Grading Before BR

burstei6

I know scoring your PT after you take it is supposedly the antithesis to Blind Review, but if you score it and don't look at what you got wrong (specific questions and questions per section overall) are you really hurting yourself that much? I know I'm not getting perfect scores, so I am always assuming I got X (or varying) number wrong, which is what any score under a 180 will tell you. I am scoring consistently at 167-168 and I am starting to circle less questions as I take the PT (most of my wrong answers are from RC, which I do a Blind Review for every question in the section) I get 2-3 wrong on LR and I know which ones they were most of the time but I am wondering if scoring right after I take a PT is really that detrimental to my Blind Review success. Sometimes I want to know what I got right after I finish an exam because what I was feeling during the test is fresh in my mind still and I can connect whatever score I got with the correlating vibes I had during the test, so it seems that scoring right after can provide "some" benefit. Can anyone add some advice to this?

goegoe10

I think you compromise the blind review process by knowing your score. If you score above/below your range, you might look less/more hard while doing blind review.

I will sometimes BR one section, grade and review that section, then BR the next section. This might help a bit with what you're looking for.

"Sometimes I want to know what I got right after I finish an exam because what I was feeling during the test is fresh in my mind still and I can connect whatever score I got with the correlating vibes I had during the test, so it seems that scoring right after can provide "some" benefit."

You could write done your vibes or feelings while they're fresh in your mind and then do BR properly.

chrijani7

heh people will tell you all kinds of things. I don't see the harm is running your score through the LSAT analytics, but DO NOT CHECK how many you got wrong per section. But I know for me, I am the kind of person that just HAS TO KNOW, so I would run the score just to see, but not check out the specifics. I don't think thats harmful at all, only thing is that it can harm your ego if you ended up having a bad test which happens sometimes.

jdawg113

is it bad to know your score? (without seeing answers or any type of breakdowns) eh probably not... however someone made a pretty good point in another forum about motivation... the reason you're asking this is because of the killer feeling of wanting to know how you did. So you grade it and you know and now you need to BR, but you know ur score so you take your time, maybe take a break and dont even finish cuz you lose your motivation. But if you wait until after BR it pushes you to not procrastinate as much and finish the BR so you can find out ur score

burstei6

I do agree that motivation to BR fully does play a large factor in what you get out of doing it in the first place, but sometimes it is just too hard to resist that urge to find out. I enjoy the instant gratification but I agree that it motivates you more to push through the BR if you don't know your score because you are awaiting two scores at the end instead of just one score. I got a 171 on the first PT of two that I took yesterday so I guess I will see how it affects my BR motivation today for that specific PT, but I think that waiting to grade is the best way to do it, if you can consistently resist the urge to immediately grade.

Dillon PG

I did it once or twice and found that I looked closer at the questions that I was blind reviewing. I knew I had a certain number wrong, so I went looking for my mistakes more. I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing really, but it did cause my BR score to go up.

I don't check anymore just to get me excited to go back and BR after my break.

bobalicious

I think J.Y. would say that our motivation would be misplaced: it doesn't matter what we got on this PT b/c it doesn't count. What counts is how much we learn from this PT and that's in BR.

We should train ourselves to separate doing the PT from a feeling of accomplishment. Doing the PT is not the accomplishment. The accomplishment is doing the BR. I think of the PT like buying the groceries. It's preparatory work. BR is making the meal.

I wouldn't try to connect "vibes" to my score. On actual test day, I expect my "vibes" will be off the charts because I'll be under intense pressure that I've not felt before.

danielle

The thing about knowing your score is it ruins your ability to recognize confidence errors.

If you know the general area of how many you got wrong, you are going to look at all the test questions, looking for what you got wrong. You won't be going over JUST what you circled, which is what you thought you got wrong, as you took the test.

You say you've been circling fewer and fewer, but still not scoring perfectly every time. I always thought that the amount you circle should be equal to or greater than what you get wrong, since you're supposed to circle anything you're not 100% certain on.
If you have things you're getting wrong that you haven't circled, you're committing a confidence error and the LSAT tricked you.

If you know our score, then you're going to start looking to see how many you got wrong in general. Then, you're going to start rethinking questions as you go through, and blind reviewing ones you didn't circle.

So now, instead of seeing them as "confidence errors" when you plug the answers in after blind review, you'll probably just call them blind reviewed. So you're not recognizing that you fell into a trap and need to review the lessons for that question, and perhaps drill that question.

And as to the possible idea of not plugging them in as blind review, I don't think that will make a difference. The punch in the gut you feel when your LSAT score is lower than you thought it would be is a really good teacher, which won't be as effective if you know its going to happen.

I think blind review works because it gives us the opportunity to work on what we know we need to work on - though our circled questions. But it also lets us see what we didn't know we needed to work on, though the confidence errors. That's really the brilliance of the method, it tells you what "you didn't know you didn't know".

I wouldn't plug them in, you're robbing yourself of a learning opportunity.