Severe Recent Regression in Preptest Scores and Focus
Posted: Tue May 06, 2014 10:01 pm
Hi all. First of all, thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this. If you want the TL;DR version: I am becoming highly anxious and lethargic heading into my final month of preparation and I'm looking for advice on how to combat it as best I can.
Anyway, I've been prepping for the past three months for the June LSAT. I've used a combination of Pithypike, TLS1776, and TheNoodleyOne's advice thus far mixed in with my own needs and I've seen massive gains as a result. My initial diagnostic was a 160 and as of last week I've been averaging a 167-170 over several properly timed, 5 section prep tests. I was also confident about my ability to improve since I had brought my two main focus sections (LG and RC) to a total of around -3 and was missing around 12 to 14 in LR, which I've slowly whittled down to around 7-8 wrong total since last week. I figured that as long as I stayed the course, I would continue to see slow but steady gains until the June examination. However, this past week has been a disaster.
I have been feeling anxious, lethargic, and generally unmotivated to take my most recent prep test. I knew a lot of this added stress is the feeling of entering the final month of my preparation so I took my stress into account and took a day off completely to try and combat it. I tried to take a preptest yesterday after the rest and it was a disaster. I missed 10 more problems than I had missed in the past ~20 days, and really fell apart in terms of timing. What's worse, I performed horribly in the RC section, which I had thought I had brought down to a hard 0-3 maximum wrong.
I'm not blind to the causes. I was still anxious and I was still not highly motivated going into the examination like I had been in previous administrations of preptests. However, my question is: what is the best way to combat this? Up until this point, my motivation has been excellent and my progress has been rocky but steady.
Once again, thanks for anyone taking the time to read this and/or offering advice.
Anyway, I've been prepping for the past three months for the June LSAT. I've used a combination of Pithypike, TLS1776, and TheNoodleyOne's advice thus far mixed in with my own needs and I've seen massive gains as a result. My initial diagnostic was a 160 and as of last week I've been averaging a 167-170 over several properly timed, 5 section prep tests. I was also confident about my ability to improve since I had brought my two main focus sections (LG and RC) to a total of around -3 and was missing around 12 to 14 in LR, which I've slowly whittled down to around 7-8 wrong total since last week. I figured that as long as I stayed the course, I would continue to see slow but steady gains until the June examination. However, this past week has been a disaster.
I have been feeling anxious, lethargic, and generally unmotivated to take my most recent prep test. I knew a lot of this added stress is the feeling of entering the final month of my preparation so I took my stress into account and took a day off completely to try and combat it. I tried to take a preptest yesterday after the rest and it was a disaster. I missed 10 more problems than I had missed in the past ~20 days, and really fell apart in terms of timing. What's worse, I performed horribly in the RC section, which I had thought I had brought down to a hard 0-3 maximum wrong.
I'm not blind to the causes. I was still anxious and I was still not highly motivated going into the examination like I had been in previous administrations of preptests. However, my question is: what is the best way to combat this? Up until this point, my motivation has been excellent and my progress has been rocky but steady.
Once again, thanks for anyone taking the time to read this and/or offering advice.