Did Worse on 2nd LSAT Need Advice

myria168

Hello,

I dropped by 2 points the second time I took my LSAT. Neither score are ones I am happy with, idealing wanting to jump at least 8 points. Should I risk taking a third time? What if I get even worse the third time around or they see three rounds of no improvement? Not sure what to do!

natemanwell1

It's totally impossible to understand your question without knowing the scores you got on both test. Did you go from a 178 to a 176 or a 142 to a 140? If you look at the LSAT score bands, there is usually about a 6 point spread, so it is essentially the same score (although this is more true the lower percentiles you got). Its also impossible to understand this question without the context of what you did to prepare to the first time, what you did to prepare for the second time, and how long there was between the two tests. If you didn't study much for either then that's in line with the score drop. Finally, we cannot assist you without knowing how you score on prep tests, what you average in terms of questions wrong in each section, and what your understanding is of the technique for the two questions. They only take the highest score in the ranking so it doesn't matter if you do worse. Please provide more information on this scenario so people on the forum can give you appropriate advice.

Cant Get Right

This happened to me too. I dropped one point on my second take. Not improving is one thing, but dropping a point was just mean. What it meant for me--and what it almost certainly means for you--is that my study habits didn't change between my first and second take. I studied the same things in the same way for my second take as I did for my first. Same inputs, same outcomes. So if you're going to test again, you have to ask yourself how you're going to improve your inputs. For me, that meant a few things, but a couple stand out as the most important:

1. Proper BR and Analysis. For takes one and two, I just graded my PT's and looked over the ones I missed. If it didn't immediately seem clear, I'd watch an explanation. For my third take, I BR'd intensively. Then for anything still wrong, I'd do everything I could to try to solve it without turning to any external resources. The test took a few hours; the BR and Analysis took a few days. More, I started writing out explanations for both my BR and post-BR Analysis. I found that after something felt like it clicked, it actually hadn't: I'd go to write out the explanation and have no idea what to say. That was very revealing as to why my previous study habits hadn't actually resulted in as much improvement as I'd've liked. This change led to enormous improvement. It forced me to focus on my reasoning, and not just on right/wrong answers. We shouldn't actually care so much what the right answer is. What we need to target is comprehensive, correct understanding. That will produce the right answer, but it goes much deeper and will stick meaningful lessons that will inform understanding on future questions.

2. Studying Time Management Strategy. Proper BR and analysis is important at all stages. Strategy is important, specifically, once you've improved your BR score enough to where there is a sizable gap between your timed and BR scores. For higher scores, good fundamentals simply isn't enough, and I had no understanding of that before. Through proper BR, I mastered the fundamentals. Learning to execute good Strategy allowed me to actually capitalize on that mastery.