What a nice surprise!

@AnnaTidmore I’ve been told this was true in previous years but with so many people applying nowadays the best results are coming for people who submit before 10/31.

I’m not an admissions expert but my undergrad’s career advancement office is telling us to try and have everything in by October 1

@NatMan I think seeing tutors do RC sections would be especially helpful because I know there are widely varying approaches to passage reading time, highlighting, etc. across the tutors.

@Kevin_Lin I think seeing tutors take a test fresh would be most helpful but it could still be helpful to see them take older tests or at least explain how they would approach sections or questions under timed conditions. I think the problem with explanation videos a lot of the time is you don’t get to see how to approach a question with speed in mind.

I also struggle with testing anxiety! Here is some of the advice I've gotten that I feel like has been/will be helpful for me:

(1) Know what happens when you get nervous/anxious and what your triggers are. Do you start rushing through questions and missing key details? Do you re-read a passage 3 times without processing anything it said? Then, try and come up with a fall-back plan. For me, I get incredibly anxious when I feel like I don't understand a question at first or I'm stuck between two temping answer choices. When this happens, I tend to spend WAY to long on that question trying figure things out, then I get even MORE anxious because I'm running out of time. Recently, my policy has been if I'm not seeing an answer clearly after 2 read throughs of the stem/stim and after attempting to POE my way to an answer, I pick my best guess, flag the Q and move on. (In general, I've been trying to train my anxiety to brain, if nothing else, to focus on MOVING FORWARD and not getting stuck). I think having a plan for what to do when you feel anxiety come up can be really helpful!

(2) In a similar vein, write down all your anxious thoughts and worst case scenarios before you take the test, then dispel them or come up with a plan for what you will do if they arise. For me, this might look something like"

"You get a really hard physics RC passage and don't understand the concepts at all. --> Focus on passage structure, author opinion, and other people's perspective at the very least. Replace complex terms with letters or other terms. If you don't understand a paragraph after reading it twice, move on and go back if you need to when you get to the questions."

I hope this helps!

My school (UChicago) is also on a quarter (basically trimester) system so an option to input grades based on quarters would be great.

https://coda.io/d/7Sage-LSATs-LR-Cheat-Sheet_di5c3yhdxZY/7Sage-LSAT-LR-Cheat-Sheet_sug4mZW-?utm_campaign=embed&utm_medium=web&utm_source=i5c3yhdxZY#Flashcard-View_tuglwhJK

@ktacklesthelsat In that case, I know it's cliche advice but just make sure you read every word of the stim and ACs! Like maybe hover your cursor over words as you read or mutter to yourself. It's way faster if you're reading everything and understanding it fully the first time then skimming/missing stuff because you're in a rush!

Are the questions you are getting wrong because you're missing something in the stem or are you getting fooled by trap answers? Are you spending a long time on them trying to figure them out then just not seeing the "trick" of the question or are you getting "got" by the questions? I think these distinctions could help me give more tailored advice...

For LR, the first 15 in 15 drill changed my life. That way you have time to spend on the harder questions!

I have been having the same issue, but something that has helped me is having someone watch me do an RC section or two (I get my sister to help) and yelling at me when I sit on a question for too long. It's forced me to get better (though still not perfect) and moving on from a Q once I have picked an answer and more confident in doing do. I usually spend 4:30 or so on passages but then try and spend 30 sec or so per question. Some people suggest doing first two passages in 15 minutes drills but this hasn't been too helpful for me, as sometimes I find the more difficult passages way easier than the "easy" ones. I hope this helps!

@alemo018 it’s full but please feel free to make a group with people who commented that I haven’t responded to. Sorry I just don’t want the number of people to get too overwhelming

@iloveenergydrinks added!

@TriambakaShriram Adding you!

@DeeTee Adding you!

@NRamen Adding you!

Semi-related but I was getting discussions from the wrong questions this weekend.

Get letters from your recommenders NOW and ask in person if you can (a lot of professors fall off the face of the earth over the summer, or appreciate having the summer to write your letters). Also work on your resume (getting it to two pages, mentioning everything you've done since high school, etc.). Hope this helps!

@ktacklesthelsat thanks so much!! This is very reassuring :)

@SaniqueRowe Not the same but in a similar vein, I always thought it would be cool to see when you eliminated certain ACs, just like how you can see how long you spent with a certain AC selected. Just a thought so folks can try and improve their POE process or learn when they move away from or back towards ACs they've already eliminated.

@MicahGlim one thing that @MichaelWright said once that was really helpful to me as far as mindset is that you shouldn't be taking PTs to get reassured about getting the score you want, you should take them with the goal of practicing and learning something from your mistakes. So if you don't do well on your first timed PTs, that's okay! Think of them as an opportunity to learn new things about your process (e.g. what questions are you confident about that you can answer quickly, how good is your intuition under time pressure, how do you deal with questions you can't figure out right away, etc.) I think if you can get low 170s untimed, you are more than ready to start trying to apply your skills under time pressure. In fact, I think you're probably hurting yourself by not starting to practice timed exams, as timing (at least for me) has been more than half the battle. I hope this helps!

If you can swing a month of live classes, I highly recommend the advanced classes. They helped me a lot with level 4 and 5 star Qs. Also, idk about you but I find I need a lot more time to figure out 4 and 5 star Qs that the target time allows, so I trained myself to get through the first 15 Qs in a section in 15-18 minutes so I have basically 2+ minutes per 4-5 star Q to really think it out. I hope this helps!