My blind review (untimed) score is mid to high 160s. My timed score is stuck around 150s. What a huge gap. What does this mean, and what do I need to do in order to improve my timed score?
(If it means anything, I study on average 10 hours a week which is nothing, I know. I am currently working abroad in Asia. The project ends in May, but in the mean time, I'm fitting traveling, full-time work, and studying. I think I take a test every other week and 1 section every other day. Really slow. I plan on slamming hard on the books and getting a tutor/more Manhattan Prep books/more PTs when I come back to the States. LSAC doesn't deliver to India).
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Re: High blind review score, low timed score. What now?
What do you think it means?
What's the difference between how you're thinking about a problem in the moment vs. how you're thinking about it during blind review?
Are you forgetting to take mental steps, or do you simply not have enough time to take as many mental steps as you'd like to?
Are you squandering time on problems you're going to get wrong anyway and denying yourself the extra time you need for the more get-able problems? (To achieve your blind review score, you're still able to miss about 5 or 6 Q's per section, so think about how to miss those more quickly in order to make your pacing on the other problems feel more like your pacing on an actual test)
Is English a second language? It could just be that the extra processing load of translating the text makes it very unlikely that you could adequately think about all 25 problems in 35 minutes.
Normally, I assume that people with a big gap between test scores and practice scores have one or more of these issues:
- taking the test affects you psychologically more than it needs to (fix: mindfulness breathing and primarily timed-practice sets ... you need to make yourself inured to the feeling of being timed and improve your mental control when it comes to staying calm and focused on the present moment)
- you get things right often by intuition rather than systematic processes or specific reasons (fix: make sure your practice/review isn't focused on whether you got something right or wrong but rather on whether you did/didn't know what to do, what to read for, what to ask yourself, what to analyze)
Also, focus on beating the test more upfront.
For Games, make sure you really good at Framing (that includes knowing when it would be unwise to frame)
For LR and RC, practice doing problems untimed in which you write down your prephrase (your predicted correct answer, if possible ..... or otherwise your goal for what a correct answer should do or should be ) before you ever look at answer choices.
This can take you from getting these questions correct to getting these questions correct with only 70% as much time and brainpower, and that time/energy savings can be the extra padding in the budget we'd need to more calmly think through the trickier material.
What's the difference between how you're thinking about a problem in the moment vs. how you're thinking about it during blind review?
Are you forgetting to take mental steps, or do you simply not have enough time to take as many mental steps as you'd like to?
Are you squandering time on problems you're going to get wrong anyway and denying yourself the extra time you need for the more get-able problems? (To achieve your blind review score, you're still able to miss about 5 or 6 Q's per section, so think about how to miss those more quickly in order to make your pacing on the other problems feel more like your pacing on an actual test)
Is English a second language? It could just be that the extra processing load of translating the text makes it very unlikely that you could adequately think about all 25 problems in 35 minutes.
Normally, I assume that people with a big gap between test scores and practice scores have one or more of these issues:
- taking the test affects you psychologically more than it needs to (fix: mindfulness breathing and primarily timed-practice sets ... you need to make yourself inured to the feeling of being timed and improve your mental control when it comes to staying calm and focused on the present moment)
- you get things right often by intuition rather than systematic processes or specific reasons (fix: make sure your practice/review isn't focused on whether you got something right or wrong but rather on whether you did/didn't know what to do, what to read for, what to ask yourself, what to analyze)
Also, focus on beating the test more upfront.
For Games, make sure you really good at Framing (that includes knowing when it would be unwise to frame)
For LR and RC, practice doing problems untimed in which you write down your prephrase (your predicted correct answer, if possible ..... or otherwise your goal for what a correct answer should do or should be ) before you ever look at answer choices.
This can take you from getting these questions correct to getting these questions correct with only 70% as much time and brainpower, and that time/energy savings can be the extra padding in the budget we'd need to more calmly think through the trickier material.
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