Ever just bomb a preptest after scoring 170+ on all the rest Forum

[Da1andOnlyPharo]

Hey everyone, been preparing for the LSAT for a while now, never took a class but got a 160 on my first diag and since then have really felt that I've gotten a deeper understanding of all the sections. I started doing preptests and have quickly been working my way up from high 160's to mid 170's. I've gone back and reflected on all my old mistakes, identified my weaknesses on each test and made notes on how I'm going to improve for each subsequent test. So today, i score a 162. No offense to anyone out there, but thats way below my expectations of myself, especially after scoring a 172, 174, and 173 on my last 3 tests. And even on those last few tests, whenever i looked back at my wrong answers, I'd sincerely see where i went wrong. but on this test, some of them I could barely agree with, and I'm well aware of how naive it is to blame the test.

So what I'm asking is, have any of you all ran into this problem? Do some tests just seem way harder to you than others? Has your score ever regressed that dramatically, and did it persist or was it a fluke?

Also, anyone have insights on how the test has changed in recent years? I've heard LG are easier these days, but use different types of wording so its worth the time to seek out newer game types and familiarize. Can you clarify/elaborate, and do you know of any aspects of the other sections like this?

[Curious1]

Yes, and yes.

To answer your first question, after scoring perfect on almost every PT, I ran into one I just could not get and ended up not finishing that section at all, after bombing that section I stopped and didnt finish that PT so don't really have a score, but it was likely substantially lower than usual. After that it was fine, I went back to my normal range, and had a massive fluke 179 on the last PT I took, the morning before the actual test, so that was incredibly helpful for my confidence.

To answer your second question, I would say LG's have gotten harder. There are new rules like, one but not the other, and more hybrid games. Pure sequencing almost never comes up anymore and that's generally the easiest type.

[Tiago Splitter]

I disagree with Curious1 about the games. The crazy game types don't show up anymore. June 2011 was as easy a games section as I'd seen. That second game, about the skydivers, looks like pure sequencing to me.

And OP, there was a guy who posted on here a lot in the past who scored a 180. He somehow managed a 158 in the weeks before the real thing. Conclusion? If you score a 158 on a PT you will score a 180 on game day.

[Curious1]

I disagree with Curious1 about the games. The crazy game types don't show up anymore. June 2011 was as easy a games section as I'd seen. That second game, about the skydivers, looks like pure sequencing to me.

And OP, there was a guy who posted on here a lot in the past who scored a 180. He somehow managed a 158 in the weeks before the real thing. Conclusion? If you score a 158 on a PT you will score a 180 on game day.

Ok the skydivers were easy, but the balls sure screwed a lot of people up because of the vertical arrangement. But maybe that shows that the games are gradually rebalanced with some harder and some easier ones. In any case, the June 2011 games, I thought, were exceptionally easy on the whole, especially since I screwed up so badly on the games in February that I couldn't finish.

OP will be fine. Just make sure to sleep well the night before. As I said in another post, sometimes we (at least I) don't try as hard as I could on the PT's, since in the back of my mind I'm always thinking, "this isn't real, just let me finish this so I can go to sleep". If you're amped and ready for the real thing, you'll do fine, and outperforming your PT average certainly isn't impossible.

Good luck!

[Da1andOnlyPharo]

Hahaha. Ok your first message eased my stress quite a bit, but now I'm slightly worried. Before taking this PT, I distinctively told myself to pull together all the things I've looked back on and apply them to this test as if it was the real thing. I specifically tried to treat this one like teh real thing. Thats actually the worst part about it.

I'm not trying to draw this out any further, I'm currently writing it off as a fluke. But it has me thinking, maybe TRYING to do way better screws you up. Doing the PT's on autopilot might just make the answers come more natural and really getting yourself pumped makes you overly conscious about what your answers. Perhaps that would explain why peoples real scores are usually lower than practice tests. Again, thoughts?

Thanks for the insight on the games too. I'll really have to look into some of the newer ones.

[Tiago Splitter]

Hahaha. Ok your first message eased my stress quite a bit, but now I'm slightly worried. Before taking this PT, I distinctively told myself to pull together all the things I've looked back on and apply them to this test as if it was the real thing. I specifically tried to treat this one like teh real thing. Thats actually the worst part about it.

I'm not trying to draw this out any further, I'm currently writing it off as a fluke. But it has me thinking, maybe TRYING to do way better screws you up. Doing the PT's on autopilot might just make the answers come more natural and really getting yourself pumped makes you overly conscious about what your answers. Perhaps that would explain why peoples real scores are usually lower than practice tests. Again, thoughts?

Thanks for the insight on the games too. I'll really have to look into some of the newer ones.

A big key is to be able to move on. When you take a PT it's easy to not worry about one you weren't sure of in the previous section; you'll be able to check the answer at the end for better or worse. On the real thing, people will spend the first five minutes of one section worrying about one question on the previous section. Once you proctor says to turn the page to start the new section, you have to forget about everything up to that point.

[Curious1]

Hahaha. Ok your first message eased my stress quite a bit, but now I'm slightly worried. Before taking this PT, I distinctively told myself to pull together all the things I've looked back on and apply them to this test as if it was the real thing. I specifically tried to treat this one like teh real thing. Thats actually the worst part about it.

I'm not trying to draw this out any further, I'm currently writing it off as a fluke. But it has me thinking, maybe TRYING to do way better screws you up. Doing the PT's on autopilot might just make the answers come more natural and really getting yourself pumped makes you overly conscious about what your answers. Perhaps that would explain why peoples real scores are usually lower than practice tests. Again, thoughts?

Thanks for the insight on the games too. I'll really have to look into some of the newer ones.

A big key is to be able to move on. When you take a PT it's easy to not worry about one you weren't sure of in the previous section; you'll be able to check the answer at the end for better or worse. On the real thing, people will spend the first five minutes of one section worrying about one question on the previous section. Once you proctor says to turn the page to start the new section, you have to forget about everything up to that point.

This is very true. And this is why a good games section, especially if its early, will really make or break your score.

But really, don't stress. It's one test. Do another one over the weekend and see if it gets back within range (and tell us, cuz we're invested now lol). About the changing of the test itself, because you're coming up on the real thing, I would advise doing the latest ones, and saving the absolute latest one for last, because it'll be most like the actual test.

[soj]

It happens. I improved quickly at the beginning of my prep and was doing well for several weeks, but in the middle and near the end of my prep, I bombed several PTs; each time, I reviewed, shrugged it off, took a mental break, and came back strong.

[NiccoloA]

Hey everyone, been preparing for the LSAT for a while now, never took a class but got a 160 on my first diag and since then have really felt that I've gotten a deeper understanding of all the sections. I started doing preptests and have quickly been working my way up from high 160's to mid 170's. I've gone back and reflected on all my old mistakes, identified my weaknesses on each test and made notes on how I'm going to improve for each subsequent test. So today, i score a 162. No offense to anyone out there, but thats way below my expectations of myself, especially after scoring a 172, 174, and 173 on my last 3 tests. And even on those last few tests, whenever i looked back at my wrong answers, I'd sincerely see where i went wrong. but on this test, some of them I could barely agree with, and I'm well aware of how naive it is to blame the test.

So what I'm asking is, have any of you all ran into this problem? Do some tests just seem way harder to you than others? Has your score ever regressed that dramatically, and did it persist or was it a fluke?

Also, anyone have insights on how the test has changed in recent years? I've heard LG are easier these days, but use different types of wording so its worth the time to seek out newer game types and familiarize. Can you clarify/elaborate, and do you know of any aspects of the other sections like this?

Yes. I've noticed it tends to happen if I've been practicing too long.

Everyone studies differently, and for me, I'm going to take 3 or 4 days off of practice tests starting Tuesday/Wednesday. The highest score I achieved, (177) came after taking a long break from the PTs (5 days). I noticed that something similar happened when I took a similar break again (171, 169, 4 days), and then again (174, 171, 173, 3 days), and I score consistently at 168-167 with 2 days breaks.

If I take two tests in a row, or two tests in two days, or sometimes just with one day between, my eyes begin to glaze over and I drop to 163-164 (a decent score, but not one I'll be able to get into the schools I want to go to with).

I encourage people to take more breaks. I started studying in May, I know all that I'm probably going to know now and am really just in the search of some short-cut type tips to increase that score by the marginal 1 or 2 points.

[DoubleChecks]

I had prep tests where it did not work great for me...25% of the time in fact. I would be scoring say mid-170s for 3 tests in a row then bam, a 167 or something. tbf, I only did like 8-10 prep tests total, so it only happened twice, but it definitely unnerved me as most of my prep tests were a few days off from the actual LSAT! Just don't finish on a bad note, and realize people have off tests or off days. Maybe not the best strategy, but I just rolled the 75/25 dice on my day haha and tried my best. Worked out.

[Kabuo]

Can echo what a lot of people are saying. I averaged mid/high 170s and then 2 weeks before the real thing dropped to 164 (I'd actually scored better than this drunk the week before, so it was a real shock: I didn't think I could go below 170 without a major disaster at that point). Took a week off, went back to normal, then took another week before the test, and that was back to normal too. Just relax.