What do you do when you feel burnt out? Forum

[PrayFor170]

I guess this is sort of burnout. For the entire October I did a 5-section PT in the morning, worked in the afternoon and reviewed in the evening & night every day. By the end of October I found I've dropped quite a few points, from almost consistently 170-176 to scores like 166, 167. But I find it really hard to keep my mind off LSAT and can't resist the temptation to open a book or watch 7sage videos.

What you guys usually do if you decide to take several days off? I need to find a way to relax thoroughly so that I can get energized and hopefully my score can go up, but I seem to have forgotten what life is like before I started studying LSAT.

[ManoftheHour]

I had this problem too. Go out with friends. When you're out with others, it's much easier to forget about the LSAT for a bit.

[somethingElse]

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[davey jones]

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[PrayFor170]

Wait you did a PT every single day in October? So 31 PTs?

No, only 23. I was too lazy on weekends.

[somethingElse]

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[gamerish]

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[PrayFor170]

PT'ing under test conditions 5 days a week is too much imo. I'd say a max of 3 per week is much more manageable and less likely to burn you out.

As for what to do for your break, literally anything besides LSAT. Go out with friends or family, work, volunteer for something, watch trashy TV and eat pizza, read a book, play a video game, exercise. Just do something besides LSAT for a few days.

Thanks for advice. I'll try play video games or trashy TV.
It's kind of pathetic to admit that in the past month I seemed to have lost interest in everything besides LSAT.

[PrayFor170]

Yeah, that is honestly too many PTs IMO. In your situation, I think that taking a week off would actually help you more than studying during that week would. I mean that as directly as possible - your PT average will have a better chance of returning to where it was or even improving if you take a week off than if you kept studying.

I'm also relatively skeptical as to how thorough your review was if you both worked and took a PT the same day. I think you could potentially get more out of your PTs if you did a PT one day and then the next day BR it for 2-3 hours. That still gives you 3 or so PTs a week which is plenty. However you know yourself better than I do, meaning maybe you really are able to thoroughly BR after all of that. Just personally I would get burnt out too and would probably see diminishing returns from that many PTs + Work + BR in the same day. This is also assuming you are BRing and not reviewing in less effective ways.

I can also tell you from my experience that taking a break works wonders both for PT scores and motivation.

Thanks for advice! At first I thought BR on the same day can make me reflect upon the way I tackled each question under timed condition. I worked part-time so basically from 6pm until midnight I could go through all the questions. I BRed over 178 most of the time in the first two weeks, but then it declined. I guess my usually workaholic-style does not fit into LSAT study.
I think I'm easily unnerved. I'm not always a good test-taker and tend to underperform. Also, as an ESL student I think I need some extra seconds than others to read each stimulus

[shineoncrazydiamond]

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[Phoenix97]

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[hill1334]

I guess this is sort of burnout. For the entire October I did a 5-section PT in the morning, worked in the afternoon and reviewed in the evening & night every day. By the end of October I found I've dropped quite a few points, from almost consistently 170-176 to scores like 166, 167. But I find it really hard to keep my mind off LSAT and can't resist the temptation to open a book or watch 7sage videos.

What you guys usually do if you decide to take several days off? I need to find a way to relax thoroughly so that I can get energized and hopefully my score can go up, but I seem to have forgotten what life is like before I started studying LSAT.

You should be identifying your weak points and working on those weak areas specifically, not wasting so much time doing so many PTs. If you are scoring in 170s, that means you are not missing all that many questions, and there are likely a number of question types you never actually miss. It is a monumental waste of your time to practice those questions over and over again by taking so many practice tests.

Use the practice tests and drilling packets to 1) identifying the sections you are worst at and 2) identify the question types you are worst at, and focus 80% of your energy on just those question types. I really don't think you should be taking more than 1 PT a week.

I did not go from getting half of all questions right on the logic games to all of them right on the actual exam by taking lots of PTs (I took only five over the course of six months, which was probably a few less than I should have taken, but probably better than taking 23 in a month). Rather, I identified my weak point and then I drilled. I did each logic game over and over until I got it 100% right under 8 mins (taking a couple days off in between attempts so I could forget shit).

[PrayFor170]

I guess this is sort of burnout. For the entire October I did a 5-section PT in the morning, worked in the afternoon and reviewed in the evening & night every day. By the end of October I found I've dropped quite a few points, from almost consistently 170-176 to scores like 166, 167. But I find it really hard to keep my mind off LSAT and can't resist the temptation to open a book or watch 7sage videos.

What you guys usually do if you decide to take several days off? I need to find a way to relax thoroughly so that I can get energized and hopefully my score can go up, but I seem to have forgotten what life is like before I started studying LSAT.

You should be identifying your weak points and working on those weak areas specifically, not wasting so much time doing so many PTs. If you are scoring in 170s, that means you are not missing all that many questions, and there are likely a number of question types you never actually miss. It is a monumental waste of your time to practice those questions over and over again by taking so many practice tests.

Use the practice tests and drilling packets to 1) identifying the sections you are worst at and 2) identify the question types you are worst at, and focus 80% of your energy on just those question types. I really don't think you should be taking more than 1 PT a week.

I did not go from getting half of all questions right on the logic games to all of them right on the actual exam by taking lots of PTs (I took only five over the course of six months, which was probably a few less than I should have taken, but probably better than taking 23 in a month). Rather, I identified my weak point and then I drilled. I did each logic game over and over until I got it 100% right under 8 mins (taking a couple days off in between attempts so I could forget shit).

In fact, what unnerves me is that there isn't really a specific type of questions I am weak. At least for LR, all the questions I've missed are either careless mistakes (e.g. I mistook an Inference question as a Strengthen question, or I totally ignored an entire sentence in a stimulus), or something I couldn't really figure out under timed conditions but when I looked back I found I could totally nail it, without the clock ticking in front of me. Maybe my brain is naturally slow. LG is my strongest section, and I really hope I can miss -0 on test day. RC is my weakest area, and I am now doing the Cambridge by type RC and read The Economists. I've gone through the Manhattan and The LSAT Trainer, well, they only helped me from missing -9 on RC to -5 or less, but no further. So I really welcome any suggestions on improving RC!

[hill1334]

I guess this is sort of burnout. For the entire October I did a 5-section PT in the morning, worked in the afternoon and reviewed in the evening & night every day. By the end of October I found I've dropped quite a few points, from almost consistently 170-176 to scores like 166, 167. But I find it really hard to keep my mind off LSAT and can't resist the temptation to open a book or watch 7sage videos.

What you guys usually do if you decide to take several days off? I need to find a way to relax thoroughly so that I can get energized and hopefully my score can go up, but I seem to have forgotten what life is like before I started studying LSAT.

You should be identifying your weak points and working on those weak areas specifically, not wasting so much time doing so many PTs. If you are scoring in 170s, that means you are not missing all that many questions, and there are likely a number of question types you never actually miss. It is a monumental waste of your time to practice those questions over and over again by taking so many practice tests.

Use the practice tests and drilling packets to 1) identifying the sections you are worst at and 2) identify the question types you are worst at, and focus 80% of your energy on just those question types. I really don't think you should be taking more than 1 PT a week.

I did not go from getting half of all questions right on the logic games to all of them right on the actual exam by taking lots of PTs (I took only five over the course of six months, which was probably a few less than I should have taken, but probably better than taking 23 in a month). Rather, I identified my weak point and then I drilled. I did each logic game over and over until I got it 100% right under 8 mins (taking a couple days off in between attempts so I could forget shit).

In fact, what unnerves me is that there isn't really a specific type of questions I am weak. At least for LR, all the questions I've missed are either careless mistakes (e.g. I mistook an Inference question as a Strengthen question, or I totally ignored an entire sentence in a stimulus), or something I couldn't really figure out under timed conditions but when I looked back I found I could totally nail it, without the clock ticking in front of me. Maybe my brain is naturally slow. LG is my strongest section, and I really hope I can miss -0 on test day. RC is my weakest area, and I am now doing the Cambridge by type RC and read The Economists. I've gone through the Manhattan and The LSAT Trainer, well, they only helped me from missing -9 on RC to -5 or less, but no further. So I really welcome any suggestions on improving RC!

RC is the hardest to improve on. Your ability to comprehend what you read is a product of your lifelong education, reading habits, and how your brain is wired. You are not going to actually improve your reading comprehension all that much between now and test day. In turn, it is worth realizing that there is a very good chance you are never going to get -1 or -2 on RC regularly and that is okay; it is just not as readily learnable as the other two sections. I think you will be better off if you can accept that, so you don't stress yourself out and can avoid spending too much time on RC. It is worth remembering that you can still get a 170 on the lsat while getting a -12 on RC, or a 177 while getting a -5.

With that said, through practice, you can obviously can get better at 1) recognizing what LSAT wants you to pull out of each passage while reading, 2) recognizing what LSAT is looking for with particular questions, and 3) getting a good sense of when to move on. I think one of the harder parts of the RC is that it is easy to get caught up on a question that you are unsure of for way too long, to the detriment of all the rest of the questions. Knowing when to let go and management of your time and the sections is crucial.

[hill1334]

I guess this is sort of burnout. For the entire October I did a 5-section PT in the morning, worked in the afternoon and reviewed in the evening & night every day. By the end of October I found I've dropped quite a few points, from almost consistently 170-176 to scores like 166, 167. But I find it really hard to keep my mind off LSAT and can't resist the temptation to open a book or watch 7sage videos.

What you guys usually do if you decide to take several days off? I need to find a way to relax thoroughly so that I can get energized and hopefully my score can go up, but I seem to have forgotten what life is like before I started studying LSAT.

You should be identifying your weak points and working on those weak areas specifically, not wasting so much time doing so many PTs. If you are scoring in 170s, that means you are not missing all that many questions, and there are likely a number of question types you never actually miss. It is a monumental waste of your time to practice those questions over and over again by taking so many practice tests.

Use the practice tests and drilling packets to 1) identifying the sections you are worst at and 2) identify the question types you are worst at, and focus 80% of your energy on just those question types. I really don't think you should be taking more than 1 PT a week.

I did not go from getting half of all questions right on the logic games to all of them right on the actual exam by taking lots of PTs (I took only five over the course of six months, which was probably a few less than I should have taken, but probably better than taking 23 in a month). Rather, I identified my weak point and then I drilled. I did each logic game over and over until I got it 100% right under 8 mins (taking a couple days off in between attempts so I could forget shit).

In fact, what unnerves me is that there isn't really a specific type of questions I am weak. At least for LR, all the questions I've missed are either careless mistakes (e.g. I mistook an Inference question as a Strengthen question, or I totally ignored an entire sentence in a stimulus), or something I couldn't really figure out under timed conditions but when I looked back I found I could totally nail it, without the clock ticking in front of me. Maybe my brain is naturally slow. LG is my strongest section, and I really hope I can miss -0 on test day. RC is my weakest area, and I am now doing the Cambridge by type RC and read The Economists. I've gone through the Manhattan and The LSAT Trainer, well, they only helped me from missing -9 on RC to -5 or less, but no further. So I really welcome any suggestions on improving RC!

Also, I highly, highly doubt you are missing all question types evenly. Like I am positive you are not. Start tracking which types you miss in a chart or something, rather than just trying to guess. I am positive trends will emerge.

[seagan823]

I guess this is sort of burnout. For the entire October I did a 5-section PT in the morning, worked in the afternoon and reviewed in the evening & night every day. By the end of October I found I've dropped quite a few points, from almost consistently 170-176 to scores like 166, 167. But I find it really hard to keep my mind off LSAT and can't resist the temptation to open a book or watch 7sage videos.

What you guys usually do if you decide to take several days off? I need to find a way to relax thoroughly so that I can get energized and hopefully my score can go up, but I seem to have forgotten what life is like before I started studying LSAT.

You should be identifying your weak points and working on those weak areas specifically, not wasting so much time doing so many PTs. If you are scoring in 170s, that means you are not missing all that many questions, and there are likely a number of question types you never actually miss. It is a monumental waste of your time to practice those questions over and over again by taking so many practice tests.

Use the practice tests and drilling packets to 1) identifying the sections you are worst at and 2) identify the question types you are worst at, and focus 80% of your energy on just those question types. I really don't think you should be taking more than 1 PT a week.

I did not go from getting half of all questions right on the logic games to all of them right on the actual exam by taking lots of PTs (I took only five over the course of six months, which was probably a few less than I should have taken, but probably better than taking 23 in a month). Rather, I identified my weak point and then I drilled. I did each logic game over and over until I got it 100% right under 8 mins (taking a couple days off in between attempts so I could forget shit).

In fact, what unnerves me is that there isn't really a specific type of questions I am weak. At least for LR, all the questions I've missed are either careless mistakes (e.g. I mistook an Inference question as a Strengthen question, or I totally ignored an entire sentence in a stimulus), or something I couldn't really figure out under timed conditions but when I looked back I found I could totally nail it, without the clock ticking in front of me. Maybe my brain is naturally slow. LG is my strongest section, and I really hope I can miss -0 on test day. RC is my weakest area, and I am now doing the Cambridge by type RC and read The Economists. I've gone through the Manhattan and The LSAT Trainer, well, they only helped me from missing -9 on RC to -5 or less, but no further. So I really welcome any suggestions on improving RC!

Also, I highly, highly doubt you are missing all question types evenly. Like I am positive you are not. Start tracking which types you miss in a chart or something, rather than just trying to guess. I am positive trends will emerge.

I dunno, I think it is entirely plausible that he is not missing the same question types all the time. I did question type training on LR for a long time before I started doing full sections and then PTs regularly. It was easy to learn the q types and get to -0 to -3. It was really hard to figure out how to push past that to get to consistently -0 or -1 because once you know how to do it you just get hung up on the difficult questions regardless of type.

[PrayFor170]

I guess this is sort of burnout. For the entire October I did a 5-section PT in the morning, worked in the afternoon and reviewed in the evening & night every day. By the end of October I found I've dropped quite a few points, from almost consistently 170-176 to scores like 166, 167. But I find it really hard to keep my mind off LSAT and can't resist the temptation to open a book or watch 7sage videos.

What you guys usually do if you decide to take several days off? I need to find a way to relax thoroughly so that I can get energized and hopefully my score can go up, but I seem to have forgotten what life is like before I started studying LSAT.

You should be identifying your weak points and working on those weak areas specifically, not wasting so much time doing so many PTs. If you are scoring in 170s, that means you are not missing all that many questions, and there are likely a number of question types you never actually miss. It is a monumental waste of your time to practice those questions over and over again by taking so many practice tests.

Use the practice tests and drilling packets to 1) identifying the sections you are worst at and 2) identify the question types you are worst at, and focus 80% of your energy on just those question types. I really don't think you should be taking more than 1 PT a week.

I did not go from getting half of all questions right on the logic games to all of them right on the actual exam by taking lots of PTs (I took only five over the course of six months, which was probably a few less than I should have taken, but probably better than taking 23 in a month). Rather, I identified my weak point and then I drilled. I did each logic game over and over until I got it 100% right under 8 mins (taking a couple days off in between attempts so I could forget shit).

In fact, what unnerves me is that there isn't really a specific type of questions I am weak. At least for LR, all the questions I've missed are either careless mistakes (e.g. I mistook an Inference question as a Strengthen question, or I totally ignored an entire sentence in a stimulus), or something I couldn't really figure out under timed conditions but when I looked back I found I could totally nail it, without the clock ticking in front of me. Maybe my brain is naturally slow. LG is my strongest section, and I really hope I can miss -0 on test day. RC is my weakest area, and I am now doing the Cambridge by type RC and read The Economists. I've gone through the Manhattan and The LSAT Trainer, well, they only helped me from missing -9 on RC to -5 or less, but no further. So I really welcome any suggestions on improving RC!

RC is the hardest to improve on. Your ability to comprehend what you read is a product of your lifelong education, reading habits, and how your brain is wired. You are not going to actually improve your reading comprehension all that much between now and test day. In turn, it is worth realizing that there is a very good chance you are never going to get -1 or -2 on RC regularly and that is okay; it is just not as readily learnable as the other two sections. I think you will be better off if you can accept that, so you don't stress yourself out and can avoid spending too much time on RC. It is worth remembering that you can still get a 170 on the lsat while getting a -12 on RC, or a 177 while getting a -5.

With that said, through practice, you can obviously can get better at 1) recognizing what LSAT wants you to pull out of each passage while reading, 2) recognizing what LSAT is looking for with particular questions, and 3) getting a good sense of when to move on. I think one of the harder parts of the RC is that it is easy to get caught up on a question that you are unsure of for way too long, to the detriment of all the rest of the questions. Knowing when to let go and management of your time and the sections is crucial.

Oh man you just hit me really hard....English isn't my first language, maybe that's a factor why I perform poorly in RC. I do get -1 or -2 on RC very occasionally (like 5 times out of 23 PTs) , but usually -4 or -5 is commonly the case.
I'd be happy with 170, but a few points more can secure so much $$$

[hill1334]

I guess this is sort of burnout. For the entire October I did a 5-section PT in the morning, worked in the afternoon and reviewed in the evening & night every day. By the end of October I found I've dropped quite a few points, from almost consistently 170-176 to scores like 166, 167. But I find it really hard to keep my mind off LSAT and can't resist the temptation to open a book or watch 7sage videos.

What you guys usually do if you decide to take several days off? I need to find a way to relax thoroughly so that I can get energized and hopefully my score can go up, but I seem to have forgotten what life is like before I started studying LSAT.

You should be identifying your weak points and working on those weak areas specifically, not wasting so much time doing so many PTs. If you are scoring in 170s, that means you are not missing all that many questions, and there are likely a number of question types you never actually miss. It is a monumental waste of your time to practice those questions over and over again by taking so many practice tests.

Use the practice tests and drilling packets to 1) identifying the sections you are worst at and 2) identify the question types you are worst at, and focus 80% of your energy on just those question types. I really don't think you should be taking more than 1 PT a week.

I did not go from getting half of all questions right on the logic games to all of them right on the actual exam by taking lots of PTs (I took only five over the course of six months, which was probably a few less than I should have taken, but probably better than taking 23 in a month). Rather, I identified my weak point and then I drilled. I did each logic game over and over until I got it 100% right under 8 mins (taking a couple days off in between attempts so I could forget shit).

In fact, what unnerves me is that there isn't really a specific type of questions I am weak. At least for LR, all the questions I've missed are either careless mistakes (e.g. I mistook an Inference question as a Strengthen question, or I totally ignored an entire sentence in a stimulus), or something I couldn't really figure out under timed conditions but when I looked back I found I could totally nail it, without the clock ticking in front of me. Maybe my brain is naturally slow. LG is my strongest section, and I really hope I can miss -0 on test day. RC is my weakest area, and I am now doing the Cambridge by type RC and read The Economists. I've gone through the Manhattan and The LSAT Trainer, well, they only helped me from missing -9 on RC to -5 or less, but no further. So I really welcome any suggestions on improving RC!

Also, I highly, highly doubt you are missing all question types evenly. Like I am positive you are not. Start tracking which types you miss in a chart or something, rather than just trying to guess. I am positive trends will emerge.

I dunno, I think it is entirely plausible that he is not missing the same question types all the time. I did question type training on LR for a long time before I started doing full sections and then PTs regularly. It was easy to learn the q types and get to -0 to -3. It was really hard to figure out how to push past that to get to consistently -0 or -1 because once you know how to do it you just get hung up on the difficult questions regardless of type.

I am not saying he is not missing a variety of different questions, like every time he is just missing strengthening questions. In fact, I would expect he is missing a wide variety of them. However, out of every 100 or so he does miss, I am positive he is missing certain question types at a proportionally higher rate. Like out of every 100 he gets wrong, e.g., he probably only misses 1 or 2 weaken, but he misses 5 strengthen, and 10 main points (I realize those are all easier question types and he is probably missing few if any of them; they are just meant to represent the spread). Those patterns are worth looking for, particularly because they might also clue you into which kinds of questions you usually get right, but that you have to spend an inordinate amount of time on to do so.

[hill1334]

Accidental Post

[hill1334]

In fact, what unnerves me is that there isn't really a specific type of questions I am weak. At least for LR, all the questions I've missed are either careless mistakes (e.g. I mistook an Inference question as a Strengthen question, or I totally ignored an entire sentence in a stimulus), or something I couldn't really figure out under timed conditions but when I looked back I found I could totally nail it, without the clock ticking in front of me. Maybe my brain is naturally slow. LG is my strongest section, and I really hope I can miss -0 on test day. RC is my weakest area, and I am now doing the Cambridge by type RC and read The Economists. I've gone through the Manhattan and The LSAT Trainer, well, they only helped me from missing -9 on RC to -5 or less, but no further. So I really welcome any suggestions on improving RC![/quote]

RC is the hardest to improve on. Your ability to comprehend what you read is a product of your lifelong education, reading habits, and how your brain is wired. You are not going to actually improve your reading comprehension all that much between now and test day. In turn, it is worth realizing that there is a very good chance you are never going to get -1 or -2 on RC regularly and that is okay; it is just not as readily learnable as the other two sections. I think you will be better off if you can accept that, so you don't stress yourself out and can avoid spending too much time on RC. It is worth remembering that you can still get a 170 on the lsat while getting a -12 on RC, or a 177 while getting a -5.

With that said, through practice, you can obviously can get better at 1) recognizing what LSAT wants you to pull out of each passage while reading, 2) recognizing what LSAT is looking for with particular questions, and 3) getting a good sense of when to move on. I think one of the harder parts of the RC is that it is easy to get caught up on a question that you are unsure of for way too long, to the detriment of all the rest of the questions. Knowing when to let go and management of your time and the sections is crucial.[/quote]

Oh man you just hit me really hard....English isn't my first language, maybe that's a factor why I perform poorly in RC. I do get -1 or -2 on RC very occasionally (like 5 times out of 23 PTs) , but usually -4 or -5 is commonly the case.
I'd be happy with 170, but a few points more can secure so much $$$[/quote]

Actually, if English is not your second language, you may have more room to grow in a shorter period of time. Same logic as above applies.

I am not saying you can't improve, just that you should not be too hard on yourself if you don't. And really, -3 or -4 on RC is very solid.