I started with a diagnostic in the low 130s. After studying since June (4-6 hours 5-6 days a week), I scored a 147 on my latest timed practice test, but my blind review score was 161. I’m taking the November LSAT and hoping for at least a 153 (I simply want to get accepted into my home school, nothing crazy.)
The timed score feels discouraging. If you’ve had a big gap between your timed score and blind review, what helped you close it? How would you use the next six weeks to improve? Should I even take the November test? 
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You have made a serious improvement so far by gaining a wack of points in a few months time, to me this shows progress.
I think the 153 is viable for November, but I also don't like to stress either. I always say just imagine deferring to next year, when I did it took so much pressure off me that things were allowed to flow much easier and stress free. Typical advice is do not schedule your exam until you are prep testing into the range you want. We can expect a test day score close to our trend, and should give buffer for chance of -3 to -5 collapse/test day jitters.
As far as November goes, I would not commit to writing now. Writing in January is fine. Your target schools will not fill up in that time and there will be plenty of open consideration still at that time. Higher score in January will always beat out the early November entry. Don't even stress about November.
Over the next couple weeks, no prep test, or anything timed.
If you haven't done the course curriculum, take your time with that.
For every single question write out your full thinking, and process of elimination everything. Pretend you are the tutor. This will help you spot the gaps in your thinking so we can address where we go wrong and improve on the methodology.
Go a lot slower, quality over quantity.
We don't need to do a lot of lifting, we just need to make sure our form is right. Support the fundamentals and work on those foundations slowly. Even one concept at a time, one or two lessons a day. By going slow we will not reinforce bad habits and slowly build a solid foundation.
I believe that if you let the process flow you should be scoring mid to high 150s come January, and feel really good about going into test day. Do not force yourself to write in November, please, I tried something similar, it was not a fun experience, I cracked under pressure, had a huge collapse dropping -6 off my prep tests, and it really forced me into reassessing my entire study plan.
this is great advice 🫶🏾
What could help is don't worry about finishing entire sections. It's better to get 95%-100% accuracy on the questions you attempt and guess on the rest; with a 147, you are probably getting about -12/-13 per section. Focus on finishing about 14-15 questions per section and making sure that your accuracy on those 15 is about 95% to 100%. The remainders just guess.... that way you are guaranteed at worst -12/-13 (if all the guesses are incorrect) and you will likely get maybe 4 of the guesses correct. That should bring you to around a -9 per section which should be about a 153. This will give you much higher odds statistically than just doing all 25-27 questions but with a lower accuracy.
Personally what helped me, and what I told my friend who's taking it in October, is getting rid of timed drills altogether (Aside from the occasional PrepTest run through) . My first pass and br gap was very similar to yours. A lot of the time I found that I knew the material, it was just the clock that was giving me anxiety and making me change answers that were right. Getting rid of the pressure of time allows you to fully process the questions and get used to question patterns. The timing and the score gap slowly starts to solve itself.
Hey! I'm in the same boat. I had a tutor tell me that it may link back to your foundations on certain question types. I consistently score low 140s on the attempt of a PT but then hit 165-166 on BR.
Hi! First of all, that’s a huge improvement! The issue here is likely time. Review the PT and see what question types you for wrong the most, and try to get those down pat. Once you do, you’ll be able to answer them a lot quicker. Best of luck!
This clearly shows that your genuine understanding of the content is there, and that’s the hardest part! I think you should be proud of your score, especially your blind review, as that most closely reflects your conceptual understanding. In my opinion, this timed score likely represents some combination of testing jitters from looking at the clock and answering inefficiency. Luckily, both are very totally addressable. For my testing jitters, I physically put a piece of tape over the timer. I didn’t remove or change it, but simply took it out of my vision. Funnily enough, this not only reduced my feeling of being rushed, but over time, allowed me to actually feel my pace without relying on the clock.
Regarding answering efficiency, what ironically makes you answer questions “faster” is reading the stimulus more carefully (slower). The more you understand what the stimulus is giving you, the quicker you become at answering questions because the stimulus essentially answers them for you. Whether it’s an inference or assumption question, understanding what the stimulus is saying, what’s important about it, and how to approach the particular question type will eliminate almost all of the wrong answers and usually lead you to a genuinely confident answer. Basically, I think you should be very happy about this result. Focus on slowing things down, because once you get good at that, it will actually speed things up!
Never closed the gap, just got my BR to the upper 160’s and tested at 153
If you haven't went through the entire foundations curriculum, I suggest you do that. It really helps to address gaps in knowledge. Once you start to understand how the test really works, which requires slowing down, I think you'll see a score increase.
I think you should reach out to the school you want to apply to to see what they recommend. Applying in January could be too late especially for scholarship consideration.
Hey sister girl,
All the advice that is being stated is good advice so pick which ever speak to you the most. This me adding me 2 cents as I’m in the similar situation* yet I’m taking my test in October.
While yes take you time and write out what you’re thinking, sometimes just go back to the easier questions to make sure you understand and then go to harder. Do like 5-9 question drills ( untimed or timed if you feel moved. Consider applying for texting accommodation like extra time) and that will really show how well your form is with each question you face. if you’re still getting things wrong to back to fundamentals.
I’m rooting for you 💕🫶🏽