answer sheet disaster

[tayjones]

I made a mistake transferring my answers to my answer sheet, causing me to miss two fairly easy questions. What's even more irritating: they were the last two questions of the test! The wave of panic and frustration I felt when I realized that is the stuff nightmares are made of. I just took the test on Saturday, so there's still time to cancel. So the question is, do I cancel or not?

Some things to consider: this is my second LSAT. I took it again not because I was really unhappy with my original score, but because I had the time and felt certain that I could improve my score. I felt like I did very well except for the answer sheet blunder, so my score could still be higher than my previous score. Also, there aren't any preptests left that I haven't taken at least once (usually two or three times), so it will be difficult to stay sharp for the December exam if I decide to retake the test.

So there are many good reasons not to cancel. There are also good reasons to cancel. No matter what score I get, I can be certain it is at least two, maybe three points lower than it would have been without the blunder. Without the blunder I would expect about 174-177, so this is a range where every point really matters. There's also some chance that my performance was a little worse than I expected, and I could end up with a lower score than my first test.

So what would you do in my situation? Cancel or not? I'd love to hear any thoughts you guys might have. Please double check your answer sheets at the end of each section and make sure you have the right number of answers filled in. A blunder like this is ridiculous and avoidable.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Tough position. In 2002 when i took the test for the first time, I too made a similar mistake. i had a section of about 10 questions that were all off by one number. I had to erase the whole chunk of answer choices and refill them in correctly. I discovered the error after the proctor had called 5 minutes, and hurried to fix them before time was called.

I managed to fix all of mine though. I feel for your situation. I give the following advice with much trepidation, because I'm totally relying on your impressions of how the experience went. I wasn't there, so it's hard for me to say.

That said, if I were in your position I would make the decision based on your first score. 174-177 is really high and even if you miss a few questions from there, I cannot image you being unhappy with a 171-174. That's a score that will open up doors for you.

If your first score was in the 160's or lower and you feel that other than the misbubble error you were on your game, then keep your score.

if your first score was in the 170's or you feel like you made some serious errors in other parts of the test, then I would cancel. Feel free to pm me if you want to talk about this some more.

[cyruswhittaker]

I understand your frusteration here. I ended up having 24 bubbles for only 23 questions on section two! Worse part is that I realized this when they were collecting answer sheets after section 5! This might have actually been a good thing because if I noticed it in say section 4, I probably would have been nervous the whole time.

Luckily, section two turned out to be the experimental games section, but had this been a scored section, I would have been in trouble.