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Hi all,

New poster here. Sorry if this has been asked a million times, I did a quick forum search and found little.
So I took my first five-section PT today and I was considerably shocked by how much my score has dropped.

My scoring history:

PT36--155 (cold diagnostic; this was actually five-section as well, but I won't count it)

Four Section:
PT29--170 (untimed LG, timed everything else)
PT30--170/173 (latter score includes guesses, former doesn't)

Today:
PT49--162 (!!!)

Surprisingly, I score lowest on what is normally my best section, RC. It broke down:
Sec1: Experimental RC
Sec2: LG (-4)
Sec3: LR (-3)
Sec4: RC (-7 )
Sec5: LR (-6)

Granted, this is a newer test so the RC had some types of questions I'd never seen before (Passage A/B comparisons, for example), but typically I only miss 2-3 RC, even on my cold diagnostic, and usually only 2-3 RC per section.

Also, the fact that my wrong answers on LR doubled tells me fatigue must be a considerable problem here. I've taken three weeks off from studying LSAT because of finals, so that may be part of it.

Now, to the point (sorry):
Does anyone have advice (besides the obvious--practice) for helping maintain focus and warding off fatigue during the test? Any practice techniques that can help one cope with this?



Hope everyone's studying is going well,
Zeb

if you can manage, try finishing a section you are good at with a minute or two to spare. Use that time to breathe and clear your head instead of going over your answer choices (if you're quick you can glance at them and still have this time to spare). I find this is an excellent way of getting a bit of steam back in the long haul before the break.

Saltqjibo wrote:if you can manage, try finishing a section you are good at with a minute or two to spare. Use that time to breathe and clear your head instead of going over your answer choices (if you're quick you can glance at them and still have this time to spare). I find this is an excellent way of getting a bit of steam back in the long haul before the break.

Occasionally I do finish early, especially on LR. Sometimes I think this might be more out of my own impatience than anything, though. Thanks for the tip, I will try to balance my impatience with the need to rest!

energy drink after first two sections? mmm chemicals

I am not sure what you have done to study so far but here is what I did:

First, work on quality. I took several PTs untimed making sure I got the highest score I possibly could each time, even if it meant working on one section for an entire hour. Once I was consistent with this I knew that I knew how to work through and answer the questions.

Then work on speed. I took several 4-section PTs timed until I consistently finished each section with a few minutes to spare.

Then work on endurance. I took the remainder of my PTs with 5-sections and timed. There was no "secret" to this other than having plenty of PTs left and having plenty of time to do them without having to do more than 1 per day.