Slowing Down on First Half

[Thomas]

Hello PowerScore team,

I am taking the LSAT a second time after going through the PowerScore course last year and completing the LG and LR bibles. I took the October 2015 LSAT; my test anxiety got the best of me that day. This time around, I am just sticking with practice tests for the June LSAT. My scores have been steadily increasing from 149, 154, 149 (besides this tired day), 156, 156, 157, and 160. The one issue that I keep having problems with is slowing down in the LR sections. Generally, on the first half of the first LR I rush through the section and miss some low-hanging fruit and am left with an extra 5 minutes because I generalize the details. I keep trying to slow myself down, but have found it almost impossible when LR comes up in the first or second section of the test. For some reason, I get in a rhythm after two sections and can do extremely well on the second half of the test (oddly test position does not matter much with LG and RC for me).

I am worried that this habit might haunt me on test day, so any input on this would help!

[Dave Killoran]

Hey Thomas,

Thanks for the question! I have a couple of thoughts for you here. First, the best news is that you are fully aware of the problem and actively want to solve it. That's a great start! When it comes to low-hanging fruit, you are completely right: the first 10 questions are, on the whole, typically far easier than the group of later questions. Please see https://www.powerscore.com/lsat/help/lr ... iculty.cfm for more information on that. So, the goal in the first 10 questions always has to be perfection, and if you are rushing and missing any questions, you are doing yourself a huge disservice (especially when you end up finishing early!). So, you know you are doing it, you know it's hurting you, and you want to change. The basic solution is that you have to impose your will on your test-taking experience, and control your pace—can you do that? Any standardized test is a battle of your will vs will of the test makers, and you have to control that situation as much as possible. I realize that nervousness and anxiety affect the situation (and even knowing something is a problem can make the problem worse), and your comment about getting into a rhythm after two sections suggests to me that maybe you should do some practice questions prior to starting the actual test. I talk about that process here, http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/325 ... f-The-LSAT, and doing that for LR might help you burn off that nervous energy and get your mind in the right gear to keep going at an even, measured pace in LR. Why not give it a try before your next practice test and see if that helps. If it does, it might really have a strong, positive impact on your score!

Please let me know what you think. Thanks!

[Thomas]

Thank you for the feedback Dave. I gave that a try this morning by doing a dozen questions before the test, and that did get rid of some of the anxiousness. I was able to get a 160 again, so I think if I do that after taking a few days off and having better conditions it should help make another jump.