June LSAT - Blanked Out

[joshringu]

To make it simple, I blanked out and cancelled my score.

My other post mentions how I burned out and had fatigue during preptests. I felt ready last week but I knew I was a bit nervous on taking this exam because it is the real thing. Luckily, I had two Logic Game sections, my strongest, but I blanked on those too!

Did anyone experience this? And how did I fix it?

Also, my fellowship that I was in is offering to pay for a full prepcourse, and I decided to go with TestMasters (the other one was Kaplan). Is this a good idea? Does anyone know if TestMasters help you with this and help me with specific issues I am having with with the LSAT?

Thanks! UGH I feel like shit.

[davepak]

Perhaps you could elaborate a bit more on what you mean by blanked out?

Were you unable to finish a section of the exam you normally would? Did you end up guessing a lot on some of the questions in a section? Were you re-reading a lot of the questions?

You may wish to also clarify what PrepTests you were doing for practice, because honestly the old PrepTests I find are much easier in comparison to the newer ones and they can overinflate your confidence (it happened to me!).

Personally, I would never cancel a score until a least a day after the exam so you can clearly go over how you did on it. The reason why is right now your brain is probably mentally drained and utterly incapable of making any rational decision after going through that kind of grueling 3-4 hr mental marathon in addition to the stress of test day.

Anyway, to fix "blanking out" I usually just take a deep breath and go onto the next question. It happened to me today on one of my LR sections. I had a really weird assumption question and I was looking at it for more than 2 minutes. My reaction at that point was screw this...guessed on it and moved on.

[joshringu]

Hey davepak,

Thanks for the reply! To clarify, what I mean by blanked out was that when I read the stimulus or passage, I could not comprehend it like I normally did. And the strategies I used for the preptests went out and I stopped thinking. I read the stimulus maybe 3-4 times before I understood it, and even then it was difficult to read the answer choices. For the LR section I ended up guessing on maybe 1/4 the section? I usually guess on 2-3 questions for the LR section.

Unfortunately, I cancelled halfway through the exam . You're right, I should've stuck it through and then cancelled just to see what it was like. Did you take the LSAT today too?

And by preptests I meant that I took preptests 7-68. Yeah the old preptests were definitely a lot easier, gave me a lot of false confidence lmao. Then I ended up taking the recent preptests the last two weeks - damn my confidence was shot down. Especially on the RC sections.

Yeah I was not thinking correctly during the exam. When I blanked I just sort of panicked, gave up, and got lazy thinking I could take the Oct. I def. should not have done that. I am rethinking what I did wrong today and I realized with the blanking out I panicked too much and forgot to calm down. Definitely gotta remember that next time.

[davepak]

Thanks for the reply! To clarify, what I mean by blanked out was that when I read the stimulus or passage, I could not comprehend it like I normally did. And the strategies I used for the preptests went out and I stopped thinking. I read the stimulus maybe 3-4 times before I understood it, and even then it was difficult to read the answer choices. For the LR section I ended up guessing on maybe 1/4 the section? I usually guess on 2-3 questions for the LR section.

If you were guessing 1/4 for both LR sections then yes I would probably cancel...but if it was only one section I would still look at my overall performance with LG and RC included to see what my score would be.

Unfortunately, I cancelled halfway through the exam . You're right, I should've stuck it through and then cancelled just to see what it was like. Did you take the LSAT today too?

Yes I wrote the exam today too. I had a LR LG LR LR RC exam. Had a VERY BAD proctor as well...didn't even let everyone finish filling in their names on the answer sheet and just immediately began the test making everyone panic. Then freaked out on the entire group during the break because we were moving to the door before all the tests were collected. I mean honestly at that point already half of the group had left the classroom, and she never even told us that we couldn't leave yet. Still made funny conversation during the break though.

I am actually re-writing from my poor performance in December 2011, where I scored a 155 under the worst possible test conditions: 2 hours of sleep due to noisy roommates, VERY bad LSAT guides (Kaplan and Princeton Review), and stupidly decided to write Preptests every day for the two weeks leading up to the LSAT. Needless to say I changed my study habits a lot this time around.

And by preptests I meant that I took preptests 7-68. Yeah the old preptests were definitely a lot easier, gave me a lot of false confidence lmao. Then I ended up taking the recent preptests the last two weeks - damn my confidence was shot down. Especially on the RC sections.

My scores dropped below my average with the two most recent PrepTests as well...what I quickly realized is that the LSAC are noticing more and more of these guide books that we all use and are beginning to tailor questions that tend to make a lot of the shortcut methods less useful.

Yeah I was not thinking correctly during the exam. When I blanked I just sort of panicked, gave up, and got lazy thinking I could take the Oct. I def. should not have done that. I am rethinking what I did wrong today and I realized with the blanking out I panicked too much and forgot to calm down. Definitely gotta remember that next time.

I was scared too writing today...and this is my 2nd time writing...I don't think test anxiety is something anyone can completely overcome. The best advice I can give is to simply accept fear as it is...fear is good...keeps you on your toes and makes you less privy to fall to a trap answer...you just can't let it cripple you to the point where you cannot function.