Many students have reported getting the following email from LSAC:

February 12, 2010

Dear Candidates,

As you know, your test center was closed for the Saturday, February 6, 2010 LSAT administration due to inclement weather.

A make-up test is in the process of being scheduled for the following two Saturdays:

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Saturday, February 27, 2010

An e-mail containing your scheduled date, time and reporting address will be sent to you no later than the Wednesday before your scheduled make up date.

Thank you for your understanding and patience.

Regards,

Test Administration
LSAC

LSAT Practice Exams 

To help you prepare, we'll host three proctored exams in our DC office between now and Saturday, January 27, 2010:

• Wednesday, February 17, 2010 -- 6:30 pm to 10:00 pm
• Saturday, February 20, 2010 -- 10:00 am to 1:30 pm
• Wednesday, February 24, 2010 -- 6:30 pm to 10:00 pm

Each exam is $30 and includes an official LSAT plus one experimental section. You can pick any exam we have in stock, including the recently released PrepTest 59 (which is the December 2009 LSAT).

Sign up here:

Live Proctored Exams

Location:

Strategy LSAT Preparation
1875 I Street, NW, 5th Floor
Washington, DC 20006
(202) 680-4561

Metro: Farragut West, Farragut North


Your Make-Up Date 

When you learn your make-up date, feel free to post it here along with your test center:

Make-up Date

Was your LSAT canceled because of the recent snowstorm?

Although LSAC has not released an official make-up date yet, its representatives have said that the make-up exam could be as early as this Saturday (February 13, 2010) and that it's unlikely to be any later than next Saturday (February 2010).

Either way, LSAC will email you this week with a make-up test date.

Mini-Course ($115)

To help you prepare for the make-up exam, we're offering a Mini LSAT Course that starts tomorrow (Tuesday) at 6:30 pm. We've post the schedule and syllabus below.

You can sign up here:

Mini-Course

Thanks and good luck!

The Personal Statement Workshop is next Monday:

February 15, 2010
7:00 to 8:30 pm

In this interactive workshop, you'll learn the five keys of persuasive personal statements and how to incorporate them into your own statement. Sign up here:

Statement Workshop

LSAC has already closed 10 test centers in the DC metro area. For an updated list, check:

Closed LSAT Centers

From LSAC:

"Please continue to check this website alert for any additional test center closings due to inclement weather. LSAC will contact you via email as soon as possible (most likely the week after the test date) regarding other options, including a make-up test."

Closed?

If you’re test center is closed, look at this as an opportunity to further prepare by taking more practice exams and reviewing those questions that give you the most angst. When LSAC finally does announce your new test date, you’ll be even more ready than you are now.

[Strategy is planning to offer a mini-course between now and the new test date(s).]

Not Closed or Unsure?

If you’re test center is not closed, plan on taking the test on Saturday. Give yourself plenty of extra time to get to your testing site and figure out the best way to get there despite the weather (Metrorail might be safer than driving, for example). On Friday night and Saturday morning, double check your LSAC account and reprint your ticket to make sure nothing has changed. Check the list of closings above as well. When in doubt, go to your testing center unless it is unsafe to do so.

On the morning of the test you’re going to be tempted to think about many different things. It’s really important, though, to go into the test with a positive and excited attitude. Tackling the test with the right mindset is important; you want to be motivated and ready to do your best. Try not to let test-day jitters get the best of you.

Your Own Breakfast of Champions

One way to avoid the jitters: While you’re eating breakfast on test day, run through the following little mind exercise. It’s simple. Just write as many reasons as you can that explain why you’re going to do awesome on the LSAT. It doesn’t matter what the reasons are. You could write how well you did on that fifth grade spelling bee. Anything! The key here is to just keep writing. In this way, you force yourself to think nothing but positive thoughts for a good portion of your morning. You’re inevitably going to be thinking of something, so it might as well be how awesome you are!

Your Own Rocky

Another thing you can do is to just create a mix of your favorite songs that pump you up. Spend a couple minutes starring in your own personal Rocky sequel with Eye of the Tiger playing in the background, and then let that excitement and intensity carry you into the test.

Beating the Bell Curve

No matter how much the test makers like to praise their test’s objectivity and accuracy, they are secretly banking on your being nervous. To maintain the LSAT’s predictably smooth bell curve, they need many students to rush and miss the details. Otherwise, too many folks would do well, and they’d have to develop a better test. But if you take the time to really get excited about doing well and overcome your jitters, you’re going to beat them at their own game.

---------------
Related

How many questions can I miss on the LSAT?

I just got a good question about the predicted snow on Saturday.

It is possible that LSAC would cancel the test if it snowed too much, but that would be on a site-by-site basis. If that happens, they would contact you after the fact and probably reschedule you for sometime in the next two weeks; that's what they've done in the past.

That said, I would recommend not planning on this. When I took my test, I had to drive through 7 inches of snow that had fallen the night before. And not only was the test still taking place, I was the last one to arrive. They're not going to cancel the test unless it's impossible for them to hold it.

If you think your test might be canceled, I would check your lsac.org account to see if they've posted any updates either before you go to bed on Friday or when you wake up on Saturday. They might call or email you, but I wouldn't count on it.

In the meantime, make sure to give yourself double or even triple the time it would normally take you to get to your testing site.

It's easy to get hung up on one or two problems while you're taking an LSAT only to feel that you've ruined your score. But what does a missed question actually do to your score anyway?

Most people would agree that a 170 is a really high score. Does that mean that you have to be perfect to score a 170? Not at all. In fact, on most tests you can miss 10 questions and still score a 170. That's two whole games!

Now let's see what you need to get a 160. As it turns out, you can miss about 25 questions on average and still get a 160. That's an entire section! You can miss one in every four questions and still get a 160.

The key here is figuring out how many questions you need to answer correctly to get what you want. If your goal is a 160, then trying to push yourself to get a 180 is likely to cause more harm than good.

This isn't to say that you have to sell yourself short. Pick a score that you think you can get, and if you reach it, then it's time to push yourself further. But don't let an unrealistic goal stress you out and get in the way of a great goal. Besides, once you reach your goal, you can always reassess and set a higher goal. Just don't worry about that until you get there.

In the meantime, pull out a score conversion chart from a modern test (ideally PrepTests 54+). Find the score that you want. What's the raw score you need to get that LSAT score? Subtract that from 100. That number is the number of questions you can miss and still get your goal. Divide that number by 4 to see how many questions you can miss in each section. By seeing how many questions you can miss, many students start to feel more relaxed, which helps them do better on the other questions. Find a score that seems doable but that pushes you a little. Once you get that score, reassess and try again.

Keep it up, and you'll do awesome!

....

Related:

LSAT Anxiety Release Program

	LSAT	PrepTest	Published in
1991	June	1
	October	2	TriplePrep 1
	December	3	TriplePrep 2
1992	February	4	TriplePrep 1
	June	5	TriplePrep 1
	October	6	TriplePrep 2
	December	18	10 Actual
1993	February	7	10 Actual
	June	8	TriplePrep 3
	October	9	10 Actual
	December	Released as 16
1994	February	10	10 Actual
	June	11	10 Actual
	October	12	10 Actual
	December	13	10 Actual
1995	February	14	10 Actual
	June	15	10 Actual
	September	16	10 Actual
	December	17
1996	February	A	SuperPrep
	June	19	10 More
	October	20	10 More
	December	21	10 More
1997	February	No number
	June	22	10 More
	October	23	10 More
	December	24	10 More
1998	February	Not released
	June	25	10 More
	September	26	10 More
	December	27	10 More
1999	February	B	SuperPrep
	June	28	10 More
	October	29	The Next 10
	December	30	The Next 10
2000	February	C	SuperPrep
	June	31	The Next 10
	October	32	The Next 10
	December	33	The Next 10
2001	February	Not released
	June	34	The Next 10
	October	35	The Next 10
	December	36	The Next 10
2002	February	Not released
	June	37	The Next 10
	October	38	The Next 10
	December	39	PrepTest 39
2003	February	Not released
	June	40	PrepTest 40
	October	41	PrepTest 41
	December	42	PrepTest 42
2004	February	Not released
	June	43	PrepTest 43
	October	44	PrepTest 44
	December	45	PrepTest 45
2005	February	Not released
	June	46	PrepTest 46
	October	47	PrepTest 47
	December	48	PrepTest 48
2006	February	Not released
	June	49	PrepTest 49
	September	50	PrepTest 50
	December	51	PrepTest 51
2007	February	Not released
	June	No number	Official Sample
	September	52	PrepTest 52
	December	53	PrepTest 53
2008	February	Not released
	June	54	PrepTest 54
	October	55	PrepTest 55
	December	56	PrepTest 56
2009	February	Not released
	June	57	PrepTest 57
	September	58	PrepTest 58
	December	59	PrepTest 59
2010	February	Not released
	June	60	PrepTest 60
	October	61	PrepTest 61
	December	62	PrepTest 62

Key

• 10 Actual — 10 Actual, Official LSAT PrepTests
• 10 More — 10 More Actual, Official LSAT PrepTests
• The Next 10 — The Next 10 Actual, Official LSAT PrepTests
• SuperPrep — The Official LSAT SuperPrep
• TriplePrep — LSAT TriplePrep, Volumes 1-3
• PrepTest — Individual PrepTests

If you think you can increase your score by 3 or more points, you should seriously consider retaking the LSAT. Even though schools no longer “need” to average your scores, they can if they want. Yale, Chicago, Cornell, and some other schools have said they won’t, for example, while NYU, Duke, Georgetown, and some others have said they will.

For most schools, however, whether they average depends largely on how well you do when you retake it. Consider these two students:

Vijay gets a 158 and then a 164.
Otto gets a 160 and then a 162.

The average for both Vijay and Otto is 161, but which average is better?

Most schools would likely peg Otto at a 161 and peg Vijay at a 164. Given the difference between Vijay’s first score and his second, his first score was probably a fluke or premature. Yet Otto’s 162 almost reaffirms his 160. The test makers themselves concede that the test has a margin of error of 3 points. So maybe Otto preformed exactly the same on each test but got a different result simply because the test is imperfect.

Vijay, on the other hand, might have gotten lucky, but probably not that lucky. His second score means something and should be given more weight than his first.

This example brings us back to our first sentence: If you’re likely to up by 3 or more points, you should seriously consider retaking. Granted, the more you go up, the better. By going up 6 points, for instance, Vijay made it easy for schools to disregard his first score. But even a 3-point leap can make a difference.

Just make sure you’re ready to make the leap!