The Official December 2017 Study Group Forum

[littlewing67]

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[twiix]

I am having a severe mid-life crisis/ panic attack right now and I really need someone to talk to.

I have basically 3 options right now:
-take dec. and hope I get a better score to apply in jan. (what is the probability of going up 4/6 points in 7 weeks?)
-apply now with my score - I can only get into schools ranked lower than #20
-take june instead, and apply next cycle

I'm feeling really paralyzed right now because IDK how I would feel going to a non-t14 school. It is partially my ego, but also part of me wants to have that name recognition and more opportunities. I am interested in PI, but really want to do impact lit/wrongful convictions/death penalty convictions/criminal defense (all pretty related) and I want to give myself the best leg up to achieve my dreams/goals.

Also, I PT higher than 164 and I know I have the potential to score better test day. One of my issues is my anxiety, and feeling like I am having a heart attack prior to and during the test that makes it hard for me to focus.

If anyone has some perspective into this or some advice for me, please PM me.

I think if you want to do PI you should focus on two things about where you choose to go :

1. T14's usually have MUCH better LRAP's for PI. Like drastically different.
2. Scholarship. Basically see point 1. If you can get into a good T20 with good scholarship, I think you'd be fine. Doing PI won't be nearly as competitive as SCOTUS/Big Law for the most part, so I think if you managed a good outcome from like, WUSTL, you would have a solid outcome with that decision.

I'm in the same boat as you though, I had my life mapped out to attend LS in the fall of next year, and now I have absolutely no idea what my life is any more. Not sure whether to rush into Dec or wait another year, but that seems like an eternity away.

Also a super splitter, so timing matters more to me than others as to when I apply, so fml.

Shoot me a message if you want/need to chat. I'm right there with you.

[urmlaw17]

How are you reviewing RC?

I just took a timed RC section this morning, scored -4, and I went over each wrong answer choice by reading the explanation from Manhattan Prep.

[AvatarMeelo]

Ugh back at the library starting from square one for logical reasoning and my focus is shiiieeeeetttt.

[King of the North]

Blah. Ugh. Smh. I can do individual timed LR sections and score -4/5 commonly, but doing them on full PTs or doing two timed back to back results in me getting -7/-8. In truth, today was my first time doing 2 back to back, so I'm not sure if that's a fair assessment, but still, it sucks. Sucks a lot.

[jjdude14]

Ugh back at the library starting from square one for logical reasoning and my focus is shiiieeeeetttt.

Far too relatable

[Mikey]

PT C2 today

I almost don't want to get a 170+ because it will piss me off and make me wonder why I was so stupid on test day

edit: does doing a PT this fast after the sept scores being released make me a gunner? if so forgive me

[MercW07]

Saw a lot of people from the September test had bubbling errors lead to a lower score, so starting next week Ill be bubbling in my answers instead of just circling them on the page. Do you guys bubble as you go, or in blocks of 5-10? I skip around a bit during LR so Im a bit worried that Ill be prone to errors.

[Eleven]

Saw a lot of people from the September test had bubbling errors lead to a lower score, so starting next week Ill be bubbling in my answers instead of just circling them on the page. Do you guys bubble as you go, or in blocks of 5-10? I skip around a bit during LR so Im a bit worried that Ill be prone to errors.

Definitely do this, you will likely get to 2 less questions per section also. Bubbling doesn't seem like it takes time, but that 90-120 seconds can be crucial.

[tinyrickkk]

Saw a lot of people from the September test had bubbling errors lead to a lower score, so starting next week Ill be bubbling in my answers instead of just circling them on the page. Do you guys bubble as you go, or in blocks of 5-10? I skip around a bit during LR so Im a bit worried that Ill be prone to errors.

Happened to me in June (twice) and September (once). It sucks a lot.

[GnarMarBinx]

Saw a lot of people from the September test had bubbling errors lead to a lower score, so starting next week Ill be bubbling in my answers instead of just circling them on the page. Do you guys bubble as you go, or in blocks of 5-10? I skip around a bit during LR so Im a bit worried that Ill be prone to errors.

I usually bubble by game, by RC passage, or by page in LR. I find it saves time to bubble multiple questions in at once. How do you skip around in LR? If you only skip maybe a couple questions to come back to later, I don't think it would have really any effect on your page-by-page bubbling. I usually write a little dot on the scantron beside the numbers of questions I want to go back to. So, say I am about to bubble in questions 18-22 and I want to put an educated guess down on question 21 so I can move on and finish the section, it would look something like 18: A 19: D 20: C 21 D (educated guess and then dot beside the number on the scantron) 22: A, flip page. Then, at the end of the section, I look at my (hopefully small number of) dots and go back to those questions to hopefully dig deeper and figure out what I missed on a fresh mindset.

[Experiment626]

Saw a lot of people from the September test had bubbling errors lead to a lower score, so starting next week Ill be bubbling in my answers instead of just circling them on the page. Do you guys bubble as you go, or in blocks of 5-10? I skip around a bit during LR so Im a bit worried that Ill be prone to errors.

How are people identifying bubbling errors? I have my June info but I had no way of telling if I misbubbled because I didn't have my original book with the answers I circled. I had this weird issue leading up to the test where I would circle the right answer and bubble the wrong one and be ok on the next question so it wasn't a case of misaligned bubbling. Like literally I would circle A and bubble D. And this only happened on PTs, if I drilled a section to time with a bubble sheet, no issues.

I think I got around it by taking more time, which sucks, via ok the answer is D, move pencil from bubble to bubble until I hit D. I'm trying to get to bubbling by 2 page block for LR and passage/game for RC/LG to pickup time again.

[CottonHarvest]

Well, I think I'm registering to retake. I think my plan will be to focus on section drilling rather than retaking a bunch of PTs. Also, has anyone used the BP RC book? I got it for free but didn't use it because it has so much content from recent PTs and didn't want to spoil them, but since I have already taken those PTs now, I might as well use it if others have had any success using it.

[kgm1990]

My major issue was sloppiness on that last section. On the Sept. test, I only missed 3 in RC and a handful in LR and LG. But then on the last LR section, I wound up making a sloppy stupid mistake. So I think I'm going to work on endurance. Hopefully it helps.

[Mikey]

PT C2..

169

LR: -0/-3
LG:-1
RC:-6

I don't get this test. why can I do this in practice but not on test day..

edit: can someone help me understand why I'm so fucking stupid when it comes to actual test day?????

[kgm1990]

PT C2..

169

LR: -0/-3
LG:-1
RC:-6

I don't get this test. why can I do this in practice but not on test day..

edit: can someone help me understand why I'm so fucking stupid when it comes to actual test day?????

Do you get anxious? Or, like me, just can't sleep. Like, I'm not particularly nervous, I just don't sleep.

[Mikey]

PT C2..

169

LR: -0/-3
LG:-1
RC:-6

I don't get this test. why can I do this in practice but not on test day..

edit: can someone help me understand why I'm so fucking stupid when it comes to actual test day?????

Do you get anxious? Or, like me, just can't sleep. Like, I'm not particularly nervous, I just don't sleep.

I usually can't sleep at all the night before. I get nervous of course, but not that bad.. I freaked out on RC though but that was because I screw up a bunch..

My mind wanders off more on test day than it does on PTs, that is a huge issue too..

[ScamMan101]

My lsat journey:

Cold Diagnostic in May scored 148

Took September LSAT got a 161
-8 LR 1
-0 LG
-4 LR 2
-11 RC

Had been scoring 168-172 on prep tests prior to September.

Planning on really focusing on RC, up until December. Kind of need to reevaluate my study methods as this RC completely blindsided me. Thats the most wrong I had ever missed on a RC.

Also one thing that I kind of overlooked that I would advise all of you to do is to warm up the morning of. On the first LR and after reviewing what I did wrong I realized that I missed a lot of easy questions. I had so much adrenaline/anxiety it took me half the section to get in my grove. Normally I will miss 4 at most but that first section really fucked me. RC was just a shit show but realistically if I missed that 4 on LR and my average on RC (-4 to -6) I'm getting in the 168-172 range....

Shoulda Coulda Wouldas are fairytales. I've learned from my mistakes and will make the Dec test my bitch.

Lets run it ))

[AvatarMeelo]

Pls everyone share with me how you do and review logical reasoning bc I'm clearly missing something. I used to only use the Trainer, the Cambridge packets, and Graeme's blog/Manhattan LSAT forum - now I'm working with the Manhattan LSAT LR book and the Fox encyclopedia. I got -15 in total for both sections of LR so0o0o0o0 I need help. Drilling and intense reviewing for some reason wasn't helping and I feel like a failure. For what it's worth, I got the first 15 or so questions right for both sections but it all went downhill after that :/

[kgm1990]

PT C2..

169

LR: -0/-3
LG:-1
RC:-6

I don't get this test. why can I do this in practice but not on test day..

edit: can someone help me understand why I'm so fucking stupid when it comes to actual test day?????

Do you get anxious? Or, like me, just can't sleep. Like, I'm not particularly nervous, I just don't sleep.

I usually can't sleep at all the night before. I get nervous of course, but not that bad.. I freaked out on RC though but that was because I screw up a bunch..

My mind wanders off more on test day than it does on PTs, that is a huge issue too..

Yeah, mine does on that last section usually. That day I had to park somewhere I KNEW I would either be towed or get a ticket because big universities have awful parking situations and it was a game day. During that last section, a picture of walking out to a missing car pervaded most of my thoughts.

I think I'm going to start practice testing with six sections and a writing sample and just refreshing the technical stuff.

[Mikey]

Pls everyone share with me how you do and review logical reasoning bc I'm clearly missing something. I used to only use the Trainer, the Cambridge packets, and Graeme's blog/Manhattan LSAT forum - now I'm working with the Manhattan LSAT LR book and the Fox encyclopedia. I got -15 in total for both sections of LR so0o0o0o0 I need help. Drilling and intense reviewing for some reason wasn't helping and I feel like a failure. For what it's worth, I got the first 15 or so questions right for both sections but it all went downhill after that :/

Were there any specific question types that you noticed you got most of your questions wrong in? For me it was mostly weaken and NA questions

I wish I could be more help for LR, I was getting about -2 per LR in practice but ended up -5 and -6 in sept

[AvatarMeelo]

Pls everyone share with me how you do and review logical reasoning bc I'm clearly missing something. I used to only use the Trainer, the Cambridge packets, and Graeme's blog/Manhattan LSAT forum - now I'm working with the Manhattan LSAT LR book and the Fox encyclopedia. I got -15 in total for both sections of LR so0o0o0o0 I need help. Drilling and intense reviewing for some reason wasn't helping and I feel like a failure. For what it's worth, I got the first 15 or so questions right for both sections but it all went downhill after that :/

Were there any specific question types that you noticed you got most of your questions wrong in? For me it was mostly weaken and NA questions

I wish I could be more help for LR, I was getting about -2 per LR in practice but ended up -5 and -6 in sept

I haven't done a more thorough look but it seemed to be kind of all over the place, and it was definitely in the second half of each section. Although, I thinkkkkkk strengthen/weaken/sufficient assumptions are definitely some of the questions i tend to get incorrect more often

[GnarMarBinx]

This might sound weird, but I have a buddy who has a renowned tutor who apparently taught him to paraphrase every sentence in his head during RC as he reads the passage (in your own words). He even swears to himself in his head and stuff to help him remember what's going on. I was BOMBING RC so badly (literally between -13 and -17 per section) and I tried out that method like 2 weeks before the test and went -7 on RC, with -2 on the judge passage. Since I started out horribly in RC im not sure if this will help people who are already good at it. However, if you're struggling you might want to give it a try.

Just so you know, I don't "abandon" the other methods such as reading for structure per se, but summarizing every sentence in a few words really keeps the passage (even the details) in your head. It saved me a lot of time not having to go back to the passage for detail questions. However, I still struggle with time and didn't get to (I think) the last 3 questions in September.

[Experiment626]

Pls everyone share with me how you do and review logical reasoning bc I'm clearly missing something. I used to only use the Trainer, the Cambridge packets, and Graeme's blog/Manhattan LSAT forum - now I'm working with the Manhattan LSAT LR book and the Fox encyclopedia. I got -15 in total for both sections of LR so0o0o0o0 I need help. Drilling and intense reviewing for some reason wasn't helping and I feel like a failure. For what it's worth, I got the first 15 or so questions right for both sections but it all went downhill after that :/

Were there any specific question types that you noticed you got most of your questions wrong in? For me it was mostly weaken and NA questions

I wish I could be more help for LR, I was getting about -2 per LR in practice but ended up -5 and -6 in sept

I haven't done a more thorough look but it seemed to be kind of all over the place, and it was definitely in the second half of each section. Although, I thinkkkkkk strengthen/weaken/sufficient assumptions are definitely some of the questions i tend to get incorrect more often

You really should run your stuff through the 7sage grader so that it can provide the analysis on question types you're missing.

[etramak]

PT C2..

169

LR: -0/-3
LG:-1
RC:-6

I don't get this test. why can I do this in practice but not on test day..

edit: can someone help me understand why I'm so fucking stupid when it comes to actual test day?????

Do you get anxious? Or, like me, just can't sleep. Like, I'm not particularly nervous, I just don't sleep.

I usually can't sleep at all the night before. I get nervous of course, but not that bad.. I freaked out on RC though but that was because I screw up a bunch..

My mind wanders off more on test day than it does on PTs, that is a huge issue too..

Is this the test with the Woody Allen RC passage? That last RC passage (Sowell?) was difficult but I found the rest of test abnormally easy. As for your problem, I too suffer from underperforming by 5-10 points on test day (hence my participation in this thread) and can offer no good advice