The Confidence Factor? Forum

[flat-fifth]

As I continue to prep, I'm noticing a boost in confidence, especially on games. I certainly will NOT be overly confident, but it feels good to finally get to a point where I feel like I truly know what I am doing and how to attack the test.
Has confidence been proven to play any role in LSAT success or am I reading too much into it?

[NoodleyOne]

I think it's a huge factor. Going in, you want this feeling of consistency. I like to make the analogy to shooting free throws. Nothing new here, just go through your motions and sink them.

[Pneumonia]

Yeah this is pretty huge. Confidence in your abilities being sufficient for games definitely helps, as does confidence that your abilities are more than sufficient- to the degree that you'll have 5 minutes to review your answers and 1 or 2 left over to rest/regroup before the next section.

As an encouragement- you can get this place on LR as well; once you see enough questions you'll basically start to ignore content and just see structure. Much the same way as in games. Once you get good at games you stop noticing that F is a plane, you just keep track of whether or not it can go in group 1 (which is a runway, that you also don't care about). LR becomes much the same way.

[rinkrat19]

Confidence plays a role in how you test. If you're a super anxious tester, you're probably more likely to fall short of your PT average on testing day. If you know you test well and you're well-prepared, you should theoretically hit your average.

[mqt]

Confidence really does play a role in testing of any sort. There have even been studies that suggest maintaining a certain posture can have a positive effect on test takers (in general, not specifically the LSAT). Always feel confident that you're going to knock it out of the park, even if you have no reason to think so.

[TheMostDangerousLG]

I think it's a huge factor. Going in, you want this feeling of consistency. I like to make the analogy to shooting free throws. Nothing new here, just go through your motions and sink them.

Yup.

Come test day, you are inevitably going to be a bit more anxious than usual. The confidence that comes with familiarity with the test is extremely important; you don't want to spend precious time double-checking and questioning yourself on questions you'd be sure of if you didn't have test day jitters.

[Tim0thy222]

One thing that was really important for me was knowing what to do when I didn't know what to do. That way you remain confident even when you're not sure how to attack a logic game or a reading comp passage makes you cross-eyed, and can proceed to maybe recover the question, or at least move on and get everything else right.

[Naclam]

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[flat-fifth]

Trust me, overconfidence is certainly NOT an issue There are plenty of games that I come across and still say WTF??? I just noticed that I'm starting to feel better about the whole thing with increasing familiarity.