew the right answer for every question there's still PLENTY of drills you could do even in that extreme case. For example write an explanation for why every WRONG answer is WRONG with nuance and detail and then in turn explain what would have made the wrong answer right. In that way you could get insight the minds of the LSAT-test makers and understand the logic WITHIN the logic. Another example would be to drills LG until you can do it all in 30 mins. Than try to do all in 28mins. Then 25 mins etc. Until you've so mastered LG you can literally ace em sitting in the middle of a construction zone. One last thing -- BE ACTIVE while taking the test. If you are doing LR questions before even looking at the questions predict what the 2 or 3 correct answer choices will be in your mind (i.e. pre-phrasing) on RC read predictively if the passage says "Some anthropologists believe......However,...." before reading on take note of what has been traditionally understood by the anthropologists and make a prediction about what is coming next. On LG after doing your set-up predict what they might ask you MUST BE TRUE and how to quickly eliminate wrong answer choices without having to create hypotheticals. This will save you time and energy and will enable your score to soar to new heights. Best of luck mate and good luck 4 October!

[ScottRiqui]

What about someone who's studied 3 months and has done 10 PTs?

It's not so much the amount of time you spent, its the fact that youve only sat down and took 10 PT's that makes us skeptical that you have hit your potential.

I think that the value of doing full, timed PTs varies from person to person, and largely depends on how subject you are to anxiety or "test fatigue". I also think that the idea of doing a crapload of full-length, timed PTs gets a little more emphasis here on TLS than it should.

I'd feel better about a person's chances who, for seven or eight of those tests, broke the questions up by type and drilled them, and then only took two or three full-length tests.

[Hero2013]

You are nowhere near close.

I don't think its actually even possible to max out personal potential unless you've already mastered the test. If you score 180 every time then I guess in theory you've plateau'd but unless your there if you dedicate yourself day and night even if you took EVERY PT 1-68 and knew the right answer for every question there's still PLENTY of drills you could do even in that extreme case. For example write an explanation for why every WRONG answer is WRONG with nuance and detail and then in turn explain what would have made the wrong answer right. In that way you could get insight the minds of the LSAT-test makers and understand the logic WITHIN the logic. Another example would be to drills LG until you can do it all in 30 mins. Than try to do all in 28mins. Then 25 mins etc. Until you've so mastered LG you can literally ace em sitting in the middle of a construction zone. One last thing -- BE ACTIVE while taking the test. If you are doing LR questions before even looking at the questions predict what the 2 or 3 correct answer choices will be in your mind (i.e. pre-phrasing) on RC read predictively if the passage says "Some anthropologists believe......However,...." before reading on take note of what has been traditionally understood by the anthropologists and make a prediction about what is coming next. On LG after doing your set-up predict what they might ask you MUST BE TRUE and how to quickly eliminate wrong answer choices without having to create hypotheticals. This will save you time and energy and will enable your score to soar to new heights. Best of luck mate and good luck 4 October!

Word

[Pneumonia]

What about someone who's studied 3 months and has done 10 PTs?

It's not so much the amount of time you spent, its the fact that youve only sat down and took 10 PT's that makes us skeptical that you have hit your potential.

I think that the value of doing full, timed PTs varies from person to person, and largely depends on how subject you are to anxiety or "test fatigue". I also think that the idea of doing a crapload of full-length, timed PTs gets a little more emphasis here on TLS than it should.

I'd feel better about a person's chances who, for seven or eight of those tests, broke the questions up by type and drilled them, and then only took two or three full-length tests.

I agree with the bolded, to an extent. I did lots of PT's, and I don't really get test anxiety/fatigue. For me they were more about keeping my skills cold, eliminating dumb mistakes, and learning when to skip a question (timing).

[hkin]

Hi all!

I know this is very early to be even thinking about the LSAT at all, but I'm curious about a couple of things. So, I'm currently a high school student interested in pursuing a law degree once at university. I'll probably go into law school in about two years, since I'm from Europe and here we don't have college before university. After completing a law degree here, I'd want to do a J.D in the States.

So here's my question: say that I wanted to get into a top law school (like columbia/harvard/yale/chicago/stanford), and thus needed >170 in LSAT, do you think that'd be a reasonable goal given my 166 diagnostic (on the practice test that is posted on LSAC's website, June '07). My score was mostly brought down by the first section, "logical games" (-8). Section II went good (-2), Section III not so well (-5) and then Section IV again not so well (-5). Reviewing the mistakes I made in the last three sections I noticed that some were me just "not getting it", some were due to silly mistakes (perhaps due to me not being a native speaker of English). So what do you say, how much do you think I could reasonably raise my score?

[ScottRiqui]

Hi all!

I know this is very early to be even thinking about the LSAT at all, but I'm curious about a couple of things. So, I'm currently a high school student interested in pursuing a law degree once at university. I'll probably go into law school in about two years, since I'm from Europe and here we don't have college before university. After completing a law degree here, I'd want to do a J.D in the States.

So here's my question: say that I wanted to get into a top law school (like columbia/harvard/yale/chicago/stanford), and thus needed >170 in LSAT, do you think that'd be a reasonable goal given my 166 diagnostic (on the practice test that is posted on LSAC's website, June '07). My score was mostly brought down by the first section, "logical games" (-8). Section II went good (-2), Section III not so well (-5) and then Section IV again not so well (-5). Reviewing the mistakes I made in the last three sections I noticed that some were me just "not getting it", some were due to silly mistakes (perhaps due to me not being a native speaker of English). So what do you say, how much do you think I could reasonably raise my score?

Welcome!

Well, if you went -20 overall on the June 07 LSAT, that's a 161, not a 166. Regardless, being anywhere in the 160s on a cold diagnostic is a pretty good place to start. Logic Games in particular is a good area for improvement, since it's very learnable/teachable. It's not uncommon around here for people to consistently go -0 or -1 on Games. I don't see any reason why you couldn't strike well into the 170s with adequate practice.

[hkin]

@ ScottRiqui thanks for reply! Yeah, you're right on the points, I just noticed that I mistyped it.