June 2016 - Waiter's (+170 or bust) GRAY DAY HAS AWOKEN FROM ITS SLUMBER Forum

[BACsop]

Interesting; I got -2 on RC, -0 LG, and -12 on LR. Wow reading saved me for once I guess.

Similar situation here - bizarrely enough I went -1 on RC, saved my score. -3 on LG and -8 on LR

[tsf]

Hey guys! I got my score yesterday and it was well below my worst PT score...I know I made a bubbling mistake in the last section and I tried to fix it, but I didn't have enough time to check every answer, so that might have been the reason
I took the test in another country, so I don't have my answer sheet or the booklet. I literally have my score, my percentile and that's it. Don't even know my raw score
Do you guys know if there's any way to get access to the test and to the answers? I'd really like to know if I got a bad score because of my stupid bubbling error or if I just really bombed

[meeseeks]

Well after some meditation with my good friend Jack Daniels, I will be joining Sir Meerkat in the September thread. As much as I hate the idea of letting the LSAT consume my life for another ~3 months, I know future-me will be pissed if I don't attempt for a better score. Thanks for all the encouragement and support. It's been real

[carasrook]

Don't use McGraw Hill. - probably outing myself as a moron by admitting that i used that book. But i am a moron so that's ok. MIDWEST TTT

Pretzel is so nice and knowledgeable and cultured and stuff. Wish you the best.

Henny is a genius who ran a great waiting thread. Wish you the best.

Cara is a thoughtful contributor and a timely critic. this user's zings were well regarded. Favorite Avatar. Wish you the best.

Forum user was a stalwart. Wish you the best.

BW and BLE were really nice today - thanks guys. I appreciate the humor. Wish you both the best.

Smallville- IDK what to think of you. still creeped out by the post about cultivating flourishing female posters. Wish you the best none the less.

Everyone else- love you all! it's been a singular experience waiting for this fucking score and I wish all of you the best.

<333

[BirdLawExpert]

I enjoy torturing myself so I just redid the logic games and the tokens passage, which accounted for 10 of my wrong answers. May as well have been fresh since I didn't remember anything, only difference here was that it was a no-pressure situation. I haven't touched prep material since the sixth, but still games were a breeze and while I found tokens difficult it was manageable (I got 2 wrong on the passage instead of fucking 7).

I know this reasoning is somewhat flawed but I attribute these 8 incorrect choices + 1 LR which I just didn't read right entirely to mental lapse. So I think what I need for September is less hardcore drilling (hmm) and more methods to make sure I don't have any mini breakdowns during the test. I know a lot of you have mentioned meditating but I have no interest in Eastern mumbo jumbo. Sorry for taking so long to vent but:

TLDR: How the hell do you stay calm during the test so you don't royally fuck up questions (preferably without using mind-altering substances)

Speaking as someone who has worked a lot with students that get psyched out by tests, meditation isn't "Eastern mumbo jumbo", and it is typically the most effective tool for every student I've work with. Here's a short guide, free of any mumbo jumbo, to give you an idea of what I mean by meditation.

Ground Rules:
Don't meditate in the morning after just waking up. Meditate at a "busy" point in your day where you're actively solving problems.
Don't have your phone with you or within earshot. You need to be isolated as much as you can.
Don't meditate in the same room that you study in. Find a "neutral" location or a place in your house/apartment that you don't use very much. This seems counterintuitive but it's actually kind of important
Don't cut your time short if you're busy. That cheats you and kind of defeats the entire point of meditation. Make time for this.

Now that you've got your ground rules, here's what you're going to do. Grab that watch you use for timing sections on the test and set it to five minutes. Go sit on the floor in a neutral location facing an empty wall, and stare at that wall for five minutes. Do your best to think about nothing. Don't make plans, don't solve problems, don't think about what you're doing next, and don't think about existential nonsense or anything like that. Just sit there and stare at the wall and do your absolute best to avoid thinking of anything in particular. If you're like me, for the entire first week you do this you're going to be thinking "this is stupid, this is so stupid". That's fine. You'll get over it. Sit there for five minutes, not a second more or less. Do that for two weeks, which should be about how long it takes for you to get over the fact that you're sitting in a corner staring at a wall. Also, don't close your eyes, because hopefully you don't take tests with your eyes closed. If you do, we just solved your problem and you don't need to meditate.

After two weeks, you're going to sit there for fifteen minutes. You're going to feel like you're wasting even more of your time on this nonsense, but just do it. Don't think about your breathing or heart rate or anything like that. Just sit there for fifteen minutes and actively tell your brain to stop solving problems. Do this every day for not a second more or less than fifteen minutes. You're not going to succeed at first, you might not get anywhere close to succeeding, but keep doing it anyway. The entire point of this is to gain the ability to actively tell your brain to stop its surface-level problem solving processes for however long you may need it to. If you're getting through fifteen minutes pretty easily, then try thirty. If you're getting through thirty easily, you're probably good.

This isn't about becoming one with yourself or anything, this is about re-calibrating a mechanical issue in your thought process. The fundamental problem of most people who have issues with test taking is that when they sit down to test, they cannot control the pace at which they think. Thoughts fly in and out more quickly than normal, or not at all, and instead of taking a deep breath and being able to normalize their thought process like many people can, they have to take the test with their mind running at a thousand miles per hour or crawling at a snail's pace. That's just too mentally exhausting to deal with over a long test like the LSAT. By sitting down and forcing yourself to stop solving problems at a time when your mind is running at a high speed, you're essentially practicing that "calming" sensation that most test-takers have some innate knowledge of; you're crafting an on/off switch in your mind for problem solving. Meditation isn't good because it helps you find yourself, it's good because it's essentially the drilling equivalent of mentally preparing yourself to take a test.

[Sarastro]

Wash on wash off

Sensei Birdlaw over here.
+1 though, that is all actually very very good advice. I experimented with meditation in college and, while it wasn't for test taking, it definitely made me feel more at ease the rest of the day whenever I did it. I imagine this would be incredibly helpful to someone with test anxiety or such.

[dg99]

Is it not too unusual for your best and worst sections to flip on the real thing? I've rarely, if ever, dipped below -1/-2 for LR and ended up with -3 on both sections. In contrast, I usually get around -5 on RC but ended up with -1 (and I thought the RC section was pretty hard). I got a 170 but am trying to decide if I should retake. My PT avg was 175, but I'd be afraid of doing just as badly on LR again (+ a bad RC section) on the real thing.

[Smallville]

You'll be in at a few T14's with 169/3.66. TLS consensus will be to retake, and I agree. Unless you're very resistant to retaking for some reason, a few points will be the difference between getting in at a few T14 vs. in at most of T14 w/ $-$$$

My reasons for resisting - I've studied for a year and never got past the 167-171 range, have used nearly all of the test materials (including doing LSAT 60-77 2x), and wonder if it would be more advantageous to submit early rather than wait for the score

My reasons for retaking - I've studied for a year and might as well see what a few more months can do for me, don't want to give up on the dream

I know there were other posts and stuff after this and a bit of what I say will have been said, Your #'s aren't all that bad and are def looking at $$$ at T20 and some okay money at some of the upper T14, you have a decent chance at your target schools, how much $ idk. A lot also depends on the kind of cycle you have. You could potentially have a rough one where its straight sticker or even WL, or you could kill it with some solid $$ (or anywhere in between obvi). It being June you still have time and can get another take in while still getting your apps in early. I would get as much of your apps done as you can now while taking an LSAT break and then ease back into it a little more relaxed but more focused on what you now know hurt you and you need to improve. If you haven't made any progress by registration deadline, it becomes a little more of unsure bet in retaking but scoring the same or even a little less won't really hurt you.

As for whether or not you'll be wasting the year (can't remember if it was u or someone else who mentioned it) as long as you're not doing nothing its not a waste. I held off a bit longer instead of applying late in the cycle and retook, score dropped but I've been working the whole time between ug and now so been getting w/e and $ and I def don't think its a waste, some time off from school is nice and makes going back a bit more exciting imo.

tl;dr you have some solid options open to you now & scored avg so not retaking isn't the worse, but get your apps ready and ease back into studying and see how you're doing, if you feel ready and are improving, sign on up and kill the LSAT in Sept.

BTW, if you do retake and score a point or two lower... does that look really bad for potential schools?

not really

[RamTitan]

Basically, I don't want to retake it, but I don't want to regret not retaking it

We're pretty much in the same situation and with the same stats.

I wanna get higher but I realllyyy don't wanna go back to studying now that I'm enjoying my free time again.

Pretty much everyone online is telling me to retake it, and everyone in real life (law school students, pre-law adviser included) are telling me not to; so damn confusing

if i am not wrong, tls tells us not to trust pre-law advisers

That's interesting; why is that the case?

[RamTitan]

You'll be in at a few T14's with 169/3.66. TLS consensus will be to retake, and I agree. Unless you're very resistant to retaking for some reason, a few points will be the difference between getting in at a few T14 vs. in at most of T14 w/ $-$$$

My reasons for resisting - I've studied for a year and never got past the 167-171 range, have used nearly all of the test materials (including doing LSAT 60-77 2x), and wonder if it would be more advantageous to submit early rather than wait for the score

My reasons for retaking - I've studied for a year and might as well see what a few more months can do for me, don't want to give up on the dream

I know there were other posts and stuff after this and a bit of what I say will have been said, Your #'s aren't all that bad and are def looking at $$$ at T20 and some okay money at some of the upper T14, you have a decent chance at your target schools, how much $ idk. A lot also depends on the kind of cycle you have. You could potentially have a rough one where its straight sticker or even WL, or you could kill it with some solid $$ (or anywhere in between obvi). It being June you still have time and can get another take in while still getting your apps in early. I would get as much of your apps done as you can now while taking an LSAT break and then ease back into it a little more relaxed but more focused on what you now know hurt you and you need to improve. If you haven't made any progress by registration deadline, it becomes a little more of unsure bet in retaking but scoring the same or even a little less won't really hurt you.

As for whether or not you'll be wasting the year (can't remember if it was u or someone else who mentioned it) as long as you're not doing nothing its not a waste. I held off a bit longer instead of applying late in the cycle and retook, score dropped but I've been working the whole time between ug and now so been getting w/e and $ and I def don't think its a waste, some time off from school is nice and makes going back a bit more exciting imo.

tl;dr you have some solid options open to you now & scored avg so not retaking isn't the worse, but get your apps ready and ease back into studying and see how you're doing, if you feel ready and are improving, sign on up and kill the LSAT in Sept.

BTW, if you do retake and score a point or two lower... does that look really bad for potential schools?

not really

I think that's some great advice. I'm going to take a practice test this Saturday and see how I do, and make a decision from there. But regardless, it looks like I'll at least have some options....starting to lean towards doing ED at Northwestern.

[RamTitan]

Something similar happened for me, too. I took off 8 weeks between the feb test before starting back up studying in april for the June test. My first 2 PTs back were 175 and 176. They were old ones (PT 22 and PT 29) but I hadn't done them ever before and my previous highest was 174.

I was thinking of taking PT 60 this Saturday and seeing how it goes. I took it once back in December - think that's long enough for it to be a fresh test, or should I do an older test like you did?

[2000andBeyond]

Well after some meditation with my good friend Jack Daniels, I will be joining Sir Meerkat in the September thread. As much as I hate the idea of letting the LSAT consume my life for another ~3 months, I know future-me will be pissed if I don't attempt for a better score. Thanks for all the encouragement and support. It's been real

I vibe with this hard! See you on the September thread!

[appind]

haha it's okay honestly I just find it funny

thank you, LSAC. your email basically reads:

Hi Pretz.

We'll be ready when we're ready.

Love,

LSAC

P.S. Sorry not sorry

you're still waiting?!!!!!!!!!!!??????

yee yee, me and everyone in my test center who got fucked.org

because it's not enough to torch our chances at a fairly timed test.....LSAC makes up for it by delaying our scores!

naturally

it's possible that the score hold is due to the proctor timing complaint. the wait can be killing may be ok as long as lsac investigates the issue.

[etramak]

Wash on wash off

Sensei Birdlaw over here.
+1 though, that is all actually very very good advice. I experimented with meditation in college and, while it wasn't for test taking, it definitely made me feel more at ease the rest of the day whenever I did it. I imagine this would be incredibly helpful to someone with test anxiety or such.

Thanks for providing such a thorough response! I'll give it a try because well, I need to do something about it. But most of all because this is a much different approach than the guided videos featuring gentle waves, breezes, and ambient music. It's pretty hard for me to clear my head in general. This is a strange thing to divulge but my biggest mental issue with test taking is that if I hit something I don't immediately understand the most recent song that's been stuck in my head starts playing nonstop. It's very annoying. Anyone I'll come back to this post starting next week. I really appreciate it.

[amta]

Greetings Waiters,

Congrats on a successful gray day. I recall my first gray day as if it was yesterday. I too performed well under my full potential, and yes, my parents still loved me, but you know who doesn't love you TLS, your colleagues, maybe even that sweet poonani you been smashin' while you studied for June. Now you may be okay with being literally expelled from every social circle you ever loved, but if you're not you should probably retake.

You're probably wondering, if I didn't do well on June, how is it possible I could improve on September on my own? Well friend, you can't do it on your own because you're a dumb. Fortunately, you're in luck. Through the collective studying and immense resources available on this distinguished top law school forum, you can improve.

And this thread will guide you on your quest to that sweet sweet self-fulfilling score you dream of: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 6&t=260137

[pretzeltime]

.

[Maaza]

Hello everyone,

I took the test in October, December, and lastly this time, in June.

I got the same score in both October and December despite diligently studying, and worried I couldn't do any better. People close to me recommended, I be grateful with my score and just apply. Top ten percentile is a pretty good score. But I decided not to apply this last cycle and gave it one more try.

I completely went back to basics and rebuilt my understanding of each section.

This was my last chance at getting the score I wanted. I've been diligently meditating ever since I first took the test last October, however my nerves got to me in one of the sections on this test because the guy next to me was making loud breathing noises. I knew I didn't do as well as I could have and I figured I bombed my last chance at getting the score I wanted.


I received my score yesterday and cried a little. I got a 170. I still can't believe it.... Thousands of hours to studying, taking and retaking practice tests over and over. Honing in on my reasoning and understanding of each question. Last but not least, working on my test anxiety through meditative practice. I took a chance and it paid off. If you are not happy with your score, take it again it's ok to try again or three times like I did.

[RamTitan]

Hello everyone,

I took the test in October, December, and lastly this time, in June.

I got the same score in both October and December despite diligently studying, and worried I couldn't do any better. People close to me recommended, I be grateful with my score and just apply. Top ten percentile is a pretty good score. But I decided not to apply this last cycle and gave it one more try.

I completely went back to basics and rebuilt my understanding of each section.

This was my last chance at getting the score I wanted. I've been diligently meditating ever since I first took the test last October, however my nerves got to me in one of the sections on this test because the guy next to me was making loud breathing noises. I knew I didn't do as well as I could have and I figured I bombed my last chance at getting the score I wanted.


I received my score yesterday and cried a little. I got a 170. I still can't believe it.... Thousands of hours to studying, taking and retaking practice tests over and over. Honing in on my reasoning and understanding of each question. Last but not least, working on my test anxiety through meditative practice. I took a chance and it paid off. If you are not happy with your score, take it again it's ok to try again or three times like I did.

That's an awesome story Maaza! How did you do with test materials? Did you do a lot of retakes, or were you able to spread out your materials?

[Maaza]

Hello everyone,

I took the test in October, December, and lastly this time, in June.

I got the same score in both October and December despite diligently studying, and worried I couldn't do any better. People close to me recommended, I be grateful with my score and just apply. Top ten percentile is a pretty good score. But I decided not to apply this last cycle and gave it one more try.

I completely went back to basics and rebuilt my understanding of each section.

This was my last chance at getting the score I wanted. I've been diligently meditating ever since I first took the test last October, however my nerves got to me in one of the sections on this test because the guy next to me was making loud breathing noises. I knew I didn't do as well as I could have and I figured I bombed my last chance at getting the score I wanted.


I received my score yesterday and cried a little. I got a 170. I still can't believe it.... Thousands of hours to studying, taking and retaking practice tests over and over. Honing in on my reasoning and understanding of each question. Last but not least, working on my test anxiety through meditative practice. I took a chance and it paid off. If you are not happy with your score, take it again it's ok to try again or three times like I did.

That's an awesome story Maaza! How did you do with test materials? Did you do a lot of retakes, or were you able to spread out your materials?

Thank you!

I used preptests, manhattan preps RC and LR material and Powerscore's LG bible.

For my last retake:

I went through the LR book first and began taking PT sections from the 40's while working on the RC book simultaneously and then LR+ RC sections and the LG book (which was my strongest subject). Afterwards, I was taking all PTs. For LG I intentionally began taking some of the very early PT's (teens through twenties) because of the nuanced games that recently been coming up in tests (EX: Game 3 in December) and that helped a lot because the older Games don't always neatly fit into a category.

I got -0 on games -2 on RC, -4 on both LRs (However, the last LR was the "bad" one for me)

I think what helped me the most was deliberate methodical reviewing, I noticed you got a 169 and I think when you get that point it's really about the small stuff IMO. I used "LSAThacks" and "manhattanprep's" online forum explanations and when I wasn't satisfied with what one said I'd go find another explanations. I also found 7sage's LG videos (the free ones) helpful and Velocityprep has some good explanation videos (however, they are lacking in some respects (IMO) so I wouldn't solely rely on those). In the end, I'd make sure I could explain the answer choice in my own words and know why I missed it. I also retook PT's (months afterward) and justified each answer I chose (like blind review). This helped me find gaps in my own reasoning vs. the explanations I found online. So all in all, I did a LOT of retakes considering I took the test three times. Does that help?

[meeseeks]

My life feels so empty now without the oppressive thought of LSAT scores hanging over my head. I have yet to start studying again. I'm giving myself until Monday night and then it's back to the grindstone.

[pretzeltime]

.

[Mikey]

Pretzel Please let us know if you're happy with your score whenever LSAC decides to release it. I'm betting you more than likely did very well despite the testing center issue, hang in there!

[pretzeltime]

.

[Mikey]

Pretzel Please let us know if you're happy with your score whenever LSAC decides to release it. I'm betting you more than likely did very well despite the testing center issue, hang in there!

hehe thanks. I'll probs be joining the Sept thread one of these days but I'm readjusting to the idea of not shitpoasting all the time. Ugh, I guess I should read the news or something. xo

Shit posting<3

[cakerusk]

Hello! I'm not a frequent visitor to this forum (even though I'd like to be!) but I wanted to share my experience. Last time I posted here was to vent about my little kiddos ripping apart and coloring in my PTs and I was so frustrated and jealous of some of you'll studying in relative peace. I spent 3 grueling months furiously pausing my stopwatch amidst PTs while little humans tugged at my shirt for food or screamed into the baby monitor. I almost gave up as I started scoring much lower than my average on a couple PTs a couple week before test date when one of them fell sick and I thought to myself if I can't deal with 3 months of distractions then how will I survive 3 years of LS, but at the insistence of of my husband I kept going. Anyway, long story short, I shockingly exceeded my target score by 5 points! I was scoring between 163-167 in the last month but I was extremely focused and determined on test day and on Tuesday I saw the beautiful 170 beaming at me on my phone screen. To say I was ecstatic would be an understatement but I wanted to post this as a shout out to any parents out there who feel at any point in their academic endeavors that their kids may be holding them back from their full potential, You're wrong!!! They were the first ones I hugged and kissed and fed ice cream too upon the good news =D
This was my first take and I'm a foreign grad (meaning no official GPA reported by Lsac) so I MIGHT retake to further boost my score and hence application value. I'm an oldie pushing on to 30 next year and if anyone out there in similar shoes as me has any advice for me I'd be extremely happy to hear from you!
Good luck to everyone ITT, I will be perusing the Admissions Board next month so see you'll there