Hey all,

I just went over the September 2017 exam and realized how many silly mistakes I made. Out of the 11 LR questions I missed, I really should not have missed 7 of them. In RC, I shouldn't have missed 3 - they were all super easy in hindsight. Over the past few months I've been thinking of what I did wrong on and leading up to test day, and I thought I'd post the biggest mistakes I made in hopes someone might learn from them (including me :) )

1. Being a night owl, but waking up early.

For the last two weeks leading up to the exam, I forced myself to wake up at around ~6am every day, eat breakfast, get ready to take a PrepTest by 8:30am. Thing is, I'm definitely a night owl, and I never really got used to waking up early. Additionally, when school started to really hit (I'm a senior in undergrad), I wasn't going to bed till 11 or 12am, yet I was still waking up at 6am because I felt I had to condition myself.

All this ended up doing was making me really tired all the time. I was averaging 4-5 cups of coffee a day, and consequently I definitely did not feel 100% on test day. I think you should condition yourself, but don't be uncompromising in it. As in, if you are lacking sleep, get sleep!

2. My no-burnout strategy backfired.

Everyone told me not to do a PT a day, so I thought - I'll just do a PT every other day leading up to the exam! Guess what. Still burns you out. I did that for the last two weeks leading up to exam week - I think I was still burnt out come test day.

3. I got to the test center too early.

I was really paranoid I would be late to the test center on test day. Consequently, I woke up at around 5am that morning - had my coffee, ate breakfast, and got to the testing center by 6:30/7am. Unfortunately, we didn't actually start the exam until ~10:15 - 10:30. So while others had only been awake for 2/3 hours, I'd already been up for 5!

4. I was a chatty-Cathy before the test.

Okay, this is a bit embarrassing to admit, but I met this girl who got to the testing center as early as I did. We talked for like the whole 3 hours straight leading up to the exam. It was amazing. It was like a movie - two starcrossed lawyers find eachother during the LSAT - like some kinda rom-com. We talked about our goals, our life ambitions, our childhoods, everything!

But all that talking actually wore me out, leaving me tired before we even started taking the exam. I think before the exam, you should try to hone your mind. Focus, get in a zen-state if you will (some 7sager talked about meditating beforehand).

5. I overdid it on the caffeine.

As soon as I woke up, I had a breakfast with a coffee. Then when I got to the testing center, I started sipping on a 5-hour energy. This left me jittery and nervous through the exam, especially at the beginning, and compounded the effect of #6...

6. I flipped shit at the experimental section.

I actually started crying. I had experimental RC, and it was all going really well! The first three passages seemed really easy, and in fact they all were about topics I'm well-versed in. But, before I even got to the last passage, the proctor called 5 minutes. I started tearing up right there and then. All the hard work and studying leading up to the exam felt like it went down the drain. It would be 7-8 questions I would miss automatically, kissing my 170 goodbye. I carried that defeated feeling through the rest of the exam, and it showed.

7. I threw the strategies out the window and tried to mind-muscle my way through.

Being distraught about the experimental section, I just lost all grasp of the strategies. I wasn't even diagramming logical chains for inference questions. Simple contrapositive answers felt like a foreign language instead of ez pz lemon squeezy. I forgot the distinction between necessary and sufficient assumptions. I wasn't identifying the conclusions, I wasn't rephrasing referential phrases. Nerves got to me and I threw all techniques out the window.

I still ended up getting a 167 on the exam, but that was 6 points lower than what I had averaged in previous PTs. I hope you all can learn from my mistakes, as I hope I will come the December test. I think bottom line is you have to find what works best for you. A lot of people were pushing me to wake up early all the time, and it didn't pay off. I let nerves get the best of me and I didn't follow J.Y.'s wisdom.

But December 2 is a new day, and I'm hoping to kill it :)