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With 2 real LSATs under my belt, and one still fresh, AMA if you are curious about real test vs. PTs
LSATcantwin
Alum Member Sage ⭐
Hey all, I wanted to do this as a favor for people who have yet to take a real LSAT. Saturday was my 2nd real LSAT. I sat for the September 2016 and September 2017 tests. Obviously one of them is still EXTREMELY fresh in my mind while I've had a year to come to terms with the other. If you have questions on what I did for a the year in-between, how the test feels compared to practice, what the real test day entails, what the real test feels like, or anything else feel free to ask me!!!
******I WILL NOT ANSWER SPECIFIC QUESTIONS ABOUT THE SEPTEMBER 2017 TEST*******
Comments
Thanks for doing this!! I'd love to know what the real test felt like in comparison to PTs, for instance did you feel more stressed out or nervous then you did for PTs or did you feel more of a time pressure or anything like that?
The first section always is the worst on the real test. For both my tests I felt nervous and panicked and rushed during the first section. Once you find your groove it starts to feel a bit more like another PT though. For both test I had LR as my first section, on the Sept 2016 test I was unprepared and did not calm down until the middle of the section. Saturdays test, since I had studied a lot more, I felt more comfortable and calmed down around the 5th question or so however this Saturdays test had a really hard LR section first and I had to guess on one question
I almost never run out of time!!
An interesting thing I have noticed is that during a PT my mind is a lot more focused on the function of the test. I'm obsessed over question type, how the answer will look, and pre-phrasing. During the real test you feel almost like you are on auto-pilot, this is why people suggest really ingraining the fundamentals during PT's because on the real test your mind just reverts to what it is comfortable doing!
How much did bubbling play a factor? I had a recent PT where I just blacked ob bubbling and seemed like bubbling was in the back of my mind after every question. Is there such thing as practicing that? On the test, referring to your ""auto-pilot" are you just grooving through everything including bubbling? Thanks.
I would hate to grind like this and then get to the test and completely disregard this and bang out.
Namaste.
Bubbling is something that you just need to always be mindful of. This Saturday, while I was working on the start of my last section, I caught myself continuing to bubble in the section before it. I had only done two questions so it was an easy fix. There are a lot of different strategies people use for this. For example when I do LG I don't bubble until I finish and entire game. Then I go and match number to question and bubble 4-6 questions at a time. In LR and RC however I go 1 for 1 and bubble that way. It's easy to get messed up, especially if you skip questions in LR. During the test you really are on auto-pilot though. Even right now, I still have a small fear that I messed up bubbling on Saturdays test. It's one of those things that everyone has in the back of their minds. Practice and paying attention up front can save you issues later though.
Jumping in on this ^
I have a very rigid bubbling strategy that works well and I think minimizes the chance of errors.
For LG and RC I work through a set of facing pages, then bubble those 2 pages in, flip to the next set and repeat. I used to wait and bubble the whole section at the end, but I would make mistakes and risked time being called before I finished bubbling (Disaster!) This was you are automatically checking that questions line up periodically and you don't interupt your thought process during a game or passage to bubble for 30 seconds.
For LR, I work all the way through, circling answers I know and starring questions that need secondary review. Then I come back, bubble the questions I know, and My Best Guess For The Tougher Ones. This way you never skip a bubble, so you can't have a missed bubble fiasco, I gold to this rigorously for all sections, always bubble something, even if you may change it later. I just do it lightly to allow erasure.
Additionally, if you run out of time to return, at least you guessed.
One big difference for me is the experimental section will play mind games with you. I don't know how people usually practice with a fifth section but if you know which section is which when you do, it's really different when you don't. Like in June when my first section was the difficult RC, the whole rest of the test I was praying for another RC. This obviously affected me mentally. Or just the unknown of, I wonder if this is the experimental? If not, which kind will I get? I hope it's LG... those kinds of things. Which are difficult to simulate in practice unless you print out the sections and randomize them such that you don't know which is which.
This is really true too. I had LG as my second section and I flew through them in like and unprecedented way for me. I mean like I felt like I didn't struggle at all and so had convinced myself that it had to have been the experimental. When I started section 3 I was SUPER convinced that it was real since I had just had an experimental LG and felt like I couldn't miss a single question. Then section 4 was LR again....and it was like well okay LG was real, WHAT IS LIFE and everything felt all off. It can go both ways....an easy section can make you think it was the experimental and a hard section can have you praying it was experimental. This definitely changes the test as well.
Thanks for all that insight @LSATcantwin really appreciate you taking the time to help us all!
Hi!
I took my first real test this past Saturday and found that no matter how many breathing exercises I did, I could not calm my nerves. I had this horrible nervous energy/anxiety throughout the first 3 sections of my exam that made me a lot more flighty/panicky than usual in choosing answers which resulted in my confidence and level-headedness diminishing. I know I will do worse than I usually do on PTs, but think I will still score good enough to get into my second choice school. I am tempted to take the December test as I know I can do better than I did on Saturday, but I don't think I can improve significantly if the nerves are as real the second time as they were on my first time.
From your experience, did you find that your nerves were of a lesser severity or went away faster during your second time doing a real LSAT? Any information you can provide is helpful! Thanks in advance.
Do you know if that first hard section was an experimental or not? I can't for the life of me figure out if my LR was experimental.
@LSATcantwin Thanks dawg
@tylerdschreur10 Thank You. On PT when I skip, I put a dash on the number. Is that even allowed as far as official scoring? I know in high school "marking the scantron" was strictly forbidden lol
This is literally my only fear in taking the LSAT next year. I already have anxiety issues (and am working on them thank goodness) but that hyper nervousness kicks in and completely derails me when I'm studying. I wrote a post earlier this week about how I studied while drunk (don't judge me) and got all the answers right in the shortest time. It was amazing. That's how I know the fear and anxiety is my true achilles heel. Determined to get past this before the test next June.
Yes. I took it at the same test center with the same people proctoring. I was FAR less nervous the second one around. This doesn't mean I wasn't nervous, but I was able to dig into the meat of the test much faster. There is something to be said about your first experience with something vs. your second and third experiences....like seeing that even though you arrive at 8:30 you don't start testing until like 9:30 haha
@tringo335
You have nothing to worry about! Your only job is to make the fundamentals so fundemental that it comes out without thinking. Then even though you will be nervous during the test, your Brian goes to auto-pilot and flys you to a 180!
I think that's doable ;-)
I think the key with this is to tell yourself repeatedly, that the test is actually five sections. All five sections matter, one just happens to be a wildcard. When you go in on test day, don't spend any time worrying about which is experimental. I had an lsat teacher tell me this, and I really think it helped me on test day. You just have to train your brain to think this way and talk yourself into it.
These are a few tips I have on nerves that realllly help me:
1) I went in telling myself Saturday that this was just PT 82, and I was going to approach it like I had my last 15 PTs. I think taking lots of PT's before hand helps a lot with this, because then you're able to tell yourself, I got this, I've done this so many times before, and I'm going to play my game. You can also think about the fact that most of the people in that room have done little to no prep; you're way more prepared if you've been taking PT's and putting in the work.
2) Don't let all the students freaking out around you transfer their fear on you. The first time I took the lsat a couple years ago, I way underestimated how freaked out everyone would be. And then I felt like, whoah, these people are really terrified. Maybe I should be more scared. And I ended up almost having a nervous breakdown.
This Saturday, I noticed I was considerably less nervous than everyone around, and that actually gave me a huge boost in confidence. I stayed away from getting drawn into conversations of people talking about scores and nerves.
3) You need to go in wanting to get on base, not wanting a home run. I mean, you need to be targeting the average of your last ten practice tests. I know this sounds counter-intuitive because we all want the best score we can get, but when you go in saying, I'm going to score the best score I've ever gotten, you ratchet up the pressure a ton. And you make stupid mistakes. If you usually don't finish an LR section, but you decided on test day that you're definitely going to finish every section, you're going to go too fast and make dumb mistakes. And then your confidence is going to plummet when you can't finish the sections.I think that's why some people end up with lower scores on test day.
You've got to go in playing YOUR game on test day. Hope this helps!
@kvbusbee Well Put! Some excellent advice
I would add to @kvbusbee s thoughts on the experimental section: Every practice test you take should consist of 5 sections. The real test is 5 sections that you HAVE to treat as scored, so why would a PT be any different? The fifth section is going to count toward your score 80 percent of the time, so you need to condition yourself to that length of mental strain.
Studying for June I always did 4 section PTs, studying for September I switched to 5, and it made a world of difference on hours 3 and 4 on Saturday!!
I'm like 180% sure LSATcantwin got a 180
bro...CANDOR...CANDOR alone brought me down to like a 170...then LR destroyed me so I'd guess like a 140..
You on the other hand....175 MINIMUM inc...
lmaoooooooooooo if I get a175 I will fly you here to NYC and we get black out drunk for a week straight
RC screwed me man, BIG TIME. I'd be surprised if I even get anywhere near a 170 due to RC.
I think you did well though. I'm just really nervous about RC, it was a blur for me. LG I'm confident af in, LR I think I did well unless I was overly-confident and dropped the ball on it somehow
That's exactly how I feel. I won't break a 170 because of RC alone. And LR was a blur for me as well...I'm already thinking Dec