Is it normal to plateau in the low 160s after studying for months?

[prototrophic]

I’ve been self-studying for the LSAT since early June and could really use some perspective.
I started around a 153 diagnostic and have been studying consistently (~15–20 hours/week). I’ve worked through the Powerscore Bibles, taken about 10 full-length PTs (most in the 160–163 range), and drilled sections using 7Sage and Cambridge packets. Despite all this, my score just won’t budge past 163.
I feel like I understand the fundamentals — LG is my strongest section (usually -0 or -1), RC is okay (-3 to -5), but LR is killing me (-7 to -9 across both sections). I’ve tried blind review, timing drills, and even slowing down to focus on accuracy, but it’s not clicking the way I hoped.
So my question is:
Is it common to hit a wall like this? And how do you know when it’s time to change your study strategy vs. just keep grinding?
I’m signed up for the November test, so I have time — but starting to feel a little discouraged. Any advice or success stories from others who broke through a similar plateau would be awesome.
Thanks in advance!

[Jeff Wren]

Hi prototrophic,

First, before we get into answering your question, I have to address the elephant in the room.

You wrote:

"LG is my strongest section (usually -0 or -1)"

I really hope for your sake this was meant to be a joke or that I'm somehow misunderstanding you. Otherwise, I'm afraid that I've got some really bad news for you. The logic games section was removed from the LSAT starting with the August 2024 LSAT.

Here is an article from LSAC about that change:

https://www.lsac.org/blog/what-to-expec ... -2024-lsat

This was the biggest change to the LSAT in decades and was huge news to anyone involved in LSAT studies. Quite frankly, I cannot imagine how anyone studying for the LSAT could not know about this unless they were only using outdated study materials. (If you are in fact unaware of this change, please let us know how that happened so that we can try to make sure that it doesn't happen to other students going forward.)

Because logic games in no longer on the LSAT, you should not really be spending time studying logic games and you definitely shouldn't be taking practice tests with logic games. (Of course, if you want to do some logic games for fun, that's perfectly understandable because they can be quite fun in the way other types of puzzles are fun.)

Part of the reason that this will come as bad news to you is that your strongest section is no longer on the test, so that may negatively impact your LSAT scores. I'd recommend taking another practice test in the current format without logic games. Any of the newly number PrepTests (starting with Preptest 101) will have the logic games removed.

As for your question, score plateaus are common. Due to diminishing marginal returns, improving one's score by each additional point becomes more difficult the higher up the scale one goes. For example, the first five points of score improvement usually require less effort than the last five points of score improvement. That being said, improving your score is still possible, but it will likely require you to change some of the ways that you've been studying.

Many students find that self-studying can help up to a point, but then they find that getting additional expert help can make really a difference. Private tutoring can be a great option if it's within your budget. Other good option is taking one of our LSAT courses.

Here is an article on this topic that you may find helpful.

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