Doing great on drills- suck at preptests

elviraafigueroa

I've been studying for several months now, and I do pretty damn good on the drills and adhering to time constraints, but when I do the actual preptests i'm missing so much! I don't know if its anxiety or the fact that everything that comes up is hard.. but it's upsetting because I have such great hope for the October LSAT. I don't know what to do.

1stWorldProblems

hm, is there a specific type of questions that's giving you trouble? Or a section? is there anything you can think of that's different in your approach to questions between drills and pts?

Johnny Tsunami

It could also be that you're just not used to the prep tests. How many have you taken? You need to develop a comfort with it and testing anxiety is a huge factor. Best way to tell is to compare your timed and BR scores. If the BR is pretty good then its less of an issue with regards to your understanding of the questions and other factors such as anxiety or timing may be at play.

Also, are you drilling just one question type at a time or mixed? If its the former, then the sheer variety of question types may be throwing you when taking a full PT.

Finally, your mindset may be different when taking a prep test vs doing a drill. Drills are much less intimidating and lower stakes than taking the prep test in that you really want a great score when doing a prep test and that psychological factor may be at play.

jennnxxp

I have this same issue I'm trying to fix before the November LSAT. My issue may be that I'm not used to the mix of questions types (especially on logical reasoning which is my strongest section). So I've been trying to use more practice tests. I usually take one a week (though I may up to 2 now that the LSAT is getting closer) under exam conditions (timed). Then I drill specific sections on certain days, but also work through practice tests without a time limit and watch the video explanations for what I get wrong. Then I drill those, and repeat.

It also may be testing anxiety as well. In that case try to work on timing and perhaps consider taking more practice tests (I think 2 is the max. recommendation in a week?).

Good luck! I feel your pain lol