You probably didn't.

But in case you're feeling this way, I want to say a couple of things before you cancel your score.

First of all, congratulations on completing the LSAT. What an exceedingly difficult challenge—but you did it! For what it's worth, I am proud of you for your hard work over the months and your accomplishment today. I wish I could shake your hand because I would do it earnestly until you said "J.Y. stop it."

Please get together with your poor friends whom you've been neglecting for the past x months and drink your collective faces off. On you of course. I mean that literally as in have your friends drink things off your body. And also in the sense that you should pay because you've been such a bad bad friend.

If that's not appealing, please get together with your friends and spend a lovely and sober evening together not nourishing budding alcoholism. But you should still pay for whatever it is.

Okay, on to business.

Your score will likely be a couple points lower. I'm sorry, but that is how it goes. It's completely normal to feel stressed out on test day and that's likely what causes the "test day penalty" that everyone talks about. Objectively, that just happens.

Subjectively, though, your stress might distort your impression of that fact. It might distort your impression of your performance by overemphasizing the negative. You fixate on things like how rushed you felt, how much you guessed, how you never guessed on PTs, that one LR question that you just couldn't figure out, etc. That's what contributes to that dreadful "I f***ed up" feeling. But don't let that get to you. All of that has already been taken into account under what we call the "test day penalty".

If nothing objectively terrible happened, like you had a seizure or heart attack during the test, your city suffered a major earthquake, the guy sitting next to you was so frustrated with the 3rd game that he stood up, ninja stared the proctor in the leg with his sharpened #2 pencil and yelled "F******** EVERYTHING!" and stormed out of the room, then mostly likely, you did just fine.

It has to be fine because the LSAT is a very consistent and reliable test. And that's a good thing. Why would PrepTest whatever be "special"? It can be "special" only in so far as any of the other PrepTests were "special" and you've already preptested those other "special" PTs.

So there it is. If you're thinking about canceling your score, I hope you'll read this a few times and think about it carefully.

76

71 comments

  • Wednesday, Jan 27 2021

    Hi @shaw5563

    In the following Live Commentary Videos you can see J.Y.'s live take of LR and RC sections on the Digital Tester:

    1. [PrepTest 87 - S2 LR Live Commentary](https://classic.7sage.com/lesson/preptest-87-s2-lr-live-commentary/)

    2. [PrepTest 87 - S3 LR Live Commentary](https://classic.7sage.com/lesson/preptest-87-s3-lr-live-commentary/)

    3. [PrepTest 88 - S2 LR Live Commentary](https://classic.7sage.com/lesson/preptest-88-s2-lr-live-commentary/)

    4. [PrepTest 88 - S3 RC Live Commentary](https://classic.7sage.com/lesson/preptest-88-s3-rc-live-commentary/)

    4. [PrepTest May 2020 - S1 RC Live Commentary](https://classic.7sage.com/lesson/preptest-m20-s1-rc-live-commentary/)

    We recommend that you do not watch these videos until you have attempted PrepTests 87, 88, and May 2020 yourself.

    Also, please note that you must be enrolled in a full course in order to access these Live Commentary Videos.

    I hope this helps!

    2
  • Tuesday, Jan 26 2021

    @jy-ping @476

    There was a video a few years ago of @476 taking a LR section (with camera focused on the pen-paper version of the booklet. It was Super-amazing to see how quickly he went through some questions (like within 30 seconds), and motivating to know it's possible to go so fast.

    Could @jy-ping or @476 do an truly-fresh PT (not seen before) with camera pointed to the paper or PC?

    So that lsat takers like me have an opportunity to see in flesh-and-blood it's really possible for Fresh PTs and for sections like RC/LR that have usually timing issues?

    0
  • Tuesday, Feb 26 2019

    *Bump*

    0
  • Sunday, Jan 27 2019

    @jy-ping I do remember an usually large number of point at issue disagreement questions.

    1
  • Sunday, Jan 27 2019

    > @leahbeuk911 said:

    > Bumping for today's test takers!

    Thanks =)

    0
  • Sunday, Jan 27 2019

    Bumping for today's test takers!

    4
  • Monday, Nov 19 2018

    Was your first logical reasoning section long and filled with point at issue and long stimulus questions? My brain is so foggy I can’t remember what any of them were but I can remember that. I am hoping that was the experimental because I didn’t finish it really threw me off the rest of the test.

    0
  • Sunday, Nov 18 2018

    @jy-ping same thing happened to me. I had LR (experimental)- RC-LR-LR-LG. By the third section I had a horrible headache and couldn't concentrate properly for the rest of the section, but unfortunately that is the one that counted. Hoping to find a way to deal with nerves or anxiety for January.

    2
  • Sunday, Nov 18 2018

    I also feel I did really poorly and have gone back and forth about cancelling but also thinking I am just going to see how I did and plan for January. I think my first section was the experimental Logical reasoning and I did not finish, first time in a long time. It got me very nervous and anxious and I was a mess for the rest of the test and actually a couple hours later. I didn't expect to be so anxious.

    0
  • Saturday, Nov 17 2018

    I mean, school is going to see that you have a canceled score anyway. I would rather find out my score and see what I did wrong/right to learn from it. That's just me. I wanna know my score even though I know I did not reach my target score.

    3
  • Saturday, Nov 17 2018

    Unfortunately, my mind just blocked itself and I couldn't breath much because of allergies. As a result, I ran out of time and guessed on the last portion of all of the sections. I think I might request this score to be cancelled. Any arguments for cancelling the score?

    0
  • Saturday, Nov 17 2018

    Bumping again for today’s testers!

    7
  • Saturday, Oct 06 2018

    Bump for all the international test takers! Hang in there <3

    2
  • Sunday, Sep 09 2018

    One more bump for you guys. See above. It’s so true. I walked out of my first LSAT thinking I bombed part of it, had let nerves get the better of me. Turns out, I nailed and scored right in my PT average. Had I canceled, I would’ve been in a bad spot. Everyone feels the way you’re feeling right now. Unless something massive happened, you shouldn’t cancel. <3

    1
  • Saturday, Sep 08 2018

    Bump for September

    0
  • Tuesday, Jul 24 2018

    > Good thinking .. the should I cancel posts are rolling

    Yeah I think I've seen at least 5!

    0
  • Tuesday, Jul 24 2018

    > @kennedybj959 said:

    > Bumping this for July test takers

    Good thinking .. the should I cancel posts are rolling

    0
  • Tuesday, Jul 24 2018

    Bumping this for July test takers

    0
  • Sunday, Feb 11 2018

    > @mpits001889 said:

    > > @katieshuter1737 said:

    > > What if the nerves got to me during the exam and I guessed like 3/4 LG? :|

    >

    > I took the December exam. I choked on the LG section. The entire 4th game I guessed, and for a handful of the questions from game 1+2 I wasn't entirely confident. I thought I went double digits in LG, but I ended up with a -8. Not good at all, but my performance in LR+RC was consistent. I ended up with a score that was within my anticipated range.

    >

    > I wouldn't cancel over a handful of questions wrong in LG.

    Thank you. This eased my worry a little bit. Although I blindly guessed a handful of games, not a handful of questions :bawling: I've decided not to cancel but definitely did not feel good leaving that exam.

    0
  • Saturday, Feb 10 2018

    I did bad, very very bad.

    0
  • Saturday, Feb 10 2018

    Thanks for this, J.Y. and for all the amazing LG videos. They totally saved me

    2
  • Saturday, Feb 10 2018

    > @leahbeuk911 said:

    > Bump

    >

    > It always feels like you did awful and you should cancel. Don’t let the nerves get to you! There’s very little down side to just letting your score be what it is.

    I needed this! Thank you!

    0
  • Saturday, Feb 10 2018

    > @katieshuter1737 said:

    > What if the nerves got to me during the exam and I guessed like 3/4 LG? :|

    I took the December exam. I choked on the LG section. The entire 4th game I guessed, and for a handful of the questions from game 1+2 I wasn't entirely confident. I thought I went double digits in LG, but I ended up with a -8. Not good at all, but my performance in LR+RC was consistent. I ended up with a score that was within my anticipated range.

    I wouldn't cancel over a handful of questions wrong in LG.

    1
  • Saturday, Feb 10 2018

    > @leahbeuk911 said:

    > Bump

    >

    > It always feels like you did awful and you should cancel. Don’t let the nerves get to you! There’s very little down side to just letting your score be what it is.

    What if the nerves got to me during the exam and I guessed like 3/4 LG? :|

    1
  • Saturday, Feb 10 2018

    Bump

    It always feels like you did awful and you should cancel. Don’t let the nerves get to you! There’s very little down side to just letting your score be what it is.

    3

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