My former best section is now my worst section

[JAREDTX1993]

Mods: If this is the wrong section please move it.


So I did the LSAT class starting last July in preparation for the October LSAT (2013). My diagnostic score was 155, and through the course of the class I ended with a 165.

My worst section was logic games, usually missing around 6 or 7 a section. So after the class (didn't take the LSAT), I focused solely on logic games (doing five a day for several months).


Starting around January of this year, I began do prep tests every Saturday, and doing LR drills.

The problem I've noticed on these prep tests is that my RC is now just awful. On LG I can generally score -0, but sometimes my RC is around -6 or -7!

During the class I was doing so much better on RC.

I started practicing RC, doing 4 passages from old tests a day, and usually getting most right (emphasis on most), but when tests come around: it's hit and miss. When examining my wrong questions, I'm not really seeing a pattern, though main point questions seem to always hurt, and time is of course an issue.

My weekly prep test scores alternate between high and low scores, usually due to my performance on RC.

For example, my weekly scores went from 166 to 174 to 167 to 175 to 167. Extremely confusing and frustrating.

So though this kind of a shot in the dark, I was wondering if someone had a similar experience or had any advice. I've been studying since July and I'll be taking the June LSAT so I'm getting a little worried the closer it gets.

Thank you for reading!

[hunter.sundberg]

Im in the same boat... I am now crushing the games and my RC is terrible

[christine.defenbaugh]

Thanks for posting, JAREDTX1993!

It is, of course, a little tough to say exactly what's going on for you, but a few things that you said stuck out to me.

You say that main point questions are rougher, and that time is an issue. That coupled with the fact that you used to do better on RC leads me to believe that you've fallen into the all-too-common trap of reading too deeply!

When we first start working on RC, many of us realize that we're not being careful enough in how we read information - maybe we are making a lot of assumptions, and filling in blanks (mental spackle!). Maybe we are misunderstand key rhetorical devices, or not fully following how an experiment relates to the conclusion the author is drawing. Whatever it is, we often have to get down into the mire and teach ourselves to read with more care and more specificity. We're also doing this to ourselves on how we read LR stimuli, so we're getting a serious double-dose of the 'read more carefully' medicine!

The danger here is that that level of care and specificity has a nasty backlash - it eats up precious time in no small way. It also often has an additional unforeseen consequence: we lose sight of the forest for the trees. If you've spent a lot of your energy training yourself to read more deeply and carefully, you may have inadvertently trained yourself AWAY from seeing the big picture.

If you able to consistently answer detail questions without referring back to the passage, as well as missing main point questions and running out of time, then this is almost certainly the issue.

What you may need now is some retooling on getting yourself reading at the high level view. You want to understand the essential elements of what's going on in the passage, but you want to be reading far more for structure. Small-scale details are things that you can, and should, come back for later when a question demands it.

After every paragraph, take a very short pause and ask yourself 'What was the point of that paragraph?' - the answer should not be long and drawn out, but rather just a few words on the essential purpose of the paragraph. Do this for each paragraph. At the end of the passage, take a second to walk through this 'table of contents'. It should serve as your rough outline of the main point of the passage, as well as the purpose of each paragraph. It is also your guide for where you'll need to head BACK to in order to answer the pesky detail questions.

Remember, the author probably started writing with an outline of the major points he or she wanted to cover, then fleshed in the details and gloss. You want to get back to that author's essential outline.

Try this out, then try an experiment. Give yourself only 2 minutes to get through a passage and get the most important information out of it. You're going to feel like Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom, racing to not be killed! But grab what treasure you can on the way! When the timer goes off, jot down the basic outline of what you got out of the passage. Now, with the clock off, read it again - take as much time as you like. Obviously, you're going to have a deeper understanding of the passage after this read through. But ask yourself what things you understood better on the deeper read - and which of those things was truly important. Then ask yourself "How could I have seen the truly important things in that two minutes? What were the structural indicators that I might have noticed that would have let me see that WITHOUT ruminating on it?" Whatever those structural indicators are, log that away for the next experiment.

Let me know how it goes!

[einuoa]

I've been having this problem lately as well, except I've noticed that I've been doing worse mainly on the newer RC tests rather than the older ones (40-50s), and I'm wondering if there are some changes in the newer RC passages?

Nonetheless, I will definitely try this method and see if it'll help! Thank you!

[christine.defenbaugh]

I've been having this problem lately as well, except I've noticed that I've been doing worse mainly on the newer RC tests rather than the older ones (40-50s), and I'm wondering if there are some changes in the newer RC passages?

Nonetheless, I will definitely try this method and see if it'll help! Thank you!

The general consensus seems to be that RC has steadily gotten slightly denser/more difficult over the years, and that the questions themselves have gotten a bit more challenging.

As always, though, the best way to identify whether this type of shift is really affecting you is to keep careful track of the kinds of mistakes you are making. Remember, self-diagnosis and self-analysis are absolutely critical to your improvement. Do you feel you are making more mistakes because your understanding of the passage is shakier on the more recent exams? Or are you having more trouble sorting out the trap answer choices? Or perhaps you are less clear on your task for each question?

The answers to those questions will help you identify not only whether there actually is a change for you from the older exams to the more recent ones, but more importantly what the heck you're going to do to combat it.

Good luck with your experiments!