Canceling Score: Is it ever worth it? Forum

[StopLawying]

I had two weaknesses going into yesterday's exam: 1)LG 2)Stamina
Both hurt me tremendously yesterday. LG was my first section, and with test day nerves, I wasn't making the upfront inferences in G3 and G4 to answer the questions. Managed to brute force my way through G4 (except for substitution question which I couldn't answer) and had to basically blindly guess on 5 questions in G3.
Then RC was my last section and at that point I just had nothing left in the tank. Wasn't internalizing anything, and the last 3 passages I went with answers based on gut. Not a recipe for success.
LR seemed standard, and I think I did okay there.
But now I'm unsure whether or not to cancel. I'm not really sure how the whole cancellation thing works, and how it affects admissions. Is it better to cancel and not have a big variance in score, or is cancellation the better option?
There are a few reasons why I think it's better not to cancel: want to see my test and learn from my mistakes, and perhaps by some miracle I managed to put together a decent score. I remember on several tests, namely 71 and 77,I thought I did really poorly but I managed to still put together a 167 and 165 respectively. Also, I was averaging mid-160s with usually a -5 in games, so my bad games score is not really a fluke. RC and LR usually made up for my bad LG peformance and when I'd score well in both sections Id hit the high 160s but I think I bombed RC. Any advice here? First time taker. TIA

[lymenheimer]

Delete your parenthetical. Not supposed to be posting question types. Otherwise youll get banned and nobody can be of any assistance.

And to answer your question, yes. It is ever worth it, but for the majority of applicants/takers its not: http://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/should ... sat-score/

[Keilz]

I had two weaknesses going into yesterday's exam: 1)LG 2)Stamina
Both hurt me tremendously yesterday. LG was my first section, and with test day nerves, I wasn't making the upfront inferences in G3 and G4 to answer the questions. Managed to brute force my way through G4 (except for substitution question which I couldn't answer) and had to basically blindly guess on 5 questions in G3.
Then RC was my last section and at that point I just had nothing left in the tank. Wasn't internalizing anything, and the last 3 passages I went with answers based on gut. Not a recipe for success.
LR seemed standard, and I think I did okay there.
But now I'm unsure whether or not to cancel. I'm not really sure how the whole cancellation thing works, and how it affects admissions. Is it better to cancel and not have a big variance in score, or is cancellation the better option?
There are a few reasons why I think it's better not to cancel: want to see my test and learn from my mistakes, and perhaps by some miracle I managed to put together a decent score. I remember on several tests, namely 71 and 77,I thought I did really poorly but I managed to still put together a 167 and 165 respectively. Also, I was averaging mid-160s with usually a -5 in games, so my bad games score is not really a fluke. RC and LR usually made up for my bad LG peformance and when I'd score well in both sections Id hit the high 160s but I think I bombed RC. Any advice here? First time taker. TIA

FWIW my first time taking I messed up game three and blindly guessed and got -6, but I ended up with a 166. I also somehow got -7 on one section of LR, and a -4 on RC and -1 on the other LR. When I think about it, I did well for all those wrong. If you usually get a -5 on LG and score your normal expected score, I wouldn't cancel. Only if you feel that this was like be absolute worst and an unusual occurance

[etramak]

Delete your parenthetical. Not supposed to be posting question types. Otherwise youll get banned and nobody can be of any assistance.

And to answer your question, yes. It is ever worth it, but for the majority of applicants/takers its not: http://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/should ... sat-score/

The link seems to imply that a cancelled score followed by a great score would be treated the same as a bad/mediocre score followed a great score in that they would consider only the highest one. Does this apply to all schools? I read that some T14s average and most say they do consider all scores. Cancelling wouldn't seem like a bad idea if that is actually true. Also, if the highest is only considered for admissions purposes, is there any info as to how a cancel would affect scholarship opportunities as opposed to letting the low score be reported?

[BirdLawExpert]

In reply to the question in your title: absolutely. I'm twenty minutes into the test and I realize I have appendicitis and leave, I should probably cancel my score.