VERY URGENT QUESTION

[kev2015]

Dear Powerscore,

I have an extremely urgent question that I need to get some advice on. I will be taking Saturday's Feb. 2016 LSAT, and I have just done a PT this afternoon (Dec. 2012), and have scored a 152!! I have done all PTs from 2010 to 2015, and usually my median is 155, with one to two occasions a 153. For the past three PTs I have done last week and this week, I have scored a 155 on all of them. I want to score a 155 on test day, and I don't know how should I regard this last score of 152?

As a side note, I don't think that burn-out is an issue here, because I have been doing PTs quite sparingly.

Any advice is very much appreciated! Thanks a lot!!

[Adam Tyson]

Kev,

Take a deep breath. Relax. One test is not indicative of a trend or a problem, but is instead usually a sign of just normal fluctuations to be expected over the long haul. If you scored a 161 on one practice test today, you probably wouldn't take it as an indication of what to expect on Saturday (although that would of course be nice), but would instead see it as something of a pleasant anomaly, maybe indicative of what might be possible but not really altering your expectations much. Same thing here.

Spend a little time (and really, just a little) analyzing where your weak points were on this test. See if there's an area or two where you could stand a little improvement, maybe just a refresher of some concepts. Then, remind yourself very forcefully that you know you are capable of better because you consistently have done better, and then stop worrying about it. In fact, be glad you got this anomaly out of the way now instead of on Saturday!

Don't over-analyze this, and don't spend all day tomorrow studying to try and "fix" something that probably isn't broken. Get some rest, eat healthy and delicious foods, go see a movie or watch TV, get some moderate exercise, take a nap. Don't think too much about the test other than to occasionally remind yourself that you already know you are capable of hitting your target score, and prepare your materials to take with you to the test so you don't have to scramble for them on Saturday morning.

You've got this! No worries.