Took lsat twice, stuck at 164-165! aiming for 170 in Feb. Forum

[jennyjennyjenny]

Hi,
I took lsat twice in June and Sep and scored 165,164. Unfortunately, my reading comprehension is very bad, and logical reasoning is not so good either. The good thing is my logic games are fine. 0-2. I am aiming for 170+ in Feb. Before June Lsat, I already wrote pt40-80. I also read powerscore bibles, manhattan books, blueprint books and finished the 7sage course. The reason why my reading is bad is I am not a native speaker, and RC passages are just so brutal to me. Sometimes when the Question stimulus of LR gets abstract, it took me several minutes to figure out what's going on. I also found most of the course online is focused more on lr+lg, so I really appreciate if you could offer me advice to boost my RC + LR.
Thanks a lot!

[SomewhatLearnedHand]

Are you planning on using your February score to apply this cycle? If so, the overwhelming majority of people here would suggest you take the time to study for the June test instead and apply next fall. This give you more time to improve your score, and applying early next cycle will be far more advantageous than applying so late in this current cycle when classes are mostly filled and scholarship money is used up.

[Zero Hedge]

It would be helpful to get a breakdown of just how many you're typically getting wrong on RC and LR. That may dramatically change the advice I'm about to give.

RC is arguably the hardest section to see consistent improvement on. For your case, I think this is going to be true as well because of your non-native speaking. My only advice would be to perhaps try to shorten up the time that you are taking for each passage. There's not a real consensus for how long one should take to read the passage itself (I've heard everywhere from 1.5 min to 4 min), but I think it would help you to try to read more quickly and focus on structure rather than trying to memorize details of the passage. I think this strategy has the potential to partially offset the difficulty of the passage as a non-native speaker, as it gives you more time per question.

For LR, it's certainly alarming that you have to take multiple minutes for any stem. Stems themselves are categorized, (Flaw, Sufficient Assumption, Match Reasoning, etc.) so it shouldn't take you more than 5 seconds to realize what the stem is asking of you. Perhaps you meant the stimulus? If it's the case of the stimulus, just know that these are also basically "formulaic" based upon the given question stem. There's predictability in the answer choices of certain stems, so having in your mind what you're looking for in the stimulus once you know what type of question is being asked of you is extremely helpful for focusing on the task at hand. My advice to you would be to work to reduce the amount of time you use in the first 15 questions of LR sections. They're predictably easier than then the latter part of the section, and it would allow you to more closely focus on the most difficult of questions. The fact that you're getting in the mid-160's tells me that you're able to competently understand what LR is asking of you, it's just a matter of being able to focus your energy on the questions that make a difference between mid-160's and a 170 (which are really only a few for each section).

All the best in your studying.

[jennyjennyjenny]

Are you planning on using your February score to apply this cycle? If so, the overwhelming majority of people here would suggest you take the time to study for the June test instead and apply next fall. This give you more time to improve your score, and applying early next cycle will be far more advantageous than applying so late in this current cycle when classes are mostly filled and scholarship money is used up.

Thanks so much for your advice! Unfortunately, I don't plan to work another year at my current company, so applying next cycle is not doable for me. I already submitted the applications with my current scores and hopefully, I can use the Feb score to get me out of Waiting list.

[jennyjennyjenny]

It would be helpful to get a breakdown of just how many you're typically getting wrong on RC and LR. That may dramatically change the advice I'm about to give.

RC is arguably the hardest section to see consistent improvement on. For your case, I think this is going to be true as well because of your non-native speaking. My only advice would be to perhaps try to shorten up the time that you are taking for each passage. There's not a real consensus for how long one should take to read the passage itself (I've heard everywhere from 1.5 min to 4 min), but I think it would help you to try to read more quickly and focus on structure rather than trying to memorize details of the passage. I think this strategy has the potential to partially offset the difficulty of the passage as a non-native speaker, as it gives you more time per question.

For LR, it's certainly alarming that you have to take multiple minutes for any stem. Stems themselves are categorized, (Flaw, Sufficient Assumption, Match Reasoning, etc.) so it shouldn't take you more than 5 seconds to realize what the stem is asking of you. Perhaps you meant the stimulus? If it's the case of the stimulus, just know that these are also basically "formulaic" based upon the given question stem. There's predictability in the answer choices of certain stems, so having in your mind what you're looking for in the stimulus once you know what type of question is being asked of you is extremely helpful for focusing on the task at hand. My advice to you would be to work to reduce the amount of time you use in the first 15 questions of LR sections. They're predictably easier than then the latter part of the section, and it would allow you to more closely focus on the most difficult of questions. The fact that you're getting in the mid-160's tells me that you're able to competently understand what LR is asking of you, it's just a matter of being able to focus your energy on the questions that make a difference between mid-160's and a 170 (which are really only a few for each section).

All the best in your studying.

Thank you so much for your advice! Super helpful! I took them in Asian, lsac didn't offer any break down for my tests. But based on my previous practices. I think it is like RC:-8 LR (2 sections): -7 LG: -2-0. I think I will try to shorten the time to read the RC passage, but sometimes reading the RC questions and answer choices can be also very overwhelming to me.
About the LR, yes I meant the question stimulus! I will try to figure out the formulaic structure of question stimulus. Sometimes the language gets very confusing and I lose track of its logic chain.Sounds like something I need to focus on both of my RC and LR.