Scored 10 points lower than PT average on June test. How do I fix this?

zjones54

TL;DR : Looking for some insights with issues I apparently have with test day performance - PT'ing much higher than my score.

First, a little background. I self-studied with both Manhattan/Powerscore/7Sage Spring-Fall 2014, with most PT's between 168-175. I probably took about 20 tests under exact conditions. A few weeks before the Dec. 2014 exam, I was PT'ing high 170's, when I started to notice some severe burnout. On my last three PT's before the December test, I was suddenly dropping 15-20 questions, so I took a break for a week and hoped for the best.

I was super nervous -- almost manic -- on test day, and I ended up with a 163, with most of the damage from LG. This was upsetting at the time, but I figured that with practice, my nerves wouldn't be so bad the second time around. So I took a break for three months and started back studying in March for the June 2015 exam.

This time, I drilled game sections during the week and took two tests every weekend. My scores were much more consistent, clustered tightly around 176/177, and I was making strides in LG. I simulated test conditions exactly in terms of timing and sections, and would sometimes take tests in crowded coffee shops or book stores for practice with distractions. I made it a point to do every released PT LG section multiple times, and I stopped practicing a week or two before the test to prevent burnout.

I was incredibly calm and relaxed on test day, and walked out of the center thinking I had it in the bag. I was shocked to find out I had only increased my score by 3 points, to a 166. Admittedly, the June curve (-10) was rough compared to December, but I never expected to do any less than 3-4 points below my average. My LG section was fine, but I ended up dropping 5 or 6 on each LR section, where I've never had trouble before.

So, here I am again prepping for my third test, worrying that no matter how much I practice or how high I PT, I might just end up well below my average for the third time. The only thing I think I did wrong in prepping the second time around was not reviewing the LR questions I missed. Most of the time, I would see my score, think "good enough" and walk away. I'm being careful not to do that this time around.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Can you suffer from test anxiety without knowing it? Am I prepping wrong?

I really hope I can get some answers, and I appreciate any advice you guys can offer.

Thanks,

NYC12345

What do you think contributed to a precipitous decline on the June exam if you were relaxed? A drop like you experienced doesn't seem typical. Were there any distractions on test-day? Bubbling errors?

NYC12345

I have suffered from burnout as well, but the lowest I score after performing horribly is 168/169, and I'm not even PTing in the high 170s (170-174).

pizzaqueen

I was also very disappointed with my June score. A big issue that I had during my first round of studying was taking older PTs and not familiarizing myself with the newest ones. So make sure to focus most on the recent tests.

Have you taken PT 75 since June? I studied for a couple months after the test and then took it again (without having ever looked at the test and answers). I felt that BRing and reviewing the entire thing was super helpful in seeing what my problem areas were and determining what, if anything, was a result of anxiety. Turns out my fundamental skills were bad and I've been able to work on that a lot. I also saw that I had bubbled D for the last three answers of every section, so I had obviously run out of time on every section -- something I somehow did not remember. So definitely retake PT 75 if you haven't already and use it as a guideline for what you need to focus on. If your skills are there, just work on getting faster.

It's unlikely that you got a fluke bad score both times around, and that's actually a good thing! This way, you can work to identify and fix your weaknesses. Good luck!

allergic

I think 1-2 weeks without studying before the exam is too long. That's probably enough time to get a bit rusty. I recommend studying hard until the day before the test. On the day before maybe just do one LG section or something.

NYC12345

@allergic
I'm taking PT 75 (my last PT) tomorrow and I'm planning on doing an LR and an RC section on Monday and Wednesday. What do you think about this plan of execution?
Also, you should have @"Dillon A. Wright" update your status to "Sage," which is for members who scored in the 99th percentile on "the real thing."

zjones54

@alexandergreene93 This is the question that has bothered me for so long. Test conditions were fine, I wasn't nervous or shaky, I didn't misbubble - I just got answers wrong. At one point, I even started to over-analyze and think that I hadn't eaten enough carbohydrates before the test. And yes, burnout is a frightening thing to happen close to test day.

@pizzaqueen I would only simulate tests with PT's 50-74, occasionally throwing in an old game section. Retaking PT 75 is like returning to the scene of a horrible accident for me, but I think it could be helpful to BR it like you said.

nicole.hopkins

@allergic said:
I recommend studying hard until the day before the test.

Very few of us recommend this. @"Jonathan Wang" ? @"J.Y. Ping" ? @mike ?

NYC12345

@zachjones54
How was your timing? Not to delegitimize what you are claiming, but I can't fathom someone just losing their LSAT skills on test day. Different score ranges signify a certain level of skill, and you dropped substantially without getting nervous. Even with test day jitters, your decline is substantial.

zjones54

@alexandergreene93 Thanks for your replies. My timing was fine, I think. I ended up having around 5 minutes or so per section (not including games) to go back and make sure I didn't misbubble, review circled questions, etc. Not too much time though, which might indicate that I rushed.

And I know it sounds unusual that I would be so off the mark on test day, but hey, that's why I'm here.

allergic

@alexandergreene93 I sent him my Item Response Report a little over a week ago, seems they have a problem with people getting promoted to sage and then disappearing, so I've been told there will be a waiting period.

I would recommend doing at least a bit of studying each day until the test. I took my last PT 3 days before the test and maintained my normal study schedule until the day before, and that seemed to be helpful for me.

@nicole.hopkins all my recommendations are based on my own experience. It's what worked for me, no more, no less. When I was studying, I wouldn't have felt comfortable taking a break right before the test. I think studying hard until the day before the test helped me keep my skills sharp for test day.

lsatequalsfml

@zachjones54 did you ever figure this out? I hope you killed it on this round, because I am in the same boat you were in and could really use some good news and hope.....

lsatequalsfml

I wanted to share my pity party here instead of starting a new thread bc my story is similar:

I've taken 25 tests, and I've averaged 169 on my last 5 tests. I took the october '15 exam, and scored a 161, which is lower than my Dec '14 exam (164). I also began studying a couple years back so I've seen almost all tests, but I've only BR'ed 25 tests.

Before my scores were released, I knew I'd want to take the Dec test again because I'm shooting for 174 so I took another PT on 10/19 and scored 172. With the Oct score release, I had a WTF of an unprecedented scale. My score was a huge shock to me because I had thought the test had gone pretty smoothly for me and I was not expecting any surprises. I don't consider myself to be a bad test taker, maybe a little more adrenaline than usual but nothing too concerning, and my test center was fine aside from a tiny desk. After seeing that score, I killed time doing a few games, few passages but I really wanted to prove that score was just a massive fluke. I took PT 46 today and scored a 161. WTF IS HAPPENING TO ME??!

I know the popular answer around here is burnout. But if my brain doesn't feel burnt out, and really I've been taking things pretty easy the last few days, what else could this mean?! I want to take the Dec test so can't afford to take much time off either. Did anyone else experience anything similar? I've been glad to see my scores climb slowly but surely and this whole thing is rather soul crushing.

Thanks in advance for the constructive feedback; and honestly, glad to have found this community because........the internet is not safe out there..

lsatequalsfml

bumping bc I'd really appreciate some feedback, thanks

badgalriri

^ bump

zjones54

@lsatequalsfml - Like you said, sounds like we are in the same position. I didn't take in October, but I will be taking in December. Feel free to PM me to commiserate/share ideas. Also happy to hear from others that might have some suggestions.

Pacifico

@lsatequalsfml said:
I really wanted to prove that score was just a massive fluke.

This is the problem right here. You can't exact revenge on the LSAT by taking another PT and doing better. You're just trying to reward yourself through instant gratification and that's not the point of this whole enterprise. When you have a bad test, you need to take a step back and really dig into the BR and figure out what happened. It sounds like on this one you were at least overly hyped up to do better that you probably overlooked a lot of what was happening during the test thinking that you're entitled to a higher score for whatever reason you want to choose (you're wicked smart, you prepped a lot, you're special, etc.), but that is the wrong way to do this.

PTs are a learning experience to help you succeed on test day by helping you recognize patterns and build your skills. Getting 10 180s in a row during PTs does not mean it will just happen on test day. You still have to go in and put in the work... EVERY SINGLE TIME... if you don't then you will pay for it. So rather than burnout I think your problem is complacency in that you think you can just cruise through a test because you have PT'ed in a given range previously. Each PT is its own challenge and needs to be respected as such so you can't just prove something was a fluke by increasing the quantity of PTs you take until a 170 randomly pops up. Think about how ridiculous it sounds when you talk about it that way. Rather than trying to get revenge on the test or prove a certain test wrong, you need to spend more time with the tests you score terribly on and see what happened so you can learn from your mistakes.

As a real example, I took 65 the other day and got a 172 timed/174 BR. The former was my highest ever and the latter was tied for my highest ever. I was feeling pretty awesome because I made significant strides to get my LR down to -2, I maxed out LG and just happened to bomb RC. I went way too fast during RC and paid for it because I was riding high on confidence and only circled two questions, then had about 6 or 7 confidence errors. I then followed that up with another great performance on the LR on 62 where I had my best section ever and then one that wasn't so great but they still balanced out to averaging -3 per section versus -5 or 6 where I had been. Because of my schedule and my kids I had to take the test all disjointed and ended up doing the RC and LG in the middle of the night and absolutely bombed both. I'm talking worst RC ever and tied for worst LG ever so I ended up with a 163 timed/170 BR. So I wasted all those gains on LR with really bad performances elsewhere.

Now if I took your approach I would just throw the test down and take another one immediately, and then another and another until I was back in the 170+ range where I want to be. But that is wasting PTs and doing my learning process a huge disservice by ignoring all those teachable moments. Instead I did the games section over to see what went wrong and though it is a challenging section it is well within my skill level since I average about -1 on LG now. A simple misread on game 1 led to a bad split and once I hit 6 minutes or so I started to panic because I was spinning my wheels so I went to game 2, screwed around too long with layouts and was well into the teens timewise before I skipped to game 3. Game 3 is a weird double layer sequencing and grouping game that I inverted the game board for and it cost me a ton of time and at that point I knew I was fucked. I skipped to game 4, got it in 4 minutes and then started to go back but so much damage had been done with wasted time that I had to blindly guess on 8-10 questions or so. RC I knew I bombed in real time because I was trying a new method for the first time when I should have practiced it before but I just wanted to try it out so that was the bad decision I made there and it led to me spending 5 minutes just reading and marking up each passage versus the normal 2.5 minutes I spend reading the passage. I then missed 10 questions, two thirds of which were actually pretty easy when I went back to review. If I had jumped ahead to a new test I would not have taken the time to learn all the lessons I needed to so that I can guard against doing such ridiculous things in the future. I would advise you to go back to those tests that your underperformed on and really dig into what your issues were.

lsatequalsfml

@Pacifico said:
You can't exact revenge on the LSAT by taking another PT and doing better. You're just trying to reward yourself through instant gratification and that's not the point of this whole enterprise.

ok fine, I get it. even though I don't like it, this sounds right. fine. and also your point about me falling into complacency sounds plausible, but honestly, when I took those low scoring tests, I felt that I had taken those tests seriously; I didn't take those tests thinking that I would breeze through them because I honestly think that each test is a battle for me. It's definitely true that I often expect a certain score based on the score band I'm in but I don't approach my PTs thinking that I'll be on autopilot and still get those scores.

At least, I don't think I do.....

at this point, I honestly can't tell what I think or don't; I've been putting off going through PT 46 but that's where I'll start this weekend. thanks for the post @Pacifico it's definitely helpful to know someone so dedicated to this test sees wildly fluctuating scores too.