Ordered Study Book & Material - What Are The First Steps? Forum

[JohnMKeynes]

I am scheduled to take LSAT in June. I am somewhat new to this. Have never studied for it before other than briefly going through LSAT office practice exam and explanation.

I am somewhat overwhelmed with the amount of information on here on how to study. What is actually the first step? Here is the list of my material ordered:

The PowerScore LSAT Logic Games Bible
LSAT Logical Reasoning Bible
The PowerScore LSAT Reading Comprehension Bible
The Official LSAT SuperPrep
The Official LSAT Handbook
10 More Actual, Official LSAT PrepTests (Lsat Series)
The Next 10 Actual, Official LSAT PrepTests (Lsat Series)
10 Actual, Official LSAT PrepTests

I am missing the Kaplan Mastery Book that was recommended from Pithypike. I am not exactly sure which edition I am suppose to order since from what I understood on this forum is that newer versions will spoil some of preptest questions on more recent exams.

So my question is given that I received my material by this week that leaves about 13-14 weeks to study. I am recent graduate so I have endless amount of time to study. My question is what are the first steps in studying? What books I'm I suppose to read first? It's somewhat hard to decipher some of the information on here since the use of acronyms are common throughout threads. How many hours should I try to pace myself in studying? Help?

[accuratesite2020]

You need to see where you are with a full-length (5-section) diagnostic test strictly timed. Then you need to begin both the Logic Games Bible and LR Bible this week. Devote the next 2-3 weeks working through them with practice problems. Keep working on practice problems through April, doing anywhere from 4-5 logic games a day with review and between 10-25 LR problems a day. Starting around April you want to start full-length PTs along with a full-review afterward. The review takes a good 4-6 hours going over every question you got right and figuring out every question you got wrong and writing out explanations if need be. You should get through 2-3 Pts a week and then step it up to 4 Pts a week in May leading up to test. You should get through 30-32+ Pts, while reworking problem areas.

I think Pithypike an excellent guide, but you should check out LSAT blog and utilize his 4-month study plan. It just lays out a specific question guide with corresponding LR bible chapter and gives you a day-to-day perspective. Remember to take breaks. Whether you like to go hard 2 or 3 days in a row and then take a day or two off or go fairly easy with a day in between. Just take a break every now and then.

[JamMasterJ]

If anything I tell you sounds condescendingly obvious, it is only in the name of clarity.

If you feel so compelled, I would try a diagnostic test (basically just a test to figure out your starting point. Take all five sections (use a random section from another test for the "experimental" section), but only use the four that correspond to get your actual scaled score. Then, break down the test by section to see which are your weakest areas. If either Logical Reasoning (LR) or Logic Games (LG) are in need of improvement, I would start with the Powerscore Bibles. The LR and LG Bibles are more effective in my opinion than the Reading Comp (RC) Bible. The LG section is, for most people, the easiest section to improve on, so going through that Bible first might give you a bit of a morale boost. As far as RC goes, the Bible is not incredibly effective, although it gives a decent way of outlining passages and determining viewpoints, but the second half of the book is primarily fluff (trends and the opinion that the author will usually hold under certain circumstances). I've heard that Kaplan's RC book is better, but I only used the Powerscore stuff.

After you start to master the individual skills required for each question type, start working through whole LSATs slowly at first, then with time constraints. When you are doing timed tests, make sure you do 5 section tests so that you will work on endurance as well as the other skills. If you want to get through every practice test (PT) ever, that is fine, but if not, make sure you focus on tests that are fairly recent, because the future tests will be similar. For more info, the "How I scored a 180" sections have good advice, especially if you diagnose in the 160s or get there fairly quickly, as the approach you take will change a lot depending on your goals and abilities.

[JohnMKeynes]

You need to see where you are with a full-length (5-section) diagnostic test strictly timed. Then you need to begin both the Logic Games Bible and LR Bible this week. Devote the next 2-3 weeks working through them with practice problems. Keep working on practice problems through April, doing anywhere from 4-5 logic games a day with review and between 10-25 LR problems a day. Starting around April you want to start full-length PTs along with a full-review afterward. The review takes a good 4-6 hours going over every question you got right and figuring out every question you got wrong and writing out explanations if need be. You should get through 2-3 Pts a week and then step it up to 4 Pts a week in May leading up to test. You should get through 30-32+ Pts, while reworking problem areas.

I think Pithypike an excellent guide, but you should check out LSAT blog and utilize his 4-month study plan. It just lays out a specific question guide with corresponding LR bible chapter and gives you a day-to-day perspective. Remember to take breaks. Whether you like to go hard 2 or 3 days in a row and then take a day or two off or go fairly easy with a day in between. Just take a break every now and then.

So do I use one of the test that will come with my material mentioned? What is the best test to start off with? The reading comprehension and logical reasoning was doable not having any formal studying, however the logical games seemed the most intimidating giving never seeing anything like it before. Do most people having the hardest time with logical games given that most people have never answered these type of questions?

[Yassig]

Why not start off with the June 2007 test, as this is the one that is on the LSAC website (among others) for your diagnostic? That way you aren't delving too much into your prep class' material before you start their course and learn their techniques. As for LG, yes, it seems to be the consensus that this is the hardest for most people when they start, but it's learnable if you work at it. But the purpose of a diagnostic is to see where you are (you may surprise yourself) so most people recommend that you start with that FIRST to see where your strengths are and then go from there.

Good luck!

[dextermorgan]

You should have figured out what you were going to do before ordering the materials, but since that ship has sailed here goes: http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/3- ... edule.html

[JohnMKeynes]

You should have figured out what you were going to do before ordering the materials, but since that ship has sailed here goes: http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/3- ... edule.html

Hey thanks for all the advice so far. I am going through the logical games from the LSAT web exacmples which at first seemed intimidating however are fun at the same time. My question is how there a strategy or system to attack this questions? So far it seems I am slowly getting through them by doing a lot of erasing.

[JamMasterJ]

Read the Logic Games Bible. You'll figre out a general system and then will be able to tailor it to your personal preferences

[JohnMKeynes]

Read the Logic Games Bible. You'll figre out a general system and then will be able to tailor it to your personal preferences

So I finally received my stack of books. Going to start Sunday or Monday. I plan on studying at least 6 hours a day. How should I approach reading the Logic Games Bible? Should I highlight or take notes on a separate notebook? So I should only take this one book to the library and study until I get through the book?

[Kurst]

How should I approach reading the Logic Games Bible?

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 6&t=142381

[Jeffort]

Read the Logic Games Bible. You'll figre out a general system and then will be able to tailor it to your personal preferences

So I finally received my stack of books. Going to start Sunday or Monday. I plan on studying at least 6 hours a day. How should I approach reading the Logic Games Bible? Should I highlight or take notes on a separate notebook? So I should only take this one book to the library and study until I get through the book?

Since you have decided to make your first big day of prep about logic games, bringing just the LGB to the library tomorrow or Monday is enough. Obviously bring paper to take notes on and pencils too. If you are going to write in the book, use pencil NOT pen so that you can erase later when you want to re-work the included games and drills, or do your work on separate paper to avoid having to waste time erasing stuff later. Since you are starting earlier than most people do for the June test you have plenty of time to go through it multiple times, which is a good idea.