148 Diagnostic Forum

[naht]

Hi all,
I took the June 2007 PT cold (my first ever) and got a 148. Missed 45 questions. Obviously a bit bummed. I did notice that my LR raw score went from -13 to -9 in between tests, and I think it may have been because I felt a little more at ease with them. RC was the only section I was able to finish on time, and I still didn't do too hot there either (and I did well on the ACT Reading section in high school). During reading, my parents kept on asking me questions from downstairs, etc. I had to guess on 6 questions on LG and 4 on the first LR and the last question on the second. If I plan on taking the June 2016 test, should I have a reasonable chance of increasing my score to a 170 or so? Thanks in advance, and I'd appreciate a response from anyone who was/is in a similar situation.

[stig2014]

It's certainly doable, but it will be a lot of hard work. There are a lot of great study guides on this site that help test takers to get to 170+. Also, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Mike Kim's the LSAT Trainer; highly recommended on this board and it helped me tremendously.

My initial diagnostic was a 149, I got a 170 on the real thing. Stay focused on your goal and don't be afraid to keep retaking until you meet it. Best of luck.

[Biglaw1990]

.

[fredfred]

Hi all,
I took the June 2007 PT cold (my first ever) and got a 148. Missed 45 questions. Obviously a bit bummed. I did notice that my LR raw score went from -13 to -9 in between tests, and I think it may have been because I felt a little more at ease with them. RC was the only section I was able to finish on time, and I still didn't do too hot there either (and I did well on the ACT Reading section in high school). During reading, my parents kept on asking me questions from downstairs, etc. I had to guess on 6 questions on LG and 4 on the first LR and the last question on the second. If I plan on taking the June 2016 test, should I have a reasonable chance of increasing my score to a 170 or so? Thanks in advance, and I'd appreciate a response from anyone who was/is in a similar situation.

From my first thread

This is my experience with the LSAT and it should be read by anyone who is looking for LSAT motivation.

In college, I started thinking about the LSAT and law school. I went to a free kaplan session where there is a proctor (tutor) and he gives a full exam. I had not prepared at all and left with a 143. My head was spinning and I went to talk to an advisor of mine. He said if someone wants to go to law school, they should have started studying in high school. That was his serious advice. It takes 3-4 years to master the LSAT at a minimum (he went to HYS law and Princeton PHD so the dude is extremely smart himself). That did not help my confidence.

Fast forward a year. Just graduated college, I was headed to graduate school. It is June 1st, 2014. It was the first time I seriously tried to study, aiming for the September exam. I was doing okay, never really breaking 160. Games was my worst section, going -15/-20 at a time. Having access to some family support, I reached out to a tutor to teach me games. Worth every penny and started going -10, then -5, then -1. Progress! Unfortunately reasoning wasn't progressing as I would have liked, but I was getting tutored on Skype as my graduate school was far away. I was doing what my tutor told me all the way up through the September exam and was pting mid 160s. Eventually September came and I received a high 150's score. I was devastated. 4 months of work, lots of money, and still not even breaking 160. I was distraught, a failure, a waste. This was all in the mist of graduate school and it was just awful.

I take a month off of studying and decided to try again in December. I dumped my tutor (but LG was a massive improvement getting to -0) and decided instead of trying to learn everything just focus on LR. I had games down and just needed LR help. I buckled down for a few months and studied hard. December came, did great on games and not as great on LR, but a significant improvement. I had been pting from 164-174 on any given test. Come December, I went -6 on RC. Received a mid 160s score. Was devastated again, how could I possibly get into a t14? My dreams were over.

I applied everywhere and had a good cycle. Got serious scholarship money from top 20 schools and wl at a few t14. I decided on one top 20 with a nice scholarship and my parents were proud, I was proud, it actually was all okay. But something was bugging me, it was the LSAT. I felt like twice it had won, twice it beat me yet I wanted to try again. My parents said no, why even go through this again?

So I signed up for June. I threw out everything I knew about the LSAT and started at PT 1. I took EVERY SINGLE LSAT from 1-76 (or whatever it is) and then redid 60-76 again. I wasn't trying to beat the test or learn the test, rather I was just going through it systematically. If I got a RC question wrong, I spent 15 minutes breaking down every answer choice and trying to figure out where I went wrong and which one is more right. I did this for 4 months, on top of grad school.

It now brings me to this moment. I received a mid 170s score in the 99th percentile in June. Within 12 hours of the score, I had received a call from a t14 I was rejected from offering me unsolicited admission along with 2 others just outside the t14. It looks like I will be sitting out a year and reapplying.

What this is all about ultimately is I had around a 30 point increase from first pt to June 2015. It was a full year of studying with small breaks in between. You don't need a tutor. What he taught me I found the same on youtube for free. What matters is you determination to really work at it. Actually take every single PT ever given over and over. By my actual count, I have taken over 150 full pts this past year (obviously repeating each one at some point). My professor was wrong, you don't need 4 years of study. You need 1 and the determination to do it.

tl;dr I started from the bottom (143) and now I am here (mid 170s). Good luck, you can do it.

Update: at Duke/UVA on huge scholly

[naht]

Thank you all for the encouragement and success stories. I'm currently a junior at a solid public university with a 4.0, and my dream is T5. I'm determined to make that a reality, and I guess it starts now!

[mootness]

Hi all,
. My head was spinning and I went to talk to an advisor of mine. He said if someone wants to go to law school, they should have started studying in high school. That was his serious advice. It takes 3-4 years to master the LSAT at a minimum (he went to HYS law and Princeton PHD so the dude is extremely smart himself). That did not help my confidence.

What was your advisor on about? THREE YEARS? I took the December 2014 test and scored even lower than OP. I was extremely depressed when I got the score on New Year's day. At that point, I could've given up on going to law school that cycle (had already applied), but a week and few days later I started an intensive kaplan course to prepare for the February exam. Scored a 161 this time. I think I studied ~3 weeks total and took 5-10 PT's.

[fredfred]

Hi all,
. My head was spinning and I went to talk to an advisor of mine. He said if someone wants to go to law school, they should have started studying in high school. That was his serious advice. It takes 3-4 years to master the LSAT at a minimum (he went to HYS law and Princeton PHD so the dude is extremely smart himself). That did not help my confidence.

What was your advisor on about? THREE YEARS? I took the December 2014 test and scored even lower than OP. I was extremely depressed when I got the score on New Year's day. At that point, I could've given up on going to law school that cycle (had already applied), but a week and few days later I started an intensive kaplan course to prepare for the February exam. Scored a 161 this time. I think I studied ~3 weeks total and took 5-10 PT's.

Congrats on a 161. But the difference between a 161 and mid 170s+ can be multiple years of studying for some people. His advice was more that you can never start early enough, especially taking practice tests. It took me just over a full year, with minimal breaks to reach the mid 170s. If you can do it in shorter, congrats.

tldr: it is much easier for most people to go from 140s to 160s with some studying of varying length. What is much more time consuming and harder is to go from 160s to the upper reaches of 170s. That is where the time sink generally is.