Advice

[fmalston201]

First, let me say thank you to Powerscore. I have seen improvement since using your study material. I think my first timed PT score was a low 130 something over a year ago. I am now averaging in the 140's timed. Untimed my PT has been 159, 158, 156, 151, and 148 being the lowest. My highest timed PT score was 152 back in Nov. 2014. That score led me to take a Powerscore weekend course just before the Dec. 2014 exam that I was scheduled to take. But when I took another practice test after that weekend course I saw my score drop. This led to me postponing that Dec. 2014 exam.
I bought and completed the LG Bible and the LR Bible back the summer of 2014. I also took a Powerscore weekend course back in Dec. 2014 as I stated above and took a full length classroom course from April to June of 2015. My instructors from both classes were awesome. Since April I have taken around 25 PTs.
I postponed the exam several times. Sept. 2015, Dec. 2014, June 2015 and now I am considering not taking it on Saturday because my PT scores are not where I want and feel they should be. With that being said even though I score in the 140's on my PT something on the inside tells me I can score much higher and even in the 170's on this exam.
Despite my 140s PT scores I have seen some improvement in my score as well as other areas such as my test taking stamina/endurance. Also I am now attempting more questions per section and my accuracy has improved just a little. I definitely want to improve a bunch in the LR and RC sections.
After a PT I review the LR section online and I see that on the first 10 questions I am usually getting about 4-6 questions correct. I should not be missing out on these first 10 points.
When I review the questions I got wrong, I do see why my answer is incorrect and I see a reason why the correct answer is correct. However, when I take the next exam I am missing easy questions again. But what is even more disturbing is I can get questions 12-16 correct and a couple of questions from 17-22 correct but miss question #2, and miss questions 5-9.
I don't think I will take the exam on Saturday because my PT scores are definitely not at a level for my target school nor are they high enough for my backup schools. Despite my PT scores being low, I really appreciate what Powerscore has helped me to achieve thus far in preparing for the LSAT because I am better at this exam now than I was last year. Thank you very much and keep up the good work. I look forward to your advice or recommendations if you have any.
All the Best,
Frankie

[Clay Cooper]

Hi Frankie,

Thanks for your feedback! It's great to hear that you have benefitted from PowerScore's prep materials and classes.

It sounds like you have put in a lot of work over the past year or more. It also sounds like you have given a lot of consideration to whether or not you are fully prepared to take the test on any given test date (including this Saturday). I think your improvement is great, and that whatever happens moving forward, you should be proud of having raised your scores as much as you have. A jump from the low 130's to anywhere in the 140's represents a very significant percentile score improvement, and I would encourage you to look at your progress in terms of the percentile score rather than the scaled score - after all, the test is designed to compare the respective abilities of test takers, and no number better indicates how you did in this regard than your percentile score. Though we (students and instructors and the world at large) tend to think of LSAT performance in terms of this scaled score, it is in fact the percentile score that is the much more meaningful number. Since, then, the two do not correlate perfectly throughout the scale, I would encourage you again to think more in terms of your percentile score than in terms of your scaled score.

The only other bit of advice I have is this: if your continued preparation does not seem to be improving your timed practice tests scores much, I might recommend going ahead and taking the test, come what may. If continued prep doesn't look likely to help, there is little to lose in going ahead and doing your best while you are at your peak level of preparedness (as you seem to be right now).

If, however, you feel like it is realistic to expect continued improvement in the timed tests, perhaps waiting would be a good idea. That you score so much higher when the tests are untimed suggests that you might be able to improve your scores on timed tests as well if you can increase your speed without at the same time sacrificing accuracy. I do not think that expectation is unreasonable - in my own experience, both I and my students tend to get faster the more practice we have.

I hope that that has been helpful. If you do decide to take the test, I think you should be very confident that you have prepared more than thoroughly, and after all, that is the only aspect of the test that is truly under your control.

Good luck, and please let us know if you have any other questions.