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I was wondering if this may help me or not:
I did a few timed sections today ( one of LG LR and RC) right after I came home from work, when my was both mentally and physically exhausted. I scored slightly lower than normal, and found it increasingly difficult to stay focused. Would taking prep tests like this help my score, as i would be practicing when mentally drained from the beginning, or will this only lead to making bad mistakes often, and be a waste of good prep material?

Don't do it. I used to do this to, and when I redid the problems the next day it was remarkable how fatigue affects performance. There's a huge difference between the fatigue of not getting enough sleep and the fatigue of working for a full day. The latter has a much bigger toll on your mind and body (unless you haven't slept for days).

I say the opposite. I think that it would be helpful. You may be physically and mentally exhausted on test day no matter how closely you simulate testing conditions during practice. Training your brain to perform well even when you're exhausted can only help you come test day.

cinefile 17 wrote:I say the opposite. I think that it would be helpful. You may be physically and mentally exhausted on test day no matter how closely you simulate testing conditions during practice. Training your brain to perform well even when you're exhausted can only help you come test day.

In my own experience, the fatigue from lack of sleep and fatigue from getting home after work are totally different. I can't imagine taking a test after working 9 hours, but I've taken plenty of midterms and finals with 3 hours of sleep. Even if you have caffeine to supplement the fatigue, I bet it would work better with lack of sleep rather than overwork. Then again, I'm used to running on 5-6 hours of sleep so it really depends on the individual.

Time might be better spent when your mind is refreshed. You need time to relax, better to allocate your time to relax when your already drained, rather during time that would be good for studying.

I find that games are still fun to practice even when tired. It can't hurt to go over some of the less difficult old games that you have already done. In fact after coming home from a night of heavy drinking I decided to see if I could do some logic games just to see if I could, and they were surprisingly easy.

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Anaconda wrote:

cinefile 17 wrote:I say the opposite. I think that it would be helpful. You may be physically and mentally exhausted on test day no matter how closely you simulate testing conditions during practice. Training your brain to perform well even when you're exhausted can only help you come test day.

In my own experience, the fatigue from lack of sleep and fatigue from getting home after work are totally different. I can't imagine taking a test after working 9 hours, but I've taken plenty of midterms and finals with 3 hours of sleep. Even if you have caffeine to supplement the fatigue, I bet it would work better with lack of sleep rather than overwork. Then again, I'm used to running on 5-6 hours of sleep so it really depends on the individual.

When I said the actual test could be physically/mentally exhausting, I wasn't talking about it being that way b.c. of lack of sleep. On test day, I didn't even get into my room until two hours after I had gotten there. I didn't start the last section of our test (besides the writing) until about 6:30PM; I had been there since noon. The test day experience was mentally and physically exhausting. I thought I prepared for test day as accurately and fully as possible, and I never though I would get so drained (after all, I had been use to studying for the LSAT for 8+ hours straight). My score dropped 7 points from my PT average on test day (the vast majority of problems I got wrong were on the last section). I know my experience was probably atypical, but for my retake, I definitely plan to prepare more adequately for the fatigue of test day.

I do agree that maybe taking PTs while you are tired will hurt your ability to retain the information you learn, but I think as long as you go over them again while you are less tired it is fine. I would say do as many PT as you can under varied conditions (quiet, loud, tired, well rested, ect.)

I do sections when I'm fatigued, but I don't time them. It's just impossible to do well in 35 mins when you're tired.

On a somewhat related note, LSAT starts at 2:30 pm in my country. Taking LSAT when already tired > Taking preptests when already tired