curious if anyone had the same problem on Dec. LSAT Forum

[Swamp Monster]

I'd taken around 10 Practice tests before the December test. Was averaging a 169 with a low of 166 and a high of 174, and ended up with a 163. Never had gotten more than a -5 on RC, and ended up with -13 on test day (including all 6 ?'s on the sculptor). I'm curious if anyone had similar results on that section, or whether I should just be prepared to do worse on test day than I am on PT's.

Have taken 5 PT's for February LSAT and all have been between 171-174 and haven't gotten worse than a -2 on RC. The optimistic part of me wants to write it off as a bad day and a weird test, the pessimistic part is scared it could be part of a trend.

Anyone else have opinion/perspective/experience on this, specifically the December 09 test?

Thanks

[tomballard]

It seemed like the reading comp and maybe even the logical reasoning sections were longer than normal on the December exam. My weakness is analytical reasoning, which was easier than normal, so I made out with a score that resembled my higher practice test results. But if you have problems, especially pacing problems, with reading comp or log reasoning it seems like that could account for some of the difference. Everyone I talked to had pacing problems on these sections including myself & normally I get done with time to spare. It's worth considering that most of the people I talk to are disappointed with their score regardless of when they took the test. Nerves are a killer and so is lack of sleep if you're not used to getting up at 6:30am.

[kswiss]

I average -2 for RC, and I got -1.

But.... I do think that the questions were pretty tricky. There were a bunch of questions where I could point out an answer that I might have picked had I not been on my game. Also, I think that the sculptures passage was conceptually pretty difficult, but the questions weren't all that hard. Unfortunately, just because it was difficult to wrap your head around the concepts, it took a lot of time. I took way longer than normal on that passage, but I ended up answering them all correct. If I had been short on time at that point, it would have screwed me up. Luckily, I'm pretty fast on RC, so even though I had less time to spare than usual, I still had plenty of time to finish the rest of the section.

I feel lucky to have "caught" all of the tricks on that section though. That was one of the sections were I didn't know if I did really well or really bad, though I felt like I nailed it as I left the testing center.

[granger]

I PTd around 171, and my weakest section was RC by far. Scored a 168, which is a much lower raw score than what I was used to, and RC was my worst section yet again. So I'm in a similar spot, but I also underperformed on LG. I've yet to PT for Feb., as I'm going through the PowerScore RC book right now and am holding off on testing until I finish it. I have to get better at detailed reading, hands down.

[cdnguy]

-13 RC, -1 LG, -7 LR total. (-6 and -1)

not only did i find the sculptures passage/questions difficult, but i spent way too much time on it leaving me no time for the 4th passage. ended up scoring 2/12 on those two passages.

[even2flow]

By the time I took the test, my PTs were down to like -5ish for RC, but on test day I got -12, I'm guessing I was just beat at that point because I did my average for all the other sections except that one, although I walked out of there thinking I did better than I actually did. The one thing I neglected was my stamina and I'm guessing that's what cost me.

[Sauer Grapes]

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