Did I mention that I don’t have internet access?
My apartment hasn’t had internet since I moved in, and it won’t until the Friday after next. As a result, and much to Sam’s chagrin, I’ve been spending a lot of time away from home, at friends’ places or in cafés with free wireless. Fortunately for me, such establishments are thick on the ground around here.
This situation does make it somewhat difficult for me to be diligent about completing all the required assignments for my five online classes. They only started a week ago, and I’m already behind in a couple. Le sigh.
Normally I think I’d be able to keep up with it all, since I only have one in-person class to attend and not much teaching or tutoring to do right now. But with all the crap around moving, plus prepping for and taking yesterday’s LSAT, it’s been hectic. Generally enjoyable, as I *love* my new location, but hectic.
So the LSAT? I don’t remember telling you I was planning to take it. Oh wait, yes I did, back when I was trying to decide whether to take the February or the June test. I went with June, on account of the disclosure thing, and the test was yesterday.
The test was surprisingly well-administered. I took it at UH-Downtown with maybe 60 other people. The LSAC rolled out a whole slew of new regulations with this test administration, but I saw no major issues. There was some little stuff, sure, like people’s names not matching EXACTLY what was on their IDs, or the one guy who showed up to the wrong test center. The proctoring in my room was quite good, except during Section 4, when the proctor’s watch kept beeping. That tiny agitation, which normally wouldn’t have bothered me, got me all flustered, thanks, I suppose, to the pressure I was under*. Once the beeping started, and the proctor kept having to leave the room to reset his watch, I didn’t know whether he was still keeping track of the time accurately, and it freaked my shit out. (It turns out they had two timers going, which is great, but I didn’t know that.) I will endeavor to be precise and diligent in my own proctoring from now on, now that I know what that tension feels like from the other side. Not that I wasn’t before, but, you know, MORE precise. Unerringly precise.
I’m trying to hit the perfect 180 on this test, so one wrong answer could make or break me**. Yes, it’s a pride thing. Right now I’m not even seriously planning to apply to law school—I just like taking the test.
Did you know that about six people score 180 in each administration of the LSAT? I didn’t, either, until the morning of the test, and I’m thinking I shouldn’t have read that. I have to be in the TOP SIX? Wow, no pressure.
The number of perfect scores in each administration of the SAT is somewhere around one hundred, if I recall correctly, or at least it was when I took it, under the old format. Many more people take the SAT than the LSAT, though, so maybe those numbers are the same, proportionally.
Anyway, the test went well. I’m trying not to think about it until I see the score, but when I do think about it, I’m sticking to cautious optimism. If I missed one question, it was Section 4, Question 20. If I missed another, it was Section 5, Question 15. If I missed a third, I made a careless mistake, and I will be sad.
If I make a 178, say, will I retake it? I don’t know. It seems silly, yes, but how crummy is it to have to tell people you got two points shy of a perfect score? I’m already irked about my 770 on the GRE Verbal, as I’ve discussed in detail.
I don’t have a category for standardized tests on here, do I? Maybe I should. MCAT, here I come!***
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* The timing on the LSAT is supertight. Of the five multiple-choice sections, I finished four with less than a minute to spare. Even in the Logic Games section, which I usually nail, I was working right up to the buzzer.
** The number of questions you can miss without losing the 180 varies from administration to administration. Usually it’s one, but I’ve also seen none and two.
*** Joking. Sort of.
Tags: miscellany