Solid Advice from Someone Who Has Been There
Like any good marketer, I try to keep my ear to the ground to make sure I’m aware of the relevant pre-law/LSAT prep chatter that is happening out there on
Advice
the interwebs. One bastion of such pre-law babble is the inimitable (if not insane) Top Law School Forums.
A recent thread started by a forum user called “piney” provided some insight that I could not have written better myself, in a thread called “My advice to future test takers”. I was so impressed with the advice that I reached out to the author in order to get his buy-in on me sharing his advice on our blog. Turns out his name is Michael C. and he was fine with us sharing his astute insights with you all. Thanks, Michael!
We know Michael is a smart, credible, intelligent guy because he studied using Manhattan LSAT books (hehe). Here are his insights, with a bit of commentary from me in italics (you can read his thread in full here):
1) Get used to an analog watch. With the stop watch, I knew exactly how much time I had spent on each question and how much time I had to go. That’s not as easy to calculate with an analog watch, and the proctor won’t write a stop and finish time fo(r) you on the board. You get a 5 minute warning, which is really only enough time to panic if you have an entire logic game left because you couldn’t keep track of time.
Most students will score 2-5 points lower than their PT average on test day. There are loads of theories as to why this is — nerves, crappy proctors, etc. — so why not prepare in a way that will make you as comfortable as possible on test day? To me, this includes getting comfortable with your timing mechanism. So important is the whole watch thing that there is an entire company, LSAT TIMER, that sells watches calibrated for 35-minute intervals specifically for taking the LSAT!
2) When I practiced, I made the mistake of checking my answers after each section right away. This usually put me at ease, because of the five or six questions I was unsure of, I usually got most of them right and moved on to the next section with confidence. You won’t be able to do that on the test. The doubt and uncertainty you have about your performance accumulates with each section, and you lose confidence very quickly. By the third section, I started to worry I might not even be able to apply this cycle (I’m 27 right now, so that’s a big deal for me). I have no idea whether I scored a 175 or a 165, and that anxiety will stay with me until January.
Again, it’s important to follow game-day protocols while practicing. Some level of test-day anxiety is unavoidable, but you can eliminate aspects of it by being diligent in your practice habits. Perfect segue to advice nugget #3…
3) Take preptests in uncomfortable and unfamiliar environments, not your dorm room or library. If you can, take your test in a classroom with no windows in a building you’ve never been in before. That’s what test centers are like.
Manhattan LSAT offers free proctored exams at our locations across the country. If we have one in your city, consider signing up. It’s free!
4) Don’t expect your proctor to put you at ease. The strictness of the procedures makes you anxious from the start. You realize LSAC trusts no one and automatically assumes you’re there to cheat the system. Expect to have an excentric (sic) and snippy PhD watching your every move for 3 hours, and a large group of Saturday morning volunteers who don’t know the procedures and can offer no help.
This is not a one-off experience; I constantly hear tales of the proctor from hell. Expect the unexpected on the proctor front.
5) Don’t wait until December to take the test like I did. If this had been June, I could have told myself during the test that I had two more chances to get a higher score. But when I started to worry I was doing badly and knew there was no chance of redemption, I became depressed very quickly, and this probably hurt my performance.
This is a nice piece of long term advice for those of you reading this blog as part of your pre-planning efforts. Knowing you have an administration or two “in the bank” in case you don’t do well can sometimes go a long way in calming your LSAT nerves.