Current 1L's Thoughts on the LSAT Forum

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gatorhoosier

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Current 1L's Thoughts on the LSAT

Post by gatorhoosier » Tue Sep 21, 2010 1:44 am

I'm a 1L at Indiana-Bloomington. I thought I'd jot down a few thoughts I have about the LSAT, specifically LG.

There is a ton of great information and study tips on this site. So, I can't add much. But, I'll give my experience and maybe it will help a few people.

First, I you are scoring 170+ on timed practice tests, there's nothing I can say to you. You're better than me and congrats. I think my thoughts will have at least a little relevance for anyone else.

Like many people LG was the toughest section for me. LR was in the middle and RC was fairly easy for me.
I took the LSAT twice and the one big regret I have is continuing to study for the RC when I had it down pretty good. I could have cut that out entirely and focused more on LG. This mistake could have cost me 3 or 4 questions on the exam and I don't need to tell you what a 3 or 4 question swing means. So, I think at some point, if you're like me, and do well on one section and have trouble with another, cut down on the strength and double up on the weakness.

The good news about LG is that you can improve tremendously. When I first started studying for the LSAT, I couldn't get through 2 games and by the end I was getting through all 4 most of the time. I used Powerscore to get a good foundation/plan of attack, but any source is probably ok. Mastering Powerscore is just the begining. You need to practice as much as possible under timed conditions. And you need to go over each game a few times, re-working them until you start to spot things quickly. The tough part of LG for me was the time constraint. When I took the LSAT for the second time I went over all the LG's I did when I studied for the first test and then went over them again. When you do this, you'll start to see patterns and be able to anticipate what is going on. The LSAT folks do a good job of mixing things up and coming up with new twists (at least they did for my exams). The quicker you can spot the twist, the better off you'll be. And practice, practice, practice seems to be the only way for us non-170s to get there.

The only other suggestion I have would be to have a strategy in case something goes wrong. Let's say you see a game and blank out. You need to have a time limit to stew over that game before moving on. I used 10 minutes. If I didn't think I could finish the game and get them all correct after 10 minutes, I moved on. On the second test this stratgey helped me abit. The toughest game was #2 and I moved on to 3 and 4 and then came back to 2. had I kept at it, Imay not have gotten to the easier (for me) games 3 and 4.

My final thoguht is this: the LSAT counts as much, if not more than 4 years of college plus grad school plus work experience. This si not the time to take it easy. You may not meet your goal. I didn't. I tested both times a few points less than my average of timed tests. But, I don't feel bad. I gave all I had.

I hope this will help someone. I certainly got a lot from TLS.
GH

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