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Anyone else ever start to feel like they will not be able to make significant progress and that they will do worse on a retake? I am starting to wonder if I am going to be able to figure out what I need to in order to do better in June.

What's with all the conjecture? Work towards your goal and let the PT scores speak to your readiness. If you are not averaging above your target score a couple of weeks before the test, delay until October. There is no reason to feel hopeless.

I dont want to delay until October I wanna be done with worrying about the LSAT and get on to worrying about doing well in Law school.

Have you tried tracking your strengths and weaknesses using lsatqa.com? Maybe it'll help you identify what you need to focus on to improve.
And if June's the only option, try and focus all your positive energy towards your goal. Don't let negative thoughts get in your way and slow you down!

OP, I very much understand your position. I have goal score in mind and while I feel I'm making huge progress I clearly don't know yet if I'm where I want to be. Plus, I am a school teacher and would like to enjoy my summer instead of studying for all of it. All I can say is if you do not feel totally comfortable that you can achieve what you know you're capable of then delay it. The people on this forum will be clear about how important this test is. If you put the time in religiously I have no doubt you'll be fine. PM if you want and we can stay on top of eachother. I'm registered for June and I plan on taking it then. And yes this is a retake for me as well.

I just feel like I have so many weaknesses.. On my most recent diagnostic I got a 163 but it was one of the first preptests and I imagine it wouldn't be as good if I took one of the more current PTs. I missed a couple LRs, LGs are so hit or miss, I either understand them all or I cant set the game up right and by the time i start answering questions I am 6 or 7 minutes in. I think RC is my worst area and I havent even begun to work on that. I just finished the LR Bible and am most of the way through the Logic Games bible but I am just not getting it. It's gonna be a long month.

You still have 6 weeks. 80% of test takers haven't even started prepping yet.

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RhymesLikeDimes wrote:You still have 6 weeks. 80% of test takers haven't even started prepping yet.

Holy crap, this is good to see. I have started prepping, but I still have so much left to cover.

OP, don't go overboard. Do maybe an hour or so of drilling a day (not counting PTs, of course), and increase it as the test gets closer. As you get more comfortable with the material you'll spend more time with it, and your PTs will get higher and higher. And like the other said, if they're not high enough near the end of May, delay until October.

I really needed to see this thread. I was literally just having the same mental breakdown. Six weeks sounds so promising. Thanks for the optimism family.

Hang in there! Just focus on where you want to be and work towards it. If you keep dwelling on feelings of inadequacy then you might just be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Be glad you have TLS - it is a wealth of knowledge! I know you don't want to delay, God knows I didn't want to either. But now I'm glad that I'm waiting a year - you'll just be waiting a couple of months. That's not too bad.

I already paid for it and it is my last chance to maybe sneak in off of the waitlist potentially. If I dont do well then I will obviously be re-taking.

We've ALL been there. Hang in there.

Lurker here, just droppin in to say that we are all in the same boat homie. The dude with the MF Doom avatar is right, most people haven't even begun drilling,
and many of those who have are probably not doing things like 'blind review', or proper drilling by type etc. You're good, don't worry about it, peace.

Chriz wrote:I already paid for it and it is my last chance to maybe sneak in off of the waitlist potentially. If I dont do well then I will obviously be re-taking.

EYE

OF

THE

TIGER

Sorry, but that is actually my best advice on this. You're in this to destroy the LSAT. This isn't about scholarships or getting into target schools, it's about making that stupid 100ish question test your bitch.

Well if I don't do as well as I want on the June one I can re-take in October and since I dont really wanna go to school if I cant at least get in in 2014 then I dont really have to worry about it after that.

NoodleyOne wrote:

Chriz wrote:I already paid for it and it is my last chance to maybe sneak in off of the waitlist potentially. If I dont do well then I will obviously be re-taking.

EYE

OF

THE

TIGER

Sorry, but that is actually my best advice on this. You're in this to destroy the LSAT. This isn't about scholarships or getting into target schools, it's about making that stupid 100ish question test your bitch.

Love this advice.

TheMostDangerousLG wrote:

NoodleyOne wrote:

Chriz wrote:I already paid for it and it is my last chance to maybe sneak in off of the waitlist potentially. If I dont do well then I will obviously be re-taking.

EYE

OF

THE

TIGER

Sorry, but that is actually my best advice on this. You're in this to destroy the LSAT. This isn't about scholarships or getting into target schools, it's about making that stupid 100ish question test your bitch.

Love this advice.

It's all about the thrill of the fight

Scored a 158 on a PT today ... feeling more hopeless...

everyone has these days where nothing clicks. you gotta move past them with more vigor than you had before them. You need to put your heart and soul into prepping. Or else you will come up short of your potential. Go BIG or Go HOME.

As a sidenote, i scored a 158 about 6 weeks before my February sit date and I got a 170. Just take each test as a snapshot of your weaknesses, and practice until they become strengths, also every test should be better than the last.

Thanks

Chriz wrote:I just feel like I have so many weaknesses.. On my most recent diagnostic I got a 163 but it was one of the first preptests and I imagine it wouldn't be as good if I took one of the more current PTs. I missed a couple LRs, LGs are so hit or miss, I either understand them all or I cant set the game up right and by the time i start answering questions I am 6 or 7 minutes in. I think RC is my worst area and I havent even begun to work on that. I just finished the LR Bible and am most of the way through the Logic Games bible but I am just not getting it. It's gonna be a long month.

As everyone says on the games section, its the most learnable section. I completely agree. When I first started I struggled to set anything up and it would take me like 15-20 minutes to answer everything and it was because all I did was hypotheticals, of which like 90% didn't matter for any answer lol...

If you know what type of games you have the most trouble with, you should try and drill those by type. Have you looked at a games schedule like Pithypikes? Drilling games over and over again until you see patterns has worked wonders for me. Sometimes I think I've seen a game before because of drilling, but it's because they repeat the types of games with different conditions. Get a thorough understanding of the games you have trouble with, make whatever inferences you can and learn. Then the next time you do that game (at least like a day later so you don't remember what exactly the game was or remember answers you got) focus on time (but with perfect accuracy...don't rush in order to finish if you can't get them all right).

Sometimes the games aren't frontloaded either so there's no real set up so keep that in mind too, whether you should be trying to put a lot of time to diagram or come up with rules.

I've felt hopeless a bunch of times too and am still worried about June, but you gotta take it one day at a time and just keep practicing and focusing on getting better.

RhymesLikeDimes wrote:You still have 6 weeks. 80% of test takers haven't even started prepping yet.

This is awesome...lol, makes me feel a lot better since I've been prepping of months already haha.

Doesnt' make me feel much better... Since my average PT is between 158-163 I already know I score better than 75 to 87% of people that take it... I need to to better than people that have already started prepping as well. Oh well.. Back to work

If you're still in the 160ish range, there are so so many opportunities for improvement! I know it seems like a bad thing, but it's actually wonderful because when you get to the 170s, there are such horrible diminishing returns on the time you spend and the rewards you reap.

Here is what I would do:

1) Drill LR type by type using Cambridge LSAT packages. Consistently review. Remember that every time you are making a mistake, you actually have failed twice: you failed to recognize the right answer AND you failed to eliminate the wrong answer. Make sure you know why each answer choice is wrong and why each answer choice is right. VERBALIZE it. Don't say "oh it seemed right", give yourself an exact reason of why. And then -- here is the most important part -- understand how you will avoid this mistake in the future. If you are consistently missing answers because of a scope shift, maybe you should read slower or maybe you need a conscious reminder each time you do a question that scope shift is huge. After each question, you should feel that you will never, ever make this mistake again. And if you do, analyze the similarities and develop a stronger understanding of the question types that are tripping you up. There are so many similarities between question types on the LSAT -- you just have to pay attention. That's the only way to get the most out your LSAT. Don't blame the LSAT and say it's crappy -- blame your understanding.

A personal anecdote, I used to HATE "most strongly supported" questions before because I always thought they were vague... and then I came to realize that my expectations were wrong as MSS is NOT equivalent to inference questions. Inference questions are 100 percent soundproof, whereas MSS have some room and flexibility. When I started recognizing that and stopped stressing about how MSS answers weren't perfect, I realized that the questions were incredibly simple.


2) Do each LG 3 times/follow pithy method. Each time you go through the game, review it and make sure you went it through in an IDEAL way. Where did your time get sucked up? What inference were you not able to see? There are no excuses for LG. If you are not sure you have solved the game in an ideal way, check the 7sage LG explanations. I'm still struggling with this a bit because I get a careless mistake here or there... but LG is literally the same concepts being tested over and over again.

I really do believe that most people can get 165-170 if they put sufficient practice into it. You are extremely lucky at this point where you have so much potential room for improvement. Just work for it. Don't waste your time doing PTs without review and gaining nothing from it.

the_pakalypse wrote:If you're still in the 160ish range, there are so so many opportunities for improvement! I know it seems like a bad thing, but it's actually wonderful because when you get to the 170s, there are such horrible diminishing returns on the time you spend and the rewards you reap.

That's the truth, plateauing is so frustrating.