How long did you study for the LSAT?

[nathan]

I have been studying for the LSAT for over 9 months now. I am finally starting to understand the workings of the LSAT. Is studying for 9 months a long time? It seems like it is. How long did does one need to study to get a score of 160+? 170+? Has anyone studied for a year? Looks like I am heading in that direction.

[suzieq]

i'm studying three months total. but it's a very intense three months of studying about 15-20 hours/week in addition to my full-time job.

[dwharris2]

Nathan,
I've been at it for most of the year, with more or less intensity, and I feel as though it's finally beginning to come together for me. I don't know how I'll actually do on 9/30, but I feel a lot better about it now than I did until recently. I think this test is, for some of us, at least, literally about refashioning the working of our brain.
Yours,
dwharris2

[DELETED]

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[perservere]

i started studying in late may and have been going at it pretty strong, like a section or two a day and am backing off a bit until september to be sure i dont exhaust all the preptests (only 1 prep test a week at most with a lot of review).

sadly, the studying i did before this past couple of weeks nothing really clicked and i sort of feel like i wasted a good amount of material, but i finally figured out one of the patterns of mistakes i was doing in LR and things are falling more into place.

like erinashleen, i am in a kaplan course, and they do something which i do not believe helps me much, which is they split up a certain group of tests to make their books. the mastery practice book consists of tests grouped up by question type (assumption, str/weaken, inference, etc). it turns out i am not missing question types (like "assumption") so much that certain answer choices are what is messing me up. so i spent the early part of my training focusing on why i was missing assumption questions on this test and inference questions on that test and going through the motions of "gee this is how an assumption ties evidence to your conclusion" and really the answer was that i always like to pick answers more general or slightly distorted than the correct answer.

anyways, nathan, your question is tough to answer because, from what i've noticed, this test isn't based solely on the time you put in, rather how quickly you can figure out where your weaknesses are and eliminate them. if you read through the various posts on the forums, that is what everyone recommends, find your mistakes and do what you need to never repeat them. if you can do that quickly, then you dont need more than a month of time. keep in mind there are only about 50 prep tests (sept 30th will be #50) and those are the best and probably only questions you should be using to study with, other than guides for strategy and approach. once you've exhausted those 50 tests, that's it. treat these as gold. if you use them all up in your first 3 months, then when test time approaches your practice will not be as good as in the beginning.

if i had to do it over again, i'd have hired a tutor or someone in the beginning to help with analyzing where/what my mistakes were. if i had known this after the first week or two my earlier practice would have been more focused and better spent.

[DelDad]

Took the June test - started acquainting myself with the types of question that were on the test in March, and started reading the Powerscore Bible in April. Took my first timed test in late April, and took three tests per week up until May 28, then took one prep test a day until two days before the test.

[holla]

im definetly lazy and i started properly at the beginning of august. im doing ok. getting the majority of everything right and all i really do is a take a test a couple times a week. just gta work on timing and thats improving all though its only been 2 weeks haha. so im not even all that intense. i think my best work will probably be 3 weeks before the exam when its like crap...hehe. but yah i think theres so much u can really do. when u get the ideas down and how stuffs put together u should be good to go!

[runnergirl]

I'm studying for 2 months, 25 hours and 3 Preptests a week.

[Guest]

I was initially supposed to take the June test, but because of school and work did not get around to studying until 2 weeks prior to the test. Needless to say I was super stressed and instead of improving, the closer I got to the test the worse my scores got (168 down to 164 ).

So I decided to take the September one instead. Again I procrastinated (I'm really bad with that ), so now I only have 7 weeks to study. But I have a plan, so I'm a lot less stressed. I've already started to see improvement, so I'm really happy about that.

I'm aiming for a 3-10pt improvement in these final six weeks and I think it's doable.

I'm doing 3 timed tests (which are 5 sections long) and 2 untimed a week. I am also finishing up the LR and LG Powerscore Bibles - usually a chapter or two a day. And everyday I'm reviewing the ones that I got wrong. I spend about 35-40 hrs/week on LSAT prep. That's about it.

[StanfordHopeful]

The first lsat I ever looked at was on June 10th....its been a love hate relationship ever since.

My TestMasters course has since ended but seeing as how I did none of the homework (I work full-time) I am now doing the homework to bridge the gap till test day. I have 3 proctored diags scheduled and I'm also doing timed sections really sporadically. I think I'm averaging 20hrs a week. I'm looking to increase at least another 10 points before applying if not I will be the initiator of the Dec LSAT support group....god help me

[dy100g]

ugh, i backed out of the june test after a princeton review course and haven't been studying steadily since. actually, i haven't been studying at all since the beginning of july.

so, i'm really nervous and even considering taking the december test? does anyone think i have enough time??!?

[Guest]

d100g,

Sounds like you and I are in the same boat. I think that whether or not you have enough time depends on how much improvement you are trying to make, how many of the concepts you already grasp and how much time you are willing to invest in your studying.

[mabengi001]

I've been studying for about 1.5 months now. I'm currently taking a testmasters course and using the Powerscore bibles as backup. I probably study about 30 hours a week and don't have anything else going on at the moment since I'm a teacher and school is out. However, I'm not sure If I'm going to take the Dec or Sept test. If my score isn't where I want it to be then I'll take the Dec test. I've also taken 2 proctored diagnostics and am planning to start doing about 1 a week starting Sunday. Then in September I'll step it up with about 3 a week.

[lawpro82]

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[StanfordHopeful]

LawPro82, can you please comment on how you improved your worst section RC....this is also my worst section. I took a practice lsat on saturday and althought I moved through the RC section with the utmost confidence my performance did not improve.

How did you go about changing that?

Thanks

[MIT_Engineer]

I took an 8-week course and studied for a full month after the completion of the course (in addition to working 40-60 hrs/week full-time). I saw a 9-point gain during that timeframe; I think the general consensus is that as you score higher, the points become much harder to obtain (you can realize a large gain by going after the "low-hanging fruit" so to speak...eliminating careless mistakes, actually finishing the LG/RC sections, etc). At the same time, there is only so much LSAT material and I think looking at fresh material in the week(s) prior to the test is important.

As a side note, I would make liberal use of any available vacation time prior to the test (for studying of course).