Preparing for OCTOBER

[lsatbeard]

I took the PowerScore full-length course and the June 7th LSAT. After improving from a 153-158, I hit a plateau. I was able to complete LR sections with 165+ accuracy, but wasn't getting anywhere with RC and LG sections. Then, late last week (Saturday night/Sunday), I actually started to see BIG improvements. I was finishing RC sections with high accuracy, and even finished some LG sections with similar accuracy (something I never even dreamed I could do). Although most of the test went extremely well, and I choked on the LG section. (I was having more difficulty with the post-2000 game sections than the early ones...)

Anyway, I'm pretty confident that I can actually do well on the test, but I don't want to lose this edge that I've gotten over the past week. At the same time, however, I don't want to burn through every PT and have everything memorized when October rolls around. What should I do?

[Julie Fern]

october test be hardest ever.

[EarlCat]

Don't worry about having things memorized.  Practice scores don't count anyway, so who cares if they get inflated a little bit? 

What's important is that you understand the mechanics behind all the questions, and that tends to be a lot easier to see when you're already familiar with them.  So reuse your materials.  Then reuse them again.

So you've seen such-and-such problem, and you remember the answer is C.  So what?  WHY is it C?  What other games/arguments/passages have you seen that work exactly like this one?  What's wrong with the other four answers?  Where have you seen wrong answers like this before?  That's what you need to get into to break through that ceiling.

[lsatbeard]

Don't worry about having things memorized.  Practice scores don't count anyway, so who cares if they get inflated a little bit? 

What's important is that you understand the mechanics behind all the questions, and that tends to be a lot easier to see when you're already familiar with them.  So reuse your materials.  Then reuse them again.

So you've seen such-and-such problem, and you remember the answer is C.  So what?  WHY is it C?  What other games/arguments/passages have you seen that work exactly like this one?  What's wrong with the other four answers?  Where have you seen wrong answers like this before?  That's what you need to get into to break through that ceiling.

It's not that I remember that an answer is C. My problem is that if I've seen a game before, I find it hard to divorce myself from knowing how things are supposed to fit. This contrasts sharply with seeing brand new games on Monday and being like "WTF do I do now?"

Are the mechanic patterns behind LGs and RC as strong as they are in LR? LR is my strongest area, and I've noticed VERY strong patterns. Even if I don't know why an answer is right, I can usually tell you why the other four are wrong.

Also, is there a cut-off point for LGs? The ones from the early to mid 90s seem to be easier.

[lsatbeard]

october test be hardest ever.

Marry me?

[Julie Fern]

hah!

[EarlCat]

It's not that I remember that an answer is C. My problem is that if I've seen a game before, I find it hard to divorce myself from knowing how things are supposed to fit. This contrasts sharply with seeing brand new games on Monday and being like "WTF do I do now?"

Here's the dirty little secret.  You're not going to see brand new games.  You're going to see slight variations of games that have already been published.  If you're intimately familiar with every game type in the last, say, 5 years, chances are there will be no WTF surprises on test day.

Are the mechanic patterns behind LGs and RC as strong as they are in LR? LR is my strongest area, and I've noticed VERY strong patterns. Even if I don't know why an answer is right, I can usually tell you why the other four are wrong.

I'd say they're stronger in LGs.  There are fewer patterns than in LR.

Also, is there a cut-off point for LGs? The ones from the early to mid 90s seem to be easier.

I haven't done any in-depth analysis, but games appear to had gotten more consistent and straight-forward going into the mid 2000s, and they have since started adding in some interesting twists.  The first one that sticks out in my mind is Oct 2005 where you had a circuit panel, and the number of circuits on constituted the "load" of the circuit.  I don't worry about "difficulty" because that's pretty subjective and people disagree on what sections have gotten harder or easier.

[sonofapickle]

I took the ASVAB test and it was different from an LSAT, go figure? Ended up scoring a 99% but when I asked what that meant, I became confused by the answer.

I studied for the fall LSAT and I still plan on taking it. Hopefully I do well on that. I have been preparing for the LSAT for a while now so I am confident in my ability to do well on it.

[lsatbeard]

It's not that I remember that an answer is C. My problem is that if I've seen a game before, I find it hard to divorce myself from knowing how things are supposed to fit. This contrasts sharply with seeing brand new games on Monday and being like "WTF do I do now?"

Here's the dirty little secret.  You're not going to see brand new games.  You're going to see slight variations of games that have already been published.  If you're intimately familiar with every game type in the last, say, 5 years, chances are there will be no WTF surprises on test day.

Are the mechanic patterns behind LGs and RC as strong as they are in LR? LR is my strongest area, and I've noticed VERY strong patterns. Even if I don't know why an answer is right, I can usually tell you why the other four are wrong.

I'd say they're stronger in LGs.  There are fewer patterns than in LR.

Also, is there a cut-off point for LGs? The ones from the early to mid 90s seem to be easier.

I haven't done any in-depth analysis, but games appear to had gotten more consistent and straight-forward going into the mid 2000s, and they have since started adding in some interesting twists.  The first one that sticks out in my mind is Oct 2005 where you had a circuit panel, and the number of circuits on constituted the "load" of the circuit.  I don't worry about "difficulty" because that's pretty subjective and people disagree on what sections have gotten harder or easier.

Thank you for this. I guess my PowerScore instructor doesn't see this stuff, because he advised me against burning through all my practice tests.

[EarlCat]

Thank you for this. I guess my PowerScore instructor doesn't see this stuff, because he advised me against burning through all my practice tests.

Well, I would agree that you don't want to just burn through all the preptests, but I mean that in the sense that you want to take things slowly, work problems off the clock, dissect them, analyze them, etc.  IMHO it's better to do 10 tests 5 times than to do 50 tests, so in that context I would advise against burning through all the tests.  But regarding my earlier comments, I just meant that you shouldn't worry about running out of material because there's a ton of value in recycling it.