For Working Professionals Only Forum

[bmili]

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[krad]

For those of you that are currently working and studying for the LSAT, what are you doing? How many practice exams are you taking? I work full time and I've signed up for Feb 2011 LSAT (applying for Fall 2012). Ive taken two full practice exam (online Princeton Review demo test-155; the first exam from the SuperPrep book- 156). My prep so far has been studying the PowerScore books. My goal is a 165. If I dont my goal, I will retake in Sept/Oct 2011 (have the CFA Level III exam in June 2011). I was hoping to knock out 20+ practice tests but I tried doing a practice exam after work tonight it quickly became apparent that strategy was not going to work. I'll prob be forced to keep my practice tests limited to the weekends (not worth it otherwise). Feel free to chime in on what you did.

bmili FWIW:

I work full time (with a whole lot of work travel in there, so no prep class) and took the Oct LSAT for a 168 (PT avg 168, high 173, low diag 15something). I self-studied with the PS bibles (LR and LG only, no RC) and used an LSAT Blog study guide (Google it, you'll be glad you did). My goal for PTs was something @ 20 but I only managed about 15 with my schedule.

I did my timed, 5-section PTs on Saturday and Sunday mornings, usually around 8/9am and mimicked the testing environment as best as I could (no breaks other than the real break, not allowed to check my phone, things like that). I did take PTs after work on some evenings, but I usually tried to do them on evenings after a less stressful day (hah, rare). Sometimes I did them on evenings after a super long day at work and I thought I was going to die. But, I usually managed a decent score and on the weeknights of low scores I chalked it up to a long day and made sure to go over those PTs extra carefully to see where I made careless/tired errors. I definitely feel that this helped with my stamina when it came to test day. The actual test is quite stressful and (though I slept well) many take it after a crappy night of sleep.

When I had nights like you did this evening, I just did practice timed sections and/or reviewed old PTs and/or read the LSAT Blog tips and tricks. You do not want to burn out, and that's definitely something that is easy to do when you work full time. I found that after a month-ish, my stamina was better and I didn't feel as bad during the after-work PTs. Going over past PTs is really an important part of PTs in general, and I found that to be a great after-work activity.

I definitely had to give up a lot of my social life for this prep, but it was worth it. I wish I would have scored a few points higher (RC killed me when it was my best section in PTs, but what can ya do?), but I'm content with my score and I just won't have any additional time to work a retake into my work/travel schedule.

Good luck and PM me if you have other questions!

[northwood]

I took the October test. I worked 9-7 M-Sat. I started prep in June. I took the Princeton Reveiw course, and did the powerscore bibles. IN addition I did 18 full length real prep tests. However, in between I did a lot of timed sections, and drills. Personally, I think that the June exam will be a better option. Prep tests are very important. While you still have some time to work for feb, the fact that the test is not disclosed wont help you if you decide to retake ( you will want to know what you need to improve on). In addition, you need to schedule some time for you to relax from work and this. The lsat can very easily take over your life, and cause much more stress. If you get burned out ( and its very easy to do, esp. if you work) you need to recharge your batteries.

If you are asking for a schedule heres what I did:
Monday: Drill LR question type and do a timed RC section
Tuesday: LG Games ( read the chapter and do some games)
Wednesday: Prep test
Thursday Review + do LG game type second time
Friday: LR question type, Rc section type ( Drill questions of LR- yo uhave to do some prep work)
Saturday: LG game third tiem ( timed, stop at 7 and a half mins/ game)
Sunday; re charge

I started out doing just question types to get a good approach. Once I was comfortable and could do a good amount of them, I changed drills to timed section work ( to work on strategy and endurance) I then would string out timed sections so that I could do 4 back to back ( either same type of variety) Then I would do full lenght prep tests ( only 1 a day)
IF I noticed that I wasnt doing as well as i wanted, I would do drills on the question type until the scores increased. Then I would continue on. When I reviewed, i spelled out why i got it right, and why the answer was wrong. It really helps, but is very time consuming.

If you do this, you will want some extra time. Every 3 weeks or so, I would schedule 3 days where I would not do anything LSAT related. If i felt burned out, i would stop. Plus, if you ahve a bad day in June, there is always october for a re take.

hope this helps

[krad]

Every 3 weeks or so, I would schedule 3 days where I would not do anything LSAT related.

It's very important to take time away from LSAT prep, I agree 100%. I used to take a weekend day here and there, go out the night before, sleep in, hike/bike/lay by the pool. If you don't, you will most likely burn out .

[gambelda]

I work 7:30 to 7 M-F.

I eat dinner, and work out after work to relieve stress. Then I take 2 sections of a preptest and do them. Next day I do the same with the last 2 sections. Day 3, I review the exam. Day 4. I fly home so do no review. Friday I do some drill sin random PT's or workbooks. Saturday full PT exam, Sunday, Review PT and some drills.

Essentially, you dont HAVE to do a whole PT when you start it.

[bmili]

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[robotclubmember]

I work 7:30 to 7 M-F.

I eat dinner, and work out after work to relieve stress. Then I take 2 sections of a preptest and do them. Next day I do the same with the last 2 sections. Day 3, I review the exam. Day 4. I fly home so do no review. Friday I do some drill sin random PT's or workbooks. Saturday full PT exam, Sunday, Review PT and some drills.

Essentially, you dont HAVE to do a whole PT when you start it.

Auditor? Consultant?

[theavrock]

I worked full time as well. M-F 7-5

The key is a schedule that you can stick to.

I essentially modified the Pithypike method that you can find on TLS and literally made appointments in my calendar up until test day. I knew I wanted to take x amount of full length PT's and do X amount of questions in individual section prep so I did the math and made a schedule.

I gave myself 3 months of study. The first month and a half were to master individual game and LR types. On certain nights I would drill LG's by question type, on others I would take a section of RC.

Once I had the question types down I moved on to full length tests. Essentially I was taking 2-3 full length tests a week in varied locations under test like conditions while doing individual section prep to shore up the weaknesses I was finding from the full lengths.

IMO the key was the schedule. With as busy as I was, if I didn't have something to say do this now and that now I would have been able to put it off and do it "when I felt like it" and then I wouldn't have gotten all I wanted to in before test day.

I'll also echo what others have said in that it is key to ensure that you are giving yourself breaks. I always had Wednesdays and Sundays for non LSAT related stuff and did 2 hours a night to give myself at least an hour before bed and other things the other days.

[gambelda]

I work 7:30 to 7 M-F.

I eat dinner, and work out after work to relieve stress. Then I take 2 sections of a preptest and do them. Next day I do the same with the last 2 sections. Day 3, I review the exam. Day 4. I fly home so do no review. Friday I do some drill sin random PT's or workbooks. Saturday full PT exam, Sunday, Review PT and some drills.

Essentially, you dont HAVE to do a whole PT when you start it.

Auditor? Consultant?

Consultant

[melelolo]

I took a preptest every Saturday morning for like 3 months. Then, during the week I looked it over some, and occasionally I looked at PR or Kaplan's study tips and rules. I didn't really find them very useful though, except for a few of the shorthand tips for logic games (on the actual LSAT, I got all the LG q's right, so I guess it helped!).

I didn't really do a lot of prep, but I was really busy with work. The PrepTests are like a gazillion times better than any other companies tests though, obviously... since they're real.

[Ginj]

Working Monday-Friday, 8-5. Testing in February as well...

September/October: PS Bibles at work

November: 20 page outline of LR Bible at work (my hardest section); PT on Saturday; Review on Sunday; two week break

December: Kaplan Mastery during lunch break (one hour) and after work (one hour) ... so far really helpful.

January: PT on Wednesday after work; Review on Thursday and Friday (type out missed questions and review answers); PT on Saturday in mimicked testing conditions; Repeat review process on Sunday and Monday; Break on Tuesday.

I'm hoping that, by January, I'll have few missed questions to review. *fingers crossed*

Also...diagnostic was a 155. Now testing 165-170.

[delusional]

I work 9-6 M-F and i thought I was being heroic for studying regularly! I don't know how you guys put in 12 hr. days and then still study.

I'm also not great at focusing for long periods of time, and I'm not Joe Spreadsheet. What has been working for me is taking a test or five timed sections on Sunday, and then doing two sections a night the other days of the week. When I have a few minutes here and there, I go over the questions I missed. EDITED: I've been doing this since late May, with a break after the Oct. LSAT.

The jury is still out on my method, since I canceled the Oct. test, and I'm taking in Dec. I have taken five tests since after the Oct. test, and I got 173-176-176-176-172.

I think that shorter sessions over longer time helps to ingrain the concepts more naturally. I have friends who are doing the six-week 5 hr. a day method, and I just don't understand how it's supposed to sink in.

On the other hand, focus is still one of my weak points, because I really don't have the time, or unfortunately the inclination, to work for hours on end.

[bmili]

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[niederbomb]

If you can, wake up early and do a PT before work. I did a mix of that as well as 3 PT's on the weekends. I got through 19 PT's in 6 weeks while working full time and reviewed most of them pretty extensively. It's possible, for sure.

[albanach]

You can repeat games individually. I found that a good way to keep fresh. Get the games from cambridge lsat and print them to PDFs. Then you can print an individual game or two and take them to work. Set aside ten minutes and rattle through a game after eating lunch.

Also, I'd skip February since it's non-disclosed and sit the June exam. That way if anything goes wrong you can at least see what happened.

[bmili]

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[vanwinkle]

I took a Princeton Review prep course that met two nights a week. It provided structure and made sure I was hitting all the right points without me having to stress in my own about identifying my weaknesses. It went April-June and ended right before the June test. Gained 13 points, was satisfied.