Hi friends.

I was pretty surprised by my score yesterday. I scored somewhere between 3 and 5 points lower than I was expecting to score, very close to my first score despite beating the low 160s plateau in my recent practice tests.

I've been thinking through what could have possibly happened--I felt extremely good about LG, and I felt about normal with the rest, even with one slightly easier-than-normal LR section.

I remembered that when I logged onto the forums afterwards, I heard people talking about one real LR section with 26 questions. I didn't remember 26; I remembered 25. I figured I just misremembered. But I know I finished every section, and I'm wondering now if maybe that was an indication that I bubbled the last few ACs on the wrong lines. It almost perfectly explains the scoring discrepancy between what I expected and what I got. I was typically falling around -3 or -4 on each LR section and -6 on RC, with LG at -0 to -2 depending mostly on whether I finished. I finished LG on January's test, so a -14 or -13 seemed like a reasonable expectation. Misbubbling 22-26, for instance--which is around where I remember skipping a question--would get me from -13/-14 raw to around -18/-19 raw, which is exactly the difference between what I expected and what I got.

Is this something a handscorer would check for? Would they be willing/able to discern the difference and credit me the incorrect bubbles? Or am I screwed? Want to know before I spend the extra $100. Anyone have insight to share?