What to do differently in prepping for Feb LSAT vs. Oct LSAT Forum

[footballlax55]

Hi guys, just wondered if anyone had suggestions for how I should prep for the February 2015 LSAT.

I took the October test and scored 169, but I predicted I'd get around 171-173 on test day. And especially because I thought I got very lucky on test day and everything went well and I felt awake and alert, I really thought i'd score between 172 and 174 with a -12 curve.

Also, when I went back over the 13 wrong questions a month later, I got 9 of them correct, averaged only 80-85 sec for each of them and most of them seemed easy. So I don't know if I got unlucky or burned out or tired or what (I didn't feel very tired, but was wired on redbull and adderall so maybe I was but didn't notice. I normally take adderall though and the whole week leaking up to the test I'd combine it with caffeine when I practiced waking up early and taking tests at 9am)

Also I panicked just a bit when I started the test because I was like oh shit this is the real thing. It also took a few minutes for me to get in the zone and not be distracted. And I think because of this it took be about a minute and 45 sec on the first question which then made me think like oh shit what if this is harder than the PTs because normally the first question takes 30-45 sec, which may have also distracted me.

So I think this lead to a time crunch towards the end and having to rush at the end may be why I got questions 19,21,22,23,25 wrong on sec 1.
I got 21/26(LR), 24/27(R),21/25(LR), 22/23(LG) for sec 1,3,4,5 on the test. So clearly my LR is weak.

Anyways, here's the prep that I did before the October test:

I did 35 PTs, and I did all the LG of 41-50 about 5 times each.
The first 10 of those (41-50) were broken up by question type within each of the sections and done loosely timed except for reading.
The next 10 were 29-38 that I did a couple of full length tests but mostly a timed section or two at a time.
The next 10 were 52-61 and I did the first 5 or so kind of like actual tests (Maybe I allowed myself to maybe go over a minute on a couple sections or I might have taken an hour break halfway trough) and the last 5 timed, 4 parts, with only a 10 or 15 min break.
The last 4 were 72-75. I did all these straight through with only a 10 or 15 min break and some with 5 parts some with only 4. There was no correlation with doing better or worse if it was 5 sections or 4 sections, so I don't think me messing up was really related to endurance because usually my issue was zoning out and/or pacing myself incorrectly and having 6 min to finish a reading passage or LG that would turn out quite difficult.

My last 7 PTs leading up to the test were 173,170,167,174,167,171,170. However, the 2 167s really weighed down the average and the first can be attributed to horrible testing conditions (parade with marching band and other crap for part of 2 sections) and the second can be attributed to just zoning out hard.

So, my main question is, where should I go from here?

I have 7.5 weeks from the end of finals to the february test. I was planning on using the 4 weeks of winter break to hit it hard and then the first 3 weeks of the semester to still keep at it, but not as intensely. I used up a lot of PTs so I'd only have like PTs 62-71 and then old ones to use.

I was going to maybe get some of the 20-30 PTs and either do them full length or drill them and then do 62-71 all full length 5 parts.

Do y'all think I should try blind reviewing tests?

And do you know how I can improve my LR? -5 and -4 on each section killed me.

[footballlax55]

Any thoughts?

[RamTitan]

Definitely blind review all of your tests. This is where you do the real learning of the LSAT.

I think your plan sounds solid. You did a good job preparing for the Oct. LSAT, but sometimes shit happens. Like I said, your plan sounds solid, but be wary of burning out. I would spend more time drilling weaknesses versus hammering out old practice tests.