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Practice tests - statistical variation/old vs new?

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2010 1:44 pm
by incompetentia
As I'm taking the LSAT in a week, I've been hitting the practice tests hard over the past 5 weeks or so. I'd been generally able to raise my typical score 7-8 points working forward through the three "Actual Official" books as well as other prep materials. (First few tests around 169-172, last several in the 176-178 range, including one 180)

As I've gotten into the newer practice tests (2006 and later), my scores have fallen precipitously, with the last three tests (54-56) garnering 174/171/169, respectively. I do know that there are differences between a test from 10 years ago and one from last year, but I haven't missed a dual-passage question yet, and the extra errors seem to be spread out between both the LR and the RC sections evenly (the 169 on 56 was a result of 12 missed, four in each of the three non-Games sections), and I can't seem to find a pattern, at least relative to question type, in what's been missed.


As important as it is for everybody to do their best on the test, my relatively low GPA (by T14 standards) will probably require me even more to be at the top of my game next week. Is this trend a sign of major trouble, or am I doing something incorrectly? Perhaps there is another layer of complexity that I'm completely missing?
Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Re: Practice tests - statistical variation/old vs new?

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2010 5:29 pm
by Saltqjibo
This is normal variation, I remember I got a 169 about a week and a half before june and freaked out because I thought I was dropping. I just kept doing them and my average went back up and I scored exactly average (175) on the administration. Its not the tests, may be burnout or fatigue.

Re: Practice tests - statistical variation/old vs new?

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2010 6:40 pm
by incompetentia
All right, that's comforting.

I'm going to put the tests down for 2 days then and see if I improve any - just realized I haven't had a day without a PT for over a week so I should probably rectify that (also in panic I took PT60 and managed to get the last 8 questions wrong because my brain was all mushed)