Taking your second practice exam while studying for the LSAT can be a daunting experience. Your first score can be laughed off as the result of not knowing a thing about the test, a sleepless night, a particularly bad episode of LOST (e.g. all of the last season’s episodes), or any other number of reasons. But by the second LSAT, you presumably know what you’re doing and the score really counts, right?

As Lear once said to Goneril (the best STDesque literary name of all time): That way lies madness. If you’re taking your second practice LSAT with over a month to go until the test, then you definitely should NOT be fixated on the score. There are important things to learn from a second practice exam, but what it means for your final LSAT score is not one of them. This is because you’re taking a test without knowing all of the methods for all of the questions, so it’s not a good representation of your final score. In fact, we at Blueprint LSAT Prep find it’s normal for student scores to go down for practice exam 2, then rebound after they’ve learned how to approach every type of question.

This post is to let you know what you really can learn from a second practice exam (if you want to know how to go about taking practice tests, check out the articles we’ve written on this site. Disclaimer: this is for people who are taking their second practice test with about 6 weeks left until the actual LSAT, not for people who have already taken multiple practice exams (if you want to check out a free practice exam, take a look at this test. Second disclaimer: don’t be a part of the second group—it’s not the best way to study. So without further ado…

What you can learn:

1. How well you know your methods
When perusing the second practice exam, take note of the questions that called upon skills you’ve already learned. If you got them right, you’ve done a good job of internalizing the methods you’ve learned thus far. If you got them wrong, you need to go back and figure out what piece you’re missing. Fortunately, you still have plenty of time between now and the LSAT to review the methods you don’t understand and sharpen your skills.

2. Predicting your score
Don’t forget that you should also be using your practice exams as practice for predicting your score. Before you score any exam, you should take the time to think through the sections and how many you missed, then try to predict your ultimate score as accurately as possible. Doing this for your practice LSATs will allow you to hone this skill so that after the real test day you can decide whether or not to cancel your score.

3. How to build stamina
You can’t train for a marathon by only running 3 miles (well, you can but the race results probably won’t be what you hoped). Taking periodic exams are a good way to practice the intense 3+ hours of concentration you’ll need for test day.

So as all you June LSATers move into the world of practice exams, remember to practice predicting your score, build stamina for the real thing, and hold yourself accountable for questions whose methods you know, NOT the final score.

Article by Jodi Triplett of Blueprint LSAT Preparation