Tips for test anxiety

[desiboy96]

Hello Powerscore, so when I do logic games during practice sessions, I'm fairly comfortable and can do an individual game on average in 8 to 12 minutes with perfect or near perfect accuracy. However, yesterday, I did a timed games section from prep test 30 and scored an abysmal -13. I think the cause of this was panicking under the time pressure.


Here's what I did. While taking the timed section above, I started to panic and just tried to get through the games as fast as I could trying to complete each game in eight and a half minutes. In doing this, I became really anxious and this led to me misreading or forgetting what the questions asked me (I have ADHD btw).

However, before checking my answers, I did the games again, this time untimed and I scored perfect. Also keep in mind that even though I did not have the time pressure, I still made all of the possible logical deductions and knew exactly what I had to do for each question in a time efficient manner without ever feeling like I was really slowing down.

Do you have any advice for dealing with this anxiety?

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Desiboy,

Thanks for the message! The effects of time pressure are one reason we often recommend starting with LG while not watching the clock. Understanding what is going on is the first step, not going fast (that can come later). So, what you are doing is just fine as far as trying things untimed.

That aside, we often talk about time pressure on our blog and podcast, as well as in our course materials. The public articles are all collected here: https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/the-ul ... urce-list/

If you have ADHD, I would strongly considering applying for extra time accommodations: https://www.lsac.org/lsat/lsac-policy-a ... sabilities. That could be a game changer, pun intended

thanks!

[desiboy96]

Hi Dave, thank you so much for your advice and these resources.

Cheers!