163 is a fantastic diagnostic score. Probably better than like 98% of people, if not more. 163 is a decent just...score after months of studying.

Aiming to take the test once only is a bad idea, because there is kinda inherently variance in peoples scores, and you want to do it until you get in the top of your score band.

But yes, if you study well, and consistently, you absolutely should be able to score in the mid 170, or high 170s.

Are you trying to apply for the 2025 cycle, and if so is there a reason you cannot apply for next years cycle? If applying to law school literally ASAP is a must for some reason follow other peoples advice. If not I would like.... not worry too much about this one. And give yourself more time. study for like months and got get a 160 in August.

I had a shorter plateau, and I found doing massive drills of the questions types i'm bad at to help me break through.

I feel like if you consistently score in the high 160s, that probably means you basically just know most of the answers, but the 2 or 3 hardest questions are basically guesses, and maybe 1 question type is basically a guess.

For me I was weirdly bad at conclusion questions. And I did a 50 drill set of all conclusion questions. And finding the conclusion 50 times in a row kinda made those type of questions automatic for me in a way that doing 50 conclusion questions spread across 20 drills and 5 practice tests wouldn't.

You could also do some 3 question drills that are only level 5 difficulty questions, and take as long as you want, like literally >10 minutes per question, and practice fully solving them

From what I have seen almost all schools only really care about your highest LSAT. And if they don't they will just assume a canceled score is a low score anyway. It also still counts as an LSAT take. Also then you will have to go on never knowing what you got.

Unless you are 100% sure it is going to be drastically worse. But considering it won't change how it effects any schools stats, and you will probably write a addendum on your application that you had issues with proctor on your first LSAT whether it is a low score or a cancel. it probably doesn't really matter if that is because of a low score or a cancelation. Because if you have a cancelation, they will assume it would have been a worse score.

Also like, if you got a 145, and then later get a 170. It is very obvious that the 145 does not reflect your abilities. a 25 point swing is not variance. Lots of people literally take an LSAT as a diagnostic, which is foolish, but from what I have seen it is foolish because it wastes $245, and an LSAT chance, not because schools care about the first low score.

Hah, I spent like 3 minutes searching through paragraph 2, 3, and the bottom half of 1 looking for any of the answers. Because I disliked all 5. Then on blind review I just started to reread the entire passage from scratch and there it was right away. Thought I was really dumb for forgetting the opening.

Then I see it is statistically a very difficult question, so I guess I can be consoled that lots of people are forgetting about the opening.

Good mental note though. If I don't recognize any of the answers, to check the opening, I forget the details of the opening more than random details in the rest of the passage a lot.