Reviewing Questions Seems overwhelming

audrey1210

I'm the sort of person who did pretty well in school. I usually only get a few questions wrong on most tests, and I'll review those and improve. However, the LSAT is different. I'm getting around 40 questions wrong. How do you guys not get overwhelmed/discouraged?

Steven_B-1

I think we all probably get discoureged/overwhelmed. The key is to know that progress is slow but it will come if you practice conscientiously.

Tristan G

As the other commenter said, be strong. Remember that the LSAT is unlike probably any other test you've ever taken. It doesn't test blanket knowledge about subjects, but skills that must be refined over hours of practice. Pretty much nobody starts out at the top like many prospective law students are used to, simply because its a different kind of test. Know that you will get better, and take the time to carefully review every question. Improvement doesn't come all at once, and it doesn't come from 2 sets of questions, it comes from hundreds of questions being meticulously reviewed. Don't feel bad about missing questions that seem obvious on review, instead focus on how you can do better next time. For the ones that you don't understand, try seeing if a different approach or way of thinking will get you closer. The first part of the journey is hard, but if you're consistent then one day you'll realize how far you've come.

hyk3070812

Hey, I was in the same boat as you about six months ago. Honestly speaking, it was one of the hardest times of my life - I would have mental breakdowns in the middle of PT's, have to take walks after feeling illiterate when going through BR, the like. It isn't too much better now and there are still days when I struggle mentally, but there was a fundamental shift in the way that I saw the test when I realized that I've already made it so much closer to my target school / score by just choosing to come back to something I know is difficult and challenging, when so many people in the same position would choose to walk away. Secondly, there IS improvement in the grueling testing hours! It took me about 3 months to finally see it, but I promise you it will come. (diagnostic was 150, most recent PT was 164).

Scott Milam

@audrey1210

One piece of advice I give to my clients is that time and energy spent judging your current performance is time and energy wasted.

Your job is to get better. Spend your time and energy on that! Your current score is only useful as a guide to decide how you improve. Once you’ve done that, forget that score and move on!

Remember - no law school or employer will ever see your most recent PT. They will never know where you started. All they will ever know or care about is where you ended.

Time for you to start thinking the same way!

andycwjr

I am an older academic with a masters in anesthesia and a Doctorate. This damn thing is blowing my mind!!! With that said, you are not alone.

Cant Get Right

It can certainly be frustrating, but it depends on what you really want. For the longest time, I was testing to prove how good I was instead of to improve how good I was. I failed at doing either, haha. It’s a hard thing for intelligent adults to struggle so much with. If you can make the mental switch though, studying becomes really rewarding.

Remember it’s a test of language as much (or more) than of logic, so when you get something wrong, approach it with the basic understanding that something doesn’t say what you thought it said. It might be logic, it might be grammar/linguistics. Treat each one like a little language puzzle. Each word is chosen very deliberately. There is far more subtlety and nuance than you are currently recognizing.

Don’t seek general understanding. Break things apart until you can pinpoint the specific language from where your misunderstanding derived. Then, ask yourself why you thought it said something other than precisely what it said. Again, answer that question specifically, not generally.

My most productive substantive progress came from writing detailed explanations on anything I struggled with. Writing these explanations forced me to be honest with myself. I was bad about saying to myself, “Oh, now I get it” when I really only had a vague, general understanding of the issue. That stopped being good enough when I began forcing myself to articulate my reasoning. I’d go to write my explanation and often realized I had no idea what to write. By making myself write the explanations, I forced myself to go beyond the general to find the specific. And that’s how I solidified the lessons from one question in a way that I could carry forward into new material.

Hang in there. And remember that you’re here to improve. Improving is hard and frustrating and tedious. So if your studying feels like that, it’s not necessarily bad. If you’re doing it right, you might even come to enjoy it.