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

  • Monday, Sep 29, 2014

    Hi JY,

    This post really put my mind at ease...at least until I get my score!! I just want to say no matter how I did thank you so much for what you have created on this website and how much you have helped me. If I get in to law school a large part of it will be due to how much your videos have helped me so thank you thank you thank you.

    :)

    24
  • Saturday, Dec 3, 2016

    I hate to sound pandering, but this post and similar ones prove JY and crew are the absolute best when it comes to leaders for your LSAT prep. You guys always remind us to have fun and enjoy what we are doing.Whenever I get to talking with someone about the LSAT I inevitably tell them about JY's forum posts.

    To all of my fellow December takers: take a deep breath. Just like with the prep leading up, we're all in this together!

    11
  • Monday, Dec 4, 2017

    Wow. I really needed to read this. I had a really shitty day/post-LSAT weekend and was just talking about possibly not going to law school and returning to teaching. How terrible is that? If I don't get into law school, I have to go back to middle school kids! Yikes! Im just going to take a few breaths, let it go and start fresh again tomorrow

    10
  • Monday, Dec 4, 2017

    Bump. For everyone <3

    9
  • Monday, Jun 8, 2015

    You are right about tending to focus on the negative. I absolutely crushed a particular section type that shall not be named, which reflects a huge accomplishment on my part from my first PT.

    The way I see it, this was just dress rehearsal for Oct. The Oct test doesn't stand a chance.

    8
  • Saturday, Nov 17, 2018

    Bumping again for today’s testers!

    7
  • Monday, Jun 8, 2015

    bump

    7
  • Sunday, Feb 5, 2017

    https://media0.giphy.com/media/C9kaenqtqgo4E/200.gif#40

    Bump for my Feb '17 peeps.

    5
  • Tuesday, Jun 9, 2015

    Jeffrey: LSAT takers of the JUNE 2015 administration report having experienced a "tougher than regular" LG experience. Nonetheless, there is no reason for this commentary, considering that the only thing out of the ordinary was one out of the four games. At least two games need to be out of the ordinary to constitute such hype.

    Stephanie: You have mistakenly defined aberrance; for something to be out of the ordinary, it has to cause quite a bit of stress. The JUNE 2015 administration definitely caused quite a bit of stress, which certainly implies aberrance, and furthermore, unfair expectations on LSAC's part.

    Stephanie's response to Jeffrey's criticism is most vulnerable on the grounds that her argument

    A) Regards a condition required to give rise to a phenomenon as something sufficient to give rise to a phenomenon.

    B) Completely neglects to address the evidence that Jeffrey cites.

    C) Relies on the assumption that something cannot be out of the ordinary without being properly titled aberrant.

    D) Assumes that, because Jeffrey smokes meth, Jeffrey must not have an accurate perception of the JUNE 2015 LSAT.

    E) Fuck this; I'm taking JY's advice and tossing back a brew.

    5
  • Saturday, Jan 26, 2019

    Bumping for today's test takers!

    4
  • Sunday, Feb 5, 2017

    @jhaldy10325 Thanks for bumping this. I flipped a rule in LG1, and it was eating me up yesterday. Caught it when I went back to finish a skipped question, even though I swear I double checked the rules the first time. This is a habit I worked to break, and I got caught up in the test-day excitement. At worst this means I bunked all 5, but I got the chance to switch a couple with an educated guess after amending the rule. Time ran out before I could check the rest, but it is possible that these had nothing to do with the rule I flipped.

    @jy-ping This helped me to solidify my decision not to cancel. This was my first take, and the rest of the test went really well. Hopefully it is just a few points (or less... I can dream) lost, and I still get an acceptable score on my exam! Based on my confidence in the other sections, I think I'll know the reason why my score lands where it does, even though Feb is undisclosed.

    Thanks to 7Sage for all the great help in prepping for a stressful but awesome day!

    4
  • 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, 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
  • Saturday, Sep 24, 2016

    Bump, obviously.

    3
  • 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
  • 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
  • Saturday, Oct 6, 2018

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

    2
  • Saturday, Feb 10, 2018

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

    2
  • Monday, Sep 18, 2017

    bump! very helpful.

    2
  • Saturday, Dec 3, 2016

    @kennedybj959 People need to read this every LSAT...

    Indeed!

    2
  • Monday, Dec 14, 2015

    People need to read this every LSAT...

    2
  • Monday, Jun 8, 2015

    Thanks for this. How do you get inside our heads J.Y.?

    2
  • Sunday, Jan 27, 2019

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

    1
  • Sunday, Sep 9, 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, 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

Confirm action

Are you sure?