PTs vs. Real Test

[jackieb]

I am so frustrated and confused. I scored a 168 in June and since have consistently scored 170-174 on practice tests. However, both the August and October tests I scored 164. This makes no sense to me- are the currently released practice tests outdated? I have anxiety but not enough that it could be explained entirely by that. What is going on??

[Jeff Wren]

Hi jackie,

First, I definitely can understand your frustration. Scoring lower on your second and third attempts is unusual (but not unheard of), and scoring that much lower on the real LSAT compared to your practice tests is also somewhat unusual. Scoring a few points (around 3) lower than your practice test average is actually pretty typical even when things go relatively smoothly during the test.

As for what exactly is going on, I'm going to throw the ball back in your court and ask you to answer that question.

Did you notice anything about your specific exams that seemed unusual to you, such as an unusual amount of hard LR questions, or rare LR questions/concepts, a killer RC passage, etc.? Did you come away from the exam feeling reasonably good about how it went or not? If you normally finish each section with a few minutes extra to review some of your questions (which is fairly common for students scoring in the 170s), did that happen during these exams? One thing that we always recommend that students do is to try to take notes about how they felt they did (both overall and on each section) right after the exam while it is still fresh in your memory.

How were you feeling mentally/physically during these exams? Were you healthy and well-rested? Being sick and/or sleep deprived can both harm one's score. Another possible explanation when scores start going down is burnout. Have you been studying too much without taking sufficient breaks, especially if you have other work/life responsibilities as well?

You mentioned that you have anxiety, "but not enough that it could be explained entirely by that." I'm not a doctor, but I could easily see how anxiety could negatively impact a student's performance by 5-10 points depending on the severity and exactly what occurs during the test.

Unfortunately, since LSAC doesn't release the details of your tests, you can't know for certain exactly which questions you missed and why, which makes figuring out exactly what happened more difficult.

One other thing that you can do (if you remember some of the details of your tests, such as some of the LR and RC passage topics) is to listen to our test recaps for the August and October tests to see if you can match up your exam with the sections listed in our recap. This should give you better sense of the overall difficulty of those sections.

[jackieb]

Hi jackie,

First, I definitely can understand your frustration. Scoring lower on your second and third attempts is unusual (but not unheard of), and scoring that much lower on the real LSAT compared to your practice tests is also somewhat unusual. Scoring a few points (around 3) lower than your practice test average is actually pretty typical even when things go relatively smoothly during the test.

As for what exactly is going on, I'm going to throw the ball back in your court and ask you to answer that question.

Did you notice anything about your specific exams that seemed unusual to you, such as an unusual amount of hard LR questions, or rare LR questions/concepts, a killer RC passage, etc.? Did you come away from the exam feeling reasonably good about how it went or not? If you normally finish each section with a few minutes extra to review some of your questions (which is fairly common for students scoring in the 170s), did that happen during these exams? One thing that we always recommend that students do is to try to take notes about how they felt they did (both overall and on each section) right after the exam while it is still fresh in your memory.

How were you feeling mentally/physically during these exams? Were you healthy and well-rested? Being sick and/or sleep deprived can both harm one's score. Another possible explanation when scores start going down is burnout. Have you been studying too much without taking sufficient breaks, especially if you have other work/life responsibilities as well?

You mentioned that you have anxiety, "but not enough that it could be explained entirely by that." I'm not a doctor, but I could easily see how anxiety could negatively impact a student's performance by 5-10 points depending on the severity and exactly what occurs during the test.

Unfortunately, since LSAC doesn't release the details of your tests, you can't know for certain exactly which questions you missed and why, which makes figuring out exactly what happened more difficult.

One other thing that you can do (if you remember some of the details of your tests, such as some of the LR and RC passage topics) is to listen to our test recaps for the August and October tests to see if you can match up your exam with the sections listed in our recap. This should give you better sense of the overall difficulty of those sections.

Hi Jeff,

Thank you so much for your response! As for your questions, I was well-rested and altered my diet to the advice of nutritionists the week before the test. I was confident, felt good about the exam both times, and finished the sections with enough time to review my flags.

I listened to the October recap, and I did have one of the harder tests, but I thought that would be accounted for in the curve. I did everything perfectly and felt good about it both times. I honestly have no idea what this could be. I am trying one more time next week, so any advice would be appreciated!

Best,
Jackie

[Jeff Wren]

Hi jackie,

That is frustrating because it sounds like you did everything right and the test seemed to go smoothly. That does make it harder to get to the bottom of exactly what happened.

My guess (and this is just a guess based on what you've written) is that it was likely due to anxiety/stress, but that you just weren't aware of the effect that it was having on you. As an example, sometimes when I'm reviewing a practice test with a student, the student will tell me that they have no idea why they chose a particular answer, that they have absolutely no recollection of choosing it. I expect that this phenomenon is even greater on the actual LSAT than on practice tests.

As for advice, I'd focus on the emotional/mental side of taking the test. There are various activities (meditation, visualization, etc.) that can help get your mind in the zone, so to speak. Athletes often use these techniques before a big competition.

Here's a link to some resources on test mentality for the LSAT that you may find helpful.

https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/the-ul ... urce-list/

Other than that, try to stay healthy, get plenty of rest, and try to relax and get your mind off of the LSAT for the next few days.

Good luck!

[jackieb]

Thanks, Jeff! I appreciate your help on this (and all my other questions ) !