The Official June 2017 Study Group Forum

[Amerision]

TBH, not really sure what to do at this point. We still have over two weeks. I only have two relevant PTs left (79,80) which I'm saving so I can do one each week. I'm drilling all the old logic games, but I'm almost done with that. I've already done PT 52-78 and I don't want to drag 'easier' reading comp from the older tests. I feel good about where I am. Feels so weird just sitting here twiddling my thumbs when I've been studying almost every day since January.

[MediocreAtBest]

How do you guys think you'll do compared to your PT scores? Lower end, higher end, right in the middle?

For some reason I think I'll do higher end. I think actually being in the right setting and everything being official will make me perform better, I've always been a pretty good test taker even on tests I didn't study for lol.

[Future Ex-Engineer]

Just went -9 on RC for test 71.
Wtf is happening to me. Sat for Dec16 and went -2 RC on test day. Now in my past 3 PTs I've gone -7,-8,-9 RC. That's not doable. I've got the other three sections down to -5 or better combined pretty consistently.

Any thoughts? I need to fix my RC and get it back to where it was...

This is odd. That's a pretty dramatic change. Has your daily routine drastically changed in the past week? Are you getting enough sleep, food, avoiding alcohol benders?

Yeah man, I don't know. It's all been in the span of 1 week, starting with the digital test last weekend. I thought I crushed the experimental RC, but bombed the real RC that was section 5. I haven't slept well the past week because I've been sick, so that may also be affecting me, but idk. I'd expect a lack of sleep issue to show itself in every section - not just RC.
Wondering if I've psyched myself out on RC and just need to crush a section to get my mojo back

[zkyggi]

I took the plunge and did PT80 today. I just couldn't wait anymore. Anyways:

LR1: -2
RC: -1
LG: -0
LR2: -1

177

I am stoked. At this point I am just praying for a section order that places RC first or second.

[zkyggi]

Yeah man, I don't know. It's all been in the span of 1 week, starting with the digital test last weekend. I thought I crushed the experimental RC, but bombed the real RC that was section 5. I haven't slept well the past week because I've been sick, so that may also be affecting me, but idk. I'd expect a lack of sleep issue to show itself in every section - not just RC.
Wondering if I've psyched myself out on RC and just need to crush a section to get my mojo back

I am not so sure about that. RC is where I can really tell how I "feel" when taking a PT. If my head is not in it, an abnormal LR or LG score would upset me, but a comparatively low RC score would not. The longer focus required for the passages seems to be affected by sleep in my case.

[Barry grandpapy]

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[Mint-Berry_Crunch]

I took the plunge and did PT80 today. I just couldn't wait anymore. Anyways:

LR1: -2
RC: -1
LG: -0
LR2: -1

177

I am stoked. At this point I am just praying for a section order that places RC first or second.

Did this one too!


Getting drunk before grading so that should say how I thought it went

ETA yup. It went bad.


I'm gunna take a couple days off I think

[HenryHankPalmer]

I spent this weekend touring wineries with my fiancé, but I plan to get back to prep on Monday night like my life depended on it. I'm thinking about getting the LG Bible and working through as much of it as humanly possible over the next two weeks. It would be a supplement to the Testmasters course I took. Thoughts?

[zkyggi]

I spent this weekend touring wineries with my fiancé, but I plan to get back to prep on Monday night like my life depended on it. I'm thinking about getting the LG Bible and working through as much of it as humanly possible over the next two weeks. It would be a supplement to the Testmasters course I took. Thoughts?

I would do it. Make some drill packets too. Read a section, drill that type until you're -0. Repeat.

[zkyggi]

I took the plunge and did PT80 today. I just couldn't wait anymore. Anyways:

LR1: -2
RC: -1
LG: -0
LR2: -1

177

I am stoked. At this point I am just praying for a section order that places RC first or second.

Did this one too!


Getting drunk before grading so that should say how I thought it went

ETA yup. It went bad.


I'm gunna take a couple days off I think

LR1 in particular felt kind of slow-going in the beginning. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I am going to really go through it tomorrow and see if I can find anything.

[Platopus]

PT 69. A bit tired thanks to lack of sleep and long day at work.

LR 1: 0
LR 2: 0
LG: 0
RC: -1
Score: 180

Experimentals:
PT 14.2 (LR): -1
PT 14.3 (RC): -1

Notes: LR: Actually surprised I didn't make any mistakes. Was unsure about 4-5 questions in each section. Still not sure about 3 to 4 questions after review--gotta review these questions again. LG: was pretty straightforward, maybe to compensate for LR's difficulty. RC: Didn't caught the two mistakes during BR, i.e. not good.

How do you guys think you'll do compared to your PT scores? Lower end, higher end, right in the middle?

Probably within my range. I'll be very happy with a 175+. Then again, with test-day anxiety it's hard to predict

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this back to back 180's, sheesh.

[Barry grandpapy]

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[Mikey]

PT 62 (Couldn't get around to posting this yesterday, will take 63 later today)

RC -1
LR1 -0
LG -1
LR2 -0
180

63 S3 LG Experimental -0

Days until test: 15
Full PTs left: 13

damn

KILLING IT!

[zkyggi]

PT 62 (Couldn't get around to posting this yesterday, will take 63 later today)

RC -1
LR1 -0
LG -1
LR2 -0
180

63 S3 LG Experimental -0

Days until test: 15
Full PTs left: 13

I am inadequate. Congratulations!

[Barry grandpapy]

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[anonposter6775]

It appears that my most common problem with LR is misreading answer choices.


This is both encouraging and demoralizing

This is my biggest problem with the entire test....

[dm1683]

PT 62 (Couldn't get around to posting this yesterday, will take 63 later today)

RC -1
LR1 -0
LG -1
LR2 -0
180

63 S3 LG Experimental -0

Days until test: 15
Full PTs left: 13

I am inadequate. Congratulations!

holy shit archer and the new kid are blowing us all out of the water.

Off day today, gonna do PT 75 tomorrow before a cookout with the fam.

[dm1683]

BTW guys what is your strategy AFA order of LG games? Do you guys do the easier sequencing games first or tackle the harder ones that eat up more time and then go to the easier ones afterward? Or do you just do them in order? I've been switching up strategies and honestly I can't seem to tell if any of them are consistently more effective than the others.

[Barry grandpapy]

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[Platopus]

BTW guys what is your strategy AFA order of LG games? Do you guys do the easier sequencing games first or tackle the harder ones that eat up more time and then go to the easier ones afterward? Or do you just do them in order? I've been switching up strategies and honestly I can't seem to tell if any of them are consistently more effective than the others.

I tend to do them in order since I'll do them all eventually and reckon that screening for easy/hard games in advance will just be a time sink. I usually have 5+ minutes of extra time per LG and credit this to having drilled sequencing/in-out games to the point of finishing them pretty damn fast.

Same, take them as they come. I would say I roughly keep in mind how many questions there are for each game/RC passage, so I know if I am staying on pace, but of course it's harder to tell if a game or passage will be time consuming solely based on the number of questions.

[tuna_wasabi]

PT 69. A bit tired thanks to lack of sleep and long day at work.

LR 1: 0
LR 2: 0
LG: 0
RC: -1
Score: 180

Experimentals:
PT 14.2 (LR): -1
PT 14.3 (RC): -1

Notes: LR: Actually surprised I didn't make any mistakes. Was unsure about 4-5 questions in each section. Still not sure about 3 to 4 questions after review--gotta review these questions again. LG: was pretty straightforward, maybe to compensate for LR's difficulty. RC: Didn't caught the two mistakes during BR, i.e. not good.

How do you guys think you'll do compared to your PT scores? Lower end, higher end, right in the middle?

Probably within my range. I'll be very happy with a 175+. Then again, with test-day anxiety it's hard to predict

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this back to back 180's, sheesh.

Yeah, but 100% sure I would not get as good a score for PT 75. Made at least 3 mistakes on LR this time. I was lucky twice.

[tuna_wasabi]

BTW guys what is your strategy AFA order of LG games? Do you guys do the easier sequencing games first or tackle the harder ones that eat up more time and then go to the easier ones afterward? Or do you just do them in order? I've been switching up strategies and honestly I can't seem to tell if any of them are consistently more effective than the others.

I usually do them as they come, with the exception of hard or weird games like the dino game or the third game for PT 77. Also tend to skip the harder "substitute the rule" after eliminating 2 or 3 of the obvious wrong choices for the very end.

[InterLaw]

Started with PTs already taken months ago:

PT62
LR: -6
LG: -1
RC: -3
173
Here I noticed I remembered the topics of 2 RCs because they were really strange. This probably helped me in reading the passage more rapidly, even though I didn't remember things like structure, conclusions and questions.

PT63
LR: -4
LG: -0
RC: -3
173 (pretty different curve)
From this, I didn't recognize even a single topic. It was all like new to me, so good!

I am actually pretty scared though, because the previous 3 PTs have been like HELL!
From PTs 60, 45 and 61 I scored 162 (lowest in 6 months), 167 and 165, after a consistent average of 169,5 over the previous 10 PTs. From those tests I had on RC: -11, -9, -9. Insane. I must say that two of them were taken in late afternoon after a day of hard work and absolutely not focused, but it is not an excuse for a -11!!!
I just hope to be back in my -4/-5 average with the last two ones, even if the fact that they are retakes gives me some reason to doubt. Yet, I am absolutely sincere in saying that the last one (#63, with RC:-3) was totally like new. However, I'll start in a couple of days with 5-sections PTs, and at the beginning I'll add a RC passage from an old and never seen PT, in order to see if the results on them are consistent with results in the scored RC sections, which I already read 7-8 months ago.
Last observation: when I originally took PTs 162-175, I wasn't able to get to the fourth RC passage, thus looking the number of errors on that is surely a neutral indicator. For the moment, I got 1 question wrong in total over the last RC passage of PTs 62-63. So far so good!

[Slippin' Jimmy]

Well Saturday I took PT 76, and got a 166. Needless to say it was the result of some very fundamental slip ups/mistakes and it was a pretty brutal hit to my confidence. I cancelled my plan to take a PT yesterday and just focused on review, both of the test and fundamentals. I even bought the 7sage starter, previously I had only used them for game explanations but I felt like I needed a different explanation of LR problem types and reading for structure (which my BR revealed was something I utterly failed to do during PT 76). I went -9 combined on LR, -6 on RC and -3 on LG (due to VERY stupid mistakes). All of that is completely unacceptable.

Took PT 77 today and went RC -3 LR1 -1 LG -0 LR2 -4 scaled 173!!!

I'll BR later and I am still a little pissed about that -4 on LR2 but I consider this a pretty good recovery. I was super focused on reading for reasoning structure and it paid off, I finished LR1 and RC with a couple minutes to spare and LR2 just in time, 2 PTs before this I struggled to finish. LG I did the games out of order for the first time ever, 1 and 2 went pretty quickly and then I got to 3 and realized that it was a weird pattern game that I really didn't understand so I skipped ahead to game 4. I returned to game 3 with a better (yet incomplete) understanding of how to tackle it, and I ended up going perfect, although I think some luck was involved on a couple of those questions. I wasn't really able to definitively prove right answers right but I was able to eliminate 4 incorrect answers on all but 1 question from the game, which I narrowed down to 2 and went with my gut on one of them. Shows how important it is to be able to get to correct answers in multiple ways.

Pretty stoked about setting a new record but I'm hesitant to get too excited.

[Amerision]

Ohhh, god. Took PT 79 today even though I was feeling like shit. Did decent in LR and LG (viruses got me -2) but RC... man I don't even know what to say. 8 don't care how bad I feel, I should never go -7 in any section ever. I guess I'll try blind reviewing it? Ended up with a 167 and a bruised ego.