I think perhaps a break would be good. But regardless of a break or not, swapping study materials would probably be good for you. I hit a hard plateau in Dec and picked up The Loophole, the light comedy, helpfulness, and accessibility of it was very helpful and my lr shot up thereafter. Good luck out there.

I think you're in a strong position to argue that through you personal statement. Also 3.5 not being very competitive is relative to what schools you want. There's plenty of great schools you could get into with a stellar LSAT and a lower gpa. (I'm doing this right now! Well maybe except for the stellar part, but a good score)

I wasn't a scholarship-earning athlete, but have spent my undergrad fighting in martial arts tournaments and training every day for that at a high competitive level. So grain of salt as the time restrictions on uni athletes are much harsher than hobbyist competitors. BUT I would say that athletic experience is a GREAT foundation for LSAT training. The drill, analyze, repeat structure is already familiar to you and is drastically different from pure academics. Honestly I'd be interested if any of 7sage's tutors have noticed this correlation too, but you're already in a good position mentally to really kill this test I think.

For you, just make sure your application package is the best representation of you. It seems you could go to a lot of darn good schools with proper LSAT prep and emphasizing your sport experience through references and the personal statement.

@ said:

@ Hey Keel! So you mean attempting to do an entire section in 30 minutes vs 35? I haven't heard this one but could give it a try!

Yep! Really helped me, because with my level of test anxiety I probably spend 2-5 minutes thinking "Oh god I'm done for" during real takes, so instead of trying to shove that down in my mind in real-time (which makes the stronger btw), I jsut prepared for it, and funnily experienced much less of that because I knew I could complete a section in shorter time and get around the same score.

The core curriculum is made up of just 1-35 so you'll be fine there. The total clean questions includes all PTs, just set your drilling mode to older tests or newer and save the newest for full takes, that's what I did.

Third take. I feel the best I've ever felt. Good luck on your first take! I'd say doing full sections in 30 mins was the best thing for me between first and second take, I really bombed first take. Would def recommned that for you!

It's almost certainly stress friend! I'm taking the real deal this Friday and have an eerily similar trajectory (A 5 pt PR on my last PT a week ago! Which is pretty cool). That experience was obviously quite positive, but I have felt this pressure to replicate that great performance every day since. I BOMBED on essentially everything working through the weekend after my last PT.

I would contend with Lucas' answer of certainly not taking a PT. Go low and slow, doing a small volume without a timer, with a very thorough Blind Review. That really reset my confidence on Monday! Prove to yourself you know it, and it'll be there on test day my friend. It's quite literally how the unconscious, performing mind works.

If you're worried about flubbing up your timing abilities I'd say that presumably in a year of prep you've completed a lot of sections on time and a few where you messed up the time, these are great opportunities to learn! Take ten or fifteen minutes to write out a "gameplan" for each section, noting when the juice wasn't worth the squeeze on certain questions. Helped me a lot!

Good luck out there.