Are PTs before 51 under simulated conditions a waste? Forum

[WeightliftingThinker]

I am planning on completing most PTs between 36 and 50 under test-day conditions (environment, timed). I also know that the test has evolved over the years (comparative reading, etc.). So is it a waste to do pre-51 PTs under test-day conditions?

[Mikey]

No PT is a waste. They all have value, and even though older PT's don't have comparative RC, they still have the regular passages which are still seen now. LR in the early PT's that have 2 questions per argument aren't seen now obviously, but that doesn't mean they're not useful in helping you understand question types.

[ponderingmeerkat]

Dude, they're useful but I wouldn't be building a sense of your average anticipated performance from them.

For instance, I'm getting scores in the 167-168 range on current tests (with the occasional outlier 165 and 170). But, I use PT30's for my 5th section in order to get used to taking a full-up exam. When I aggregate my performance on those sections, I've scored a 175 and 176 respectively. So, pretty significant difference.

I guess what I'm saying is I'd probably go into exam day thinking I'm a 175 test taker if those were my frame of reference and be devastated when I get a 168. So, as long as you practice some expectation management, they are good for drilling, supplementing, etc.

[Hikikomorist]

I almost exclusively prepped with the ten oldest exams, and they did a really good job of predicting my actual score.

[grades??]

Every single lsat is important. The recent ones from the past two years have had games only seen in the first 10 lsats or so. They are bringing back older questions. They have even put in the single stimuli with two questions in LR sections again. So yes, the earlier lsats are still super important. You should be prepared for any question ever given by the lsat previously.

Fyi I was a 175+ scorer, at a PDV on a significantly large scholarship. Did take 3 tries. My last lsat was the one where I took every lsat ever administered from 1-73 or whatever it was then. Under real testing conditions. Twice. Only then did I crush the exam.

[WeightliftingThinker]

Dude, they're useful but I wouldn't be building a sense of your average anticipated performance from them.

For instance, I'm getting scores in the 167-168 range on current tests (with the occasional outlier 165 and 170). But, I use PT30's for my 5th section in order to get used to taking a full-up exam. When I aggregate my performance on those sections, I've scored a 175 and 176 respectively. So, pretty significant difference.

I guess what I'm saying is I'd probably go into exam day thinking I'm a 175 test taker if those were my frame of reference and be devastated when I get a 168. So, as long as you practice some expectation management, they are good for drilling, supplementing, etc.

I still will be practicing with the most recent ones. My plan is to go from the oldest to the earliest by test day, starting with PT 36 and into the 70s.

[RamTitan]

Fyi I was a 175+ scorer, at a PDV on a significantly large scholarship. Did take 3 tries. My last lsat was the one where I took every lsat ever administered from 1-73 or whatever it was then. Under real testing conditions. Twice. Only then did I crush the exam.

Could you elaborate on this a little more? You took 146 tests while studying for the third try? How long did it take you to do that?

[grades??]

Fyi I was a 175+ scorer, at a PDV on a significantly large scholarship. Did take 3 tries. My last lsat was the one where I took every lsat ever administered from 1-73 or whatever it was then. Under real testing conditions. Twice. Only then did I crush the exam.

Could you elaborate on this a little more? You took 146 tests while studying for the third try? How long did it take you to do that?

I took the exam in sept, dec, and june. I had taken lsats like 50-70ish as practice for those two exams, but didn't score well enough. Starting the day after christmas, I took every lsat ever given twice. It took me up to like a week before the exam. I did a test every day while in grad school full time. Now granted for the first 72 or whatever go around I only did 4 section tests. Once I got back to the start, I did in 5 sections. I also practiced stamina by usually only taking the 4 section ones in a row. 4 sections straight through. I also did that with some, but only like 10-20% of the 5 section ones. So by the time the june lsat came about, I had taken every lsat at least twice, and tests 50-70ish 3 times. I am so glad I did. My exam in june had a game not seen in any lsats since before lsat 10. If I had not done what I did to study, I would have stayed in the low 160s and not been where I am now.

Also I know how crazy and ADD this sounds. But its true. I was pissed after two exams and decided to leave nothing to chance. I went to school from 9-5ish, then dinner, then the library from 7-10/1030 to take my practice exam. In between classes the next day, I would review my exam from the night before and work on trying to understand my mistakes and learn from them. It worked for me.

Edit: I also took a full week off during spring break to go on vacation. That week actually really helped, it was the difference between scoring low 170s and high 170s. Also, I did use the books/study aids/ etc for the first two but not my third try. I just decided enough of the gimmicks, I'm going to learn the exam my way and how to beat it with it making sense to me. But it was good to have a fundamental knowledge, especially for games for consistency. But seriously once you take the lsat enough, the question material stops mattering. On my high 170s score, 90% of the questions I immediately recognized what they wanted and the right answer. I have spoken to a person who founded one of the prep companies and their experience having seen the lsat so many times is very similar. The questions repeat themselves over and over, its just the same patterns being used and repeated. So recently the lsat has been trying to use much older questions here and there like really old games because most people don't go back that far and study, and it helps have a more curved test.

Double edit: I also want to point out I know I didn't have my Dec score yet when I started studying again. However, I felt that I didn't do well enough and that was the case, so I had like a two week head start on studying.

[RamTitan]

Fyi I was a 175+ scorer, at a PDV on a significantly large scholarship. Did take 3 tries. My last lsat was the one where I took every lsat ever administered from 1-73 or whatever it was then. Under real testing conditions. Twice. Only then did I crush the exam.

Could you elaborate on this a little more? You took 146 tests while studying for the third try? How long did it take you to do that?

I took the exam in sept, dec, and june. I had taken lsats like 50-70ish as practice for those two exams, but didn't score well enough. Starting the day after christmas, I took every lsat ever given twice. It took me up to like a week before the exam. I did a test every day while in grad school full time. Now granted for the first 72 or whatever go around I only did 4 section tests. Once I got back to the start, I did in 5 sections. I also practiced stamina by usually only taking the 4 section ones in a row. 4 sections straight through. I also did that with some, but only like 10-20% of the 5 section ones. So by the time the june lsat came about, I had taken every lsat at least twice, and tests 50-70ish 3 times. I am so glad I did. My exam in june had a game not seen in any lsats since before lsat 10. If I had not done what I did to study, I would have stayed in the low 160s and not been where I am now.

Also I know how crazy and ADD this sounds. But its true. I was pissed after two exams and decided to leave nothing to chance. I went to school from 9-5ish, then dinner, then the library from 7-10/1030 to take my practice exam. In between classes the next day, I would review my exam from the night before and work on trying to understand my mistakes and learn from them. It worked for me.
.

Holy crap....I don't know if I have the balls to do that. In the past year I've taken 43 practice tests, and will take 8 more before the June exam (note that about 10-12 of those are retakes). And I'm still stuck in the 166-171 range (174-177 on retakes). I'm kind of freaking out, as if I don't get at least a 170 I'm going to retake, but I've already used and reused so many of the test materials and have studied for so long that I worry that it isn't feasible.

However, it sounds like that wasn't the case for you. Do you feel taking the exam multiple times was beneficial to you? And do you think I'm still capable of learning more after a year of studying?

[grades??]

Fyi I was a 175+ scorer, at a PDV on a significantly large scholarship. Did take 3 tries. My last lsat was the one where I took every lsat ever administered from 1-73 or whatever it was then. Under real testing conditions. Twice. Only then did I crush the exam.

Could you elaborate on this a little more? You took 146 tests while studying for the third try? How long did it take you to do that?

I took the exam in sept, dec, and june. I had taken lsats like 50-70ish as practice for those two exams, but didn't score well enough. Starting the day after christmas, I took every lsat ever given twice. It took me up to like a week before the exam. I did a test every day while in grad school full time. Now granted for the first 72 or whatever go around I only did 4 section tests. Once I got back to the start, I did in 5 sections. I also practiced stamina by usually only taking the 4 section ones in a row. 4 sections straight through. I also did that with some, but only like 10-20% of the 5 section ones. So by the time the june lsat came about, I had taken every lsat at least twice, and tests 50-70ish 3 times. I am so glad I did. My exam in june had a game not seen in any lsats since before lsat 10. If I had not done what I did to study, I would have stayed in the low 160s and not been where I am now.

Also I know how crazy and ADD this sounds. But its true. I was pissed after two exams and decided to leave nothing to chance. I went to school from 9-5ish, then dinner, then the library from 7-10/1030 to take my practice exam. In between classes the next day, I would review my exam from the night before and work on trying to understand my mistakes and learn from them. It worked for me.
.

Holy crap....I don't know if I have the balls to do that. In the past year I've taken 43 practice tests, and will take 8 more before the June exam (note that about 10-12 of those are retakes). And I'm still stuck in the 166-171 range (174-177 on retakes). I'm kind of freaking out, as if I don't get at least a 170 I'm going to retake, but I've already used and reused so many of the test materials and have studied for so long that I worry that it isn't feasible.

However, it sounds like that wasn't the case for you. Do you feel taking the exam multiple times was beneficial to you? And do you think I'm still capable of learning more after a year of studying?

From when I started studying in june the year before till the next june exam was exactly a year. It wasn't until the last 2 months or so (after I took a week off and traveled) that I started to hit 175+ consistently. I was also afraid I would remember questions but going through the exams 1-72 made it easier. Maybe I would remember 1 or 2 questions an exam from previous experience. But when I did, I forced myself to focus on the process of what type of question is this, what does that mean for answer choices, etc. So it wasn't as big of a problem as I thought it would. Honestly as long as you space out when you repeat the material, you wont remember. You might recognize the question stem as "oh, this stupid dinosaur question" but generally you wont remember the answer, and if you did, that should be a red flag to go through a systematic process of proving the answer right. My advice: start at lsat 1. Go through them for as long as you can. You obviously wont get through them all before june. But get through as many as possible. At this point it might be taking the games section and a LR section from each of the first 30 exams. Then two weeks before the exam, start at tests in the 6ish range till the latest released one. That way you make sure you work through older problems that you probably haven't seen before as well as the more recent ones you probably have but with enough time in between that you will be fine not remembering.

Also, when I first started studying a year before, my first diagnostic was a 142. I didn't have the greatest GPA so I knew I had to crush the lsat to achieve my goals. Honest, truth to whatever deity, if I did not study how I did those final 5 months or so, I wouldn't have done as well as I did. I needed that in order to make the difference between 160s and high 170s. Now for some people, they just intuitively get the lsat. I know a girl who literally took 10 practice exams and scored a 179. But people like her are the exception. For the most part, the people I know who actually got 175+ all essentially did the same thing- they took every lsat they could over and over. They learned the system and the rhythm of the lsat.

[RamTitan]

Fyi I was a 175+ scorer, at a PDV on a significantly large scholarship. Did take 3 tries. My last lsat was the one where I took every lsat ever administered from 1-73 or whatever it was then. Under real testing conditions. Twice. Only then did I crush the exam.

Could you elaborate on this a little more? You took 146 tests while studying for the third try? How long did it take you to do that?

I took the exam in sept, dec, and june. I had taken lsats like 50-70ish as practice for those two exams, but didn't score well enough. Starting the day after christmas, I took every lsat ever given twice. It took me up to like a week before the exam. I did a test every day while in grad school full time. Now granted for the first 72 or whatever go around I only did 4 section tests. Once I got back to the start, I did in 5 sections. I also practiced stamina by usually only taking the 4 section ones in a row. 4 sections straight through. I also did that with some, but only like 10-20% of the 5 section ones. So by the time the june lsat came about, I had taken every lsat at least twice, and tests 50-70ish 3 times. I am so glad I did. My exam in june had a game not seen in any lsats since before lsat 10. If I had not done what I did to study, I would have stayed in the low 160s and not been where I am now.

Also I know how crazy and ADD this sounds. But its true. I was pissed after two exams and decided to leave nothing to chance. I went to school from 9-5ish, then dinner, then the library from 7-10/1030 to take my practice exam. In between classes the next day, I would review my exam from the night before and work on trying to understand my mistakes and learn from them. It worked for me.
.

Holy crap....I don't know if I have the balls to do that. In the past year I've taken 43 practice tests, and will take 8 more before the June exam (note that about 10-12 of those are retakes). And I'm still stuck in the 166-171 range (174-177 on retakes). I'm kind of freaking out, as if I don't get at least a 170 I'm going to retake, but I've already used and reused so many of the test materials and have studied for so long that I worry that it isn't feasible.

However, it sounds like that wasn't the case for you. Do you feel taking the exam multiple times was beneficial to you? And do you think I'm still capable of learning more after a year of studying?

From when I started studying in june the year before till the next june exam was exactly a year. It wasn't until the last 2 months or so (after I took a week off and traveled) that I started to hit 175+ consistently. I was also afraid I would remember questions but going through the exams 1-72 made it easier. Maybe I would remember 1 or 2 questions an exam from previous experience. But when I did, I forced myself to focus on the process of what type of question is this, what does that mean for answer choices, etc. So it wasn't as big of a problem as I thought it would. Honestly as long as you space out when you repeat the material, you wont remember. You might recognize the question stem as "oh, this stupid dinosaur question" but generally you wont remember the answer, and if you did, that should be a red flag to go through a systematic process of proving the answer right. My advice: start at lsat 1. Go through them for as long as you can. You obviously wont get through them all before june. But get through as many as possible. At this point it might be taking the games section and a LR section from each of the first 30 exams. Then two weeks before the exam, start at tests in the 6ish range till the latest released one. That way you make sure you work through older problems that you probably haven't seen before as well as the more recent ones you probably have but with enough time in between that you will be fine not remembering.

Also, when I first started studying a year before, my first diagnostic was a 142. I didn't have the greatest GPA so I knew I had to crush the lsat to achieve my goals. Honest, truth to whatever deity, if I did not study how I did those final 5 months or so, I wouldn't have done as well as I did. I needed that in order to make the difference between 160s and high 170s. Now for some people, they just intuitively get the lsat. I know a girl who literally took 10 practice exams and scored a 179. But people like her are the exception. For the most part, the people I know who actually got 175+ all essentially did the same thing- they took every lsat they could over and over. They learned the system and the rhythm of the lsat.

We're actually pretty similiar; I've been studying for a year, and my diagnostic was a 146. But I've been in the 166-171 range for almost 8 months......

I'm going to keep chugging along for June as is though. I don't want to do LSAT 1-8 right before the exam....who knows, maybe I'll be able to finally crack through these last few weeks.

With that said, this is pretty awesome advice, and I'll definitely employ it for a retake. Where did you end up getting into law school?

Edit - another thing to consider in my case is that almost all of my missed points are from RC

[WeightliftingThinker]

Fyi I was a 175+ scorer, at a PDV on a significantly large scholarship. Did take 3 tries. My last lsat was the one where I took every lsat ever administered from 1-73 or whatever it was then. Under real testing conditions. Twice. Only then did I crush the exam.

Could you elaborate on this a little more? You took 146 tests while studying for the third try? How long did it take you to do that?

I took the exam in sept, dec, and june. I had taken lsats like 50-70ish as practice for those two exams, but didn't score well enough. Starting the day after christmas, I took every lsat ever given twice. It took me up to like a week before the exam. I did a test every day while in grad school full time. Now granted for the first 72 or whatever go around I only did 4 section tests. Once I got back to the start, I did in 5 sections. I also practiced stamina by usually only taking the 4 section ones in a row. 4 sections straight through. I also did that with some, but only like 10-20% of the 5 section ones. So by the time the june lsat came about, I had taken every lsat at least twice, and tests 50-70ish 3 times. I am so glad I did. My exam in june had a game not seen in any lsats since before lsat 10. If I had not done what I did to study, I would have stayed in the low 160s and not been where I am now.

Also I know how crazy and ADD this sounds. But its true. I was pissed after two exams and decided to leave nothing to chance. I went to school from 9-5ish, then dinner, then the library from 7-10/1030 to take my practice exam. In between classes the next day, I would review my exam from the night before and work on trying to understand my mistakes and learn from them. It worked for me.
.

Holy crap....I don't know if I have the balls to do that. In the past year I've taken 43 practice tests, and will take 8 more before the June exam (note that about 10-12 of those are retakes). And I'm still stuck in the 166-171 range (174-177 on retakes). I'm kind of freaking out, as if I don't get at least a 170 I'm going to retake, but I've already used and reused so many of the test materials and have studied for so long that I worry that it isn't feasible.

However, it sounds like that wasn't the case for you. Do you feel taking the exam multiple times was beneficial to you? And do you think I'm still capable of learning more after a year of studying?

From when I started studying in june the year before till the next june exam was exactly a year. It wasn't until the last 2 months or so (after I took a week off and traveled) that I started to hit 175+ consistently. I was also afraid I would remember questions but going through the exams 1-72 made it easier. Maybe I would remember 1 or 2 questions an exam from previous experience. But when I did, I forced myself to focus on the process of what type of question is this, what does that mean for answer choices, etc. So it wasn't as big of a problem as I thought it would. Honestly as long as you space out when you repeat the material, you wont remember. You might recognize the question stem as "oh, this stupid dinosaur question" but generally you wont remember the answer, and if you did, that should be a red flag to go through a systematic process of proving the answer right. My advice: start at lsat 1. Go through them for as long as you can. You obviously wont get through them all before june. But get through as many as possible. At this point it might be taking the games section and a LR section from each of the first 30 exams. Then two weeks before the exam, start at tests in the 6ish range till the latest released one. That way you make sure you work through older problems that you probably haven't seen before as well as the more recent ones you probably have but with enough time in between that you will be fine not remembering.

Also, when I first started studying a year before, my first diagnostic was a 142. I didn't have the greatest GPA so I knew I had to crush the lsat to achieve my goals. Honest, truth to whatever deity, if I did not study how I did those final 5 months or so, I wouldn't have done as well as I did. I needed that in order to make the difference between 160s and high 170s. Now for some people, they just intuitively get the lsat. I know a girl who literally took 10 practice exams and scored a 179. But people like her are the exception. For the most part, the people I know who actually got 175+ all essentially did the same thing- they took every lsat they could over and over. They learned the system and the rhythm of the lsat.

Are you emphasizing repetition of exams one has already taken or consistently trying new exams or both?

[Goldchain]

Every single lsat is important. The recent ones from the past two years have had games only seen in the first 10 lsats or so. They are bringing back older questions. They have even put in the single stimuli with two questions in LR sections again. So yes, the earlier lsats are still super important. You should be prepared for any question ever given by the lsat previously.

Fyi I was a 175+ scorer, at a PDV on a significantly large scholarship. Did take 3 tries. My last lsat was the one where I took every lsat ever administered from 1-73 or whatever it was then. Under real testing conditions. Twice. Only then did I crush the exam.

I got hyped reading this! That's awesome!

[FayRays]

Fyi I was a 175+ scorer, at a PDV on a significantly large scholarship. Did take 3 tries. My last lsat was the one where I took every lsat ever administered from 1-73 or whatever it was then. Under real testing conditions. Twice. Only then did I crush the exam.

Could you elaborate on this a little more? You took 146 tests while studying for the third try? How long did it take you to do that?

I took the exam in sept, dec, and june. I had taken lsats like 50-70ish as practice for those two exams, but didn't score well enough. Starting the day after christmas, I took every lsat ever given twice. It took me up to like a week before the exam. I did a test every day while in grad school full time. Now granted for the first 72 or whatever go around I only did 4 section tests. Once I got back to the start, I did in 5 sections. I also practiced stamina by usually only taking the 4 section ones in a row. 4 sections straight through. I also did that with some, but only like 10-20% of the 5 section ones. So by the time the june lsat came about, I had taken every lsat at least twice, and tests 50-70ish 3 times. I am so glad I did. My exam in june had a game not seen in any lsats since before lsat 10. If I had not done what I did to study, I would have stayed in the low 160s and not been where I am now.

Also I know how crazy and ADD this sounds. But its true. I was pissed after two exams and decided to leave nothing to chance. I went to school from 9-5ish, then dinner, then the library from 7-10/1030 to take my practice exam. In between classes the next day, I would review my exam from the night before and work on trying to understand my mistakes and learn from them. It worked for me.
.

Holy crap....I don't know if I have the balls to do that. In the past year I've taken 43 practice tests, and will take 8 more before the June exam (note that about 10-12 of those are retakes). And I'm still stuck in the 166-171 range (174-177 on retakes). I'm kind of freaking out, as if I don't get at least a 170 I'm going to retake, but I've already used and reused so many of the test materials and have studied for so long that I worry that it isn't feasible.

However, it sounds like that wasn't the case for you. Do you feel taking the exam multiple times was beneficial to you? And do you think I'm still capable of learning more after a year of studying?

From when I started studying in june the year before till the next june exam was exactly a year. It wasn't until the last 2 months or so (after I took a week off and traveled) that I started to hit 175+ consistently. I was also afraid I would remember questions but going through the exams 1-72 made it easier. Maybe I would remember 1 or 2 questions an exam from previous experience. But when I did, I forced myself to focus on the process of what type of question is this, what does that mean for answer choices, etc. So it wasn't as big of a problem as I thought it would. Honestly as long as you space out when you repeat the material, you wont remember. You might recognize the question stem as "oh, this stupid dinosaur question" but generally you wont remember the answer, and if you did, that should be a red flag to go through a systematic process of proving the answer right. My advice: start at lsat 1. Go through them for as long as you can. You obviously wont get through them all before june. But get through as many as possible. At this point it might be taking the games section and a LR section from each of the first 30 exams. Then two weeks before the exam, start at tests in the 6ish range till the latest released one. That way you make sure you work through older problems that you probably haven't seen before as well as the more recent ones you probably have but with enough time in between that you will be fine not remembering.

Also, when I first started studying a year before, my first diagnostic was a 142. I didn't have the greatest GPA so I knew I had to crush the lsat to achieve my goals. Honest, truth to whatever deity, if I did not study how I did those final 5 months or so, I wouldn't have done as well as I did. I needed that in order to make the difference between 160s and high 170s. Now for some people, they just intuitively get the lsat. I know a girl who literally took 10 practice exams and scored a 179. But people like her are the exception. For the most part, the people I know who actually got 175+ all essentially did the same thing- they took every lsat they could over and over. They learned the system and the rhythm of the lsat.

You are a legend and you deserve to be where you are at right now
Congratulations and thank you for the advice and the inspirations