Cancel? Forum

[JWP1022]

Hey everyone,

Long time lurker, first time poster. Hoping y'all can help me!

As the title says, I'm wondering if I should cancel my score. In the weeks before the test, I was consistently testing in the high 160s, low 170s (low: 169, high: 173). However, after taking the test last Saturday, I'm not so sure what I should do.

This was my first take. I had LG - LR - RC - RC - LR. Normally I go -0 or -1 on LG (doing so might even be necessary for me to get that 170+ ), but on the test I ran out of time on the last game and had to guess on 3-4 questions. I don't think I got anything wrong in the first 3 games, but I'm worried I might have gone -4 on the last game alone.

LR is really my weakest link, but I'm generally only -2 to -4, but I am very concerned that knowing that I messed up on logic games might have clouded my brain for the following LR section, meaning that I might have bombed it. I don't really remember ANYTHING about the logical reasoning sections, which worries me even more. I remember not having TOO much trouble with LR2, but I ended up leaving a question blank by accident, which is frustrating. All in all I just feel like I might not have been with it mentally.

RC I usually kill, and I really didn't have any trouble on this test.

So, as a first time taker, what would you all do? I know that I might be pleasantly surprised, but I also feel like it is equally likely that I just completely bombed because I was so distracted by my failure on logic games. Is it worth the risk to have that potentially bad score on my record (I have a 3.7 GPA from a top 5 undergraduate institution + 2 years of job experience and have dreams of HYS or CCN)? I know that conventional wisdom states that schools don't really care about having multiple scores, but I am worried nonetheless.

Appreciate any advice you guys can give me! Thanks

[simplycatalina]

I wouldn't cancel unless you're sure you screwed something major up. I feel you on the last game-I was fine on the first three and I think I got part of the last game, but it was definitely time-consuming and I had to guess on a few. I don't think not remembering the LR questions indicates that you didn't do well on LR. After all, the test is kind of a blur and everything blends together at the end. Do you remember having to guess/feeling uncertain on a lot of LR questions? If not, you're probably fine. I know that thinking about the test after the fact makes you second guess everything you did/every answer/whether you screwed a LG up, but just stay calm and it'll be fineee. You can always retake. But like you said, you may have gotten a great score.

[theycallmefoes]

Don't cancel. Given where you were PTing, even if LG threw you off your game, your worst case scenario is still probably a pretty respectable score. Even if it's not HYS or CCN material, it won't be anything a higher score can't fix.

A couple of things:

For LG: If you made educated guesses, then I'd say the odds are definitely in your favor. In fact, even if you blindly guessed on the last 4 questions, you still probably didn't go -4. I wouldn't stress about LG too much.

For LR: Have you seen the threads where people were trying to figure out which LR was the experimental? Plenty of people don't remember much (or even anything at all) about LR, and even the people who have been able to recollect some of it are utterly confused as to which section was which - which, honestly, is not the least bit surprising, given how many random topics are covered on LR. I would not worry at all about the fact that you don't remember it. Also, if you're usually -2 to -4, then you've reached the point where LR is pretty close to being second nature to you. I'd say there's a good chance your worries are just self-doubt and not actually representative of what happened.

Personally, I think a score in the mid- to upper-160s would look better than a cancel, especially if you retake into 170+. Plus, there's always the chance that you actually killed it, and you've just been second-guessing yourself.

[JWP1022]

Thanks for the responses guys!

At this point, I think it is probably worth it for me to keep the score. Everything I've read suggests that schools don't really care about multiple scores anymore, and whatever score I get could just be mitigated by killing it next time (which I fully intend to do, dammit). Hopefully my worst fears are not confirmed.

I do have to ask, how badly would I be affected if I did really poorly on this test somehow (say 159 or 160) and then got my goal score of say 175 or so next time around? Would that immediately put me out of the running for HYS?