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Downbeat after a Personal Best?

ntrepanier5ntrepanier5 Alum Member
in General 323 karma

Took a PT yesterday morning and scored my personal best, which I was super happy about, but then as the day went on, I just kinda became more and more jaded about it:
- "Man it's gonna be so hard to get that score again on test day."
- "August isn't going to be as easy bc they're going to beef up LR to make up for the lack of LG."
- "ugggh I don't want to get back to studying because I know I'm not to going to immediately be as sharp as I was during that test."

-Almost feels like a "World Series hangover" if that makes any sense: people say that the records of teams who make the World Series sharply decline the next year (see: the Rangers and Diamondbacks' current records) bc it's just hard to get locked in for a regular season game in the middle of July after having constant adrenaline shots in the postseason.

Can't tell if it's just the ebb and flow of general self-doubt involved in prepping for the LSAT or the washing out of the massive adrenaline associated w taking a PT and getting a really good score. Probably a bit of both. Just curious if anyone's ever noticed the same thing in their studies?

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Comments

  • darman45darman45 Live Member
    edited July 21 142 karma

    I feellllll you. Before I relate though, let me just say: forget about the Diamondbacks and the Rangers. Look at the Phillies.

    2005 (didn't win series): won 88 games
    2006 (didn't win series): won 85 games
    2007 (didn't win series): won 89 games
    2008 (won series): won 92 games
    2009 (didn't win series): won 93 games
    2010 (didn't win series): won 97 games
    2011 (didn't win series): won 102 games

    Anyway though, there's plenty of examples to support and weaken your point. At the end of the day, cognitive dissonance is real and it can be seriously difficult to reason your way into seeing your achievements as truly yours + not a fluke.

    For me, I try to envision my prep for this test in two buckets: knowledge + vibes. The knowledge bucket contains all the hours of studying I've done as well as all my prep test scores. The vibes bucket is my ability to manage test anxiety, stay positive, and pay close attention while I read. These are all things that aren't as quantifiable as the knowledge bucket is, but it's equally as important. When I scored my personal highest on a prep test and started going down the thought spiral that you just described, I realized that I needed to dedicate a little bit more thinking to my vibes bucket, because it was seriously hurting me. How does it help you to score a personal best on a PT and then immediately downplay it and act like it just wasn't that hard of a test? It hurts you!! Imagine that you didn't downplay that score and instead took in stride: wouldn't you be more confident on your next PT? Wouldn't you trust your reasoning a bit more?

    I don't know if this helped, but you're not alone in this experience and it certainly is hard to hype yourself up for a test that we all know is difficult. But it really doesn't help your knowledge bucket to have a bad vibes bucket. The two have to be in balance. That's my little mantra to myself when I can't reason my way out of negative thinking, but know that I have to. Be as rigid with your good vibes as you are with your studying.

  • ntrepanier5ntrepanier5 Alum Member
    edited July 21 323 karma

    Glad my baseball analogy didn't fall on deaf ears and thanks for the advice! I think one thing that I can def do to focus more on the vibes bucket is work on having a more consistent sleep schedule running up to test day.

    What do you do to keep your vibes up?

  • saraolssonsaraolsson Live Member
    15 karma

    Have been PTing far beyond the original goal I set. EVERY. TIME. I see those results I experience an hour of excitement followed by a day or two of low-grade depression. It's exactly what you're describing; doubts about my performance on the real test, convincing myself it was an easy PT and I just got lucky, etc.

    I like to remind myself that from a capitalist standpoint it's not in the best interest of the service I'm paying $100/mo for to stroke my ego with easy PTs. I am the only subjective part of this process. Everything else is just numbers, from 7Sage to the LSAC. Doing well is not an opinion, it's a statistical measure. And that includes PTs.

    And then as the above commenter said, the only thing you have left to focus on is vibes.

    For me this has meant a different diet (cutting out any sugar pre-studying since I'm very sensitive to it), a couple new exercise options that are more entertaining than my usual, getting completely sober (to eliminate big dips in serotonin), and making sure I have time devoted to "just screwing around" that isn't grinding on the LSAT, exercising, doing chores or working.

  • ntrepanier5ntrepanier5 Alum Member
    323 karma

    @saraolsson Glad I'm not alone but sad to hear you're suffering through the same.

    I was not expecting the point about capitalism, but it's honestly a helpful way to look at things. Also the point on diet is helpful!

    Idk where you're at in your personal LSAT journey (I'm testing in August so pretty late on now), but I feel like at this point the test is more mental than anything else. Like yeah I'm going to keep drilling and PTing until August 10th, but after the hundreds of hours I've studied I'm probably not going to come across some revelatory new way to look at questions. It's more about trusting what I've studied, staying steady, and putting everything together on test day.

    Best of luck to you in your studies and thanks for your comment!

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