Law School Discussion

Quote from: Trevor on October 03, 2004, 04:19:42 PM

Those are the first three from "10 More Actual, Offical LSAT PrepTests," with me taking them on the dining room table with a stopwatch.  I think I wound up taking six tests in all, but I stopped posting here for a while, since obsessing about things usually hurts my performance.  After reviewing my first test I figured out a few things about RC and LR (namely: make no assumptions), and that kept me in the 178-180 range until I took that June '99 test last week. I re-tooled my games strategy (less focus on constraint satisfaction and deductions, more on brute force) and did a few more games sections, but no more full tests until the real thing yesterday.

As for the scores, I don't know what to say.  There were some "nature vs. nurture" threads a while back; I've always been good at multiple-choice pressure tests.  And I've taken more formal logic that you can shake a stick at, which helps.

I'd be interested to hear more about your games strategy. I'm about in the same boat as you are -- consistently hitting 176 - 180 on practice tests, with games always being the determining factor. I also discovered I was wasting too much time and energy making deductions up front, especially when a lot of the questions could be answered pretty simply just by eliminating the wrong choices. Do you do any up front work, or just go straight to the questions, making the deductions as needed?

Tools.

I've taken every prep test available since 1996 and  I also took the June test for real.  I'd say the test yesterday was among the five easiest.  The games section was the easiest ever - so easy that it was the first games section I was actually able to finish, and I even had time to spare.  LR was straightforward, with a few quirks, but nothing out of the ordinary.  RC was slightly more difficult than average thanks to the science passage.  Unlike some others who have chimed in, I don't think the RC and the LG will wash out -- the LG was more easy than the RC was difficult.

The 100 question aspect also disturbs me.  It makes it that much more likely that there will be a tougher curve at the top.  90 may very well be the cutoff for 170, which is a bit less than the 12 wrong you can usually get to have a 170.