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1 Like
Just took a dip and am LITERALLY FREAKING OUT.
lady macbeth
Alum Member
Oh my god. So I just graded my most recent PT (76), I got a 158 and BR 163. I'm literally in shock. I have been consistently scoring in the high 160s and BR in the high 170s for months now. I'm trying to get above a 170 on the July test. What should I do? Reevaluate my whole life??????????
Comments
Dips are common. Almost all high-scorers take a dip. Relax and keep going
I'm also taking the July test and took an 8 point dip the other week. I came back after it to my average though. I'd think about anything you did differently that day and try to eliminate it, maybe lack of sleep or something else. You have more reason to think you score in the high 160's than high 150's. Just one time out of many high 160's. I realize it's discouraging though.
As annoying as it sounds, it's a good learning opportunity. There is more to learn from -20 than -5.
Don't worry! My average PT is around 174 and I got a 165 recently. My close friend who is now at Harvard Law got a 175 on the LSAT but had a few dips as well. Totally normal.
Don’t freak out (I say, even tho I’ve done exactly the same thing). I’m alsi scoring in the high 160s, sometimes 170s and got a 163 the other day. And I’m taking the test tomorrow. Also if it helps, I found 176 PT to be quite challenging...I missed like 9 on one LR section. Take a short break, don’t freak out, move on. This is just a blip!
@LindsMitch omg I took PT 76 and also missed 9 on LR worst yet. Freaked out, cause today is the test day and it does not help that I took that PT as my last one. Hopefully June LSAT will be good to us
Just calm down. One of my last several PTs was a big drop too. I was PTing mainly between 176 and 178 retaking a 172. I got a 168 on one of my last PTs. I freaked out a little, calmed down took it as a chance to go back over some concepts and then got back in the swing with anotger PT where I scored back up in my normal range. People aren't perfect and we don't need to be for the test. In the unlikely event you slip up and do poorly relative to your PT average on the real thing you can always retake it. The chances of getting an abnormally low score on one PT are small. On two PTs in a row it's tiny. And on three PTs it is basically gone.
The standard deviation of LSAT scores is around +-3 points. If it were a normal distribution(which it probably isnt exactly) that would mean you scored 3 standard deviations below your average. There is about a .3 percent chance of that happening which means it is going to happen 3 out of every 1000 times. Twice in a row it's a .0009% chance. Three times is a .0000027% chance. We are human an therefore might tend to do really bad and let mistakes freak us out for the rest of the test every once in a while so maybe just to be safe we will say on any given test it is a 3 in 100 kind of a problem. That is still tiny. And vanishingly tiny of happening twice let alone three times in a row.
So as long as you don't freak out and let the one bad PT cause you to do bad on future ones or the real test, there won't be a problem.
@LindsMitch @Kateryna I hope you guys did well today! Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad I wasn't the only one who found PT 76 difficult. Was it LR section 2 that gave you the most trouble? I found section 4 LR to be fine. But section 2 on this test was awwwwful.
Yes section 2 for me also
I did worse on PT73 than my diagnostic (ignoring LG). I also freaked out and spent a good amount of time lurking forums and it seems to be a pretty common thing. Just keep calm and I'm sure you'll be back at your average in a PT or two.
i just bombed PT 72 with a 155 =( what is going on !?!?!?!?!??!! I'm starting to reevaluate my life ........
I bombed PT73 (by my standards) too!!! Had a sh*t week before taking it but maybe pt73 is especially hard
No way! I bombed PT 72 as well. Literally got a 157. Thus far I think 72 and 76 have been very challenging. What was hard for you in 72? I think the logic games was what killed me.
Yes, i got killed on the logic games and the LR in the section i don't know what happened to me. Before I was averaging -2 on LG and LR -2 to -3 per section but totally bombed that PT...... I was averaging at around 165 for the past few PT's trying to hit that 170.... then PT 72 came along took my soul .......