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I have taken many practice tests and have about a five point discrepancy between my scores these days and wonder if my actual test will be higher or lower. I have never been able to take the test under 100% testing conditions due to timing issues (three kids, have to take the test at 6am before anyone wakes up), never have had more than 6 hours of sleep before a single exam (although I plan to sleep 8-10 hours the night before the actual exam), and cannot guarantee no interruptions or noise (husband leaving for work, kids waking up, etc.). Im hoping that with the actual test I can score in my high range (above 165) but would like to know from others' experiences how their actual test score compared to their practice tests. Thanks!!

A 4-6 point drop on game day seems to be the most common from everything I've heard and from my own experience. I'd wager that the number of folks who go down is much higher than the number of folks who stay the same or improve.

4-6 seems high. 2-4 seems more reasonable to me, especially as you move up the high end.

Ex: most people practicing at 175 probably don't end up with a 169-171, 171-173 sounds more likely.

...

2-3's more like it. i tested around 172, got a 169 on test day.

I dropped 6 points
My advice - KEEP CALM (freaking out sucks): you can always cancel (which doesn't look at all bad on your application) or retake (also not the end of the world). The more confident you are, the better you'll do

I scored a 170 on the read deal, but was consistently between 166-168 during prep tests. I think what gave me an edge is my preparation 48 hrs. before the real thing. Instead of cramming in as much as I could in the last 2 days, I just went out and hung around with my family and friends over the weekend. I didn't think about the LSAT for 2 days.

When test day finally came around, I woke up, went for a nice long run, and had a decent breakfast. I told myself that there was nothing I could learn in those last 48 hours that I hadn't learned in the 2 months prior to that... I compared it to running a marathon: You train hard for 4-8 months, and then you don't run at all for a week or 2 before. That 48 hours is all mental relaxation for you.

went down 6

If you drop, that means either you didn't prepare adequately for the mental marathon, or the test beat you.

No one should go into the test thinking "well i uhh need a 3 point window since my score is going to drop" which seems to be a very common thought pattern around here.

went down by around 5-6 pts...
i still blame the RC of the June test, it was pretty brutal for me

Reading another thread also got me to thinking about what practice tests people were taking. How far did their real score deviate from their average on, say, the three LSATs administered just before?

I went up 3 points on my real test from my last few PTs. I was more focused on test day and better prepared.

cool thread

I went down about 2-4. Coming out of the test I knew I missed two: I chose between multiple seemingly correct answers because I misread the question. Also I mis-bubbled because I skipped a question which cost be 1-2 minutes and maybe 1 raw point.

That being said my last 3-4 tests were really spiky – ranging from 1 point higher than my test to 6 points lower.

Because of this drop I am planning to retake if I can average 3-4 points higher than my actual. I figure that even if I build in this drop I shouldn’t score worse than my original by more than 1 – and that’s worth the risk.

Note: my real score was as low as the lowest in my last 11 or so PT tests (but I did hit it 2-3 times - as I said my score fluctuates.

nitsudrx wrote:If you drop, that means either you didn't prepare adequately for the mental marathon, or the test beat you.

No one should go into the test thinking "well i uhh need a 3 point window since my score is going to drop" which seems to be a very common thought pattern around here.

Completely agree.

I checked lower but, now that I think about it, I never took a full test. I'd do a section at a time so maybe the reason for my drop in performance was that I had never simulated such a LONG test. Dropped about 4-5 points from what I was getting on individual sections.

bump I want to know too. Tell me the average drop.

I went down 6. I was a nervous wreck and lost track of time.

I went down 7 from average. But then again these were the run of the mill bookstore tests, ie. Kaplan, Princeton Review, LSAT for Dummies and the like.

In relation to my final two week average, I got one additional answer wrong and dropped two points.

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just when I think I couldn't be any more depressed than I already am, I come across this thread.

ilove wrote:just when I think I couldn't be any more depressed than I already am, I come across this thread.

exactly

Well, this poll isn't representative of course, but you do have a split of 40% doing better or the same, and 60% doing less well

That's not too terrible

ilove wrote:just when I think I couldn't be any more depressed than I already am, I come across this thread.

word