Post
by PakiGuy87 » Wed Feb 29, 2012 1:45 am
Hey Cork,
I wanted to drop in and show my support since your posts nearly mirror my experience 100%. There is plenty of great advice on this thread. I said something similar to my LSAT instructor about not caring as much--I felt more prepared to take the test a week after the December LSAT because I had cooled down mentally.
My PTs have seen a significant jump since my pre-Dec 2011 prepping and the one piece of advice I can stand behind is read.
Read challenging material, read dense material, read all the time, and most importantly, read unfamiliar material. For example, I recently decided to get a subscription to the WSJ and challenge myself everyday to read about one to two topic areas I have no prior knowledge about. I try not to overwhelm myself with that material but I know that if I combine that exercise with dense material, think philosophy books, whatever it is I am reading is going towards prepping for roughly 75% of the test. I would go so far as to say that LSAT demands a different type of reading style which is why reading unfamiliar and dense material is helpful. In fact, I think I'm going to borrow my little sister's Scientific American magazine after she's done with them. For example, I'm reading the WSJ, Plato's Republic, and will throw in one to two articles from SA soon, per day.
Give it a try, I've noticed stellar results.
Secondly, I can sense that you are concerned about the future, perhaps? We tend to feel overwhelmed by processes outside of our control. If that is true, then try not to place all your eggs in one basket and do an activity in which you excel. If you have time, take a class in something you like or want to learn more about. I'm taking a legal research class at a local college. It helps that I'm trouncing the competition too and that feeds my sense of confidence because like you I take these things very seriously. I'm most confident in academics and writing, so I decided to take that class (and because I will eventually take it as a 1L). The key here is to build confidence much like a building a building--brick by brick. Then, leveraging that heighten sense of self to take on the LSAT (like another poster said--imagine everyone in the room being dumber than you are).
Lastly, I look for "LSATisms" sometimes when I watch a TV show, listen to the radio (esp. advertisements), or read the paper. What I'm doing to make myself more confident in approaching the test is to catch assumptions, necessary/sufficient clauses, premises/conclusions, flawed reasoning, wherever and whenever I encounter them. Doing this may not be the best idea for you if it leaves you feeling overwhelmed but if you are a perfectionist you might enjoy it.
My post would probably have a greater weight of persuasiveness if I had already retaken and done well but I'm noticing a huge difference between my pre-Dec 2011 prepping (constantly worrying, attaching too much meaning to my score) and now (worrying a lot less, clear thinking, seeing scores as indicators of strengths and areas of improvement). However, I can definitely relate to your experience since as a fellow perfectionist I've never felt as overwhelmed in my life as during my pre-Dec 2011 prepping. Any of those three above can increase your level of confidence but your milage may vary because trusting in yourself forms the base of confidence, and only you can do that for yourself.
Remember, standardized test are based on the assumption that a reasonable level of a person's intelligence can be obtained from them. That is a shaky assumption and assigning too much pressure to one test or even a few tests is not a good idea. So, don't be weighed down by one test, you can and will do better but only if you put more trust into yourself!
Good luck, Cork!
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I made the same mistake the first time - I went into the June test totally unprepared and nervous, and I underperformed. Unfortunately, I didn't find this forum until after I took the June test. After actually putting some time into studying (correctly), I went from 167 --> 175 (and I still did worse on the RC in Dec with a -6 lol). Hindsight may be 20/20, but that's irrelevant when you can just retake.
