thank you both! this is helpful!

my plan is to just do super light review tomorrow--whatever that means for you (for example, I'll just review some lists of flaws that might pop up on LR), and then one or two games I've already done before the morning of the exam/maybe reading a New Yorker article before I walk to the test center, literally just something to get your brain in the right mindset that it's time for an intellectually stimulating day. you should not be actually learning anything new at this point! it's too late to be absorbing new information so all you should be doing on Friday or Saturday morning is just keeping up the routine so it's fresh and you're in the headspace to take a tough exam. best of luck!!

hi! games are my worst section, I can't say I've had one "aha" moment as much as a series of improvements (I guess "mini" aha moments") over time, but it sounds like you're doing the right thing by fool-proofing. something that really helped me while fool-proofing was keeping lists (I just use a google doc) of all the games JY covers in the CC in each unit (e.g. game one and two of the first problem set in the In/Out unit, game one in the In/Out unit with categories, etc.), and then adding my progress/data for each game. I've been listing how long each one took me the first time (and if i got anything wrong), and then on every subsequent re-do I'd write down how long it took me after. I can start to see patterns that way much better and hone in on which games give me the most trouble, and it's nice to see improvement from the first attempt, and you highlight certain tricky games so you remember to go back and keep hitting the ones you have difficulty with.

While I recommend working through games by unit this way, it's also sometimes good to sit down and just do three games in a row that are all different types---obviously it can be super beneficial to drill only one game type til you "get it," but then remember to toss in another type to make sure you can quickly switch back and forth (as you will need to on the real exam), and to keep all different kinds of game strategies fresh in your mind. I think some people are just naturally incredibly adept at drawing inferences quickly; maybe some of us not so much, but the key is to do what you're doing (make sure you do a few games every single day!) and ensure you know how to diagram correctly, draw all the inferences and get the correct answers, and then start to worry about speed afterwards

hey! if i understand correctly what you mean by "dry run," you're sitting for the actual exam on Saturday? I'm in a similar boat, signed up for the Saturday exam initially intending to be prepared by then but now more just to see how it goes cause I also am very anxious and want to take it "for real" this summer. I think it makes sense to take a real exam, if you know you have testing anxiety already, just to figure out how well you can realistically do under pressure and then re-evaluate your goals if needed and be more confident come the spring/summer exams. obviously you have many more months of studying ahead of you, but everyone says that the real thing is very different from any PT you ever take (obviously), so I don't see any issues in taking an exam before you're fully prepped to get more experience---maybe you'll do better than you thought and have one semi-solid score under your belt to take some pressure off retaking in the summer! hope you can keep the anxiety at bay, you are already in a pretty good spot with your 157!

oh man some of these ACs are just so subtly wrong...

they aren't being posted for digital test takers yet

Hey! looks like you you've gotten lots of help, just wanted to chime in since I am in exactly the same boat--I got major brain fog and had issues sleeping while on Lexapro, so I went off (also from a very very low dose) this spring, hoping that I'd resolve anxiety issues without meds and would benefit from going off and getting better sleep. I think my anxiety is generally pretty low during the day, but the pressure of this test meant I actually started sleeping worse once I went off, and I'm going back on Lexapro this week in anticipation of the Sept. test. I would not necessarily recommend going off meds, even at a low dose, right before this exam. The Lexapro could be helping more than you think, and ultimately the trade-off between no panic attacks and not great sleep versus high anxiety and (possibly) better sleep right before a massive exam is one I'd really stop to consider before quitting the meds. Obviously you can always go back on, but it took me several weeks to acclimate once I stopped taking them, and I am very very glad I did it months before my exam rather than a few weeks before. Even at low doses, Lexapro changes your brain chemistry in complicated ways, both in starting the meds and in stopping them, so I'd hesitate to make any life changes leading up to the test. Certainly you should work on getting better sleep if you can! Having a consistent schedule is key, and supplementing with yoga/meditation/calming bedtime rituals can never hurt.

hey! i live in Southie/work in the North End (by TD Garden)--took the exam this past January and did well but gonna retake over the summer to hopefully get another point or two above my previous test! Would love to study with you!

I had a horrible experience with digital so i’m glad it’s not like that for everyone. The stylus was alternatively too sensitive and would click on areas that I hadn’t even selected, or wouldn’t respond to pressure and not select answers. A lot of time was wasted for me clicking and reclicking ACs because the stylus (and my finger) didn’t register immediately on the tablet. A lot of people in my testing center had the same issue. We also didn’t all receive a stylus, nor fully charged tablets. It was kind of a disaster and really really stressful. I wish I had had paper

So my experience was really awful and discouraging. Like some people have mentioned, there were lots of issues with the stylus and also just the tablet itself. The sensitivity was way off and would jump to questions before I had finished answering the previous one, and highlighting or underlying on RC was a huge nightmare and time suck. LSAC sent my test center tablets that weren’t fully charged but only 15 chargers for 60 tablets, so there was constant anxiety that the tablet might die during a section. I think overall it was very glitchy and a harrowing experience and I hope they get the kinks worked out soon.

i feel like this test has one million questions about car accidents. get some new material LSAT writers, jeez

Thanks so much! this totally makes sense

I did this too--it's really hard, I think particularly when you're trying to perform well in a job requiring a lot of brain power, like a law job, and then feeling like you have nothing left over for studying. As others have said, my advice is to chip away as much as you can while working---even just doing a section of LR or LG before/during lunch/after work can really help you improve. Don't feel like you need to be dedicating enormous hours each day to studying; just doing a little consistently can certainly mean big strides in score improvement. That being said, it's very hard for me to find the energy to study on weekends when I'm already burnt out from working a full week, so I recommend not doing massive amounts of studying on weekends to "make up" for time lost during the week, or you will quickly tire yourself. Instead, I would take a full day or several hours every other week to take PTs/do BR, and keep up what you're learning in smaller chunks during the week. Make time for other things to keep yourself sane. Now that summer is coming up, don't make yourself feel guilty for sometimes going out with friends or getting some fresh air instead of using every free minute to cram some info in. The hardest part of studying and working FT is finding continued energy to do both, so do not force yourself to be working on one or the other constantly, or life will truly become miserable. Finally, I recommend being forthcoming about this part of your life to your supervisors/colleagues so that they can give you tips and take pity on you if you're not able to work at 100% all the time. Everyone at a law firm, who is a lawyer at least, knows this process very well and will likely be sympathetic and possibly cut you some slack so you can do better on this exam. If you can't take off substantial time, at the very least, I would take off a few days in the week/weeks leading up to the exam (at a minimum you need to take off the last workday before your exam) to really let yourself cool down and focus exclusively on testing as well as you can. Best of luck--if you can do this, you can do anything!