The Student Room Group

LNAT anxiety

I sat my LNAT in October, and I’ve been anxious about it ever since.

I really want to go to Durham, but I just don’t think I’ll have got a good enough LNAT score.

I got to the test centre, where I’d booked for a private room, and the woman turned around and told me “I see you’ve booked for a private room, oh no, someone’s using it at the moment”. I’m not going to be dramatic, but there’s a good reason that I’ve been in private rooms for exams since the age of 10 - I get so anxious with people taking the test around me, that I can’t concentrate on the questions at all. I also have autism, and when a curveball like this is thrown at me, I just can’t function for the rest of the day.

So she basically just said “you will probably have to sit it with everyone else”, and I reluctantly agreed because we’d already payed and there was no guarantee that I could sit it on another date before the cutoff date. When I got home, my mum emailed them and complained, and then they had the audacity to say that they couldn’t do anything because I didn’t ask for an ‘incident number’, which the didn’t even offer me and why the hell would I know that’s a thing I could ask for. So all they’ve done is put a note on my results that my university will see, saying how I wasn’t given the correct resources for the test. I don’t think they’ll care tbh.

I had about 6 or 7 passages that I felt really confident with and I could get into it. I can’t remember how the actual questions for those passages were, but I think I found them okay from what I remember.

Then there was one passage (the first one for me on the test) where I had no idea what it was even about, the words were so jumbled because I was so anxious. I had people clicking at computers all over me.

There was another where I couldn’t grasp it completely, but I think I probably made the most of it and made some educated choices for the answers.

And then there were two passages where I felt okay with them, but not like the 7 where I felt really confident.

Then, on the last question, I had literally 2 minutes left, so I had to make some educated guesses. Could’ve picked up a point if I’m lucky I guess.

I think I did quite well on the essay. The only issue is that I followed the advised amount of words by people, and it still looked short for some reason. Did they expect a whole essay? I only did enough to cover under one side of a piece of paper, at most.

I’ve kinda estimated that I could’ve got 24-25 points, maybe you guys think I’ve underestimated or overestimated that based off all that I’ve just told you. But I know most competitive Durham applicants get higher than that.

Can anyone help me out? If anyone’s sat the LNAT and didn’t think they did well on it, only to be proven wrong. Or maybe some Durham law students on here know a thing or two about all this.

I’m just honestly looking for reassurance. I don’t want to spend all of Christmas and New years worried about some test score.

Is there literally no way you can find your results out somehow?

Reply 1

24-25 is good enough for Durham honestly and the essay length doesn't really matter as long as you did it well and the writing was good and structured, tbf it was probably more succinct being only a page. Also you can't see your exact score but if you want to find out if you got over 20 try clicking that your interested in Jindal Uni on Ur LNAT profile because the uni will email you if you get over 20 (not the exact score but some reassurance)

Reply 2

Original post
by Anonymous.00
I sat my LNAT in October, and I’ve been anxious about it ever since.
I really want to go to Durham, but I just don’t think I’ll have got a good enough LNAT score.
I got to the test centre, where I’d booked for a private room, and the woman turned around and told me “I see you’ve booked for a private room, oh no, someone’s using it at the moment”. I’m not going to be dramatic, but there’s a good reason that I’ve been in private rooms for exams since the age of 10 - I get so anxious with people taking the test around me, that I can’t concentrate on the questions at all. I also have autism, and when a curveball like this is thrown at me, I just can’t function for the rest of the day.
So she basically just said “you will probably have to sit it with everyone else”, and I reluctantly agreed because we’d already payed and there was no guarantee that I could sit it on another date before the cutoff date. When I got home, my mum emailed them and complained, and then they had the audacity to say that they couldn’t do anything because I didn’t ask for an ‘incident number’, which the didn’t even offer me and why the hell would I know that’s a thing I could ask for. So all they’ve done is put a note on my results that my university will see, saying how I wasn’t given the correct resources for the test. I don’t think they’ll care tbh.
I had about 6 or 7 passages that I felt really confident with and I could get into it. I can’t remember how the actual questions for those passages were, but I think I found them okay from what I remember.
Then there was one passage (the first one for me on the test) where I had no idea what it was even about, the words were so jumbled because I was so anxious. I had people clicking at computers all over me.
There was another where I couldn’t grasp it completely, but I think I probably made the most of it and made some educated choices for the answers.
And then there were two passages where I felt okay with them, but not like the 7 where I felt really confident.
Then, on the last question, I had literally 2 minutes left, so I had to make some educated guesses. Could’ve picked up a point if I’m lucky I guess.
I think I did quite well on the essay. The only issue is that I followed the advised amount of words by people, and it still looked short for some reason. Did they expect a whole essay? I only did enough to cover under one side of a piece of paper, at most.
I’ve kinda estimated that I could’ve got 24-25 points, maybe you guys think I’ve underestimated or overestimated that based off all that I’ve just told you. But I know most competitive Durham applicants get higher than that.
Can anyone help me out? If anyone’s sat the LNAT and didn’t think they did well on it, only to be proven wrong. Or maybe some Durham law students on here know a thing or two about all this.
I’m just honestly looking for reassurance. I don’t want to spend all of Christmas and New years worried about some test score.
Is there literally no way you can find your results out somehow?

No. Wait. Stop being anxious about things that you can't control.

Reply 3

Original post
by ultraparadise
24-25 is good enough for Durham honestly and the essay length doesn't really matter as long as you did it well and the writing was good and structured, tbf it was probably more succinct being only a page. Also you can't see your exact score but if you want to find out if you got over 20 try clicking that your interested in Jindal Uni on Ur LNAT profile because the uni will email you if you get over 20 (not the exact score but some reassurance)


Thanks so much 😊 how do I click that I’m interested in Jindal Uni? I’m guessing I log into my LNAT account, where would I find all that on the site though?

Reply 4

Original post
by Anonymous.00
I sat my LNAT in October, and I’ve been anxious about it ever since.
I really want to go to Durham, but I just don’t think I’ll have got a good enough LNAT score.
I got to the test centre, where I’d booked for a private room, and the woman turned around and told me “I see you’ve booked for a private room, oh no, someone’s using it at the moment”. I’m not going to be dramatic, but there’s a good reason that I’ve been in private rooms for exams since the age of 10 - I get so anxious with people taking the test around me, that I can’t concentrate on the questions at all. I also have autism, and when a curveball like this is thrown at me, I just can’t function for the rest of the day.
So she basically just said “you will probably have to sit it with everyone else”, and I reluctantly agreed because we’d already payed and there was no guarantee that I could sit it on another date before the cutoff date. When I got home, my mum emailed them and complained, and then they had the audacity to say that they couldn’t do anything because I didn’t ask for an ‘incident number’, which the didn’t even offer me and why the hell would I know that’s a thing I could ask for. So all they’ve done is put a note on my results that my university will see, saying how I wasn’t given the correct resources for the test. I don’t think they’ll care tbh.
I had about 6 or 7 passages that I felt really confident with and I could get into it. I can’t remember how the actual questions for those passages were, but I think I found them okay from what I remember.
Then there was one passage (the first one for me on the test) where I had no idea what it was even about, the words were so jumbled because I was so anxious. I had people clicking at computers all over me.
There was another where I couldn’t grasp it completely, but I think I probably made the most of it and made some educated choices for the answers.
And then there were two passages where I felt okay with them, but not like the 7 where I felt really confident.
Then, on the last question, I had literally 2 minutes left, so I had to make some educated guesses. Could’ve picked up a point if I’m lucky I guess.
I think I did quite well on the essay. The only issue is that I followed the advised amount of words by people, and it still looked short for some reason. Did they expect a whole essay? I only did enough to cover under one side of a piece of paper, at most.
I’ve kinda estimated that I could’ve got 24-25 points, maybe you guys think I’ve underestimated or overestimated that based off all that I’ve just told you. But I know most competitive Durham applicants get higher than that.
Can anyone help me out? If anyone’s sat the LNAT and didn’t think they did well on it, only to be proven wrong. Or maybe some Durham law students on here know a thing or two about all this.
I’m just honestly looking for reassurance. I don’t want to spend all of Christmas and New years worried about some test score.
Is there literally no way you can find your results out somehow?

hey i’ve received a law offer from durham with a 21 LNAT (i used the jindal method), im a home contextual student
honestly i flopped my lnat as you can tell by my score & messed the timing up completely but ive heard durham weigh the essay MASSIVELY, more than your MCQ score. last year people with 28+ were getting rejected due to their essay not being strong enough
i also wrote around 500-550 words in my essay which is below the recommended amount & ive still got my offer. as long as your arguments are strong and you’ve obviously wrote a sufficient amount you’ll be fine 🙂
also durham will look at your application holistically & focus on other factors so really your LNAT score isn’t the end all, i would actually say the essay is more important & if you think that went well then your good!
hope that helps!
(edited 2 months ago)

Reply 5

Original post
by fretajack
hey i’ve received a law offer from durham with a 21 LNAT (i used the jindal method), im a home contextual student
honestly i flopped my lnat as you can tell by my score & messed the timing up completely but ive heard durham weigh the essay MASSIVELY, more than your MCQ score. last year people with 28+ were getting rejected due to their essay not being strong enough
i also wrote around 500-550 words in my essay which is below the recommended amount & ive still got my offer. as long as your arguments are strong and you’ve obviously wrote a sufficient amount you’ll be fine 🙂
also durham will look at your application holistically & focus on other factors so really your LNAT score isn’t the end all, i would actually say the essay is more important & if you think that went well then your good!
hope that helps!


Thanks so much for this! What would make a good essay? I know I'm not allowed to say what the actual question was, but I basically set it out like; 1) giving my understanding of what the question meant and definition, and stating what point I’m going to argue (I think I stated what point I’m going to argue) 2) starting with a point and then a counter point 3) doing a point and then counter point again (I can't remember now if I did a third point and counter point, I might've) and then a conclusion where I listed all of the key points I’d made. I really thought about the question and thought about what it was asking me to explain. I think I referenced back to the question a few times to keep clarity. The thing is that I didn't use any statistics or anything, because obviously the question could be about anything, are you meant to use statistics and evidence like you would a normal essay?

Also how do you do this Jindal thing as I'm curious about my score

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