berkeleynick wrote:Hey everyone! I'm signed up for the June LSAT and am scoring consistently around or slightly above 167, and obviously want to break 170 (seeing how the next week or two goes I'll make a decision then as to whether I should postpone). What's weird is that my worst section is now my best (logic games) and RC and logical reasoning have suffered (and they fluctuate markedly on individual sections from exam to exam, sometimes I will miss 2 other times as many as 5).
I think my problem is that while I do review and do understand why I got answers wrong and where things went wrong and often they are dumb mistakes I haven't found a consistent and effective method of applying that knowledge to future tests and it seems my mistakes vary widely. Does anyone have any suggestions on a good approach to really zero-in on where things are going wrong in order to remedy the issues as much as possible in the next 22 days?
You need to look deeper and also more big picture in your review to figure out what exactly is causing each of these individual mistakes. This includes examining your overall approach and processes you applied to each question (the exact step by step methods you actually applied to each question when you did it timed) to figure out weaknesses in the step by step methods, chain of reasoning and decision making processes you actually used to arrive at the answer for each question you get wrong. This includes examining which steps you DIDN'T actually do but could have/should have but skipped for some reason (usually to save time) that would likely have lead to you getting it correct instead of wrong. Solid processes/methods include built in verification steps to catch careless errors before you make a fatally flawed final answer decision. A big part of this involves examining your actual habits under timed conditions to figure out which ones you have/or ones you don't have but should that are part of the underlying problem that makes you more susceptible/prone to making fatal 'dumb' mistakes/falling for good trap answers thinking (or having a gut instinct/intuition telling you) they're correct and picking them when they're actually wrong.
Are most of your mistakes things you're classifying as basically careless/dumb errors? When you say your mistakes vary widely, what do you mean? The more detailed information you can provide from your review, the better advice we can give. Give examples of several of the various specific mistakes you've made to miss Qs on recent PTs.
One possible cause for mistakes people consider 'careless/dumb' is not having strong methods/sets of step by step processes/habits that you consistently apply to every question, no matter whether it seems easy or hard while you're solving it. This means giving every question the same full thorough steps of analysis and level of scrutiny instead of selectively easing up/getting lazy with which steps you do, how much analysis effort/scrutiny you put in before making final selection depending on what your gut instincts are telling you to do at the moment for various reasons like time pressure, how good/bad certain answers 'sound/feel', and/or whatever other factors you let influence your actual hands on decision making processes/methods under timed pressure.
Not being consistent with sticking to applying the full step by step procedures to every question by selectively skipping steps on many questions for timing/going faster purposes is one common cause for inconsistent LR section performance like you are experiencing. It's those times you underestimate a Q, think 'I've got this' and ease up on going through all the steps, including important verification steps to catch careless errors, that you make dumb/careless mistakes. You have to examine your actual habits under timed conditions to figure out the exact ways they are making you vulnerable/prone to making mistakes that in hindsight look like dumb/careless mistakes during review. 'careless' mistakes indicate weaknesses in your habits/step by step processes you apply to questions. To score 170+, it's essential that you don't try to cut corners/skip steps on some questions you feel overconfident about or whatever in order to save time since that always leads to at least a few missed questions per section due to 'careless/dumb' mistakes.
Also, with -2-5 per LR section range, it means you're probably getting most of the top/highest difficulty level questions per section wrong. If you use or look at Cambridge Q by type packets, I'm talking about difficulty level 4 questions. Are you arriving at the CR mainly by POE for several or more LR questions per section compared to ones where you totally understand why the CR is logically correct after reading and analyzing it before having ruled out the four wrong ones? If you're currently getting many of the high difficulty level questions correct due to strong process of elimination skills rather than understanding the logic of the question well enough to recognize and understand that the CR is logically correct confidently enough to pick it without necessarily having to do full POE to knock out all four wrong ones, then it means you have room for improvement with your LR argument analysis, figure out the flaw/flawed assumption skills/abilities.
Building strong POE skills is a powerful tool for raising LR section scores and getting up to a roughly minus 5 per section average and into the mid/high 160s range. Unfortunately, POE has it's limits, strong POE skills alone aren't enough to consistently score -2 or less per LR section since there are always at least several LR Qs per section that come down to two ACs that require deeper/sharper understanding of the logic of the question/core flaw of the argument to be able to logically differentiate and get correct for valid skills based reasons rather than because your gut instinct/intuition worked in that instance and luck broke in your favor. The -5 sections probably reflect ones where luck with your gut instinct/intuition being logically accurate that you had to use to make the tie breaker decision for many questions just didn't break in your favor for as many as it did on the -2 sections. Basically, to solidly get into -2 or less LR range, you need to improve your analysis skills with high difficulty level questions. Great way to do that is get some cambridge packets and focus on drilling level 4 questions in a way to get better at deeply analyzing and understanding the full argument and exact flaw(s)/flawed assumption(s) so that you understand the argument well enough to be able to recognize the CR and understand why it's logically correct while working the question without having to use POE to get to even liking it or seriously thinking it might be the correct one.
Anyway, short version: review even deeper to figure out the underlying causes of the various different 'dumb' and other types of mistakes you keep making, meaning look at your overall approach and methods/processes to figure out how you can make it stronger and less vulnerable to letting 'careless/dumb' mistakes slip through unnoticed before marking in final answer. Also look at the quality and depth of analysis/level of understanding of each argument/stimulus you actually do and have before deciding to jump into the answers. Many 'dumb' mistakes can be avoided by spending a little more time analyzing the stimulus better and deeper before jumping into the answers so you won't be attracted to the trap answers like a mosquito to a glowing blue light.