Best Retake Study Method

[patelro]

Hello,

I took the October LSAT a few weeks ago and was scoring in the 167-169 range, but would like to retake in order to break into the 170s. I have only used the Powerscore books but switched to ManhattanPrep to go even further. However, I am unsure of how exactly to go about this. I purchased the RC, LG, and LR books and am reading them one at a time pretty quickly, but not TOO fast. I think I can go through them faster since I'm very familiar with the sections (done about 30 PTs and read all the PS Bibles). I plan on going in order of difficulty. My worst sections is RC, so I would do that first, then LG, then LR, with a few PTs every week to track my progress. Is this a good strategy? or should I mix it up? how much should I drill questions types vs doing timed tests? I'd like to do whats most efficient/effective. Thanks a bunch!

[ohthatpatrick]

In general, we don't do individualized study plans on the forum, but I'm happy to give a few quick thoughts.

There really isn't a magic recipe to diversifying your study portfolio of textbooks / prep tests / question-specific drills.

To me, the most important part of the recipe is that you mix it up a bunch so that you don't go crazy.

Scoring upper 160s / lower 170s means that you're getting 90% of what you see correct. So, unfortunately, that means that you will end up having to "burn through" a lot of questions / tests just to find ones that thwart you.

When you find these strugglers, make sure you develop a system of revisiting them a week later / two weeks after that ... when we're trying to learn something, seeing it once normally doesn't create a deep enough impression to burrow into our long term memory.

Briefly reviewing it at least two more times is really the way to get a takeaway to stick.

So, you need to find problems that are confusing (whether you got them initially right or not) and then check back in on them once a week.

One way to do this is to create a REDO CALENDAR. If you just got PT56, S4, Q14 wrong (or just struggled to get it right easily), you put that question on an actual calendar for two arbitrary dates in the future.

The first date might be 4-5 days from now. The second might be a couple weeks after that.

If you create this habit, you'll soon have a daily list of 5-10 problems that you're due to review. This is the easiest / best way to actually learn from your mistakes.

With all the questions you're getting correct along the way, you're focused on improving by means of better pre-phrasing and quicker wrong answer choice analysis.

PRE-PHRASE DRILL
do an LR or RC section untimed and hide all the answer choices.
For each question, write down your pre-phrase (it might be very specific, it might be fuzzy, it might just be "lines 13-16")
When you're done, you'll go back and actually answer the questions in the section and then analyze how good/mediocre your pre-phrase was (being fair with yourself about "COULD I have done a better job with that, or was this just tricky and hard to predict?")

SPEED DRILLS
LR - 1st 10Q in 10 mins ... work your way up to 1st 15Q in 15mins
RC / GAMES - find the two easier games / passages from a section and force yourself to have them done in 14-15mins.

LR QUESTION TYPE DRILL
Open up a PT,
do all the INFERENCE questions in both sections
then do all the FLAW
then do all the STR/WEAK
then do all the NEC ASSUMP
then do all the SUFF ASSUMP / PRINCIPLE
then do all the DESCRIBE ARGUMENT tasks

A couple nuggets from learning science:
1. Study in frequent short sessions. (2 hrs a day is more effective if those 2 hrs are not continuous ... find ways to break your studying into smaller chunks)

2. Diversify what you're working on (you can do that LR question type drill now and then, but you improve your ability to take a test that blends tasks together if you structure your practice, blending tasks together) ... so you might not want to think ALL RC, then ALL LG, then ALL LR ... mixing it up is probably better for your brain

Good luck!

[battlenetMelouch]

In general, we don't do individualized study plans on the forum, but I'm happy to give a few quick thoughts.

There really isn't a magic recipe to diversifying your study portfolio of textbooks / prep tests / question-specific drills.

To me, the most important part of the recipe is that you mix it up a bunch so that you don't go crazy.

Scoring upper 160s / lower 170s means that you're getting 90% of what you see correct. So, unfortunately, that means that you will end up having to "burn through" a lot of questions / tests just to find ones that thwart you.

When you find these strugglers, make sure you develop a system of revisiting them a week later / two weeks after that ... when we're trying to learn something, seeing it once normally doesn't create a deep enough impression to burrow into our long term memory.

Briefly reviewing it at least two more times is really the way to get a takeaway to stick.

So, you need to find problems that are confusing (whether you got them initially right or not) and then check back in on them once a week.

One way to do this is to create a REDO CALENDAR. If you just got PT56, S4, Q14 wrong (or just struggled to get it right easily), you put that question on an actual calendar for two arbitrary dates in the future.

The first date might be 4-5 days from now. The second might be a couple weeks after that.

If you create this habit, you'll soon have a daily list of 5-10 problems that you're due to review. This is the easiest / best way to actually learn from your mistakes.

With all the questions you're getting correct along the way, you're focused on improving by means of better pre-phrasing and quicker wrong answer choice analysis.

PRE-PHRASE DRILL
do an LR or RC section untimed and hide all the answer choices.
For each question, write down your pre-phrase (it might be very specific, it might be fuzzy, it might just be "lines 13-16")
When you're done, you'll go back and actually answer the questions in the section and then analyze how good/mediocre your pre-phrase was (being fair with yourself about "COULD I have done a better job with that, or was this just tricky and hard to predict?")

SPEED DRILLS
LR - 1st 10Q in 10 mins ... work your way up to 1st 15Q in 15mins
RC / GAMES - find the two easier games / passages from a section and force yourself to have them done in 14-15mins.

LR QUESTION TYPE DRILL
Open up a PT,
do all the INFERENCE questions in both sections
then do all the FLAW
then do all the STR/WEAK
then do all the NEC ASSUMP
then do all the SUFF ASSUMP / PRINCIPLE
then do all the DESCRIBE ARGUMENT tasks

A couple nuggets from learning science:
1. Study in frequent short sessions. (2 hrs a day is more effective if those 2 hrs are not continuous ... find ways to break your studying into smaller chunks)

2. Diversify what you're working on (you can do that LR question type drill now and then, but you improve your ability to take a test that blends tasks together if you structure your practice, blending tasks together) ... so you might not want to think ALL RC, then ALL LG, then ALL LR ... mixing it up is probably better for your brain

Good luck!

Big thanks to you! Nice "advice"!