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171 on one day, 159 on another, 172 the next day... what's going on??

Flex KingFlex King Core Member
in General 83 karma

Rant:
On my last flex my proctor did a room check for a solid hour and a half and didn't let me go to the bathroom before I start my exam. The one before was cool and let me do a quick run before so I expected that and chugged 3 Redbulls as usual - I literally did piss my pants and got a 160. It's not bad, but not good enough to cover for my GPA.

Back to the topic:
I got back to studying after a 2 month break in December and my scores fluctuate a lot - I only study for about 20~25 hours a week, play video games and rest well so I don't think it's an issue with my test taking conditions. The questions that I get wrong do not seem to have a certain pattern. LR and RC are the ones that fluctuate the most; I mainly pray for RC so LR is the one that I am most concerned with. Since I am taking my final one on January I was wondering if you, my friends, could give me an input that I could reference on; it would help me tremendously.

I hope you have a blessing holidays! :D

Comments

  • mnkimmnkim Member
    137 karma

    While a fluctuation between 172 and 159 might feel alarming, try to shake off the times that your scores dips. Fluctuations are normal and there are factors outside of your control that might accentuate those fluctuations a bit.

    For example, if your weaknesses in general are RC and LR, they may fluctuate more due to the variance of difficulty in LSAT sections. If your strength is in LG, you will probably get a -0/-1 regardless of the difficulty. Hence, you might thrive when you get a PT that has a hard LG section and a relatively easy LR and RC, whereas an easy LG section is no more of a benefit to you and a relatively harder LR and RC will punish you. Small things like the order of the sections may affect your performance as well.

    Also, if you're practicing the PT in Flex mode, make sure you take the fourth section on your own time to gauge the actual difficulty of the PT. If the section you're missing out on is an outlier in difficulty in comparison to the other three section, the curve accounts for that. This means that your score will be abnormally high if the section you didn't take is the hardest section, or it will be abnormally low if the section you didn't take is the easiest.

  • This_is_HardThis_is_Hard Alum Member
    815 karma

    Just wanted to say lol @ literally pissing your pants.

    Got to love a sense of humor.

  • Miryana YaldaMiryana Yalda Live Member
    69 karma

    That also happened to me! Check analytics and see what are your weak areas and try to work on those questions. You probably didn’t do as good the second time because you got questions that you need more practice on.

  • This_is_HardThis_is_Hard Alum Member
    815 karma

    @RoseMary-1 sorry to hear, didn't know going #1ing oneself was as wide spread. I'm going to have to watch for that on game day.

  • Flex KingFlex King Core Member
    83 karma

    @This_is_Hard sorry for TMI but it was based on a true story - I kept an empty jar under my desk but didn't want to lose my human dignity by pissing in front of a camera so yeah... lol

  • Flex KingFlex King Core Member
    83 karma

    @mnkim @RoseMary-1 Thank you!! I will do those

  • LSATluver-1LSATluver-1 Core Member
    11 karma

    following this thread because this description could literally be me.

  • chaplin___chaplin___ Alum Member
    596 karma

    RC either makes or breaks me, I’ve gone from 161 to 174

  • Flex KingFlex King Core Member
    83 karma

    @LSATluver-1 I am constantly doing at least 1 PT a day and closed the gap by a lot - for me I needed more practice. I still bend over for RC though

  • RavinderRavinder Alum Member
    869 karma

    One very helpful thing that I learned from my best tutor, Ellen Cassidy, is to do a warm up about 30-45 min just before the test. She recommended to do some questions from each of the sections of a PT that I had already done recently so as not to get stressed at all. Her advice was to do 1 logic game, 1 RC passage, and the 1st 15 questions of one LR section. The goal is just to get your brain warmed up, while not stressed out at all. Don't even look up the answers because if you get a question wrong it may stress you out. Also, you might want to cut back on the 3 red bulls before the test or drinking too much liquids in general. The excess stimulant may act to trigger the fight or flight reaction and trigger the sympathetic system. This will tend to create tunnel vision at the expense of creativity. Try taking a fresh PT (3 section Flex) with and without any caffeine or with varying amount of caffeine intake before the test to find the optimal amount. Better to experiment at home than on test day.

  • gotthejuicenowgotthejuicenow Core Member
    3 karma

    So you're telling me Red Bull can improve my score?

  • Flex KingFlex King Core Member
    83 karma

    It gives you the wings !

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