is it a bad sign that i can't BR 180? Forum

[trqdor]

i've been at it for a while now, but i can't seem to BR above a 172-177. my goal since like may has been to BR a perfect score, but i always fall short. the silver lining is that i know what to improve on, but at the same time it seems like the same question types trip me up. hoping that the cambridge drill packets help me out here.

when did you guys start consistently hitting 180s for BR? idk maybe it's not a big deal if i can't be perfect on a review, but in my mind a 179-180 BR is a prerequisite for hitting 174+ on the real thing.. which is ultimately my goal.

sorry if i sound like a sap.. i'm pretty much just looking for people to tell me it is possible so i can stop telling myself it's impossible.

[jetsfan1]

i've been at it for a while now, but i can't seem to BR above a 172-177. my goal since like may has been to BR a perfect score, but i always fall short. the silver lining is that i know what to improve on, but at the same time it seems like the same question types trip me up. hoping that the cambridge drill packets help me out here.

when did you guys start consistently hitting 180s for BR? idk maybe it's not a big deal if i can't be perfect on a review, but in my mind a 179-180 BR is a prerequisite for hitting 174+ on the real thing.. which is ultimately my goal.

sorry if i sound like a sap.. i'm pretty much just looking for people to tell me it is possible so i can stop telling myself it's impossible.

Not BRing a 180 isn't a huge deal if your going for 174+. Sure, of course that should be your ideal but I scored in your target range but by the end of my prep BR would only add a point or two to my score. I was finishing the sections with time to spare and going back for mini BRs in the last five minutes though.

ETA: I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if you can essentially do your BR during the test - and by that I mean think through every problem as completely as you would even untimed - you shouldn't be too worried.

What are you PTing (without BR) as of now?

[Judgeasaurus_Rex]

i've been at it for a while now, but i can't seem to BR above a 172-177. my goal since like may has been to BR a perfect score, but i always fall short. the silver lining is that i know what to improve on, but at the same time it seems like the same question types trip me up. hoping that the cambridge drill packets help me out here.

when did you guys start consistently hitting 180s for BR? idk maybe it's not a big deal if i can't be perfect on a review, but in my mind a 179-180 BR is a prerequisite for hitting 174+ on the real thing.. which is ultimately my goal.

sorry if i sound like a sap.. i'm pretty much just looking for people to tell me it is possible so i can stop telling myself it's impossible.

Not BRing a 180 isn't a huge deal if your going for 174+. Sure, of course that should be your ideal but I scored in your target range but by the end of my prep BR would only add a point or two to my score. I was finishing the sections with time to spare and going back for mini BRs in the last five minutes though.

ETA: I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if you can essentially do your BR during the test - and by that I mean think through every problem as completely as you would even untimed - you shouldn't be too worried.

What are you PTing (without BR) as of now?

I am having similar issues with my BR score. On average my BR scores are 174-176. How important is closing this gap and can it be done with less than 1 month remaining before Oct? I re-read every RC passage, redo every game and every LR question. I do have some time at the end of each section to quickly go back and double check a few questions before time runs out. But, I am wondering if there are any other specific strategies that you would recommend?

[jetsfan1]

i've been at it for a while now, but i can't seem to BR above a 172-177. my goal since like may has been to BR a perfect score, but i always fall short. the silver lining is that i know what to improve on, but at the same time it seems like the same question types trip me up. hoping that the cambridge drill packets help me out here.

when did you guys start consistently hitting 180s for BR? idk maybe it's not a big deal if i can't be perfect on a review, but in my mind a 179-180 BR is a prerequisite for hitting 174+ on the real thing.. which is ultimately my goal.

sorry if i sound like a sap.. i'm pretty much just looking for people to tell me it is possible so i can stop telling myself it's impossible.

Not BRing a 180 isn't a huge deal if your going for 174+. Sure, of course that should be your ideal but I scored in your target range but by the end of my prep BR would only add a point or two to my score. I was finishing the sections with time to spare and going back for mini BRs in the last five minutes though.

ETA: I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if you can essentially do your BR during the test - and by that I mean think through every problem as completely as you would even untimed - you shouldn't be too worried.

What are you PTing (without BR) as of now?

I am having similar issues with my BR score. On average my BR scores are 174-176. How important is closing this gap and can it be done with less than 1 month remaining before Oct? I re-read every RC passage, redo every game and every LR question. I do have some time at the end of each section to quickly go back and double check a few questions before time runs out. But, I am wondering if there are any other specific strategies that you would recommend?

Ok first off I don't want to come off as if BRing 180 isn't important- that should be your goal every time, and BRing/reviewing consistently and intensely was absolutely crucial to my eventual performance on the test. So definitely keep doing that and shooting for 180.

My point was just that at least for me there were always a few questions that I just couldn't get on each test, BR or not. I still studied the shit out of these questions and tried to understand them the best I could. But I had gotten to the point where my BR/regular tests were essentially the same, maybe a couple of points difference. I have no idea if this is normal or not though, come to think of it. Would love to have other posters chime in.

As for strategies, I'm not really sure I did anything more then what you seem to be doing now. On the real thing (I'm not talking about games here, but RC and LR) I had gotten to the point where I was either on the last Q or 2 or done by 30 so that I could go back to the circled questions earlier in the section. Actually ended up changing an answer in LR. So I guess just continue to push yourself timing. One thing I did maybe was when drilling Q types I would give myself a time limit that was a couple minutes less then what I thought the time limit would hypothetically be. I drilled 30 q's at a time with Cambridge (7 1s, 8 2s, 7 3s, 8 4s) and moved down from 40 to 37 minutes over the course of my prep. Same with RC passages, although I kinda stopped drilling them by passage type and just put PT 1-38 together as sections.

Idk if that helps, but I never saw the point in relaxed, slow/not paced drilling. Maybe at the start, but isn't the reason you do BR?

ETA: Good luck!

[Judgeasaurus_Rex]

i've been at it for a while now, but i can't seem to BR above a 172-177. my goal since like may has been to BR a perfect score, but i always fall short. the silver lining is that i know what to improve on, but at the same time it seems like the same question types trip me up. hoping that the cambridge drill packets help me out here.

when did you guys start consistently hitting 180s for BR? idk maybe it's not a big deal if i can't be perfect on a review, but in my mind a 179-180 BR is a prerequisite for hitting 174+ on the real thing.. which is ultimately my goal.

sorry if i sound like a sap.. i'm pretty much just looking for people to tell me it is possible so i can stop telling myself it's impossible.

Not BRing a 180 isn't a huge deal if your going for 174+. Sure, of course that should be your ideal but I scored in your target range but by the end of my prep BR would only add a point or two to my score. I was finishing the sections with time to spare and going back for mini BRs in the last five minutes though.

ETA: I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if you can essentially do your BR during the test - and by that I mean think through every problem as completely as you would even untimed - you shouldn't be too worried.

What are you PTing (without BR) as of now?

I am having similar issues with my BR score. On average my BR scores are 174-176. How important is closing this gap and can it be done with less than 1 month remaining before Oct? I re-read every RC passage, redo every game and every LR question. I do have some time at the end of each section to quickly go back and double check a few questions before time runs out. But, I am wondering if there are any other specific strategies that you would recommend?

Ok first off I don't want to come off as if BRing 180 isn't important- that should be your goal every time, and BRing/reviewing consistently and intensely was absolutely crucial to my eventual performance on the test. So definitely keep doing that and shooting for 180.

My point was just that at least for me there were always a few questions that I just couldn't get on each test, BR or not. I still studied the shit out of these questions and tried to understand them the best I could. But I had gotten to the point where my BR/regular tests were essentially the same, maybe a couple of points difference. I have no idea if this is normal or not though, come to think of it. Would love to have other posters chime in.

As for strategies, I'm not really sure I did anything more then what you seem to be doing now. On the real thing (I'm not talking about games here, but RC and LR) I had gotten to the point where I was either on the last Q or 2 or done by 30 so that I could go back to the circled questions earlier in the section. Actually ended up changing an answer in LR. So I guess just continue to push yourself timing. One thing I did maybe was when drilling Q types I would give myself a time limit that was a couple minutes less then what I thought the time limit would hypothetically be. I drilled 30 q's at a time with Cambridge (7 1s, 8 2s, 7 3s, 8 4s) and moved down from 40 to 37 minutes over the course of my prep. Same with RC passages, although I kinda stopped drilling them by passage type and just put PT 1-38 together as sections.

Idk if that helps, but I never saw the point in relaxed, slow/not paced drilling. Maybe at the start, but isn't the reason you do BR?

ETA: Good luck!

That helps a lot, Jetsfan1. Thanks.

I do think the goal is to have your BR score & actual score match up as closely as possible (ideally as high as possible too!).

What did you do for the questions that you still got wrong on BR?

[jetsfan1]

[/quote]

That helps a lot, Jetsfan1. Thanks.

I do think the goal is to have your BR score & actual score match up as closely as possible (ideally as high as possible too!).

What did you do for the questions that you still got wrong on BR?[/quote]

Agreed. I'm sort of curious about this now though, for those who've scored 170+. Were your actual/BR scores roughly the same? Or were your BR scores still significantly higher?

Re: your question. This was my review process for all BR q's.

LR: If the question was circled (at the start this was like 10 per section, by the end about 5) I would read the question and then write out/diagram the logic. Would also write out notes about all the words/phrases/assumptions that I thought would be key for the question (this of course varied depending on Q type, as with different types you should be looking for different things). I would then read every answer choice and write out specifically why it was right/wrong. Sometimes, for obviously wrong questions this would just be a word or a sentence. For tougher answer choices it might be a paragraph.

RC: Would diagram the whole passage (side note: I liked this bc it kept me laser focused on structure/purpose, although I have to admit I kind of got lazy with it on easier passages later in my prep) and then pretty much do the same thing as with LR, though finding line numbers when relevant.

For any I still got wrong on either section or could not say with 100% confidence why 4 Acs were wrong and only 1 right (maybe about 5 a test by the end) I would read up on the Manhattan forums/wherever I could find an explanation and try to rework my thought process to be in line with the tentmakers. Then I'd go through these questions again a couple of times over the next couple of weeks.

Games were a whole different animal with me, so I won't go into that unless you want me to.

HTH.

[smaug]

Depends on the person, OP. I normally don't comment on LSAT things because I'm old, but I remember having this question. I never hit a 180 in a practice test, even if I spent more than the allotted time. But, I would frequently hit 178s. (I think that was my mode, with an average a bit lower.)

Still scored 175+ on test day. (First and only official sitting.)

So, so long as you're making the practice tests hard (e.g., adding a fifth section, giving yourself 30 minutes instead of 35, taking tests in noisy environments- (I don't know if people are still doing those things, if that was advice I got, or I just did those things because I'm crazy)) you should be fine on test day. Some of us will just always space some detail, even if we're capable of getting almost everything most of the time.

And just because this post is weird and rare, I never perfected the games. Never. I know it's supposed to be the easiest part to perfect, but for some of us I think it's easy to misread a question or two no matter what, and for me it inevitably happened in the games section. Don't worry if you can't do that either. If you're scoring above 175 without perfecting the games now, you can do it on test day as well.

[Judgeasaurus_Rex]

That helps a lot, Jetsfan1. Thanks.

I do think the goal is to have your BR score & actual score match up as closely as possible (ideally as high as possible too!).

What did you do for the questions that you still got wrong on BR?[/quote]

Agreed. I'm sort of curious about this now though, for those who've scored 170+. Were your actual/BR scores roughly the same? Or were your BR scores still significantly higher?

Re: your question. This was my review process for all BR q's.

LR: If the question was circled (at the start this was like 10 per section, by the end about 5) I would read the question and then write out/diagram the logic. Would also write out notes about all the words/phrases/assumptions that I thought would be key for the question (this of course varied depending on Q type, as with different types you should be looking for different things). I would then read every answer choice and write out specifically why it was right/wrong. Sometimes, for obviously wrong questions this would just be a word or a sentence. For tougher answer choices it might be a paragraph.

RC: Would diagram the whole passage (side note: I liked this bc it kept me laser focused on structure/purpose, although I have to admit I kind of got lazy with it on easier passages later in my prep) and then pretty much do the same thing as with LR, though finding line numbers when relevant.

For any I still got wrong on either section or could not say with 100% confidence why 4 Acs were wrong and only 1 right (maybe about 5 a test by the end) I would read up on the Manhattan forums/wherever I could find an explanation and try to rework my thought process to be in line with the tentmakers. Then I'd go through these questions again a couple of times over the next couple of weeks.

Games were a whole different animal with me, so I won't go into that unless you want me to.

HTH.[/quote]

Very interesting. Thanks! I've also started to write out why an AC is correct, not correct during my BR & subsequent review. I find that it helps as well.

At this point I approach BR as, essentially, redoing the entire exam untamed, which really help get me into the right mindset. I'm also curious about your questions regarding 170+ scorers and their actual score/BR score. Perhaps we should start a thread.

[Judgeasaurus_Rex]

I think there is something wrong with the mechanism that the forum uses for users to quote one another, Jetsfan. Very strange indeed!

[trqdor]

thanks for all the input. i'll stop beating myself up for not being able to go perfect on the blind review.

on a semi-related note.. there have been a couple of questions every LR/RC section where i have the right answer the first time around, but end up changing it during the blind review. so during my review, i sometimes end up with a score similar to my timed section, but only because i fix some answers and try to fix what's not broken with others. i always try to justify ruling out ACs by either writing out my reasoning, so it's really frustrating, as you can imagine, when i go to check the answer and realize my reasoning was wrong.

my most recent PT I hit 165 (BR 173 -- i completely butchered one game and one reading passage). there was a time in my studying a few months back when i was consistently going 168-172 (BR 173-175). i am coming off of a study hiatus so maybe i'm just taking some time to readjust. i just want to be prepared to hit 174+ by october though

i hear about people finishing the section by the 30min mark all the time and i'm always so curious how they do that. is it really just a matter of drilling so repetitively that the AC jumps out at you? the only section i can manage to do that with is LG.

[Judgeasaurus_Rex]

thanks for all the input. i'll stop beating myself up for not being able to go perfect on the blind review.

on a semi-related note.. there have been a couple of questions every LR/RC section where i have the right answer the first time around, but end up changing it during the blind review. so during my review, i sometimes end up with a score similar to my timed section, but only because i fix some answers and try to fix what's not broken with others. i always try to justify ruling out ACs by either writing out my reasoning, so it's really frustrating, as you can imagine, when i go to check the answer and realize my reasoning was wrong.

my most recent PT I hit 165 (BR 173 -- i completely butchered one game and one reading passage). there was a time in my studying a few months back when i was consistently going 168-172 (BR 173-175). i am coming off of a study hiatus so maybe i'm just taking some time to readjust. i just want to be prepared to hit 174+ by october though

i hear about people finishing the section by the 30min mark all the time and i'm always so curious how they do that. is it really just a matter of drilling so repetitively that the AC jumps out at you? the only section i can manage to do that with is LG.

I had (& still do sometimes) similar problems with changing correct answer choices to incorrect ones on a BR. It's really just a matter of one or two words missing or being present when they shouldn't be present, that will make an answer choice incorrect. Its easy to overthink a question during BR sometimes... Sorry if this doesn't help, I am still struggling with this too.

I remember someone in another thread provided good information regarding this ^^ .