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Beyond devastated.. help

nikdim67nikdim67 Member
in General 51 karma
So... December 2015 was my second write of the lsat.

For my first write I studied for about a month with Princeton Law Review.. I felt in no way prepared or ready to take the test but took it anyway. Scored a 156. Not surprised.. it was actually higher than my highest PT. I wasn't too concerned since I was in my third year of university and knew I could write again and have time to prepare.

For my second write (December 2015) I joined 7Sage. I purchased the premium package, studied for 3 months, and took ~35 PT's (some PT's in the 40's and 50's and all 60-70's and 3 to 4 a week) I did a BR for each and really felt like I was mastering the content. Within the weeks approaching the test I was scoring between 164-170. I actually felt prepared to write in December. Got my mark back.. and i got a 154. WTF!?!?! how is that even possible?? I got a higher score feeling ill-prepared studying for just 1 month?? I didn't feel necessarily nervous or anxious during the test and actually felt like I crushed both LR and RC sections. Turns out I clearly didn't... . For the games I usually go -0 but game 3 really sewered me too.

I just re-wrote PT 77, after a month of not studying and got a 170 (keeping in mind the content was more familiar). What the hell is going on?? I write my most of my PT's in a room with constant city noise in the background plus the distractions at almost "high" on the 7Sage proctor app so I know that wasn't much of a factor..

I already applied to schools for the 2016 cycle and with these scores, the schools I applied to won't even touch me! I signed up for the Feb test already, which will be my third take. I have seriously never been so devastated and discouraged in my life. I put serious effort and hours into studying only to have it not pay off one bit.

I've lurked so many forums and took into consideration different study methods and they all seemed to work well. I genuinely thought I had the perfect system. What do I do from here? How should I change my study method for the feb test?
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Comments

  • BruiserWoodsBruiserWoods Member Inactive ⭐
    1706 karma
    I know you said you don't really know what went wrong, but you need to think on this. WHAT was it that was so different in this testing environment? Were you perhaps OVERconfident and maybe not reading the questions/stims as closely as you should?
  • AidoeAidoe Free Trial Member
    edited January 2016 236 karma
    It sounds like test day was just off for whatever reason. I've had many instances where I knew I was prepared for a test, given my performance in practice, and was overly confident to the point that I ended up glossing over things resulting in my own ruin. Maybe if you be more careful for Feb, you'll get the score you've been getting during practice.
  • runiggyrunruniggyrun Alum Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐
    2481 karma
    I'm very sorry to hear what you are going through, it's like one of my worst nightmares. Did you feel like you were "off" during the test? Are you absolutely sure you didn't make a catastrophic bubbling error? That seems like an awfully large discrepancy not only compared to your PT average but also with the retake - when you were retaking do you remember a lot of questions where your new answers were different from test day, and if so, is there a theme to the mistakes (misread, misunderstood, etc). Unless the vast majority of the missed points were in LG, where familiarity would help a lot, there must have been somethings in play to cause such underperformance. If you can figure out what it was you have a good chance of fixing it for Feb. You seem to have a good grasp of the test based on your PT and "retake" so it's likely some sort of performance under pressure issue. I hope you figure it out and crush February
  • nikdim67nikdim67 Member
    51 karma
    thanks for your replies @BruiserWoods @Aidoe @runiggyrun

    On test day I didn't feel "off" or necessarily over confident, if anything I was nervous but was trying to go into the test with a positive outlook.
    I am praying I can just chalk it down to an anomaly.. I went through the test and there were no bubbling errors. There were some questions where I thought to myself "wow that answer was obvious how did I get that wrong?" I guess I was pretty concentrated on trying to answer all the questions in time (which I usually do) but maybe I put too much focus on that and ended up rushing through questions? Ugh so frustrating.
  • JustDoItJustDoIt Alum Member ⭐
    3112 karma
    I hate to say this but I would not take the Feb test. Sometimes, the best thing for people and their studies is to walk away from the test and to come back later on to start fresh. Also remember that, where this will be your third take, you will not be allowed to test again until after a two year period from your first test. I think that it may be best to go do something fun, clear your mind, enjoy yourself for a bit, and then get back to the grind.

    Just my $0.02
  • badgalriribadgalriri Alum Member
    316 karma
    I think it's hard to tell when you're nervous sometimes. For one of the sections my mind was literally numb - I was reading fine and my heart wasn't beating fast but my brain wasn't feeling very sharp. Hence, though I completed all the questions, I reverted to falling into traps as I would during my early stage of prep. I'm in the same situation as you (bombed my Dec test), but I've decided to rethink my mindset rather than study method. If you're PTing where you want, you may be studying right but something else is off. If you have to take Feb, figure out what went wrong (psychologically) as ^ said and you'll be fine
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