What was your score first ever diagnostic, without prepping Forum

[hoya11]

148. ended up with 170 (after a couple retakes)

that's really impressive!! good luck to you

[gaud]

148. ended up with 170 (after a couple retakes)

that's really impressive!! good luck to you

thank you; good luck to you as well!!

[larsoner]

In the 150s. I ended up with a 171. For me the big thing was to learn the patterns of the logic games. My scores on the long and short passages started pretty good and never really improved.

I'm graduating with a math major and I see analytical thinking as my big strength. I've always done well in reading/writing classes, but I think I've done it by capitalizing on my analytical advantage. So I found it weird that the logic puzzle section was my weak point. I guess it just goes to show that the LSAT has its weaknesses as a measure of ability.

[rli66]

Like a 163 I believe. Got a 170.

[FratLaw]

151

[ben4847]

Mine was a 169 after reading a couple of books and doing a bunch of practice problems for a few weeks.

Why the blazes would you take a practice test without prepping? Just to depress yourself and make you think you don't have a shot?

[094320]

..

[VasaVasori]

.

[snehpets]

To figure out how much work you actually need to put in, and where your weak spots are. Why prep first if you don't actually know how much prep you need?

I may not have fully finished my preparation to see where I am, but this justification doesn't make much sense to me. As can be seen in this thread, with the wide variety of beginning scores and the wide variety of final scores, your initial score really doesn't tell you too much about your potential. And may not tell you much about how much you need to prep, either, because if you have no basic understanding of how the problems work then it will, in all likelihood, be difficult to do well, but when you gain at least some basic understanding of problem types your score and ability can drastically improve without much time.

It makes sense to me to do some sort of minimal amount of preparation, that you would do no matter what you got on a diagnostic - for example, reading the powerscore bibles - then taking a diagnostic to see where you're at and what else you need to do. At that point, you have an understanding of the test, and can get a realistic perspective on where you're at, where you can go, and what you need to do to get there.

Thoughts?

I tend to agree with AtL. First of all, I really liked seeing my score go up from my initial diagnostic. More importantly, however, I would've wasted my time prepping reading comp, reading a book about reading comp, etc., because I did pretty well on that from the beginning (and then got totally destroyed it for the first time in months on test day. there was this freaking section about ships...). If I was doing a basic prep for every section, I imagine I would've included reading comp, which wouldn't have been necessary. I liked doing it cold and then seeing what I really needed to work on. I can see both sides though. I guess it's whatever you feel will make you happiest/motivate you to work most.

[094320]

..

[ben4847]

eh. I think the whole idea of doing a raw diagnostic, comes from the test prep companies, who want you to bomb one so that they can advertise how much they made you improve.

[larsoner]

I wouldn't know how to prep if I hadn't taken a practice test first. Generic advice from practice books covers everything and doesn't narrow in on your problems. I think I would have wasted a lot of time if I had tried to prep before my first test. I'm really good at short passage reading but not so good at logic games. I'm great at logic games when they aren't timed and I'm better at them when I don't do 4 in a row. If I hadn't taken a test first, with the time limits and the fatigue factor, I wouldn't have known what my particular issues would be and I might have wasted my time studying short passage reading, which was the first section in my review book, instead of logic games. So what I'm saying is, for me at least the best generic practice is to just do the whole test in a timed setting. Practice books are best used when you know what you need to focus on.

That being said, you should, of course, read the instructions, know the scoring system, etc. before your first practice test. The idea is to approximate real test conditions so you shouldn't lower your score by wasting time reading instructions. Also, if you didn't figure out how to take standardized tests when you took the SAT, go ahead and read about answer elimination and so forth. These things are kind of pre-prep.

[PDXNative]

167 cold, 177 after ~2 months self-study

[anemonesque]

162 cold and timed LSAT virgin --> 177 real thing (retook an earlier bomb), with a ptest high of 180 a couple times.

Took the first one without any prep because I wanted to get a feel for the test and a baseline score. I thought that way I could see improvement more, which motivates me. I learn better by doing instead of reading strategies, though I did use powerscore books. Testing cold let me narrow down my weaknesses and allowed me to skip things in prep that I knew I didn't need--e.g. I needed to improve logic game speed because accuracy was fine but I didn't get to the last game, but I didn't need to learn a bunch of things about how to read a passage.

[jetissent]

156 with 0 prep to 174 on test day a month later. I just took a practice test every day for +20 days in a row with two tests on Saturdays. It really helped to overcome the endurance hurtle.

[Shaggy]

151 timed! Good luck.

[Helicio]

156 with 0 prep to 174 on test day a month later. I just took a practice test every day for +20 days in a row with two tests on Saturdays. It really helped to overcome the endurance hurtle.

All of that in one month...damn. THAT is impressive.

[KingsBench]

I just finished my cold diagnostic - 151 on the free one provided by LSAC, timed conditions with no previous prep (other than scouting TLS). Got hammered on Logic Games and Logical Reasoning - I guess that's what the LGB and LRB are for right? And I kind of burnt out at the end with Reading Comp, didn't realize how much concentration taking the LSAT required - I was exhausted after 4 sections. I guess it's good to know that I'll definitely need to be working on endurance, among other things, for future PTs.

I'm super super encouraged by the fact that people jump from the 150s (or even lower) on their diagnostics to 170+, which is my goal. Definitely gives me hope that some serious studying from now until the June LSAT will put me in decent shape. Thanks everyone for the advice and best of luck to all those who are in the midst of prepping for the real thing!

[kapachino]

151.

[ben4847]

I just finished my cold diagnostic - 151 on the free one provided by LSAC, timed conditions with no previous prep (other than scouting TLS). Got hammered on Logic Games and Logical Reasoning - I guess that's what the LGB and LRB are for right? And I kind of burnt out at the end with Reading Comp, didn't realize how much concentration taking the LSAT required - I was exhausted after 4 sections. I guess it's good to know that I'll definitely need to be working on endurance, among other things, for future PTs.

I'm super super encouraged by the fact that people jump from the 150s (or even lower) on their diagnostics to 170+, which is my goal. Definitely gives me hope that some serious studying from now until the June LSAT will put me in decent shape. Thanks everyone for the advice and best of luck to all those who are in the midst of prepping for the real thing!

Dude: don't sweat it yet. Doing logic games without knowing how, is kind of like getting in a car to drive for the first time, and trying to figure out which gear is which, and which handle puts it in gear, and who even said cars have gears.

[sishu7]

174 on a cold practice test. I decided not to prep. As soon as those December scores come out, we'll see whether that was a wise decision.

[PurpleMustang]

162, timed.

[justinp]

168 cold last June. 176 on the October test.

Lots of work in between.