First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up? Forum

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bobdylann

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First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by bobdylann » Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:23 pm

Two days ago, I took my first ever practice diagnostic and received a score of 138 -- I had done maybe 20-30 practice problems ever before this test.

I am still sort of shell-shocked because most of my friends at their very lowest received scores in the 150s.

Aside from feeling ashamed, I feel completely and utterly stupid and inept. Is it even worth taking a prep course at this stage? All I ever hear are the occasional rare but doable score increases of 15-20 pts, but even if I were to experience an increase like this, it would still place me in most other peoples' diagnostic scoring range.

Thanks for taking the time to read this depressing post

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Br3v

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by Br3v » Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:29 pm

bobdylann wrote:Two days ago, I took my first ever practice diagnostic and received a score of 138 -- I had done maybe 20-30 practice problems ever before this test.

I am still sort of shell-shocked because most of my friends at their very lowest received scores in the 150s.

Aside from feeling ashamed, I feel completely and utterly stupid and inept. Is it even worth taking a prep course at this stage? All I ever hear are the occasional rare but doable score increases of 15-20 pts, but even if I were to experience an increase like this, it would still place me in most other peoples' diagnostic scoring range.

Thanks for taking the time to read this depressing post
Quit trying to feel sorry for yourself and get to work. Yes it's still possible to improve to a t14 eligible score. Check out the LSAT prep section of this site, put in the time, and you'll see results.

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sinfiery

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by sinfiery » Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:32 pm

Diagnostic means nothing. Ask again once you've learned at least the basics of the test.

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by indo » Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:38 pm

Br3v wrote:
bobdylann wrote:Two days ago, I took my first ever practice diagnostic and received a score of 138 -- I had done maybe 20-30 practice problems ever before this test.

I am still sort of shell-shocked because most of my friends at their very lowest received scores in the 150s.

Aside from feeling ashamed, I feel completely and utterly stupid and inept. Is it even worth taking a prep course at this stage? All I ever hear are the occasional rare but doable score increases of 15-20 pts, but even if I were to experience an increase like this, it would still place me in most other peoples' diagnostic scoring range.

Thanks for taking the time to read this depressing post
Quit trying to feel sorry for yourself and get to work. Yes it's still possible to improve to a t14 eligible score. Check out the LSAT prep section of this site, put in the time, and you'll see results.

Are you sure that anyone can master the test if they work hard ?
Like spend 3 hours per day and 5 days per week for 4 or 5 months to get 170 ?

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Balthy

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by Balthy » Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:40 pm

How much time do you have to study?

The number of points people are able to improve is a meaningless stat. Read everything you can find here on LSAT prep and put in 3 months of solid work. If you don't see a significant increase, then maybe you should reconsider law school plans. When I say significant, I don't mean getting to a 170+. If you can get up 15 points in 3 months (and I think you'll be able to), perhaps another 3 will give you 15 more. You may need to set aside more time for studying than others, but it's certainly not worth telling yourself that you can't get a great score unless you've already given it everything you have and it's still not working out. Until then, like the other poster said, stop feeling sorry for yourself and work.

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rinkrat19

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by rinkrat19 » Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:40 pm

indo wrote:
Br3v wrote:
bobdylann wrote:Two days ago, I took my first ever practice diagnostic and received a score of 138 -- I had done maybe 20-30 practice problems ever before this test.

I am still sort of shell-shocked because most of my friends at their very lowest received scores in the 150s.

Aside from feeling ashamed, I feel completely and utterly stupid and inept. Is it even worth taking a prep course at this stage? All I ever hear are the occasional rare but doable score increases of 15-20 pts, but even if I were to experience an increase like this, it would still place me in most other peoples' diagnostic scoring range.

Thanks for taking the time to read this depressing post
Quit trying to feel sorry for yourself and get to work. Yes it's still possible to improve to a t14 eligible score. Check out the LSAT prep section of this site, put in the time, and you'll see results.

Are you sure that anyone can master the test if they work hard ?
Like spend 3 hours per day and 5 days per week for 4 or 5 months to get 170 ?
He didn't say that ANYONE can do it; just that it's possible. And studying is the only way to find out if it's possible for someone.

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by indo » Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:46 pm

rinkrat19 wrote:
indo wrote:
Br3v wrote:
bobdylann wrote:Two days ago, I took my first ever practice diagnostic and received a score of 138 -- I had done maybe 20-30 practice problems ever before this test.

I am still sort of shell-shocked because most of my friends at their very lowest received scores in the 150s.

Aside from feeling ashamed, I feel completely and utterly stupid and inept. Is it even worth taking a prep course at this stage? All I ever hear are the occasional rare but doable score increases of 15-20 pts, but even if I were to experience an increase like this, it would still place me in most other peoples' diagnostic scoring range.

Thanks for taking the time to read this depressing post
Quit trying to feel sorry for yourself and get to work. Yes it's still possible to improve to a t14 eligible score. Check out the LSAT prep section of this site, put in the time, and you'll see results.

Are you sure that anyone can master the test if they work hard ?
Like spend 3 hours per day and 5 days per week for 4 or 5 months to get 170 ?
He didn't say that ANYONE can do it; just that it's possible. And studying is the only way to find out if it's possible for someone.
You are saying that NOT everyone can master the LSAT even if they work very hard ?

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by jrsbaseball5 » Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:52 pm

superdingle2000 wrote:How much time do you have to study?

The number of points people are able to improve is a meaningless stat. Read everything you can find here on LSAT prep and put in 3 months of solid work. If you don't see a significant increase, then maybe you should reconsider law school plans. When I say significant, I don't mean getting to a 170+. If you can get up 15 points in 3 months (and I think you'll be able to), perhaps another 3 will give you 15 more. You may need to set aside more time for studying than others, but it's certainly not worth telling yourself that you can't get a great score unless you've already given it everything you have and it's still not working out. Until then, like the other poster said, stop feeling sorry for yourself and work.
I think this is a good plan for you to consider OP. You may need more time than some to get to the score that you want, but if you are willing to put the time in to find out it could be well worth it. Also, keep in mind what Dingle has said about solid work. If you just expect to spend 2 hours a week for a month and jump 30 points you will be sorely disappointed.

Another point, I have to find motivation or something to look forward to to keep me motivated and working hard. Imagine yourself 6 months from now posting in these forums on how you jumped from a 138 to a 170. Then work like crazy to get there.

Best of luck!

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by indo » Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:55 pm

jrsbaseball5 wrote:
superdingle2000 wrote:How much time do you have to study?

The number of points people are able to improve is a meaningless stat. Read everything you can find here on LSAT prep and put in 3 months of solid work. If you don't see a significant increase, then maybe you should reconsider law school plans. When I say significant, I don't mean getting to a 170+. If you can get up 15 points in 3 months (and I think you'll be able to), perhaps another 3 will give you 15 more. You may need to set aside more time for studying than others, but it's certainly not worth telling yourself that you can't get a great score unless you've already given it everything you have and it's still not working out. Until then, like the other poster said, stop feeling sorry for yourself and work.
I think this is a good plan for you to consider OP. You may need more time than some to get to the score that you want, but if you are willing to put the time in to find out it could be well worth it. Also, keep in mind what Dingle has said about solid work. If you just expect to spend 2 hours a week for a month and jump 30 points you will be sorely disappointed.

Another point, I have to find motivation or something to look forward to to keep me motivated and working hard. Imagine yourself 6 months from now posting in these forums on how you jumped from a 138 to a 170. Then work like crazy to get there.

Best of luck!

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by bombaysippin » Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:59 pm

jrsbaseball5 wrote:
superdingle2000 wrote:How much time do you have to study?

The number of points people are able to improve is a meaningless stat. Read everything you can find here on LSAT prep and put in 3 months of solid work. If you don't see a significant increase, then maybe you should reconsider law school plans. When I say significant, I don't mean getting to a 170+. If you can get up 15 points in 3 months (and I think you'll be able to), perhaps another 3 will give you 15 more. You may need to set aside more time for studying than others, but it's certainly not worth telling yourself that you can't get a great score unless you've already given it everything you have and it's still not working out. Until then, like the other poster said, stop feeling sorry for yourself and work.
I think this is a good plan for you to consider OP. You may need more time than some to get to the score that you want, but if you are willing to put the time in to find out it could be well worth it. Also, keep in mind what Dingle has said about solid work. If you just expect to spend 2 hours a week for a month and jump 30 points you will be sorely disappointed.

Another point, I have to find motivation or something to look forward to to keep me motivated and working hard. Imagine yourself 6 months from now posting in these forums on how you jumped from a 138 to a 170. Then work like crazy to get there.

Best of luck!
Op, you should pretty much just listen to what everyone here has said. No point in feeling sorry for yourself. Diagnostics are just a tool to see where you are before you even begin your real prep work, but otherwise they are meaningless. You don't have the fundamentals of what the LSAT tests you on yet (or at least that is what I am assuming from your score). Once you get the fundamentals down, you should be seeing a lot of gains. If and when you do get there, from that point on it's really about getting super nit picky and focusing on reading carefully as to not miss any important details.

You have yet to see the biggest gains in your work because you haven't even started. Put in the work and then you can more reasonably decide whether you want to give up or not.

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by rinkrat19 » Sat Jun 01, 2013 6:07 pm

indo wrote:
rinkrat19 wrote:
indo wrote:Are you sure that anyone can master the test if they work hard ?
Like spend 3 hours per day and 5 days per week for 4 or 5 months to get 170 ?
He didn't say that ANYONE can do it; just that it's possible. And studying is the only way to find out if it's possible for someone.
You are saying that NOT everyone can master the LSAT even if they work very hard ?
Yeah, I think there are probably people who can't get a 180 no matter what. I don't think someone who diagnosed at 138 is necessarily one of those people.

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by sublime » Sat Jun 01, 2013 6:16 pm

..

Ti Malice

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by Ti Malice » Sat Jun 01, 2013 9:26 pm

No, don't give up. And drop the defeated attitude, because it will only hold you back. Results on a diagnostic don't necessarily say anything about your ultimate potential. I've taught students who started off in the 135-139 range and ended up scoring from 160-171 on the real thing. All of them put in a tremendous amount of work. Students who started off in that range and didn't put a great deal of work into prep, not surprisingly, did not make very big gains.

TLS is evangelical about only doing self-study for the LSAT, but I think it's wrongheaded to insist that this is the best approach for everyone. Particularly for folks who don't start off with high diagnostics, a good full-length, in-person prep course (i.e., not Kaplan or Princeton Review) can be very helpful. Most of them, however, are not scheduled far enough in advance of the next test for you to have much of a chance of realizing a 25- or 30-point gain in that amount of time. A course that starts in early August is very likely not going to allow you to make your maximum gains in time for October, for instance. Take a course well in advance of the time you actually plan to take the test. Then continue to work on all of the questions, individual test sections, and, eventually, full-length PTs that you weren't able to complete during the eight or so weeks your class met. Take the actual test only when you're fully prepared.

Study intelligently. It's not just about the total number of LSAT questions you complete. Far better to wring all of the lessons out of 1,000 LSAT questions than to hurry through 3,000 of them without focusing intently on what makes wrong answers wrong and right answers right (but far better still to do a greater number of questions properly). Except when you're taking timed sections and full-length PTs, your focus should be on accuracy instead of speed. Increased speed will come with time. (And you should still focus only on accuracy when you review any problems you miss.)

edit: typo
Last edited by Ti Malice on Sun Jun 02, 2013 1:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by Dr. Dre » Sun Jun 02, 2013 12:41 am

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by bp shinners » Mon Jun 03, 2013 10:09 am

bobdylann wrote:Two days ago, I took my first ever practice diagnostic and received a score of 138 -- I had done maybe 20-30 practice problems ever before this test.
While not particularly common, I have seen students in my classes make a jump from the 130s to the top 2%. They worked like crazy for about 6 months to get there. So definitely don't give up!

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by RhymesLikeDimes » Mon Jun 03, 2013 11:43 am

What were your section scores? If you had like -20 LG, -35 LR, you can definitely make all of that back with some hard work. A -20 on RC is going to be harder to work with, but you can definitely improve significantly.

I went from -9 LG and -16 LR on my diagnostic to consistently missing 3 or fewer on all those three section combined.

And that "15-20 point increase" typically refers to people who go ~150 to ~165. All points aren't created equal, and that's a much bigger jump than say 135-150, which could happen in just a couple weeks. Just forget about this 138. It really is utterly meaningless in the long run.

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by PRgradBYU » Mon Jun 03, 2013 11:59 pm

bobdylann wrote:Two days ago, I took my first ever practice diagnostic and received a score of 138 -- I had done maybe 20-30 practice problems ever before this test.

I am still sort of shell-shocked because most of my friends at their very lowest received scores in the 150s.

Aside from feeling ashamed, I feel completely and utterly stupid and inept. Is it even worth taking a prep course at this stage? All I ever hear are the occasional rare but doable score increases of 15-20 pts, but even if I were to experience an increase like this, it would still place me in most other peoples' diagnostic scoring range.

Thanks for taking the time to read this depressing post
As everyone else has said, don't be discouraged. The LSAT is a learnable test, and you can absolutely improve by at least 15-20 points. My diagnostic score was pretty bad, too, if it's any consolation.

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by jvincent11 » Tue Jun 04, 2013 12:16 am

I went up 23 points from the 140s...and that was after scoring on the low end of my newly acquired range

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by bdm261 » Tue Jun 04, 2013 10:17 am

I improved 15 points from my diagnostic. I took about 5-6 practice LSATs increasing a few points every time so it's very likely you'll score much better with a little practice. I also did a lot of LSAT slacking and probably could have improved 20-30 points if I put in 110%.

From what I hear, 10-15 points is the average increase from diagnostic to final test but from what I read on the forums here, it's not uncommon to go from the high 130s/low 140s and achieve a score that'll qualify you for T-14.

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Re: First ever practice diagnostic score of 138 --> Give up?

Post by bp shinners » Tue Jun 04, 2013 10:52 am

bdm261 wrote:From what I hear, 10-15 points is the average increase from diagnostic to final test but from what I read on the forums here, it's not uncommon to go from the high 130s/low 140s and achieve a score that'll qualify you for T-14.
That's not even close to true. It might be the case around TLS because everyone here is a crazy over-achiever, but the actual average is much lower. I only post because I don't want people who go +9 to think they're below average - that's actually pretty high, as far as the average goes. Most people are bad at teaching themselves this stuff and don't see anywhere near a double-digit score increase.

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