Hahaha I actually liked this passage.

When I got to this problem I inferred that the sociologists argument was that people are born evil somehow. Then it seemed like B was the right answer. LSAT questions really know how to bait your own biases...

I'm so grateful for your replies, it has lifted my spirits considerably and I'm sure many others' as well. (3

(blockquote)@ The best advice I've gotten is that I need to study until I'm hitting my goal score, THEN set a test date, not the other way around.

That's exactly what I'm thinking to do this time, I really appreciate the input.

It's certainly a relief to know that scoring at your diagnostic or below it does happen,and doesn't necessarily mean your law school ambitions are toast... I was really interpreting it as a failure. @ scoring just 3 points over the diagnostic was exactly what happened to me. I may have really burnt myself out, as I was studying for hours almost everyday for 9 months straight. I really thought it would be the best way to approach it, but almost identically to @.brumbaugh, I started to really decline a month before the test. It was crazy how foggy my brain was feeling as I was doing those PTs - it was all blurring together, and it was really worrying. Now I feel like I should have known then that I wasn't going to be ready and my study methods were harming, not helping. But when I took my last PT 10 days before the real exam, I ended up scoring higher than I ever had so I thought I had recovered and I was ready... I'm realizing now just how delicately you have to treat yourself with studying in order to actually absorb the information. I think really putting the effort and time to do BRs could really make the difference (I hope), I mean, it seems like it's a critical part of the process in this course, so I may have really missed out on some key learning in thinking I was saving time.

Well I BR'd my first two PTs and didn't do the others due to time constraints. I would go over every logic game that proved difficult and redo them until I got every question right under a workable span of time as to avoid completing them by rote, then I would go through lessons on the syllabus. For things I didn't find too hard, I wouldn't focus on too much. I did end up taking three PTs under a month when the exam was nearing, and my score dipped back to my diagnostic level after showing steady improvement with more spaced out PTs. Test day arrived and now I find to my horror I was still scoring on that level lol. The reassurance counts, thanks. Maybe with time I will feel better about this.

I thought I was burning out in my last PTs, and I guess I was still burnt out on test day? The only thing I can think of that could explain that sort of situation. I mean 7 hours a day is A LOT, and it's horribly unfair to think that kind of dedication wouldn't help. Completely counter-intuitive.

Good for you. You managed to do better than I did even though I went through 8 PTs and spent hours on LGs. My score was only 2 points higher than my diagnostic. I was studying pretty intensely for a while, 10 months... Dunno if all this is worth it.

yeah as of 10 min ago, I'm still waiting too. At this rate I may be too scared to check my score later tonight... o.o

Thanks @, that sounds like really good advice, kinda felt a lightbulb go over my head lol giving myself the time to not do them one after the other so that I don't do it by rote seems like it could be really helpful too. I probably just need to focus on really absorbing what about the question triggers a certain game board and build more familiarity with it. My concern for timing seems to really impede my organically figuring it out. I have to master the fundamentals before I can worry about time restrictions... Thanks again.

Thank you for the replies.

@ I think it's a combination of not knowing which game board comes into play and misreading questions. Misreading questions happens A LOT. For some reason, when I'm initially faced with a game, I end up taking in the information in ways the writers I'm sure didn't intend. It gets interpreted in a more open-ended way, which obviously shouldn't happen. I can do some of the basic games, but as soon as more layers and complexities come into the picture, I become stuck on how to visually represent it properly. Plus, I do my deductions pretty slowly. So, the usual scenario is that I get frustrated and skip to the 1 or 2 easy questions on a game set and guess on the others.

I am doing the fool-proof method as in going over the logic games that challenged me and redoing them until I get all the answers correct under the right amount of time. After that, I move on to another one. The process so far has been very time-consuming, and apparently not effective because it's like almost every new game I attempt seems to introduce new elements as far as the game board is concerned, even though they may be of the same game type (sometimes this is due to misunderstanding questions, but there has been times when it was simply due to a lot of unfamiliar information being introduced that doesn't seem to uniformly translate to game board set ups I've seen before).

@ You may be right, and I simply just need to keep doing the fool-proof method, 'cause it's just not clicking most of the time. I guess just keep doing even the ones I've "mastered"- reviewed until I got all the questions right and under a good amount of time. I wish it wasn't so much of a time-sink, but if that's the way to actually improve...

Given that this is all very time-consuming, delaying my test for later seems certain. I think maybe withdrawing my registration all together is a good idea too, I don't want to commit the same mistake and underestimate just how much time I may actually need to prepare in order to perform optimally. After all, I've only gone over a little over a quarter of the core curriculum at this point, so I've got a while to go actually.

I'm going through the same thing. My score really plummeted on the prep test i took today, and pretty much undermined all the studying I have done since starting this course as I only got one point above my first ever PT this time. It's really worrying. And my typical score is not even as good as yours are. I'm thinking I may have to cancel my LSAT for september and push it back yet again. I've taken my last 3 PTs within the span of about a month, and my last two-particularly the one I took today- really saw a dip in my score. I really hope this is just burn out.