Superprep A: 169
My plan is to take preptests on Saturdays @ 8:30am. Alas, this weekend I have a weekend guest and next weekend, I’m out of town with the family. So I decided to take a PT today and skip next weekend’s PT. Or I might take it next Thursday…we’ll see, but for now, I’ve already planned to skip PT B until the following weekend.
I should qualify my score by saying that I started @ 11am since I forgot to make a copy of preptest A and had to figure out how to use the family’s printer/copier. The first time around, I burned through about 30 preptests without making copies. ::FACEPALM:: Gawd, I still remember how incredibly regretful I was when I got my 163 the first time and realized that I didn’t have that much leftover material. While studying for the second time around, I was extremely reluctant to buy the damn PTs again so I just took whatever tests I had leftover. Bad idea, clearly. Starting later in the morning might have helped, so I will definitely make sure to start my next test at 8:30am. Since I want to control every testing variable that I can, I’m going to try and give a thorough breakdown for all of my performances.
Score Breakdown
- Scaled Score: 169
- Raw Score: 90
- LR1 -4
- RC -2
- LG -1
- LR2 -4
- No experimental section & very short break between section 3 and 4
What did I eat?
bagel and coffee…yum
Where did I take the test?
at home
How did I feel?
I did my best to relax since I get a little queasy when I know I have to sit down and take a full-length test. Right BEFORE I turned the page to begin the test, I hesitated. Should I save my PTs until I’ve completely gone through the bibles and drilled the question types to death? What if I do horribly- won’t that put me in a bad mood? Part of this anxiety stems from the fact that I haven’t seen a full-length test since October 2010…so yeah, I had some mental work to do. Here’s the thing, I know exactly how much I need to accomplish each week in order to be fully prepared for the LSAT. I KNEW this test would not be indicative of my full potential since I’ve only been drilling one type of games and three types of LR questions. So, I took a big breath and began, consciously trying to repeat the strategies I’ve been doing during drilling. And you know what…I think it’s working. 
What were my timing/testing strategies?
- Much like how I drill individual question types, I decided to have the timer going so I could see how long it took me to finish each section and fill in a bubble sheet. I turned the timer away from me and if I felt a bit “slow” I would briefly glance at the timer. I was under 35 minutes for every section except LG. Below, I summarized what I do during preptests.
| LR | RC | LG |
| Circle pivotal words | Circle pivotal words | Put floaters in a cloud |
| Eliminate 4 wrong answers | Put initial next to opinions and star them | Try to make templates but don’t waste too much time |
| There is a good reason why the right answer is correct | Put initials next to important topics, esp helpful when the passage goes back and forth | Try to eliminate every wrong answer, but if time is limited, pick one and move on |
| Write down words that you’re not familiar with–look it up | Box any terms that are being defined | |
| ID the question type | If time avail, put one word summary next to each paragraph |
