Any good tips for getting confidence back after a disappointing September score?

Sammie215

Hey 7sagers--
I know some of you are in this boat too: you studied really hard for September, you underperformed, and now your head game is messed up for December. In my case, I scored between 170 and 176 in the last 5 or 6 PT's leading up to the September exam, I didn't burn myself out, and I felt very confident going into the test. But I ended up scoring a 167. My downfall was reading comprehension (-6, yikes), which I think might have mostly been a mental fatigue problem (it was my 4th section and I also had experimental reading, so I think part of me was hoping that the real section was experimental). So now my question is, any tips for getting the mojo back? I'm drilling and studying and trying to get back as being as ready as I was for September, but part of me thinks that the same thing could happen again, and I'm not sure how to fix it. Also, I'm really wary of doing poorly because of lowered confidence-- that would suck! Sooooo yeah any advice?

inactive

Bumping this to the top.

Kayyyyyyy

This might sound silly, but I think as much as you can distance yourself from that score, the more confident you'll feel. You can clearly score higher than that - you were doing that consistently before! Everyone has off days, and maybe one of yours happened to be the test day. That's unfortunate, but it doesn't indicate anything about how you will perform next test. Trying to take more PTs to boost your confidence (while trying not to put so might weight on any single PT result) will also give you some more distance from your Sept score. Drilling can help with that too!

Seeking Perfection

So you have two problems potential mental fatigue and lower confidence.

I have pushed this a lot, but it woked for me and I think it really is the solution to both problems. Take PTs back to back. Take a four section test, with no breaks, then a 15 minute break, and then a four section test with no break. Then blind review and score them. It will make sure endurance is never a question again. That should help your confidence. Further, it will give you twice as many new PT scores to put PT82 in the rear view mirror with. It also makes sure that one fluke bad score won't wreck your confidence since you will always get two at once.

Sammie215

@"Seeking Perfection"
Oooooooh interesting, I'd never considered the "super test" but sounds like that could be really helpful. Thanks to you both!

Seeking Perfection

@Sammie215 said:
@"Seeking Perfection"
Oooooooh interesting, I'd never considered the "super test" but sounds like that could be really helpful. Thanks to you both!

Yep, the only drawbacks of it I've been convinced by are that it burns through PT's faster and that if you do it too often it could contribute to burnout.

I didn't have a problem with burning through PT's, but if you do, you could do it with one old PT and one new. That might help even more with the confidence at the expense of seeing as many new questions, but should still simulate the exhaustion factor well.

I did it once or twice a week for 2-4 PT's a week without burnout. I think more than 3 times a week with 6 PT's would be pushing it as far as is reasonable.