The Countdown Begins

The LSATs are exactly three weeks from today, which means I have exactly three weeks left to improve upon, well, everything. The nice thing is that now I know what I am good at and I know what I am horrible at. The question remains though is whether or not I can get better at the questions I am terrible at, or whether I should let those go and focus on the easier ones and the ones I know I can improve upon. In the LSAT though, every correct answer counts. In fact, in the LSAT, just getting five to seven more questions right can not only raise a score, but can also raise the percentile a person falls into by ten. Ten percentile points just for answering five to seven more questions correctly. When applying to law school, that can make all the difference.

I have not taken a practice test in almost two weeks. The last time I took one my score went down eight points from the previous practice test. Needles to say, not good. I think much of it may have been my fault though. I really did not want to take the test then, made myself do it, and by the end of each section I was more than ready to be done. It showed. I also did not study or review very much before I took it, which was clearly a mistake. So, I decided to just study for awhile before taking another test and ordered three new books to study with, the PowerScore Trilogy Set. (I ordered from Amazon, without the Logic Games Workbook). I am currently working on the Logical Reasoning book. (Just as a FYI, the Logical Reasoning section is worth fifty percent of a person's LSAT score. It is worth more than any other section on the test, which is why I am focusing on it first.)

I will admit, I have my good days and my bad days. Days where I feel I will do better on the test when the time comes, and days when I wonder if I am crazy for doing this a fourth time. I also have moments where I think I should postpone it (again) until June. At the same time though, I want to be done with this, and I know that postponing will just make me postpone studying, which would defeat the purpose of moving it to June. My biggest problem is though, that I know I am improving, I know I am understanding things enough to improve (it definitely shows when I answer questions in the books), but it is just not translating to the tests. Like I said, I think part of it is my fault, but the other part? That I do not know. I think the time issue is what gets to me, along with the fact that the questions get harder as each section progresses, which takes me more time to complete. I do not have enough time to analyze it and really go into depth while studying and taking practice tests. Maybe if I had more time I would, but right now, I really think I need to focus on getting the questions right that I know I can get right, and practicing getting most of the other questions right. I am not aiming for a high score; I have to be reasonable and realistic here. All I am really aiming for at this point is a score high enough to get me in somewhere.

Anyway, my break from studying is over, so I am going to hit the books some more. In the meantime, keep your fingers crossed for me, pray, or whatever, and hopefully I will be back soon for another post (but if not, you know why).