- Tue Jul 08, 2014 5:13 pm
#15251
That's great to hear that you're being tenacious and are taking it again, though I'm sorry to hear you didn't score in the range you were hoping to the first time. And it's also unfortunate to hear you didn't feel like you had the advice you needed in going into it. Hopefully some of the suggestions I'll offer will be useful.
There are a lot of reasons people might score lower than they were hoping on the LSAT. Not knowing your situation fully, if you had been taking diagnostic practice tests and your June score was significantly lower than these, perhaps it was tester's anxiety, sometimes a person gets hung up on a question, logic game, or passage, and runs out of time for other questions, or sometimes there are genuinely perplexing new game types, for example, that stop a tester's momentum and discourages them.
If you aren't taking diagnostic tests, that's the biggest thing I would recommend doing. Even if you feel a bit rusty, since you have a PowerScore class under your belt, you'll be able to get back into the swing of it quickly. It probably wouldn't take more than one practice test to re-familiarize yourself with it. Personally, depending on how much time a person can commit to studying, I usually think two months before the test is the best time to start intensive studying. Since the exam is on September 27th, no need to rush to start studying again, or else you might burnout before the exam. In my opinion, once you're ready to start studying, take an exam (untimed exam) to get reacquainted not only with the question types, but also the ways you learned to diagram them.
The challenge will be to train yourself again to diagram and answer the questions not only correctly but quickly. The more tests that you were able to take--say 5 per week, hopefully the more comfortable you'll become with the test so that test day will just be an extension of your normal routine. Moreover, as you take more tests, you'll get a better picture of how you'll likely score on test day.
As you're taking as many LSAT's as you can, one thing that will be essential to bringing your score up consistently is that you keep an eye on your strengths and weaknesses and target them. After you've taken and scored an LSAT, go back and examine the questions you've answered incorrectly--not just seeing why the right answer is right, but also why you were compelled to choose incorrect answers. Also take note of which types of questions you're getting wrong. If you have a problem with, say, Weaken questions or linear games, go back to the course homework and do as many of that question type as you need until you feel comfortable with them.
Its not easy for many people to be able to free up their schedules enough to be able to take and reexamine five LSATs per week because of school, family, work, or other commitments. But I'd recommend something along the lines of that as you make a study plan. If all you could do was one or two a week, for example, try to always do one on Saturday morning, since that'll most accurately simulate September 27th's exam.
I hope that helps, and best of luck on the September exam!
