Looking for encouragement from longer term studiers

eliza_engineer

Hi 7sagers, my name is Eliza and I am struggling with my morale and confidence with the LSATS. I need your advice/encouragement from all you long term studiers/full time jobers/low gpa-ers/need scholarship-ers who might have been/currently in the same boat as me.

I've been studying since the beginning of Feb 2018 while working a full time job and signed up for the September 2018 test. I used Kaplan for the material (only because I got a $1200 need based scholarship from my university). The best I've ever gotten was a 158, BR: 170. It's been 7 months and though my score has improved from a diagnostic of 144, it is still no where near the score I need. I am starting to lose fire and confidence in my ability to even reach upper 160s.

Please share practical tips on:
1. how you combat low morale/tunnel vision? Do you change up your routine?
2. how to not freak out and forget about all your techniques when panicking from time issue? How do you not panick if you are a high anxiety person??? (I sometimes panick during PTs, less so during timed sections, when I am not at my goal question number by the goal minute ie. 5 in 5mins, 10 in 10 mins, etc., and start skim reading rather than actively reading with technique just so I can try to reach more questions. Even though I know it works against me and the accuracy is low and still slows me down, I can't help it...)

Please read the "lil background about me" section for the context of these questions:
1. If you have any success stories in similiar circumstances (read my autobiography below in the "lil background about me" section) as me, please share them!!
2. Do I push through this last month and try my hardest for September and possibly November and just apply this cycle anyway without potentially reaching my goal score? Or do I take a later test and apply for next cycle and suffer through another year of low morale/sacrificing life to study and push back my personal deadline with the risk of still not getting a good score?
3. Is there even hope for me to get 170s? Are my chances of getting scholarships even good enough with a 170 + such a low gpa? Is it even worth it to keep yearning for that score? Time is also money ya know.

Lil background about me:
I graduated with my Electrical Engineering bachelors in May 2017. I decided I wanted to go into IP law with my stem background after learning about this field my junior year (+other personal reasons). However, after 4 difficult years of intense courseloads at a top engineering school while working two part time jobs including every summer (my family is broke and can't pay for my education), my UGPA is awful. It's a 3.2 (we use the plus and minus system with an A+ and a regular A that counts as 4.0 with an A- that counts as a 3.8). Even if I had known I wanted to go to law school and knew before going into college how important my GPA is, I don't even think I would've been able to do anything differently regarding my grades (ie. withdraw from classes/retake low grade classes using freshman forgiveness) due to the fact that I didn't have the financial means for that type of freedom.

I gave myself two years after graduation to get into law school because I don't want to prolong it and potentially have life get in the way. I figured a year of studying for LSATs should be sufficient. I didn't realize that schools give better scholarship opportunities/highly suggest applying early in Sept-Nov so that is one reason why I am trying to take the September test rather than a later test... but at the same time... I also need a high LSAT score to even be considered for a scholarship. I also want to take it sooner rather than later because I feel that I am starting to get tunnel vision in the way I am studying and losing steam. I know most people will say that I shouldn't even sign up for a test until I have an average score of my target. But I'm wondering if it would even make a difference if I did take it later. Would I really do that much better? I also barely have a social life or time for much anything else-- as all my time is filled with work then study. My mental wellness is at a major low point and is affecting my anxiety and ability to think clearly.

Thank you so much if you have read this novel of a post.

Goal school: George Washington University for their IP program, Dream: Georgetown University

advice #anxiety #engineer #lowGPA #morale #help #sadness #GWU #fulltimejob #successstory

TheDeterminedC

Hi @eliza_engineer. I have been studying for quite some time too. We have similar scores, current and diagnostic. My first take I was studying relentlessly and I only improved so much. I learned a great deal from that and I have my experience to share with you on how I combated the state of mind you might be in.

I think the most important aspect that helped me was deep down changing my attitude and perspective. At the end of the day, this test is learnable so as long as you stay determined and don't loose sight of you main goal. I would suggest having a sit-down with yourself much like I did. I came to this point because I understood that I am the only person that will control whether or not I do the extra, study that much more focused, or really dig down deep into what I am messing up on. Realizing I almost lost my drive and I had really bad anxiety contributing to it (not wanting to fail again) and resulting from it (feeling I'm not doing what I need to).

I went in my room with the lights off, closed my eyes and relaxed. In this time, I tried to be as calm as possible and let my mind just relax, because it felt like an engine redlining for months on end without a break. I imagined a conversation with myself. I'll add that I dreaded studying at this point. So, I asked myself, why are you doing this? No person is forcing you to go to law school, so WHY are you doing this. I immediately pictured myself at my desk happy as can be when I interned at a firm. I vividly saw the thankful faces of those who were helped. I was just nostalgic in that moment. Ultimately, it really hit me why I wanted to even be a lawyer. Then I asked my self again, well then what is getting in the way and why can't you get yourself to do it? I realized it was failure. Much like you, I wasn't where I was at, even after giving it my all. But you have to know that this is EXACTLY where the separation between high scorers and lower ones manifests itself. Either your attitude is, damn.... another low score or it is looking at each mistake with an attitude of opportunity. Each mistake is awesome, because every instance gives you an opportunity to get better. Learn from it, find more mistakes and move on to the next PT never making it again. Make small goals. I have a notebook of mistakes and tendencies I want to rid myself of. Each test I'll note more mistakes and celebrate the instances where I was faced with a similar problem or what not and I handled it the correct way, rather then falling for the same mistake a second time. Each LSAT score is a measure of mistakes then, so rather then looking at the score to measure how you are doing, look to see how you are improving within each question. This will not make you get so caught up in a "score" when the ultimate decider is the processes of getting the score and working to find tune this process. Working on the small goals will transfer to a higher goal and that has helped me with accepting a low score as more opportunities to iron out my thinking, as opposed to measuring my intelligence or lively hood for that matter.

I have been watching this man on youtube who does hypnosis. I always thought that hypnosis was solely a stage performance used to make people act like chickens, but this man on youtube different-----he sends a strong message in each of his hypnosis demonstrations. He stresses that the subconscious is the most powerful determinate of one's motivation. To show this point, he told a hypnotized person on stage that their hands will become a intertwined, forming an inseparable single block of wood. When the person wakes up, subsequent the suggestion given to his subconscious, he tries his hardest to no avail. The subconscious, no matter how irrational, is imagining the hands are actually together as a block of wood and controls the body and mind to act accordingly. He then gets to motivation and asks the audience "who here would say that money motivates a person?," not surprisingly, most people say yes. So, he offers the man $300 cash if he can separate his hands. He begins to do everything he can, leverage and all, but yet he still couldn't pull his hands apart. You might be asking, why is this relevant? Each day we have that goal of a particular score in mind. Lets say someone studying for the LSAT was on stage and told them that they would have a legitimate score of a 180 if they pulled their hands apart, but they couldn't. That man could not pull his hands apart to get that money because he subconsciously did not believe he could. This is where it hit me. A score or even a law school is analogous to the hands here. If you subconsciously don't believe you can achieve a score or get into that law school, then no matter what motivation you may have, it won't happen. You asked the question "Is there even hope for me to get 170s?" My answer is this: I don't care if every person on planet earth says it's impossible for you or not.

It. does. not. matter.

Only once you truly believe, and I'm talking down to the core of your being all the way to the deepest roots of your subconscious, that you are capable of any score, then with this change of attitude and hard work, you have answered your own question. Motivate yourself by believing you can do this. You graduated college. You have a bachelors with a great GPA. Don't discount yourself. You can do this.

Cheers.

eliza_engineer

@TheDeterminedC said:
Hi @eliza_engineer. I have been studying for quite some time too. We have similar scores, current and diagnostic. My first take I was studying relentlessly and I only improved so much. I learned a great deal from that and I have my experience to share with you on how I combated the state of mind you might be in.

I think the most important aspect that helped me was deep down changing my attitude and perspective. At the end of the day, this test is learnable so as long as you stay determined and don't loose sight of you main goal. I would suggest having a sit-down with yourself much like I did. I came to this point because I understood that I am the only person that will control whether or not I do the extra, study that much more focused, or really dig down deep into what I am messing up on. Realizing I almost lost my drive and I had really bad anxiety contributing to it (not wanting to fail again) and resulting from it (feeling I'm not doing what I need to).

I went in my room with the lights off, closed my eyes and relaxed. In this time, I tried to be as calm as possible and let my mind just relax, because it felt like an engine redlining for months on end without a break. I imagined a conversation with myself. I'll add that I dreaded studying at this point. So, I asked myself, why are you doing this? No person is forcing you to go to law school, so WHY are you doing this. I immediately pictured myself at my desk happy as can be when I interned at a firm. I vividly saw the thankful faces of those who were helped. I was just nostalgic in that moment. Ultimately, it really hit me why I wanted to even be a lawyer. Then I asked my self again, well then what is getting in the way and why can't you get yourself to do it? I realized it was failure. Much like you, I wasn't where I was at, even after giving it my all. But you have to know that this is EXACTLY where the separation between high scorers and lower ones manifests itself. Either your attitude is, damn.... another low score or it is looking at each mistake with an attitude of opportunity. Each mistake is awesome, because every instance gives you an opportunity to get better. Learn from it, find more mistakes and move on to the next PT never making it again. Make small goals. I have a notebook of mistakes and tendencies I want to rid myself of. Each test I'll note more mistakes and celebrate the instances where I was faced with a similar problem or what not and I handled it the correct way, rather then falling for the same mistake a second time. Each LSAT score is a measure of mistakes then, so rather then looking at the score to measure how you are doing, look to see how you are improving within each question. This will not make you get so caught up in a "score" when the ultimate decider is the processes of getting the score and working to find tune this process. Working on the small goals will transfer to a higher goal and that has helped me with accepting a low score as more opportunities to iron out my thinking, as opposed to measuring my intelligence or lively hood for that matter.

I have been watching this man on youtube who does hypnosis. I always thought that hypnosis was solely a stage performance used to make people act like chickens, but this man on youtube different-----he sends a strong message in each of his hypnosis demonstrations. He stresses that the subconscious is the most powerful determinate of one's motivation. To show this point, he told a hypnotized person on stage that their hands will become a intertwined, forming an inseparable single block of wood. When the person wakes up, subsequent the suggestion given to his subconscious, he tries his hardest to no avail. The subconscious, no matter how irrational, is imagining the hands are actually together as a block of wood and controls the body and mind to act accordingly. He then gets to motivation and asks the audience "who here would say that money motivates a person?," not surprisingly, most people say yes. So, he offers the man $300 cash if he can separate his hands. He begins to do everything he can, leverage and all, but yet he still couldn't pull his hands apart. You might be asking, why is this relevant? Each day we have that goal of a particular score in mind. Lets say someone studying for the LSAT was on stage and told them that they would have a legitimate score of a 180 if they pulled their hands apart, but they couldn't. That man could not pull his hands apart to get that money because he subconsciously did not believe he could. This is where it hit me. A score or even a law school is analogous to the hands here. If you subconsciously don't believe you can achieve a score or get into that law school, then no matter what motivation you may have, it won't happen. You asked the question "Is there even hope for me to get 170s?" My answer is this: I don't care if every person on planet earth says it's impossible for you or not.

It. does. not. matter.

Only once you truly believe, and I'm talking down to the core of your being all the way to the deepest roots of your subconscious, that you are capable of any score, then with this change of attitude and hard work, you have answered your own question. Motivate yourself by believing you can do this. You graduated college. You have a bachelors with a great GPA. Don't discount yourself. You can do this.

Cheers.

Thank you so so so... much for this. Literally in tears. Thanks for giving me meaningful encouragement rather than empty advice. Thanks especially for that story/analogy. Thank you for taking the time out to read my novel and to respond with so much thought and care. I am happy that I am not alone and that you have found this way of thinking-- and that you are able to share it with me. Thank you.

TheDeterminedC

You made my day! I just really know what that feeling is like and I would have done anything to get back to the "normal" me when I was there.

eRetaker

Hi @eliza_engineer , I think I can give you some tips in terms of studying for the LSAT since I was also a STEM major who studied with a full-time job. I think your low confidence/fear of the LSAT stems from the fact that you believe that you have no real control in how you score, but you have to realize that the LSAT is a pure product of the hours you put into studying and the correct materials/methods. From reading your post, you seem to have the work ethic to put into the LSAT. However, your first mistake was using Kaplan. I would suggest getting the 7sage package for getting the fundamentals down. I personally used the LSAT Trainer and Powerscore LG bible to get my fundamentals down. Either way, make sure you use 7sage's free LG explanation videos to complement your LG studying. At this point you will need to reconstruct all your basics apart from the Kaplan methods.

After 2-3 months of drilling fundamentals, you can start taking preptests again. Make sure you blind review your preptests (I included a link below on how to BR). With a full-time job, you are going to have to squeeze out time to study whenever you can. I personally had a long commute from 8am to 9am and 5pm to 6pm on the train to and from work. I used this commute time to look at pictures of tricky LR questions I took on my phone and just sat down and thought about them. I then get home and usually take a preptest and BR the next day. I spent the first 2-3 months learning fundamentals and drilling RC and LG sections. I spent another 4 months taking every LSAT preptest. I also included a link below on fool-proofing LG. I would recommend you fool-proof games only 3 times instead of the 10 times recommended by 7sage. Also, you should not be afraid to apply your STEM knowledge to the LSAT. I personally found my background to greatly benefit me in the RC and LR science questions. Lastly, to echo @TheDeterminedC 's comment, I agree that you will have to believe in yourself. I had my goal score and never doubted my personal ability despite how bad I did on a given preptest. I had a mindset that I was happy to get a bad PT score since I knew that I would be able to learn a lot more from it than a test that I did well in. After all, the only score that matters is the one on test day.

https://7sage.com/how-to-get-a-perfect-score-on-the-logic-games/
https://7sage.com/the-blind-review-how-to-correctly-prep-for-lsat-part-1/

moorming

Hi Eliza, sorry to hear that your score is not getting close to where you need it to be. I happen to have started preparing for LSAT at the same time you did, though I am taking the October 14th test in Hong Kong. Still, I can highly relate to your anxiety and GPA situation (my GPA sucks more), and I can certainly understand why we both would like to get as high an LSAT score as possible (shooting for scholarship here as well).

First thing first: perseverance matters. I, as well, had a tulmultuous college career. One thing, however, that I learned from my closest professor back in college (who stood by me when I was going through a period of perhaps the most difficult time of my life) was this: perseverance. What perserverance really means, per my understanding, is this: to just keep going even if things are not working out well for you. When I was a senior back in college, once I had my entire backpack stolen, along with my laptop, ipad, kindle, and most importantly - my handwritten notes for my courses - all gone, all of which I absolutely needed to study for my exam due next day. I was, and still am, confident that I had every reason to ask for an extension for the exam and my professor wouldn't say no to me. However, when I emailed my professor (the one who helped me out so much), aside from consoling me, she asked me " so when do you think you'd be prepared then?" Her question got me thinking - indeed, when do I think I'd be prepared? Later that night (after filing the report at the campus security and crying for a long time, lol), I decided that I should take the test anyway, and went out and collected all the notes from other students in my class (who are angels, btw), and pulled an allnighter on the materials, since I was too anxious and distraught to sleep anyway. Of course I didn't ace the test, not having been able to sleep, but I nevertheless did pretty well given the situation (disclaimer: I am not a genius when it comes to studying). That exam carries more significance than any other major events in my life, in that it taught me why perseverance matters, and how sometimes the only thing required of us is just to keep going, regardless of how bad the situation is. I am sharing this personal story with you to let you know that things suck at times - I for one, have had my fair share of very unfortunate events that are completely out of my control. But they wouldn't matter in the long run as long as you don't let them, and you can rise up from even the direst situation, if you let yourself.

Now, let's go into your questions:

• how you combat low morale/tunnel vision? Do you change up your routine?

First of all, it is my belief that everybody suffers from low morale from time to time. I personally have been depressed for an extended period of time during the past few years, and I woulnd't say I have entirely recovered from it. What I mean is, I understand completely how one can feel beaten for a long time without things getting any better, particularly if the project you are working on is not giving you any positive feedback.

More recently, I am going through a time when I am consistently missing 10 - 13 questions on my timed PTs, whereas I don't miss more than 4 questions on the few untimed PTs I took recently. This sucks because my BR score has been consistently over 175, whereas my real PT score is hovering around mid to high 160s, despite the fact that I have a) a good grasp on the LR section and drilling PTs everyday for the past week or two, b) hardly ever missing an LG question, and C) studying about 6 - 8 hours everyday for the past two months (less daily input before that), having finished all of the by time LG, LR and RCs for PT 1- 38 and reviewed them at least once, drilled some of them over three times, and finished most of the books and available courses relevant to LSAT I could get my hands on.

Do I not get beaten down by this fact? Of course not. Just yesterday I slept through the entire day because I felt so awful about not improving: I must shoot for a high 170s just to close up the gap between me and those people with median GPA for law school, and why am I still not seeing visible improvement with my timed PT, despite all my efforts?

Nevertheless, through years of suffering from a lack of motivation, here's what I learned: you would always feel beaten from time to time, especially when you are going through significant challenges that might as well alter the course of your life. By definition, challenges are the things that would require a great deal of your input, without necessarily giving you too much positive feedbacks. That's what essentially makes a challenge challenging - it is, on one hand, difficult; on the other hand, deblitating to your morale if you do not have the mental strength to deal with it. Having straighten that out, I realized that I will never be able to stop feeling a lack of motivation, but I can always give myself a break when I am not seeing improvement; in other words, I can actively accomodate a lack of morale from time to time. Now, that doesn't mean I can anticipate when I would feel low - nobody can do that. What I mean is, when I am not feeling it, I wouldn't push myself through the drills; instead, I would let myself decide what I want to do - perhaps sleep a bit, perhaps watch an episode of my favorite show (or maybe binge through the entire season!), perhaps getting a big meal that I always told myself I didn't have time for, or perhaps call a friend and whine. I find it important to not push myself to do things when I don't want to (particularly given my high intensity study schedule), and NOT PUNISH MYSELF PSYCHOLOGICALLY (this is important) when I am not doing what I am supposed to do. Let's be real here: we all feel horrible from time to time, and there's nothing wrong with that - it is almost always periodic. If you are not feeling it, then give yourself even a week off just so you know you can be rejuvenated by the time you come back to your studies. Always gauge your ability realistically and CARE for yourself. There's nothing that's more important than loving yourself unconditionally no matter what is going on, and there's nothing more toxic than pushing yourself to go for a goal that, realistically speaking, may not be achievable under certain timeline (e.g. blasting through 3 PTs a day).

One thing I find particularly motivating is, in fact, my anxiety. My awful college years have substantially damaged my mental wellness besides my GPA, and since two years ago I started to have occassional panic attacks. At times, I also suffer from acute anxiety sitting through preptests, when I would be simply staring at the words without mentally processing them at all (hell the stake is high for me in this game! And just couldn't deal with the "what ifs" roaming in my mind). When that happen, I would usually call it a day and just throw away anything relevant to LSAT and go for a walk, watch something, or eat something. Whatever. I'd usually either give myself a day or 3 - 4 hours off before I feel more comfortable with the whole idea of LSAT and then come back to finish off whatever I was doing before. Nevertheless, since I have been constantly anxious about this whole law school ordeal, I really couldn't find myself peacefully enjoying a movie or a book without thinking about how I can improve my LSAT scores. As I'm writing this, I have come to realize how important that anxiety has been in the past two months of my studying: what happened was, even when I felt I couldn't drill more and I needed a rest, I would relax for about an hour or so (usually doing sudoku on my phone), and then go do something that's pertaining to LSAT but less stressful - read some LSAT relevant posts, read the manhattan/trainer/powerscore books, review some of my previous LR erros, or type up the recent erros I made in my LR section, etc. So, in a way, I have subconsciously categorized my life into two parts: LSAT drilling time (mostly PTs now), and downtime (review errors, read posts, writing posts, etc), which means my anxiety has actually helped me to immerse myself in LSAT completely without my realizing it.

Motivation, to me, seems largely stemming from my anxiety as well. Because my GPA sucks too hard, I need a super high LSAT score to set that off. In a way, I think wanting a high LSAT score badly is key to success in LSAT, at least for me. I can't say I have much of a success with my PTs so far, but I know one thing for sure - I have never wanted anything more badly in my life than this. At times I feel like I'm breathing LSAT when I, say, blasted through 40 LG questions a day, finished 5 sections of RCs, or finished 100+ LR by type questions a day. I don't think I could manage that intensity of studying without wanting a high score that badly. On the other hand, since I am constantly anxious, drilling was the only way to give myself peace of mind, and these are the reasons why I think I was able to pull of 40 hours + weeks of studying for the past months. (Having said that, I don't think high intensity of studying necessarily yields good results. LSAT requires some strategic approach, alongside with dilligence. ) The point here, I suppose, is that if you are also feeling anxious like I do, try to turn it into your friend rather than your enemy. I know for one thing that anxiety is best tackled when you are doing the thing that freaks you out the most.

As for my routine, since I don't have to work, and I am not doing college anymore, I have committed myself to full time LSAT studying everyday. Though, from Feburary to April I'd say I was only half time studying LSAT - finishing off the basics and just started to drill (averaging perhaps 3 - 4 hours a day, while I was playing video games more intensely than I preppred for LSAT); since Mayl I believe I have commmitted more time to LSAT studying (average 5hours daily according to my time-tracker, with occassional 2-3 days for a break), and for the past month or so I have upped my game to 6-8 hours of studying daily, with usually 1-2 days for a break (during the recent breaks, however, I would usually stick to doing some low-stress LSAT stuff such as re-reading books, watching courses, etc). As I have finished off drilling PT1-38 sorted out by sections and types, my recent schedule is largely comprised of drilling 4-5 sections PTs daily, sometimes 2 PTs in a day (one for morning one for afternoon/evening, during the break I would blind review + review everything). Initially, consistently doing PT sucks - I couldn't finish my LR and RC sections in time (usually leaving out 10 questions). But after a week of drilling PTs consistently, I have found myself comfortable with finishing all of my sections in time, although I have noticed a significant drop of rate of accuracy - as compparing to two of my recent untimed PTs, on which I have missed 4 questions each, averaging 2 for LR and 2 for RC. For the recent timed PTs, I am missing an average of 4 - 6 questions on LR, 2 - 4 questions on RC, and 1 question on LG. So my game plan right now is just to get more PTs done, reviewing my past errors everyday (I type them all up btw, just to give myself a good chance of rereading them carefully), and drilling more PTs. For now I have been doing 2 PTs a day (usually 4 sections), while working through the LSAT trainer. By my calculation, my past two weeks of input in LSAT is averaging about 8 hours daily, with my most recent break of steak happening two days ago when I had a panic attack.

One thing I find helpful is that once you are drilling intense enough, your anxiety somehow melts away as you grow more familiar with the test. On the other hand, though you may not necessarily improve your score by drilling intensely, you can always try to focus on the brighter side of each PT - for example, when I just finished off my first PT today (PT 45), I missed about 13 questions in total, and by BR missed 4 questions in total. Instead of feeling awful about not breaking into -10 errors, I try to focus on the fact that I am now consistently finishing off LR sections within 33 - 34 minutes, which gives me some time to recheck some of the questions I wasn't sure and successfully corrected a few of them. Or, for example, I try to focus on the fact that I now no longer miss any flaw questions, even the hardest, even though I suddenly start to miss inference questions and parallel questions. While I review diligently all of my questions, instead of focusing how many mistakes I have made, I would try to calm myself down by telling mysel that these errors are giving me a road map to a higher score, and really focus on why I got each individual question wrong by writing down notes, and routinely review all of my accumulated errors so that I won't get tricked up by the same traps next time. While I am still hovering around mid to high 160s, I think my devotion to LSAT and my becoming more strategic with improving my scores by reviewing carefully and reviewing available materials (books, posts etc) helps to ease my mind a lot.

Some other things that helped me throughout the process includes:

Finding a study partner (though he is shooting for the test next year, we’d still drill some hard questions together or post our study result to each other daily, which keeps a comfortable amount of peer pressure between the two of us. We’d also whine about the mistakes together and unload all the negativities to each other, which is very helpful when we are unwinding)

Announcing to everybody that I am taking the LSAT and occasionally posting feeds on my social network announcing my study plan for the next couple of days (I only occasionally do this since constantly updating on my LSAT might become a nuisance to my beloved friends, but I have also asked most of them to bear with me before October and they seem understanding )

Quit using social network and my phone - this helps a lot because phone and social networks really SUCK OUT YOUR TIME and influences your motivation. I only look at my phone during break (when I also do my sudoku games to wind down a bit) and only stay connected to a few really close friends, who I have daily banters with and with whom I always have a good time talking when I’m done with the day.

Getting rid of distractions and set up my LSAT shrine - this is also very important to me. When I study I cannot stand any distractions (mom, stop calling me to dinner, on a timed PT here!). So I told my sister and my parents to never talk to me unless I talk to them - till October. This may seem extreme, but I needed this, and they understand. Also, I set up my LSAT station on a clean table with all of the materials I use stacked tidily around the table, with all of my essentials - three dozens of HB pencils, erasers, automatic pencil sharpeners, water and snacks right around the table so that everyday when I wake up I would be able to jump right into LSAT studying, and only need to take breaks when I need to use the bathroom or eat, without having to go look for anything and disrupt my study flow.

• how to not freak out and forget about all your techniques when panicking from time issue? How do you not panick if you are a high anxiety person??? (I sometimes panick during PTs, less so during timed sections, when I am not at my goal question number by the goal minute ie. 5 in 5mins, 10 in 10 mins, etc., and start skim reading rather than actively reading with technique just so I can try to reach more questions. Even though I know it works against me and the accuracy is low and still slows me down, I can't help it...)

For this particular issue, while I recommend you, on one hand, to just drop your PT at all and come back to it later if you are absolutely freaking out, I also find it important to just finish it regardless of the time if you can still push yourself a bit further. For example, I have been having time issues with my LR section for a long time, and recently I find myself managing my time more efficiently in LR section by simply focusing on my task and not pay too much attention to the proctor. One thing I have been doing, however, is honing my ability to identify correctly the core argument and flaw in the stimulus. For this particular issue, I find the LSAT Trainer very helpful (chapters recommended: the LR "swatches"). I have also took out stimulus from my previous erred questions and just focus on identifying the flaw/logical gap in those stimulus and write them down. By really forcing myself to develop a good habit with approaching LR stimulus(identifying the core correctly), I find myself more comfortable with time. I believe this points to a very important idea of approaching your drills: good habit MATTERS. Correctly idenfy why you are having certain issues (for me, failing to identify the core and just go with the flow in the stimulus), and really forcing yourself to change that habit so that your general approach to the questions become closer to what LSAT requires you of, seems to me the key to cultivate both your ability to tackle the questions and your ability to quickly move between questions without panicking - if you have finished several PTs in a row with the correct habbits, finishing questions in time comes to you naturally, and that fact alone would boost your confidence a lot in the subsequent PTs. The trick of drilling PTs though, is really trying to see WHY you are missing questions (are you still having problems with correctly identifying the core stem? Are you falling into the nasty little traps LSAC designed in the answers? Did you just overlooked that EXCEPT or took that "must be false" to be "must be true"?). Once you IDed the issue, really give yourself some time to think about how you may improve that particular issue.

• Do I push through this last month and try my hardest for September and possibly November and just apply this cycle anyway without potentially reaching my goal score? Or do I take a later test and apply for next cycle and suffer through another year of low morale/sacrificing life to study and push back my personal deadline with the risk of still not getting a good score?

I don't think you would end up with a less than good score, if you are drilling diligently and strategically. The real issue here is knowing what you want, how to get there, and how badly do you want it. For example, I know for a fact that if I cannot get a near perfect score, I would have substantially less chance of being admitted by a T20 with scholarship that I direly need. So, if I cannot get a good score out of my October test, I will just go for a November or maybe December test, even if that means I would have to wait another year. I won't necessarily feel bad about that fact, however, because I can still devote the next year of my life to many things I value as meaningful, and getting admitted by a better school with money would substantially outweight the sacrifices I would have to make. But that's just my reasoning. What I would advice you, again, is to know what you want, how to get there, and how badly do you want it.

• Is there even hope for me to get 170s? Are my chances of getting scholarships even good enough with a 170 + such a low gpa? Is it even worth it to keep yearning for that score? Time is also money ya know.

To your first question: it largely depends on where you are right now. If you are mostly struggling with time issues, i think 170 is possible. But if you are still struggling with the basics - say, still missing more than 3-4 questions on LG, cannot finish RC, etc. I would advice you to reschedule your test and really, really think about what's going wrong with your approach to LSAT preparation. Strategy MATTERS.

To your second question: WUSTL has been by far the most generous towards extreme splitters (awarding near perfect LSAT scorers with, say, 2.9 - 3.1 GPA with $150,000 - $180,000 last time I checked the numbers - I may be incorrect with the money figures but there are precedents you can check on LSN and other similar websites). Washington and Lee, and a couple of other schools around T20-30 also give out generous amount of money to high scorers as well.