Hi all, I just got back my Oct score yesterday, which turned out to be very disappointing157, 6 points below my average score, 163. I've never gotten below 162 on my PTs for the past two months, so this was devastating and unexpected. I don't know what happened, but I guess I was especially nervous during the first section, RC, on which I got almost half of the Qs wrong, twice as many as what I typically get. On LRs, I typically range between -7~-10 and I got -15 on the real one. Usually, when I do well on the RCs, I do poorly on the LRs and vice versa so it balances out. This time, it appears that I under-performed on almost all the sections. I'm considering to retake in Dec but with barely a month left to prep with full-time schooling, I'm afraid I will make the same mistake and get a similar result. Re-taking in February would be better because I graduate this December and I'll have two months to prep for the LSAT full-time at home. However, this would mean that I'll have to possibly wait a year and apply next cycle since my dream school fills almost all of its class before the February LSAT results are released. If I decide to apply next cycle, which I prefer not to, I'd like to save up my LSAT attempts and take the February and June exams.
My target score is 166, but anything more than 160 would guarantee my acceptance to all the schools except my top-choice school. I've never thought I'd get anything below 160 and looking at my score on the real one, I'm uncertain whether to see it as a true reflection of myself or just an outlier. Since I felt that I put in a decent amount of time and efforts into studying for this exam, I've never thought I'd be worried about not getting into any of the schools on my list. I spent the entire evening yesterday thinking about whether I have the capability to do well on a standardized exam or go to law school. My fellow classmate who spent much less time than me studying for the LSAT pulled off a 170 even though he said that he "bombed" it. It's quite discouraging to see that this entire process is slow and that I haven't seen much progress even in my PT score. It's really difficult to keep out the negative thoughts.
Sorry, if this post makes anyone feel uncomfortable. Any advice on how to tackle the issue and when to re-take would be appreciated.
PS - I took the 7sage ultimate course and studied with the Trainer book...
TBH I sometimes get intimidated by the smartness of people on this forum and wonder if I'm not smart enough whenever I feel that I'm not making as much or fast progress as people claim here. At the same time I feel inspired to work harder and catch up haha. Hopefully my hard work will pay off soon and I'll be able to join the crowd celebrating the greatness of LSAT:)