“Am I ready?” is the wrong question — it invites feelings to answer. The right question is “what has my scoring trend done across the last three full-length practice tests?” That one has an answer, and it's sitting in your history tab.
The trend that says book it
Readiness looks boring on a graph. You're looking for three things at once, across your three most recent full-lengths:
- All three at or above your target band — on fresh questions, not banks you've seen before. Repeats inflate scores by 5–15 points and tell you nothing.
- A spread of five points or less. 68, 71, 70 is a signal; 58, 81, 65 is a coin flip that happened to land well once.
- Finishing with time to spare on every section. Accuracy that only exists at an unsustainable pace evaporates under exam-day adrenaline.
Three-for-three? Book the earliest date that fits logistics. More prep past this point mostly adds anxiety, not points — you're spending high-quality readiness on low-quality waiting.
The trend that says give it three more weeks
- Swings wider than ten points between attempts — the underlying skill isn't stable yet, whatever the average says.
- Scores rising only on question banks you've cycled before. That's memorization wearing a readiness costume.
- Chronic time pressure: routinely 10+ questions unanswered when the clock dies. Pacing is trainable, but it takes dedicated timed blocks, not hope.
- One section consistently dragging the composite below the line. Sectional gaps close well in two to three focused weeks — but only if you actually aim at them.
How to read a plateau
Three flat scores in your target band is readiness — book it. Three flat scores below the band is a method problem, not an effort problem: more of the same studying will produce more of the same graph. Change the input — review depth, error logs, timed sectionals — and give the new method two weeks to show up in the numbers before you judge it.