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My biggest regret is that during my whole study time, I set a goal for myself that wasn't high enough. It was only 7 points above my initial diagnostic. I reached that goal LITERALLY the week before (consistently, 3 times in a row, too). However, that goal score is what I NEED to get in order to get into the schools that I want to go to. Thinking back now, I should have set a higher goal, because in a realistic situation I am sure I will not get my "best PT score" but rather an average. I should have aimed higher so even worst case I get that score =\

How high did everyone else aim? Example: If you wanted a 165 did you aim for 167 or did you just aim for a 165.

I'm wondering if I would have actually gotten more progress while studying if I set my goal higher (i.e. worked more each day or did more than 3 prep tests a week.)

I aimed for 180 and ended up with a 175. Should have aimed for 185 but I couldn't figure out how.

Wrong forum dooder.

Aimed for 180, got 170. Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you'll land amongst the stars

deakon10 wrote:My biggest regret is that during my whole study time, I set a goal for myself that wasn't high enough. It was only 7 points above my initial diagnostic. I reached that goal LITERALLY the week before (consistently, 3 times in a row, too). However, that goal score is what I NEED to get in order to get into the schools that I want to go to. Thinking back now, I should have set a higher goal, because in a realistic situation I am sure I will not get my "best PT score" but rather an average. I should have aimed higher so even worst case I get that score =\

How high did everyone else aim? Example: If you wanted a 165 did you aim for 167 or did you just aim for a 165.

I'm wondering if I would have actually gotten more progress while studying if I set my goal higher (i.e. worked more each day or did more than 3 prep tests a week.)

Yes, I think so. That way you would not settle for missing, say, 5 on a single LR section. You would not say things like "good enough".

My first time around I aimed for 170. 170 was what I got. Soon, upon discovering this site, I realized I should have set my sights at least 3 points higher. Would it gauratnee that I would do any better? No. But I definitly I would push myself harder.

I aimed higher my second time around and did worse though. So take it with a grain of salt.

You're going to try and answer every question correctly just the same, regardless of your goal.

thegor1987 wrote:You're going to try and answer every question correctly just the same, regardless of your goal.

+1... unlike with say, weight loss, where you'd want to lose 10 pounds but not 20, I don't think a "goal" per se is the right way to approach the LSAT. You just want to do your best, period.

You might have a "realistic hope" that would become clear after you had been studying for some time, but that would be closer to a prediction than a goal.

My goal was 180 with a PT average of 174. I was disappointed anytime I got less than a 175.

I tried not to drop below 175 on PT's, it forced me to be interested in every game, passage and question, which can be tough to do for 4 hours. Just aim high, take the test high, get high scores?

kkklick wrote:take the test high

What?

Nonok wrote:

kkklick wrote:take the test high

What?

Haha it was a joke, no one in their right mind would take any substance before the LSAT, I refused to even drink caffiene.

I want to start by saying that I was never a 180s girl--I started at a 152 and kept pushing. Never did I dream I'd be talking 20 points higher.

I aimed for a 172 for the December LSAT, and I think I'm probably pretty close. Breaking it down was huge for me--I think a safe rule is to take where you reasonably think you can score, and make sure you keep aiming just out of that reach. I also think declaring any goal isn't nearly as important as actually doing the work to get there; any jackass can say "I want a 175," but for most students, before 175 comes 170, and before 170 comes 165. For me those little goals were more useful than the big goals. The only time I used number goals was for incentive, when I had a favorite school in mind that was out of reach. Needless to say, my school list changed drastically over nine months.

I was a self-study who got herself a tutor once a week. Most important lesson I learned--anybody can get in the 170s, but you have to put in the work, and it's not going to come in six weeks.

Dream goal: 180 (duh)
Realistic goal (wouldn't be crushed to would be happy!): 165-170
Actual: 168 (PT average 167, max 173)

I was happy with a 168, self-study while working FT and traveling a LOT for work. That being said, I would have loved a 170+ to make up for my UGPA.

I think I got lucky by being ignorant to all of these web sites in preparation for the test. If I knew what my LSAC gpa would be and the horrible job prospects, I probably would have freaked and put too much pressure on myself. I figured a 160 would get me into school, and I was scoring around 160-167 on pt's, and I was kind of hoping initially for a 160, which I bumped up to a 165 after I started to improve. Got a 170 on test day, and I think I can attribute it to not being stressed on test day, not concentrating hard enough on my pt's, and getting a test format that was pretty much ideal. ( I preferred getting my worst sections at the end, so I would not feel down after the first section or two.)

Adjudicator wrote:I aimed for 180 and ended up with a 175. Should have aimed for 185 but I couldn't figure out how.

I aimed for 145, ended up with 165. Guess we're all different.

EDITED

I started at 149 and really wanted to have a realistic shot a Berkeley, so I aimed for 170. Got 170.

..

I'm very curious about the practice of setting score goals. Obviously it's important to know where you need to be scoring to be competitive for the schools you're interested in, but counting points seems a poor way of increasing your score, and it's hard to imagine anyone opting not to improve as much as possible.

It seems that goals regarding timing, familiarity with question types, internalization of methodology, etc. would go much further toward achieving the real goal than picking a number to strive for.

kkklick wrote:I tried not to drop below 175 on PT's, it forced me to be interested in every game, passage and question, which can be tough to do for 4 hours. Just aim high, take the test high, get high scores?

How High?