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I'm taking the LSAT for the third time in June (scored in the mid-high 160s twice, looking for 170+) and have used all of the PT's published. I read desertfox's "Re-using PT's won't hurt you" post, and am convinced that I'm helping myself by re-doing pt's, but how should I handicap them?

The tests I'm currently re-doing I originally did a year ago. When I re-do questions, I might remember a weird question I've already done before or an RC topic, but rarely the correct answers. I've tried doing 30 minute sections, but does anyone have suggestions on a score handicap? Or are these scores I'm getting more or less indicative of where I stand?

Dude, this is totally subjective. How do YOU feel as you are taking it? Can you tell that you have a slight edge because of re-doing PTs? How about where you recognize a question and think that you remember the answer and it ends up making the question harder? Re-doing a PT can work both ways, making questions easier or harder. I mean, all of the LSATs are pretty much the same right... so if you know how to answer question than you know how. I wouldn't stress too much what your scores are regardless. The key is to just know how to answer questions, that is why re-doing PTs can be valuable, not because it can you give you reliable score indication.

TL;DR Just focus on how to answer questions and it wont matter

princeR wrote:Dude, this is totally subjective. How do YOU feel as you are taking it? Can you tell that you have a slight edge because of re-doing PTs? How about where you recognize a question and think that you remember the answer and it ends up making the question harder? Re-doing a PT can work both ways, making questions easier or harder. I mean, all of the LSATs are pretty much the same right... so if you know how to answer question than you know how. I wouldn't stress too much what your scores are regardless. The key is to just know how to answer questions, that is why re-doing PTs can be valuable, not because it can you give you reliable score indication.

TL;DR Just focus on how to answer questions and it wont matter

Right, I agree it's helpful prep work.

I want to know if people can, and if so how to, draw a reliable score indication from these repeat PTs.

I had the same problem when I was going for my third take at the LSAT.

Your scores are going to totally be inflated, you will remember q's and sh*t like that.

Doing the 30 minute sections is one thing I did, sometimes (for LG) i'd even cut it down to 25minutes. I would always handicap my score by 7 problems, just a random guess, though. You could also subtract whichever section your score best on (assuming you are using experimental sections)... this would always make me feel more comfortable about believing my score.

Ultimately, I was at about 174 PT average and nailed a 170.

gaud wrote:I had the same problem when I was going for my third take at the LSAT.

Your scores are going to totally be inflated, you will remember q's and sh*t like that.

Doing the 30 minute sections is one thing I did, sometimes (for LG) i'd even cut it down to 25minutes. I would always handicap my score by 7 problems, just a random guess, though. You could also subtract whichever section your score best on (assuming you are using experimental sections)... this would always make me feel more comfortable about believing my score.

Ultimately, I was at about 174 PT average and nailed a 170.

Thanks dude.

How much time between the first and second times you took these tests?

gaud wrote:I had the same problem when I was going for my third take at the LSAT.

Your scores are going to totally be inflated, you will remember q's and sh*t like that.

Doing the 30 minute sections is one thing I did, sometimes (for LG) i'd even cut it down to 25minutes. I would always handicap my score by 7 problems, just a random guess, though. You could also subtract whichever section your score best on (assuming you are using experimental sections)... this would always make me feel more comfortable about believing my score.

Ultimately, I was at about 174 PT average and nailed a 170.

This is good advice. Time not only strictly, but cut the time. I know for me, if I read the stimulus and already know what the answer would be, I just shaved off 30-60seconds, so have to give myself less time overall.

gavinstevens wrote:Thanks dude.

How much time between the first and second times you took these tests?

If I understand you correctly, my takes were Oct '10, June '11, Oct '11.

So, for the third time around I had recently taken all of the more recent tests. Regardless, I took them all again. You'll get huge ego-boosts but you just gotta keep that sh*t in check. When you miss problems, figure out exactly why you missed it. At this point you likely know enough about prep it's really hard to give you advice that I won't feel like you already know.

gaud wrote:

gavinstevens wrote:Thanks dude.

How much time between the first and second times you took these tests?

If I understand you correctly, my takes were Oct '10, June '11, Oct '11.

So, for the third time around I had recently taken all of the more recent tests. Regardless, I took them all again. You'll get huge ego-boosts but you just gotta keep that sh*t in check. When you miss problems, figure out exactly why you missed it. At this point you likely know enough about prep it's really hard to give you advice that I won't feel like you already know.

No that's helpful. Another question I should ask is how long until, if ever, is a PT "fresh" again?

gavinstevens wrote:

gaud wrote:

gavinstevens wrote:Thanks dude.

How much time between the first and second times you took these tests?

If I understand you correctly, my takes were Oct '10, June '11, Oct '11.

So, for the third time around I had recently taken all of the more recent tests. Regardless, I took them all again. You'll get huge ego-boosts but you just gotta keep that sh*t in check. When you miss problems, figure out exactly why you missed it. At this point you likely know enough about prep it's really hard to give you advice that I won't feel like you already know.

No that's helpful. Another question I should ask is how long until, if ever, is a PT "fresh" again?

Hmm.. when I was shooting for the June retake, most of the PT's were "fresh". I would still remember a couple questions here and there but for the most part I could still get stumped on a few. I'd say it was roughly after 4 months when I started to lose memories of problems and what not. For the third go at the LSAT, the time between wasn't long enough for me to forget much of anything.

Not sure about you guys, for for me LG and RC are always fresh (as long as it's been at least 1 month since I've last taken it). LR is not, though. I still remember some LR questions because they are just more memorable in subject matter/unique flaw/difficulty. So, personally, I am extra careful when it comes to LR.

So I guess I'm not too bad off re-taking stuff I haven't seen in a year (in terms of drawing a score indication).

I will, however, stick to 30 minute sections, and treat my scores as suspect until June. Thanks everyone.

99.9luft wrote:Not sure about you guys, for for me LG and RC are always fresh (as long as it's been at least 1 month since I've last taken it). LR is not, though. I still remember some LR questions because they are just more memorable in subject matter/unique flaw/difficulty. So, personally, I am extra careful when it comes to LR.

LG was always my 'forte' so there was never any problems there for me (from the first go-around to the last). Good call on bringing this up; now that i think about it, RC was fresh for the most part on each of my retakes. LR was definitely a trouble area, though. It's very easy to remember specific flaws in q's and things like that.

gavinstevens wrote:So I guess I'm not too bad off re-taking stuff I haven't seen in a year (in terms of drawing a score indication).

I will, however, stick to 30 minute sections, and treat my scores as suspect until June. Thanks everyone.

You should be good. That much time off and I don't think you'll remember as much as you would have if it was like a June-Oct thing.

Good luck to you!

1.5 years was enough time to make PTs pretty fresh for me. If a problem seems familiar, it's generally just as likely because it's on one of the LSAT's pet topics (dinosaurs usually) than me actually remembering it. I've found myself checking to see if I've done a test before because of that only to realize that it's just a similar question.

But the downside of going so long between retakes is that I had to learn LG all over again.