Testmasters..is this normal? Forum

[theGrinch]

Entering week two of my course with Testmasters and I am feeling overwhelmed along with confused. Is this typical? I am doing the homework, attending class, and watching the lectures at home, but things don't seem to be clicking. I am working on memorizing all of the rules, is that when things will start to fit together? Also, I'm getting anxiety about timing as when doing challenge questions it seems I've just gotten through the paragraph when 30 seconds is called.

[SunDevil14]

When do you plan on taking the test, and how long have you been studying? If you have only been exposed to Lsat material for 2 weeks, then it is not unusual to be a bit overwhelmed at first. Initially it is often better to focus on accuracy, thoroughly understanding question types, and strategies, then start turning your attention to speed/timing once you have developed a solid foundation.

[theGrinch]

Aiming for December 3rd and yes this would be my first time looking at any of the material. There was a blog post that spoke about "unconscious incompetence" which would about sum up how I entered into LSAT prep.

[lilq20]

I took the TestMasters course this summer in preparation or the September 3rd LSAT. I think it is completely normal to be overwhelmed at this point, especially if you were coming in completely blind. I wouldn't say there was an ahha! moment where it all clicked for me, but if you just keep drilling, going to class, doing homework, etc. I think it will all begin to make sense as it did for me.

[theGrinch]

Thanks!!! That was exactly what I needed to hear!

[Law2020hopeful]

Entering week two of my course with Testmasters and I am feeling overwhelmed along with confused. Is this typical? I am doing the homework, attending class, and watching the lectures at home, but things don't seem to be clicking. I am working on memorizing all of the rules, is that when things will start to fit together? Also, I'm getting anxiety about timing as when doing challenge questions it seems I've just gotten through the paragraph when 30 seconds is called.

I started the TestMasters course last month. At first, I was very overwhelmed. 100 pages of LR questions for homework in three days seemed ridiculous and almost impossible to me. If that's what was needed to score well, it wasn't gonna happen for me.

I am on lesson 6 now and I can already see gigantic improvements.

RC was already my best section, but now I'm down to averaging less than -3 on RC sections and going -0 on several passages.
LG was my worst section and now I'm completing almost every game with 100% accuracy.
LR gains are coming in a bit slower, but my LR diagnostic was much higher than my LG and I AM making improvements (probably 75% accuracy at this point).

The interesting thing that I just spoke to my teacher about is that I now have a sense of some things seeming too easy or obvious and doubting that it's right because of that. He told me that's incredibly common.

So, I would say just keep drilling things. Do the homework (as much as possible), watch or read the online explanations for things you got wrong. Take notes and if you need to rewrite your notes as many times as you need to understand the concepts (especially for LG/LR).

[theGrinch]

Great to hear! Thanks for your reply I really appreciate it!!!

[Calbears123]

Testmasters throws sufficient/necessary questions, probably the hardest thing to pick up, at you from every question type the first week of class. It made me think you had to diagram every single question ever. I too felt overwhelmed but once I started to do the questions types one by one the following week and realized only 1-3 LR questions really needed to be diagrammed, things got better.

[Joscellin]

Totally normal. I was very good at LR when I went in, and was still thrown at the start of a Testmasters course. Keep with it, though, and eventually it all just gets ingrained. By the end of it, you won't be diagramming almost anything.