Re-using practice tests

[Laurianna]

I took the June LSAT, and have a strong feeling my score will not be indicative of my performance on practice tests I've taken over the past couple months. For a bit of background, I began preparing for the LSAT in January, and at the recommendation of my brother (who earned a 174 on his LSAT using Powerscore books) went through each Powerscore Bible (along with the workbooks) to learn the test and complete drills, which took a few months.

I then began taking practice tests - during the week (since I work full time), I would do individual sections in the evening or morning. On the weekends, I would take full length tests (almost always including a fifth section). My first few practice tests, I scored between 158 and 163. I then jumped a bit to 165/166, and, in the last couple weeks before the June test, I was consistently getting scores ranging from 167-171. Based on how yesterday felt, I do not believe I will come close to these scores, as I was very low on time and ended up guessing completely on the final passage of RC (about 7 questions). I also found myself running short on time on the LR sections, which is very unlike me, and didn't even get to fill in two of the bubbles.

I have a feeling I put too much pressure on myself this time, and that I got too thrown off with the time when the proctor announced "5 minutes remaining" in the RC section. I think more simulation of the testing environment would help me when preparing for September, but I'm concerned since I've gone through all but 2 of the last 30 preptests, and it seems like timing is something on which I need to focus.

If someone can recommend how to proceed before the September test, that would be amazing. How helpful will it be to re-take these tests (rather than just reviewing the answers), considering I've seen the material before? Also, should I be taking tests that are older than the last 30? I've heard that older tests are not as close to the real thing, so I'm nervous that by already taking so many of the recent ones, I messed up my chances to prepare to get a score that reflects my actual ability in September.

Thank you so much in advance for your help!

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Laurianna,

Thanks for the questions! I'm sorry to hear that things didn't go as well as you had hoped, but I like your attitude that you'll learn from this and get better

A few thoughts that might help:

1. Just to ease your fears, you still have many, many LSATs to use for studying, mainly because the older LSATs still have high value. See: Should You Avoid Older LSATs?. Here's why the older LSATs still are useful: while their emphases have changed, the underlying logic doesn't change, so many of the questions are incredibly valuable in seeing how they think. Plus, the variation in concepts is really useful. For example, yesterday's games were straightforward, but last year there were some weird games. Older LSATs really help prepare for the oddness factor because some of those old games are really hard.

2. Even for the tests that you have seen, you likely haven't squeezed out all of the value from them. See: Retaking the LSAT when you’ve seen all of the practice questions. I was just talking to one of our students about this, and we were talking about how much better he's become since he started doing each question multiple times. It's essential do to every question as many times as is reasonably possible (four or five in my mind).

The bottom line is that you still have plenty of material to work through, so you will be in good shape this summer!

[Laurianna]

This is very helpful and quite a relief. Thank you!