Someone tell me it's not hopeless

[Tlarmore16]

Any help is appreciated. I have a lot riding on the August flex, as I am an RA this fall with a full course load (16 credits) so if I cannot get to my goal score or at least close (160), I will not have enough time to study enough to complete all of the necessary other application materials which may require me to apply the next admissions cycle. That is the first problem and the easy one. The hard one, I have been studying 5-6 days a week for almost a month with Khan Academy and recorded a 145 on my initial diagnostic test. Since then, I have scored 142, 144, and 138 and I am beginning to lose hope and contemplating not doing law school at all, feel sort of hopeless, and that only a miracle on test day can get me over 160. Thank you, any help is welcomed and appreciated.

[Stephanie Oswalt]

Any help is appreciated. I have a lot riding on the August flex, as I am an RA this fall with a full course load (16 credits) so if I cannot get to my goal score or at least close (160), I will not have enough time to study enough to complete all of the necessary other application materials which may require me to apply the next admissions cycle. That is the first problem and the easy one. The hard one, I have been studying 5-6 days a week for almost a month with Khan Academy and recorded a 145 on my initial diagnostic test. Since then, I have scored 142, 144, and 138 and I am beginning to lose hope and contemplating not doing law school at all, feel sort of hopeless, and that only a miracle on test day can get me over 160. Thank you, any help is welcomed and appreciated.

Hi Tlarmore16!

Thanks for the post, and chin up! You got this! (Think like this blog post: https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid-32 ... -the-lsat/!)

There are a lot of resources out there that can help you improve your score. For starters, we offer free resources like this forum, our blog, our podcast, and our free help area. I know all the information out there can feel overwhelming, and so we would be happy to help you focus your study or recommend the best resources for you. If you would like some further advice, please provide us a bit more detail first. You can use this blog post as a guideline to provide us with some more information:
https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/need-l ... -help-you/. A better sense of your strengths and your weaknesses will help us provide some more personalized tips.

As a side note, you mentioned taking practice tests, but I didn't see much focus on reviewing those tests and questions, which is key to improvement. So, if you haven't already, I'd suggest that you thoroughly spend time reviewing your past tests and questions: what you did right, what you did incorrectly, and what you can improve. You might find these LSAT Blog Posts useful regarding how to take and review practice tests:

• http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/331 ... ctice-Test
• http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/153 ... tice-tests
• http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/the-bes ... tice-tests
• https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/how-to ... are-stuck/

I know there's a lot here, but I hope this information helps keep you on the right path and eases your anxiety a little. It's not hopeless.

Thanks!

[emilyd]

Hi! I am struggling sort of similarly. My first PT before studying resulted in a 155. I took an extensive Powerscore course for a month, worked very hard on the homework, did practice exams, listened to podcasts, etc. A month and a half into solid studying, I am still at a 155. A week or so ago, I had scored a 161, 161, and 162 close together, but then dropped down to a 159, 156, and now 155. Any idea why this is happening? I am taking the June LSAT this Saturday and likely the August LSAT. Why did I see that increase and then drop down again, and how can I prevent myself from never getting back to that progress? Also how do I not freak out about seeing the same original PT and most recent PT scores given that my test is in mere days?

[Tlarmore16]

Thank you for your kind words. Where on the blog post or on this thread do I give the information the b;og bost says y'all need to better help me (i.e the scores on the practice tests)?

[Robert Carroll]

Emily,

Score variations happen, so it's not true that, just because your latest test scores are lower than earlier ones, you are seeing more than an apparent downward trend. Look at what you're doing right in your tests (and if your lowest score in recent PTs is a 155, you're consistently getting more than half the questions right, so you're doing more right than wrong). You want to keep doing right what you've been doing right. One possible reason your scores went down, beyond normal fluctuation, is that you were trying to change too much of what got you the low-160s scores. Of course a 162 is not a 180, but it's a pretty good score, and you could only get that score by doing a lot of things exactly right. In an effort to get higher, did you adjust too much? I definitely advise you to look at those PTs and see what questions you're consistently getting right, and keep up the good work with those. Then look at what you can address in the remaining questions. Radical changes in less than a week are not feasible! So, if I noticed I was getting a lot of Assumption, Parallel Reasoning, and Point at Issue questions wrong, but not much of anything else, I'd probably focus on one of those types - probably Assumption, because it's more common than the others (and Assumption and Parallel are both more common than Point at Issue). Then, moving forward after the June test into August, I'd go over all the questions I seem to have trouble with.

Even though your first PT and latest PT are the same score, you've got a lot higher in between! So don't lose heart because it looks like you made no progress. Find out what you're doing well and what you need to work on, and get back to those low 160s.

Tlarmore16,

You can transfer your answers to the PTs into our scoring system here: https://studentcenter.powerscore.com/se ... ts-section (scroll down to "Score your practice tests using our LSAT Test Scoring System.").

Feel free to comment directly on this forum post with any further information or questions you have.

Robert Carroll