Feeling down about score Forum

[Tazewell]

As you can see from the replies, you're not the first or the last to be disappointed in your LSAT score, so keep grinding!
I think my biggest improvement between my first and second take was how I took my practice tests. I studied my ass off, but took all of my practice tests at home, in my dark, quiet room. It was just a small shortcut that I thought was convenient and harmless. Come test day, every sniffle, furious erasing, proctor's cell phone, etc. threw me off, but I didn't feel like it did at the time. After the first take, I took all my practice tests in the lobby of my UG library and the second time around, I didn't even notice when my proctor was talking on her cell phone. Taking PTs with distractions around made me so much more mentally tough and focused. I highly suggest doing that if you don't already! Good luck on the retake!

[it's allgood]

Thoughts on Manhattan vs Trainer vs 7Sage for LR? I haven't used any before and I'm wondering which is better for nailing down those curve breaker questions.

TRAINER TRAINER TRAINER.

Seriously, using that got me from taking 33 minutes to finish the section with like 20/25 accuracy to 27 minutes with 24/25 accuracy.

HOW??

Not 100% sure, but I'll detail what I did.

I went from stimulus first to stem first (that was huge) and that change singlehandedly saved me multiple seconds on every single question. I used to read the stim, then read stem, then have to go back and figure out what part of the stim mattered. With stem first, I drilled a TON and got to where I had a bit of LSAT-intuition and 'feel' for what mattered.

This I have found to be really helpful!!! It really made me realize what I was doing wrong with LR and that is that I was focusing on the part of the stim that did not matter and was getting horribly confused when trying to identify an AC. I did not even realize this until I did a review after reading your post. Massive props for helping me figure out my massive LR issue!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Future Ex-Engineer]

Thoughts on Manhattan vs Trainer vs 7Sage for LR? I haven't used any before and I'm wondering which is better for nailing down those curve breaker questions.

TRAINER TRAINER TRAINER.

Seriously, using that got me from taking 33 minutes to finish the section with like 20/25 accuracy to 27 minutes with 24/25 accuracy.

HOW??

Not 100% sure, but I'll detail what I did.

I went from stimulus first to stem first (that was huge) and that change singlehandedly saved me multiple seconds on every single question. I used to read the stim, then read stem, then have to go back and figure out what part of the stim mattered. With stem first, I drilled a TON and got to where I had a bit of LSAT-intuition and 'feel' for what mattered.

This I have found to be really helpful!!! It really made me realize what I was doing wrong with LR and that is that I was focusing on the part of the stim that did not matter and was getting horribly confused when trying to identify an AC. I did not even realize this until I did a review after reading your post. Massive props for helping me figure out my massive LR issue!!!!!!!!!!!!

Glad it helped. Once I made that connection with the help of the LSAT Trainer, I felt it blew LR wide open for me. Pretty pleased with -3 combined there for the June test

[carsondalywashere]

Studying for a third take is mentally draining; take care of yourself

[solidarity4ever]

Thoughts on Manhattan vs Trainer vs 7Sage for LR? I haven't used any before and I'm wondering which is better for nailing down those curve breaker questions.

TRAINER TRAINER TRAINER.

Seriously, using that got me from taking 33 minutes to finish the section with like 20/25 accuracy to 27 minutes with 24/25 accuracy.

HOW??

Not 100% sure, but I'll detail what I did.

I went from stimulus first to stem first (that was huge) and that change singlehandedly saved me multiple seconds on every single question. I used to read the stim, then read stem, then have to go back and figure out what part of the stim mattered. With stem first, I drilled a TON and got to where I had a bit of LSAT-intuition and 'feel' for what mattered.

This I have found to be really helpful!!! It really made me realize what I was doing wrong with LR and that is that I was focusing on the part of the stim that did not matter and was getting horribly confused when trying to identify an AC. I did not even realize this until I did a review after reading your post. Massive props for helping me figure out my massive LR issue!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am definitely going to try this. I had read some stuff early on about how the stem first approach is confusing or whatever so I never bothered with it; always just did stim first instead. But it makes sense that it would save lots of time. Thanks for sharing!

[Experiment626]

Yea, I started stim first cuz PS Bible said so but switched to stem after my prep class told me to try it. I like it a lot better.

[Future Ex-Engineer]

Yea, I started stim first cuz PS Bible said so but switched to stem after my prep class told me to try it. I like it a lot better.

LR Bible I thought was pretty awful to be honest. I performed much better after doing Trainer

[it's allgood]

Thoughts on Manhattan vs Trainer vs 7Sage for LR? I haven't used any before and I'm wondering which is better for nailing down those curve breaker questions.

TRAINER TRAINER TRAINER.

Seriously, using that got me from taking 33 minutes to finish the section with like 20/25 accuracy to 27 minutes with 24/25 accuracy.

HOW??

Not 100% sure, but I'll detail what I did.

I went from stimulus first to stem first (that was huge) and that change singlehandedly saved me multiple seconds on every single question. I used to read the stim, then read stem, then have to go back and figure out what part of the stim mattered. With stem first, I drilled a TON and got to where I had a bit of LSAT-intuition and 'feel' for what mattered.

This I have found to be really helpful!!! It really made me realize what I was doing wrong with LR and that is that I was focusing on the part of the stim that did not matter and was getting horribly confused when trying to identify an AC. I did not even realize this until I did a review after reading your post. Massive props for helping me figure out my massive LR issue!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am definitely going to try this. I had read some stuff early on about how the stem first approach is confusing or whatever so I never bothered with it; always just did stim first instead. But it makes sense that it would save lots of time. Thanks for sharing!

I have found that it is important to also parse out what is important to focus on in the stim (based on what the stem is asking/question type). Just looking at stem first was not quite enough for me; it was when I paired the looking at the stem first with parsing out what is important to focus on based what the stem is asking that the magic happened!!!!!!

[Experiment626]

Yea, I started stim first cuz PS Bible said so but switched to stem after my prep class told me to try it. I like it a lot better.

LR Bible I thought was pretty awful to be honest. I performed much better after doing Trainer

Good to know. Maybe I won't finish it after completing the Trainer. Maybe skip to 7sage LR and RC for any additional insight.

[Future Ex-Engineer]

Yea, I started stim first cuz PS Bible said so but switched to stem after my prep class told me to try it. I like it a lot better.

LR Bible I thought was pretty awful to be honest. I performed much better after doing Trainer

Good to know. Maybe I won't finish it after completing the Trainer. Maybe skip to 7sage LR and RC for any additional insight.

I just found it to be wayyyyyy too formulaic in it's methodology. That mentality works well for LG, simply because LG is pretty mechanistic, and there isn't real 'creativity' in solving them. I think you miss a lot of the core of LR by reducing it to a bunch of algorithmic thoughts, and you miss out on actually having a deep understanding of how to solve it that way. Missing those core pieces I think kept me from really being very successful at LR for a long time.

[QueenBAYder]

Thoughts on Manhattan vs Trainer vs 7Sage for LR? I haven't used any before and I'm wondering which is better for nailing down those curve breaker questions.

TRAINER TRAINER TRAINER.

Seriously, using that got me from taking 33 minutes to finish the section with like 20/25 accuracy to 27 minutes with 24/25 accuracy.

HOW??

Not 100% sure, but I'll detail what I did.

I went from stimulus first to stem first (that was huge) and that change singlehandedly saved me multiple seconds on every single question. I used to read the stim, then read stem, then have to go back and figure out what part of the stim mattered. With stem first, I drilled a TON and got to where I had a bit of LSAT-intuition and 'feel' for what mattered.

This I have found to be really helpful!!! It really made me realize what I was doing wrong with LR and that is that I was focusing on the part of the stim that did not matter and was getting horribly confused when trying to identify an AC. I did not even realize this until I did a review after reading your post. Massive props for helping me figure out my massive LR issue!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am definitely going to try this. I had read some stuff early on about how the stem first approach is confusing or whatever so I never bothered with it; always just did stim first instead. But it makes sense that it would save lots of time. Thanks for sharing!

I have found that it is important to also parse out what is important to focus on in the stim (based on what the stem is asking/question type). Just looking at stem first was not quite enough for me; it was when I paired the looking at the stem first with parsing out what is important to focus on based what the stem is asking that the magic happened!!!!!!

By "whats important to focus on" do you mean isolating the premises and the conclusion or are there other things you look for?

[Future Ex-Engineer]

By "whats important to focus on" do you mean isolating the premises and the conclusion or are there other things you look for?

For me, the tons of practice/drilling gave me an almost instinctual sense of what sentences/phrases in the stimulus were actually useful for ACs, and what was there as fluff/distraction.

Definitely developing an automatic premise/conclusion identification skill was a part of that. For me I became very careful to identify 'special' words (modifiers/rebuttals/etc) as those often are critical to understanding the argument presented as a whole.

Sorry if that's not super clear. It's still a funny concept to me a little bit - kind of like feeling like I 'flowed' with the test

[Experiment626]

By "whats important to focus on" do you mean isolating the premises and the conclusion or are there other things you look for?

I think it's a bit more than that. Based on the question you will know if you need to identify premise and conclusion or not but also what you're doing with the information in the stim. Looking for the sufficient is different than looking for the necessary even though there will be a premise and conclusion. Another example would be resolve the conflict. There might not be a premise and conclusion but you know to approach it by looking for what's missing as you read it.

[YinFireHare]

Going along with the plethora of June related posts, just looking for a place to vent.

Last September I took it before I was ready and got a 161. To be fair, I knew I wasn't ready and shouldn't have taken it, but I still was beneath what I had been averaging (~165ish). I took the semester off from studying and picked it back up again in January. I had a pretty steady incline in performance, to the point where my last 6 PTs were something like 169-170-173-174-170-168

Come test day? 166. Devastated. Had my absolute worst single section LR performance pretty much ever (-8), with a bad curve to boot. I would've been fine with a 168-169ish. With my GPA (3.75), I still would've retaken for 170+ but the pressure would've been off because I could've gone places that I wanted (MVPD range). Now I feel like I'm in do-or-die mode. Who knows, maybe I get unlucky again on test day?

I was gunna submit my apps on day 1 and then just sit around and wait. I thought the hard part was over, now I feel like it's just beginning. I'm going to have to put my life on hold for the next few months. Not that that's the worst thing in the world, it's just not what I was planning for. This sucks.

Dear mwells56,

One thing I want to mention is that a 166 (according to 7sage) is ~93.14 percentile, meaning your score is better than 93.14% of LSAT test takers.

That being said, I understand that a 170+ score is your personal intention. What I believe you must do is focus on learning and growth and improvement. Take on the LSAT as a learning opportunity. It is OK to take it another time if you wish. But also shift your happiness/focus on doing your best and what it will take to be proud of yourself.

I refuse to believe that it is simply a question of what number you score on the LSAT retake. Think about the journey and what are the steps / the effort that you need to perform to get to test day and know that you have done all that you can.

On test day, think about what approach you need to take on the exam itself to walk away knowing that you have done all that you can.

Once you do these two things in terms of (1) preparation and (2) test taking - your end of the journey is complete and you can be proud of yourself no matter what the end score is.

I hope this helps.

[darthlawyer]

pretty good score. congrats. but in 10 years you probably wont even remember your score. dont sweat it.