- Tue Dec 10, 2024 10:54 am
#110978
Hi cmpirro,
These types of questions are always tricky to answer. On the one hand, I want to be encouraging. On the other hand, I want to provide helpful and practical advice so that you have a good idea of your situation and can make an informed decision on how to proceed (and not just tell you what you want to hear).
The honest answer is that you very well may be able to score a 165 with sufficient study and practice, but there are no guarantees, and the only way to know for sure is to do everything that you can reasonably do to prepare and see how you progress. The LSAT is not the type of test in which I can say "If you study for X number of hours, then you will get a certain score." Especially if you are at the beginning of your studies, your current score is not a good indicator of what you may ultimately score.
That type of score increase does happen, but it is more than what is typical (usually 10-15 points). In other words, you've got your work cut out for you. LSAT scores can be deceptive, because 20+ points may not sound like much out of context. What may be more helpful is to look at the percentiles that those scores represent. A 142 represents about the 15 percentile of test takers, while a 165 represents about the 88 percentile. As you can see, that would be a huge increase based on percentile.
The most important thing going forward is that you are studying the right way. Quality matters more than quantity, although both are necessary. I'd suggest taking our LSAT course, reading our LSAT Bibles, and/or even getting private tutoring if that's in your budget.
One final point, if you are not scoring close to your target score by January, then you may want to consider postponing that LSAT. You really shouldn't be taking the LSAT until you are scoring somewhere close to a score that you might actually use. Since LSAC limits the number of times that you can take the test, you don't want to "waste" an attempt if you aren't ready yet.
