LSAT Practice Tests

[sdesousa]

Hi!

I am retaking the LSAT in December after a poor performance on the October LSAT (anxiety got the best of me). I was taking a full-timed practice test every day up until the actual exam and it totally burned me out. Needless to say, I felt the effects of the burn out on the day of the exam and it was a terrible experience.

My issue now is that I've taken every PT ranging from 52 to 75. Is it ok to retake these same practice tests or should I practice on older tests? My fear of practicing on older tests is that I won't come across Comparative Reading or the principle questions that appear so frequently on current tests. I am hoping someone can steer me in the right direction.

Thanks so much,
Sandy

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Sandy,

Thanks for the message! I have a couple of hopefully useful articles for you. Let's start with the test anxiety issue. I write about this topic frequently, and answer a lot of questions about it. Most recently, take a look at my response to a student suffering from some confidence issues: http://forum.powerscore.com/lsat/viewto ... f=2&t=7629 (look for the indented sections in my reply—those are various resources we have for focusing on test mentality).

Next, for students who have seen a lot of the practice questions, I wrote a blog on how to approach that: Retaking the LSAT when you’ve seen all of the practice questions.

And last, to address the questions of older LSATs, I'd refer you to this: Should You Avoid Older LSATs? The short answer is definitely take the older test. Yes, the CR passages aren't on those exams, but really that's not a big deal. Those exams will help you prepare for today's test, and they will also expose you to a greater variation of what LSAC does. And you'll see some really difficult LR, LG, and RC too. There are tons of questions on those exams that mirror what appears on today's LSAT, and you'll find plenty of Principle questions as well.

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!

[sdesousa]

Hi Dave,

Thank you for your response! The links provided are immensely useful. They definitely address my concerns.

The reason for my question regarding practicing on older LSATs is that I often hear that a test taker should save the most recent LSATs for right before their actual exam. I assumed that this was widely advised because the most recent LSATs were the most "useful," but I guess that's not entirely the case. Thank you for clearing this up! I applied this advice when studying for the October LSAT, but now I've run out of the recent LSATs and I'm afraid that retaking these tests won't be beneficial as I'm positive that I'll remember most of the LG games, RC passages and difficult LR questions. Now that I've received your response, I feel confident taking earlier LSATs without feeling like I'm losing out on the benefits that more recent tests provide.

Thanks again for your response! I truly appreciate it.

Sandy

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Sandy,

So glad I could help!

One of the reason you hear that advice is that the test makers go through patterns with the LSAT, and the most recent tests are most reflective of the current pattern. And, when we span 20+ years of exams, there have been changes in language, question type emphasis, and so on. But the underlying ideas are all very similar. so, older tests are certainly useful, and having the recent ones is considered op[optimal to get you in the current mindset. But you can get that by looking over those tests right before your next exam, so you are in good shape still

Thanks!