To find a new LR book, or just drill? Forum

[woodselle]

I really struggle with LR, usually going -5 or -7 per section. It's absolutely killing my score. I'm retaking in September, and just finished working my way through the LR Bible. It really didn't help me much...I feel like I understand the questions, but I'm still missing 5-7 each time. Typically, I can review the question and understand the reasoning behind the correct answer. I'm missing questions of all types, but often they are some of the last questions in the section. Now that I'm 2 months out from my retake, is it worth getting another book (LSAT trainer, or another?) to help me study, or should I just focus on taking PTs and drilling as many LR questions as possible?

[brooklynboy]

Hi woodselle,

I also did not improve much on LR after going through the Bibles. I was scoring similarly (around -5 per section). After having gone through The Trainer and thinking about questions in the way the book taught me to do, I now consistently go -0 on LR (with the occasional -1).

Reading the Manhattan forum explanations for every question I got wrong was also helpful.

Not sure my experience is representative, but it should show you that improvement is possible. If you are still going -5 on any section, it means that you don't yet fully understand the test. A new approach may help, and for me the Trainer was that new approach.

[bombaysippin]

Try manhattan for lr, cheaper than trainer since the trainer is a full prep book on lg lr rc

[woodselle]

Hi woodselle,

I also did not improve much on LR after going through the Bibles. I was scoring similarly (around -5 per section). After having gone through The Trainer and thinking about questions in the way the book taught me to do, I now consistently go -0 on LR (with the occasional -1).

Reading the Manhattan forum explanations for every question I got wrong was also helpful.

Not sure my experience is representative, but it should show you that improvement is possible. If you are still going -5 on any section, it means that you don't yet fully understand the test. A new approach may help, and for me the Trainer was that new approach.

Thank you thank you thank you!! Just what I needed to hear. I just ordered the Trainer and can't wait to get started.

[JamMasterJ]

Manhattan is great for your position. I think I was like -4 per section after doing the Powerscore book and ended up getting like -1 total on LR on my retake after doing MLSAT

[Jeffort]

Typically, I can review the question and understand the reasoning behind the correct answer. I'm missing questions of all types, but often they are some of the last questions in the section.

Now that I'm 2 months out from my retake, is it worth getting another book (LSAT trainer, or another?) to help me study, or should I just focus on taking PTs and drilling as many LR questions as possible?

In addition to the other suggestions people made (Mikes book is good), I think the key to breaking through your plateau is doing more, better and deeper review, not in mainly focusing on drilling lots o questions and doing many timed PTs. Quality over quantity is the key, there is much to be learned from every question you struggle with. Drilling lots of questions/taking many timed PTs without deeply reviewing them is a good way to waste materials and waste time. I call it the 'churn and burn' routine.

Along with changing/improving/refining your methods/approach if you get Mikes book, you also need to do much deeper more comprehensive review of each question you attempt, not just ones you get wrong. Making sure you understand the reasoning behind the CR for each question and why what you picked is wrong after the fact is just step one/the tip of the iceberg for good review that's likely to actually help improve your skills and performance.

Along with making sure you understand the logic of the question and reasoning behind the CR and why the other four are logically incorrect, you need to carefully and thoroughly review your own actual thought and decision making process that actually happened when you attempted the question that lead you to selecting an incorrect answer and thinking that the CR was not correct/why you didn't pick it. A good starting point is figuring out all the reasons you actually thought/used/that were the basis of you thinking the incorrect answer you selected was correct (all the reasons you actually thought about and used as part of your decision making process that caused you the select it) and all the reasons you thought the CR was wrong/reasons you didn't select it. Figure that stuff out and backtrack/trace back your entire approach/thought process that lead you to believing those things, then compare that to how you could have approached the question differently/better that would/could have lead you to correctly recognizing the CR as correct and the trap as incorrect.

In short, the most important thing you need to do to improve your skills/score range/accuracy to break past your current barrier is deep review of your own actual thought and decision making processes that you actually apply when you attack questions. It's pretty much mentally doing a slow motion instant 'replay' of what you actually did when you attacked the question like sports teams do with videos of games/game plays to evaluate who f'd up the play and how. You need to take a careful introspective look at what your brain does/what actually 'happened' when you did each question to figure out mistakes/weaknesses in your methods or whatever types of mistakes you're making/issues that you need to fix.

Deep review of that type is the key since it gives you a roadmap of exactly what types of mistakes you're making/what specific weaknesses/issues you have so you have actionable information to work with by doing more drilling and review focused on fixing whatever issues you figure out from deep review. Make sense?

Knowing and understanding the logic of LSAT questions is just one part of getting good at the test, training yourself to have good habits and consistent methods and reactions that work well for efficiency and accuracy under timed conditions is the other important part. Sounds like you need work on the second part, improving your hands on application under timed conditions of the methods and techniques you've learned. Deep thorough self-evaluation type review of this nature is very time consuming, tedious, and not exactly happy times since your main focus is on figuring out all the different ways you sucked and f'd up that day, so many people don't do it, which is part of the reason many people get stuck at a plateau around low 160s range and/or ~minus 5-7 per LR section after lots o prep.

Deep review, learning from your mistakes and changing your habits based on things you learn in review is where all the magic happens to move your score range up once you've already learned all the basics. Quantity of drilling doesn't matter if you don't review properly and learn stuff from every question you struggle with. Quality over quantity, so don't focus on/prioritize quantity of drilling/timed PTs, instead focus on quality with deep thorough review so that you are constantly learning and making modifications/fine tuning your habits/methods/approach/reactions/etc. based on identifiable weaknesses/issues with your methods/habits that are costing you points.

[flash21]

jeffort, pure gold.

[Jeffort]

jeffort, pure gold.

Thanks!

[KDLMaj]

I'm going to be shot for this, but if your problem is with Assumption Family Qs then you should check out Kaplan's Premiere 2014. Ch 10 on Argument Types is light years ahead of what anyone else is doing with those questions. (They did a massive overhaul on their method- so it's no longer the grossly outdated/inaccurate approach they used for so long)

If your problem tends to center around the most challenging questions, that's a different story. You need to prep harder questions specifically- they often test different issues than the rest.

Finally, if you're going back over these Qs later and immediately realizing what the right answer is (before reading any explanation or looking up the right answer first), then it's a timing problem. Books explaining the reasoning behind the questions aren't likely to accomplish a ton.