I don't know how to improve

[summer20]

Hi Powerscore,

I am scoring between -2 and -4 on every section. I keep careful record of all missed questions, but I can't find an identifiable trend. There is no particular type of question that I am prone to getting wrong or repeated mistake that I keep making. On the questions I get wrong, I have usually narrowed down the right answer and another contender, then wrongly choose the other contender. This is true whether its an LR or RC question. I am PTing in the low 170s, my goal is 174 or higher. I am R&R this cycle, and registered to take the Nov LSAT. I am always just 2 or 3 points off my goal but I dont know how to improve those couple points.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi summer,

First, congratulations on scoring in the 170s! While you're still a few points from your target score, scoring anywhere in the 170s is already a huge accomplishment that you shouldn't minimize.

Score plateaus are quite typical, and the higher up the score range you go, usually the harder it is to improve due to diminishing marginal returns. For example, going from a 170 to a 174+ may require as much time studying/practicing as it takes to go from a 160 to a 170.

Here are two blog posts on score plateaus that you may find helpful.

https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/how-to ... sat-study/

https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/how-to ... are-stuck/

As for your observation that you often get the answers down to two contenders and then choose the wrong one, this is actually quite common. One of the ways that the test makers increase the difficulty for certain questions is to include one very tempting wrong answer that often gets chosen as much as, if not more than, the right answer. This is so common that we actually have a podcast episode on this very topic, which I recommend. It can be found here:

https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/lsat-p ... t-answers/

One other point that I recommend whenever you come across this situation with 2 tempting answers that you can't quite resolve is to just pick one, flag the question, and return to it later after you finished the rest of the questions. In my experience, most students scoring in the 170s often have a few minutes left over at the end of each section. Being able to go back and look at one or two of those questions with "fresh eyes" (and without the stress/time pressure of knowing that you still have a bunch of questions left in the section) can sometimes allow you to see something that you wouldn't see the first time doing the question. Of course, it's very important to reread the entire LR problem (including the stimulus) and not just reread the answers when returning to those questions.

Lastly, many students find that going over the questions that they missed with a PowerScore tutor can help because usually the tutor can spot specific problems in your approach that you may not realize, especially if you talk the tutor through exactly how you approached each of those questions.