Question about score decreases on test day Forum

[bohemiandaisy]

Hi everyone,

I'm retaking the LSAT after I cancelled my December LSAT score. I freaked out on test day and knew I bombed it after a sleepless night and immense test day anxiety. I'm pretty sure this was the result of not taking tests under strictly simulated test day conditions. I was scoring in the 165-170 range.

I've been worried by a few threads from test takers who have seen score decreases on test day (some as much as 10 points!) I'm already a nervous wreck for June and I'm worried about the prospect that this may happen to me. Especially since I have taken ALL of the practice tests. I'm going to be reusing the materials, I've exhausted, so obviously there will be score inflation! Should I be worried? To top it off, I have test taking anxiety and I am not the best test taker.



By the way, I am sorry to all of those who experience a score drop-off. I wish you all the best in June!

[Pneumonia]

what do you mean by "did not take them under strict conditions?"

[bohemiandaisy]

what do you mean by "did not take them under strict conditions?"

Sometimes I didn't take 5 section tests and sometimes I cheated with timing or took tests in very, very silent places alone.

[Pneumonia]

To answer your question, no, you should not be worried, but you will need to be strategic about how you use your materials. Noodley's guide for retaker's is pretty credited.

Always take 5 sections, and be super strict with time. However, I wouldn't worry about testing in quiet places; I took my PT's alone and things went alright for me. If for some reason you are terrified of people then maybe take a few in a semi crowded library, but I wouldn't worry about PT'ing in Starbucks or anything. One thing I've seen happen is that people will get used to a loud environment (when all they really wanted was to become ok with it), and then they are thrown off by how quiet the room is on test day.

If you have any specific questions about prep I'd be happy to answer in this thread, but some general advice would be to come up with a game plan, start with fully understanding the concepts, and then move on to PT's. In other words, treat it exactly as you would if this was your first time prepping. I know you've technically taken all of the tests, but there is no way you've gotten everything you can out of them so don't worry about that.

[Clearly]

The only time you should ever take a test under not test conditions should be to make it more difficult. Six section tests, or 30:00 timers. To do anything worse than test conditions is a recipe for disaster.

[bohemiandaisy]

Wow, Pneumonia, thank you so much for your advice. I will look at Noodley's guide. I've looked at several here.

I'm definitely going to start drafting a game plan within the next two weeks or so. Obviously I did not get everything out of the material since I flipped out so bad during the test.

And Clearly, I experienced the disaster first hand! Never again!

Thanks you guys!

[Ben Reilly]

what do you mean by "did not take them under strict conditions?"

Sometimes I didn't take 5 section tests and sometimes I cheated with timing or took tests in very, very silent places alone.

I can relate to this one. The first time I took the test, I was used to taking 4 section preptests using only an analog watch while sitting in my quiet bedroom. I figured that an extra 35 minutes couldn't really make that much of a difference since I already did four other 35 minute sections. I couldn't have been any more wrong. By the time I got to the fifth section on test day, I was so mentally exhausted that I couldn't even understand the relation between the paragraphs in the reading comprehension passages. To make matters worse, I was completely unaccustomed to there being any noise while I was practicing. I spent about the first 30 seconds of section one agitated with the girl in front of me who kept making a bunch of noise with her test booklet. An extra 35 minutes and some extra noises may seem to be negligible, but when you're taking an exam that's based primarily upon your ability to pay attention to minute details, small factors can make a huge difference.

If you're going to be studying in an space by yourself, that's perfectly fine. However, I'd implore you to download an LSAT proctor app. I personally used the 7sage app and I would recommend it with extreme confidence. The app includes a virtual proctor that calls time and also allows you to choose to increase the frequency of distractions that you'll usually hear on test day (e.g. coughing, sneezing, yawning, page flipping, erasing marks.) I takes some getting used to at first, but I thought it prepared me pretty well for test day. I had become so used to distractions on the day of the test that I forgot I was even in a testing center and I was able to focus exclusively on the task at hand.