Should I take the test on November 25th?

[wright2summer]

Hello.

I am registered for the November 25th test as well as the January test. I have been studying for two months using the On Demand course material which has been great, but I have had a lot of setbacks. I have an almost 3 yr. old and a 9 month old, both of which have not been sleeping for the last 3 months which means, I am not sleeping. I work full time as a Producer so my work is often unpredictable. I am also the sole bread winner in my family. I also had a death in the family which required about two weeks of my attention.
All that being said, I'm not feeling super confident going into the LSAT on Monday but I wanted to know if there is harm in taking it even though I know I for sure will take it again in January, with hopes that that test will be my good score?
Is it better to have the experience of taking the test and potentially canceling or should I just wait until I am feeling better about my ability to perform well on the January test?

This may be an obvious answer but thought I would ask regardless.
Thanks for your insight.
S

[Dave Killoran]

Hello.

I am registered for the November 25th test as well as the January test. I have been studying for two months using the On Demand course material which has been great, but I have had a lot of setbacks. I have an almost 3 yr. old and a 9 month old, both of which have not been sleeping for the last 3 months which means, I am not sleeping. I work full time as a Producer so my work is often unpredictable. I am also the sole bread winner in my family. I also had a death in the family which required about two weeks of my attention.
All that being said, I'm not feeling super confident going into the LSAT on Monday but I wanted to know if there is harm in taking it even though I know I for sure will take it again in January, with hopes that that test will be my good score?
Is it better to have the experience of taking the test and potentially canceling or should I just wait until I am feeling better about my ability to perform well on the January test?

This may be an obvious answer but thought I would ask regardless.
Thanks for your insight.
S

Hi S,

Thanks for the question. I certainly sympathize with your situation. Two children under the age of three both not sleeping? I'm surprised you could see straight enough to write this message!

The good news here is there is no harm in going into the November test and taking it from a scoring standpoint. If you go and do better in January it will erase that score (if it's lower), so you will be okay on that count.

The one downside is that you use up one of your three yearly takers (and one of the five takes you have over two years), so that's a thought, but it only comes into play if you end up taking the LSAT that many times.

So, don't worry about the score result and go into Monday and give it a shot. And, get some sleep beforehand if you can

[wright2summer]

Hi Dave.
Thank you so much for your thoughts. I ended up taking the test. Once we checked in they told us they were having technical difficulties with the tablets or something with the test and that it was going to be "awhile" before they fixed it. It ended up taking almost an hour and half before we actually started the test so mentally, it through me off quite a bit.
It took me almost two sections to feel like I actually had my head in the game.
At this point I need to decide if I'm going to cancel my score. If I feel like I guessed on 40-50% of the test, is that a good indication I should cancel? I was hoping to not cancel so I could get the test to review for studying for the January test, but I'm not sure if it's worse to cancel or have a potentially bad score?
What are your thoughts? I guess I could always write an addendum if the score comes back really bad?
Thanks again for your time!
Summer

[Dave Killoran]

If I feel like I guessed on 40-50% of the test, is that a good indication I should cancel?

Hi Summer,

This isn't a good sign, and makes me suspect that a cancel would be justified here. If you guessed on half the test and then you'd also have the usual misses on the remainder, it sounds like this wouldn't be a score that would help you. Consider it a trial run, learn the lessons you can, and move on!

I guess I could always write an addendum if the score comes back really bad?

I'd rather avoid this situation if possible. If you know you just posted a score that's not going to meet the threshold, typically the advice is to cancel. To go the other route is to make a choice based on pure hope, and then want to paper over it afterwards. But addenda should be saved for things that really need addressing, and you want to avoid LSAT addenda whenever possible!

Thanks!