LNAT Advice (Section A)

I'm going into Year 13 and will be applying to study law at Bristol and Cambridge. I know that both Bristol and Cambridge tend to give more weighting to the essay portion of the LNAT, but I'm a little concerned with my MCQ section performance at the moment. Initially, I wasn't going to buy Arbitio, as I was getting on just fine with The Complete LNAT Guide questions and some free practice tests I had found online (scores ranging from 29-32), but after sitting the Arbitio free practice test, I realised that the passage difficulty was more similar to the passage difficulty of the practice tests on the LNAT website, so I decided to invest. I scored 17/42 on that test, which didn't shock me as Arbitio is supposed to be harder than the real test. I then completed another free practice test on a different website to the others I've used and I scored 26/42. This test felt most similar to the one on the LNAT website, which is worrying me, as I scored 23/42 on that one back in April. I'd like to get a high MCQ score, ideally between 28-34. I'm trying to complete as many questions as I can and every time I get a question wrong, I will go back and check why. Somehow, each time I learn from a past mistake, I end up making a new one and I'm getting very confused. I'll be sitting my test in late September, so if anyone has any advice on how to improve on the MCQ section, I would really appreciate it.

Only thing you can do is carry on working hard, it sounds like you’re doing the right thing. When you say you’re getting confused, is it about the lack of progress you feel you’re making? On that I’d say that although you’re constantly making more mistakes, you’re also building up your bank of past mistakes, even if it may not feel like it. If it’s any comfort I was in your exact position this time last year, was working in the way you describe but still doing not so great (high 10s and low 20s on arbitio), sat it in early October and ended up with a MCQ score of 31 and a Bristol offer.
Only thing I’d recommend is mostly using arbitio for practice, I feel its level of difficulty prepped me best compared to the ultimate LNAT guide. And as difficult as it is, try not to focus on the scores you’re getting; feeling disheartened by them is totally understandable but LNAT practice scores may not be linear in progression, my best practice score was one of the first attempts I made. (Also this may be irrelevant due to the unis you’re prioritising, but consider not abandoning the essay too much in your studying, I did and Durham cited it as the reason for rejecting me)

Thank you so much for the advice! I was getting confused in terms of my progress mainly, but now that you’ve explained how making new mistakes simply adds to my bank of mistakes to learn from, I feel a lot better about my progress. I’m doing essays alongside my MCQ practice and I’m slowly improving on timing and structure. I quite enjoy essays and tend to respond well to feedback on them, so my priority at the moment has more so been the MCQ section. 31 is an amazing score congrats! I’ll try not to get too disheartened and instead of focusing on my scores, I’ll just continue practicing. Thanks so much again