LSAT Prep Advice; Old Tests vs. Drilling By Type? Forum

[RamTitan]

I've posted on here a lot, but for those of you who don't know my situation, I scored a 169 in June after a year of studying. I started at a 146, but never broke out of the 167-171 range (until this past weekend - scored a 172 on a fresh test lol). Anyways, I've burned through all of the recent tests, and I am thinking of taking a new approach to studying.

Approach A (what I'm currently doing): retaking two practice tests a week while drilling the hardest games and stimuli. With that said, I bought both LSAT superpreps, which have a combined total of 4 unreleased tests.

Approach B (what I'm thinking of doing): since 3 of the 4 superprep unreleased tests are from before the year 2000, I am considering skipping those tests and instead spendingthose days drilling LR problems by type. I recently read a testimonial from one LSAT student who said he was at a 170 plateau, stopped taking tests for a few weeks and focused on drilling by type, and was able to bump himself into the 175+ range. Problem is, is that I typically don't miss a specific type but rather just hard questions in general (which is why I have been spending each week doing at least 2 tests worth (or 4 sections) of problems 11-25 so I can get used to dealing with difficult stimuli).

At this point, I typically can score 175+ on a retake, and I don't see the point in sitting to take an older test which is going to be pretty different than the modern LSAT. Since I've been in this score range for so long, perhaps it's time to try something new?

[proteinshake]

doesn't Superprep II have 2 tests that are released? I thought the only new one was Jan/Feb 2016

[SunDevil14]

I've posted on here a lot, but for those of you who don't know my situation, I scored a 169 in June after a year of studying. I started at a 146, but never broke out of the 167-171 range (until this past weekend - scored a 172 on a fresh test lol). Anyways, I've burned through all of the recent tests, and I am thinking of taking a new approach to studying.

Approach A (what I'm currently doing): retaking two practice tests a week while drilling the hardest games and stimuli. With that said, I bought both LSAT superpreps, which have a combined total of 4 unreleased tests.

Approach B (what I'm thinking of doing): since 3 of the 4 superprep unreleased tests are from before the year 2000, I am considering skipping those tests and instead spendingthose days drilling LR problems by type. I recently read a testimonial from one LSAT student who said he was at a 170 plateau, stopped taking tests for a few weeks and focused on drilling by type, and was able to bump himself into the 175+ range. Problem is, is that I typically don't miss a specific type but rather just hard questions in general (which is why I have been spending each week doing at least 2 tests worth (or 4 sections) of problems 11-25 so I can get used to dealing with difficult stimuli).

At this point, I typically can score 175+ on a retake, and I don't see the point in sitting to take an older test which is going to be pretty different than the modern LSAT. Since I've been in this score range for so long, perhaps it's time to try something new?

I am currently using Approach B, I will let you know how it works out. As far as older tests and questions go, I'd say that many if not most of the LR questions are still relevant. Games are hit and miss. I have done all the games from the first 20 tests and many are not relevant to modern tests, though most of the bread and butter games are still relevant. Reading Comp is just reading, though you do not have the benefit of the comparative passage sections.

Is there a particular question type that you usually get right (except for the most difficult questions) that you find particularly time consuming? Perhaps increasing your speed on those types of questions will give you more time to analyze and potentially get more difficult questions right.

[Deardevil]

I would drill.

Regarding the SuperPrep, it wouldn't be much help, honestly.
Haven't touched the book in a while, so I'll probably redo LR;
as for games in the first, though... Those are hella hard.

[RamTitan]

doesn't Superprep II have 2 tests that are released? I thought the only new one was Jan/Feb 2016

That is correct; superprep II has one unreleased test, and superprep I has three unreleased tests. I'm not sure what year the unreleased test superprep II is from, but I know vol. 1's tests are all from before 2000.

[proteinshake]

doesn't Superprep II have 2 tests that are released? I thought the only new one was Jan/Feb 2016

That is correct; superprep II has one unreleased test, and superprep I has three unreleased tests. I'm not sure what year the unreleased test superprep II is from, but I know vol. 1's tests are all from before 2000.

unreleased for II is the Feb test of this year.

[RamTitan]

I've posted on here a lot, but for those of you who don't know my situation, I scored a 169 in June after a year of studying. I started at a 146, but never broke out of the 167-171 range (until this past weekend - scored a 172 on a fresh test lol). Anyways, I've burned through all of the recent tests, and I am thinking of taking a new approach to studying.

Approach A (what I'm currently doing): retaking two practice tests a week while drilling the hardest games and stimuli. With that said, I bought both LSAT superpreps, which have a combined total of 4 unreleased tests.

Approach B (what I'm thinking of doing): since 3 of the 4 superprep unreleased tests are from before the year 2000, I am considering skipping those tests and instead spendingthose days drilling LR problems by type. I recently read a testimonial from one LSAT student who said he was at a 170 plateau, stopped taking tests for a few weeks and focused on drilling by type, and was able to bump himself into the 175+ range. Problem is, is that I typically don't miss a specific type but rather just hard questions in general (which is why I have been spending each week doing at least 2 tests worth (or 4 sections) of problems 11-25 so I can get used to dealing with difficult stimuli).

At this point, I typically can score 175+ on a retake, and I don't see the point in sitting to take an older test which is going to be pretty different than the modern LSAT. Since I've been in this score range for so long, perhaps it's time to try something new?

I am currently using Approach B, I will let you know how it works out. As far as older tests and questions go, I'd say that many if not most of the LR questions are still relevant. Games are hit and miss. I have done all the games from the first 20 tests and many are not relevant to modern tests, though most of the bread and butter games are still relevant. Reading Comp is just reading, though you do not have the benefit of the comparative passage sections.

Is there a particular question type that you usually get right (except for the most difficult questions) that you find particularly time consuming? Perhaps increasing your speed on those types of questions will give you more time to analyze and potentially get more difficult questions right.

Some of the older game types are starting to circulate back into the tests though, so it's advised to at least be familiar with them (plus drilling harder games will make the others look easy by comparison).

I have found that LR has gone from more difficult stims and generic answer choices to easier stims and very obtuse answer choices. And yeah, RC has probably stayed the same for the most part.

Edit - forgot to address your other point

Parallel Reasoning and Sufficient Assumption questions, so I will definitely not take an older test this weekend and just focus on those two types for an entire day. We'll see how I feel after that.

[RamTitan]

doesn't Superprep II have 2 tests that are released? I thought the only new one was Jan/Feb 2016

That is correct; superprep II has one unreleased test, and superprep I has three unreleased tests. I'm not sure what year the unreleased test superprep II is from, but I know vol. 1's tests are all from before 2000.

unreleased for II is the Feb test of this year.

Wasn't Volume II published in 2015 though? If that is the unreleased Feb. test though I'm pretty happy, as that is the highest score I've gotten on a fresh test yet.

[RamTitan]

I would drill.

Regarding the SuperPrep, it wouldn't be much help, honestly.
Haven't touched the book in a while, so I'll probably redo LR;
as for games in the first, though... Those are hella hard.

Hmmm might be good to use for drilling then.

[proteinshake]

doesn't Superprep II have 2 tests that are released? I thought the only new one was Jan/Feb 2016

That is correct; superprep II has one unreleased test, and superprep I has three unreleased tests. I'm not sure what year the unreleased test superprep II is from, but I know vol. 1's tests are all from before 2000.

unreleased for II is the Feb test of this year.

Wasn't Volume II published in 2015 though? If that is the unreleased Feb. test though I'm pretty happy, as that is the highest score I've gotten on a fresh test yet.

oh wait nevermind. I thought I read that somewhere but I guess I didn't, just double checked on Amazon and it doesn't say.

[RamTitan]

doesn't Superprep II have 2 tests that are released? I thought the only new one was Jan/Feb 2016

That is correct; superprep II has one unreleased test, and superprep I has three unreleased tests. I'm not sure what year the unreleased test superprep II is from, but I know vol. 1's tests are all from before 2000.

unreleased for II is the Feb test of this year.

Wasn't Volume II published in 2015 though? If that is the unreleased Feb. test though I'm pretty happy, as that is the highest score I've gotten on a fresh test yet.

oh wait nevermind. I thought I read that somewhere but I guess I didn't, just double checked on Amazon and it doesn't say.

I'm pretty sure the other tests are 62 and 63 in that volume, so it's probably a somewhat recent test regardless

[SunDevil14]

I've posted on here a lot, but for those of you who don't know my situation, I scored a 169 in June after a year of studying. I started at a 146, but never broke out of the 167-171 range (until this past weekend - scored a 172 on a fresh test lol). Anyways, I've burned through all of the recent tests, and I am thinking of taking a new approach to studying.

Approach A (what I'm currently doing): retaking two practice tests a week while drilling the hardest games and stimuli. With that said, I bought both LSAT superpreps, which have a combined total of 4 unreleased tests.

Approach B (what I'm thinking of doing): since 3 of the 4 superprep unreleased tests are from before the year 2000, I am considering skipping those tests and instead spendingthose days drilling LR problems by type. I recently read a testimonial from one LSAT student who said he was at a 170 plateau, stopped taking tests for a few weeks and focused on drilling by type, and was able to bump himself into the 175+ range. Problem is, is that I typically don't miss a specific type but rather just hard questions in general (which is why I have been spending each week doing at least 2 tests worth (or 4 sections) of problems 11-25 so I can get used to dealing with difficult stimuli).

At this point, I typically can score 175+ on a retake, and I don't see the point in sitting to take an older test which is going to be pretty different than the modern LSAT. Since I've been in this score range for so long, perhaps it's time to try something new?

I am currently using Approach B, I will let you know how it works out. As far as older tests and questions go, I'd say that many if not most of the LR questions are still relevant. Games are hit and miss. I have done all the games from the first 20 tests and many are not relevant to modern tests, though most of the bread and butter games are still relevant. Reading Comp is just reading, though you do not have the benefit of the comparative passage sections.

Is there a particular question type that you usually get right (except for the most difficult questions) that you find particularly time consuming? Perhaps increasing your speed on those types of questions will give you more time to analyze and potentially get more difficult questions right.

After Approach B for only week I cracked my plateau of 168 and hit a 170 on my most recent test. My hunch is that had I used approach B for 2 weeks I would have scored a bit higher.