1. Don’t underestimate the importance of a positive attitude. Nothing good can come from negativity, but a lot of good can come from positivity. When I prepared for the October LSAT, before each study session, I would take a few moments to visualize myself succeeding before I opened my study materials or practice test. And on Test Day, while waiting for the test to begin, I again visualized myself rocking the test. I visualized myself opening to each section and confidently attacking the questions, getting through the sections in the time limit, and getting all the answers correct. I also practiced with affirmations, literally telling myself that I was prepared and would do extremely well. The visualization and affirmation exercises helped reduce my anxiety, boost my confidence, and increase my score. Such exercises can do the same for you, as long as they are coupled with studying for the LSAT.

2. Be prepared for distractions. My testing room had 35 test takers and four proctors in it. And for some reason, the proctors took turns exiting the room every few minutes all throughout the test. This was in addition to them pacing up and down the aisles while staring at test takers. (I know, I know. They were doing what they were supposed to be doing—monitoring the test. But it was really distracting.) And one of the women sitting next to me had a loud cough and a nervous habit of tapping her pencil on the table over and over and over and over and well, you get the picture. Know that this is going to happen, and don’t let it get to you. Also, know that you’re going to feel stress on this incredibly important day, and use whatever healthy stress relief techniques you can to reduce it and not let any distractions, even ones that come from you, interfere with your Test Day success.

3. Keep going. Don’t let yourself get stuck on a game or a question or a passage. The LSAT is a test of skills, and one skill tested is whether you know how to use your time efficiently. The test-makers reward you for skipping the few killer questions so that you can get the easier questions, which comprise the majority of the test, correct. By studying for the LSAT, you’ve been able to determine your strengths and weaknesses, particularly if you’ve had the Kaplan advantage of Smart Reports to help you. Use this knowledge to help you determine where to best use your time. Test Day is not the moment to try to conquer your weakness in Parallel Reasoning questions, for example. Test Day is the time to skip such questions when they are taking up your time and go in search of questions that you know you can answer quickly and correctly.

4. Your watch is important. You can’t count on having a clock in the room, and you need a timepiece in order to pace yourself. So, definitely have a watch. And ladies, this is especially important for you, make sure that it’s a watch that actually functions as a timepiece rather than as a decoration. Make sure that it has a seconds hand, all twelve numbers, and that you can see both the hands and the numbers. I found myself wearing “men’s” watches both in practice and on Test Day because they tend to be bigger and thus it’s easier to see the time on them. Also, be creative in your use of your watch. One tip that has helped several of my students and which was also helpful for me when I took the test was to set the watch to the hour at the beginning of each section, so that you can clearly tell when 35 minutes is up. Many also find it helpful to use the same timepiece every time they study and on Test Day; familiarity helps reduce anxiety.

5. Know that the test feels difficult for everyone. This is really important information. No one I know has left the testing site feeling great and confident, and having to wait three weeks to get a score back is a special form of torture. I first took the LSAT in October 2003 during my senior year of college. When I left the testing site, I was convinced that I hadn’t done well because the test felt really difficult. And in the three weeks it took me to get my score back, I changed my career plans and decided to pursue a Ph.D. instead of a J.D. Then I got my LSAT score back and saw that I had scored above the 90% percentile, but by then I had already put myself on a different life path. Don’t do what I did and make major life decisions (such as changing your career path or canceling your score) based on the stress you feel during the test or after the test while waiting for your score. I learned my lesson in 2003, so when I took the test again two months ago, though I didn’t feel great when I left the testing site, I didn’t cancel my score even though I thought about it. And when scores came back at the end of October, I was very happy that I hadn’t. All the practice and positivity had paid off.

Kaplan is proud to announce a new partnership with JD Oasis! Bookmark them at www.jdoasis.com.

Everyone that wants to study law is going to take the LSAT. It’s a given fact. A few [months] back, I discussed the exam itself and I wanted to share my LSAT experience. The Test Day Cometh, so to speak.

I took the exam a few months ago, in October of 2010, and I knew I only had one shot, so I had to make it count. I remember the day vividly, as it was a gorgeous fall day that put me on a collision course with Law School. All my preparation couldn’t prepare me for October 9th, the day that felt like a slow day in hell, but it was test day none the less. I woke up at 6:30 and planned to be at Seton Hall to sit for the LSAT by 8:30 AM. A quick shower followed by coffee and a Greek Yogurt for breakfast. Looked at the clock on the oven, as I went to grab a piece of fruit from the fridge, 7:15 AM; I had a little more than an hour to make it to South Orange. Checked my gallon sized plastic bag. A Cliff Bar, a pack of gum, pencil bag and test slip sat in it, while I kept a 1.5 Liter bottle of Poland Spring right next to it. With a half hour to kill before I needed to leave, I threw on Californication to relax a little bit. Sat through the enjoyment known as La Petit Mort, one of my favorite season finales ever, as I found myself mellowed out before the impending exam. Looked at the clock, double checked everything I had and made sure I had a dive watch with me.

7:50 AM. Hopped in the car; with no traffic on the road, the 6.5 mile drive went extremely quick. Back roads meant for driving helped keep me at ease, before I pulled up to the gates of the Roman Catholic University. I flashed my test pass, got a visitors permit and parked my car. 5 Minute walk to the test building and 20 minutes to kill saw time slow down to a crawl. I looked around, watching people cramming and others trying to relax. Time marched forward at an intolerably slow pace.

8:30 AM. Test call… the proctors gathered us into a class room, called our names to check us in and separate us out. Instructions are read and it feels like I’ve heard this speech before. The proctor looks like she doesn’t want to be there. At this point my mind starts racing… breath in, breath out and remind myself to get focused. Test books are handed out. 3 Pencils on my desk, a pencil sharpener in the top right corner of my desk and a high quality eraser on hand. Start filling in the bubbles… pencils down and then the clock strikes Doom.

9:30 AM Sharp. You may begin your first section the proctor says. Set my dive watch to mark for time. Flipped into the first page and it was Logical Reasoning. Rules started to flow into my head about question types, phrasings and how to resolve the logic. Started to get into the groove, was rolling through and time was called. I looked down at my watch and saw it was short. Nothing I could do, as I just barely finished with time. Put down your pencils, the proctor called. She read the next set of instructions, said pencils up and you may begin. Reset the watch, turned the page and saw it was Logic Games. Ace in the hole section for me, but it meant I needed to ace the other sections. 25 minutes and done. I’m feeling good about this. Proctor calls time, again cutting the entire group short. Theme of the day was getting screwed over. Pencils down, instructions, you may begin. Rinse repeat and reset the watch.

Reading Comprehension. Pure hell if I could ever find one. Of all the reading comprehension practice I took, this was, by far, the hardest one I could have ever been assigned. The passages were lengthy, made no sense and even the economics one was poorly worded. Time called early. Three and a half passages down. 4 questions left unanswered. I started to lose my cool. The proctor calls time, pencils down and collects the tests. A 15 Minute break from the exam gives me a few minutes to regroup. Awesome! Sit back in my chair, swig some water, enjoy a breather and down my Cliff bar. A much needed respite from the exam. It feels good to get a little energy back, but I’m starting to feel fatigued. Break’s over. Exams are handed back out again for more of the same.

Three sections to go. Rinse repeat for Logical Reasoning and Logic Games. Time cut short but still made due. After 5 sections, I’m starting to feel tired. Fatigue is really setting in and reminds me High School wrestling, after the first 6 minutes are over, the score is tied and its time for the minute long first OT. Look at the clock and dread the fact that it’s already 1:20 and I still have the writing section to go. Easy essay topic, but it takes the entire time. I’m struggling, as I’m just exhausted by the sheer fatigue of the marathon test that is the LSAT. My hand is shaking as I drop the pencil, exhausted as the proctor calls time. She collects the exams and I’m back at my car by 2:15.

Tired, beaten and still standing, I figured the only way to celebrate was by driving right down the road to The Gaslight, a local brewpub for a post-exam beer. As I sat there for, what felt like an eternity and finished my only beer, I saw it was 3 PM. I paid my tab, went home and passed out, realizing that the hardest part of Law School process was over and now had a month to plan for phase 2, applications and getting my ass into school.

Tomorrow’s the big day – test day. Good luck to all of you. Here are five final reminders before you walk into the testing room.

1. Don’t underestimate the importance of a positive attitude. Nothing good can come from negativity, but a lot of good can come from positivity. When I prepared for the October LSAT, before each study session, I would take a few moments to visualize myself succeeding before I opened my study materials or practice test. And on Test Day, while waiting for the test to begin, I again visualized myself rocking the test. I visualized myself opening to each section and confidently attacking the questions, getting through the sections in the time limit, and getting all the answers correct. I also practiced with affirmations, literally telling myself that I was prepared and would do extremely well. The visualization and affirmation exercises helped reduce my anxiety, boost my confidence, and increase my score. Such exercises can do the same for you, as long as they are coupled with studying for the LSAT.

2. Be prepared for distractions. My testing room had 35 test takers and four proctors in it. And for some reason, the proctors took turns exiting the room every few minutes all throughout the test. This was in addition to them pacing up and down the aisles while staring at test takers. (I know, I know. They were doing what they were supposed to be doing—monitoring the test. But it was really distracting.) And one of the women sitting next to me had a loud cough and a nervous habit of tapping her pencil on the table over and over and over and over and well, you get the picture. Know that this is going to happen, and don’t let it get to you. Also, know that you’re going to feel stress on this incredibly important day, and use whatever healthy stress relief techniques you can to reduce it and not let any distractions, even ones that come from you, interfere with your Test Day success.

3. Keep going. Don’t let yourself get stuck on a game or a question or a passage. The LSAT is a test of skills, and one skill tested is whether you know how to use your time efficiently. The test-makers reward you for skipping the few killer questions so that you can get the easier questions, which comprise the majority of the test, correct. By studying for the LSAT, you’ve been able to determine your strengths and weaknesses, particularly if you’ve had the Kaplan advantage of Smart Reports to help you. Use this knowledge to help you determine where to best use your time. Test Day is not the moment to try to conquer your weakness in Parallel Reasoning questions, for example. Test Day is the time to skip such questions when they are taking up your time and go in search of questions that you know you can answer quickly and correctly.

4. Your watch is important. You can’t count on having a clock in the room, and you need a timepiece in order to pace yourself. So, definitely have a watch. And ladies, this is especially important for you, make sure that it’s a watch that actually functions as a timepiece rather than as a decoration. Make sure that it has a seconds hand, all twelve numbers, and that you can see both the hands and the numbers. I found myself wearing “men’s” watches both in practice and on Test Day because they tend to be bigger and thus it’s easier to see the time on them. Also, be creative in your use of your watch. One tip that has helped several of my students and which was also helpful for me when I took the test was to set the watch to the hour at the beginning of each section, so that you can clearly tell when 35 minutes is up. Many also find it helpful to use the same timepiece every time they study and on Test Day; familiarity helps reduce anxiety.

5. Know that the test feels difficult for everyone. This is really important information. No one I know has left the testing site feeling great and confident, and having to wait three weeks to get a score back is a special form of torture. I first took the LSAT in October 2003 during my senior year of college. When I left the testing site, I was convinced that I hadn’t done well because the test felt really difficult. And in the three weeks it took me to get my score back, I changed my career plans and decided to pursue a Ph.D. instead of a J.D. Then I got my LSAT score back and saw that I had scored above the 90% percentile, but by then I had already put myself on a different life path. Don’t do what I did and make major life decisions (such as changing your career path or canceling your score) based on the stress you feel during the test or after the test while waiting for your score. I learned my lesson in 2003, so when I took the test again two months ago, though I didn’t feel great when I left the testing site, I didn’t cancel my score even though I thought about it. And when scores came back at the end of October, I was very happy that I hadn’t. All the practice and positivity had paid off.

Logic Games are a formidable foe for sure; they take time and practice to master. But, you may be able to seize more points right away if you’re willing to follow some important rules. (There’s some formal logic for ya.) Here are some guidelines I share with my LSAT students that help in getting through the logic games section quickly.

1. Be willing to work on the games out of order. That is, don’t necessarily take the games in order. The makers of the LSAT are testing more than your ability to understand and apply rules and make logical deductions in the logic games section. They’re also testing whether you can make good decisions about how to best allocate your time. So, they may make the first game the hardest game in the section and/or make the easiest game the last game in the section. You want to prioritize the easiest games first, and Kaplan students are taught how to distinguish easier from harder games. The easy game usually takes less time than more difficult games, so doing the easy game first means that you’ll build up your score quickly and that you’ll be able to use the time saved on this game for the harder games at the end.

2. Be willing to work on the questions out of order. Again, don’t necessarily take the questions in order. The first question of each game is usually the easiest, and you want to do it first. This question typically asks you which of the answer choices doesn’t violate any of the game’s rules. As long as you understand the rules (even if you didn’t make any deductions), you can get this question right. Maybe the next question in the set, though, is a lot more difficult. It may be beneficial to skip it and keep going. Often easier questions will follow. But if you spend all your time on that one difficult/time-consuming question, then you’ll miss the opportunity to get to the easier questions.

3. Use the questions to help you figure out if you misunderstood rules or missed key deductions. If the first question that asks you to find out which answer doesn’t violate any of the rules proves difficult to answer, this may mean that you misunderstood a rule and is a sign to go read them again. If there are a lot of questions that ask about things that must be true, and it’s taking you a long time to figure out the right answer, this is a sign that you missed a key deduction. In this case, if time permits, go back and re-read and re-think the rules, or if you’re running out of time allotted for this game, move on in search of easier games. In our Kaplan courses (including our new Logic Games on Demand), students learn both how to interpret the rules and how to identify deductions in this section of the LSAT.

4. Be willing to move on. You may be thinking, "I’ve invested so much time already, I just need to finish this game." Understandable thought given that we’ve all been told to never give up. But there are good reasons for moving on in the logic games section. First, you only have 35 minutes, and you need to get as many questions right in those 35 minutes as possible. No one is going to know or care if you got all the easy or hard questions right on the LSAT. Law schools only care about how many you got right period. So be willing to skip difficult/time-consuming questions to have the opportunity to get more questions right. And second, if you do skip questions and have time to come back to them before the section ends, you may be surprised to find out that with fresh eyes, the question is easier to do the second time around. And if the question isn’t easier, then at least you didn’t waste time on it.

Always remember to mark answers on your grid when you skip questions. You want to make sure that you have an answer marked for every question because there is no penalty for guessing.

Join us for a free live, online event — "Logic Games Unlocked" and preview our new Logic Games On Demand course:

• Thursday, September 25th — 7PM ET/4PM PT
• Monday September 27th — 9PM ET/6PM PT

Ideally, every person who takes the LSAT goes into the testing center, takes the test, and leaves feeling confident that great results will follow. However, it’s inevitable that some test takers will succumb to the pressure of Test Day and walk away feeling anxious and uncertain.

The LSAC offers test takers the opportunity to cancel their scores. Before making that decision, one should know a few facts about canceled scores:

1.) If you choose to cancel a score, nobody will ever know your actual results on that test – not law schools, not the LSAC, not even you. It will be as if you never took it.

2.) You’re only allowed to take the LSAT three times in any two-year period. Even though you won’t get a score if you cancel, it still counts as an exam taken. So, you will only be allowed to take the exam twice over the next two years (unless you contact a law school that is willing to send a written approval to the LSAC on your behalf).

3.) While admissions officers won’t see your score, they will still see a note in your file indicating that you took the exam and canceled the score. In some cases, schools will request that you provide an addendum to your application explaining the canceled score.

Knowing all of that, how do you decide whether or not to cancel? Cancellation should typically be an obvious decision. If something drastic happens on test day (e.g., severe illness), cancellation is a clear option. When it’s not as obvious, the decision can get a little harder. However, a good general rule is that the more uncertain you are about canceling your score, the less likely it is that you should choose that option.

The anxiety of Test Day tends to skew people’s assessment of their performance. Often times, people will feel as if they performed inadequately when, in reality, they performed just as well – if not better – than they originally expected. It’s true that the stress of Test Day leads many test takers to receive slightly lower scores than they achieved on their final practice exams. However, that’s hardly a universal occurrence and one that is very hard to predict with certainty.

What’s more important to consider, should you decide to retake the exam, is how a relatively lower score differs from a canceled score in the eyes of admissions officers. Also, do the admissions officers consider your highest score or do they average your scores? The answers to these questions vary from school to school. Your best course of action is to contact the admissions officers of the schools to which you’re applying and ask these questions. That information will be most helpful in making your final decision.

After all, let’s say a school considers the higher of two scores (which is reportedly the case with most, but not all, law schools). In that case, if there’s even a chance you’ll get the score you wanted, then it’s not worth canceling. If you get the score you wanted, you’ve taken the test once and you’re done. If you don’t get the score you wanted, you can take the next few months to study again and go into the next test confident that you’re going to get an even higher score, which is what the school will be considering.

One last thing to consider: if you choose not to cancel your score and you took the test under standard conditions, your test results will come with a copy of the exam along with your response sheet and a list of the credited responses. By not canceling your score, you’ll be able to review the test and see what mistakes you made. This way, if you do decide to take the exam a second time, you’ll be able to analyze what you could do better and how you can achieve the highest score possible the next time around.