I have 2 months, LSAT Trainer, PTs 1-67, LG Bible, MLSAT LR Forum

[lsat_hopeful]

Am I missing anything? (except for time - nothing I can do about that...)

Any tips for success on the LSAT (170+) using these resources are welcome!

Note: PTs are in 10 actual books/PDF format, I have LG's organized by question type, I am using 7sage's LG Explanations (planning to watch all of them), and using 7sage BR method (aka taking a timed pt, then going over any questions I was uncertain about before checking my answers).

Thanks in advance!

[ThetaX]

Just go. Save some for retakes though. Im so glad I did. I still have some 50s and PT 69, you never know!

[McGruff]

Any advice I have is a poor paraphrase of TLS1776's guide, so you should just read that here. It was my favorite guide on my LSAT road, and I read them all (though a few things weren't available in his day that have since become the credited method, such as MLSAT, Cambridge packs, and more recently, LSAT Trainer).

Good luck! No need to do lots of PTs now, just work on your technique by getting through guides for specific subjects, and don't give up.

[wowhio]

I cannot emphasize enough: You should take as many full-length, timed, real conditions practice tests as you can. Timing is so, so important. The more comfortable you are with the time given for each section, the more confident you are that you can finish, the better you'll do.

Personally, I did full-length tests almost every day for about a month. Also, towards the end of my studying, I did stuff like give myself 2 minutes less per section just to see if I could finish in time.

At the same time though, don't psyche yourself out. If you find yourself getting too hung up on the PT scores, stop scoring them for awhile -- especially if you're a week away from the test or something.

[McGruff]

Personally, I did full-length tests almost every day for about a month. Also, towards the end of my studying, I did stuff like give myself 2 minutes less per section just to see if I could finish in time.

Just to offer a contrasting view, here are two things I found in my LSAT prep that don't totally line up with that advice:

1) Review is much more important than just grinding out PTs, which, without a bunch of accompanying review, is a pretty big waste of time and effort. The purpose of a PT is to get a snapshot of your weaknesses, so that you can spend time working on those weaknesses and hammering out your technique. Most of your improvement will not happen while you're PTing, it will happen when you review and drill things that, in your review, you find out needs work. If you spend all your time PTing you won't see nearly as big an improvement as if you spent AT LEAST HALF of your time reviewing. Maybe this isn't true for everyone, but it's definitely true for me and there are lots of others on this board who feel similarly.

2) I found that over-PTing was the worst thing I could do for my scores, because I have an (apparently, compared to other people in the LSAT Study threads I traversed) especially low threshold for burnout. Each time I spread out my PTs a little, and even each time I took a break from LSAT entirely, I jumped. Conversely, whenever I started PTing more frequently, my scores started to dip. It was tremendously difficult to slow my PT roll, since I felt lazy and like I wasn't working hard enough, but the data telling me to slow down was staring me in the face. Not saying that will be your case, but either way you need to listen to your scores and look at your progress and not just work a certain way because it works for others. I took detailed notes on how I slept, what I ate, physical activity etc. and was always looking for trends in my performances. The LSAT is, above all, a performance. As such it is susceptible to influence from all sorts of factors (like how many PTs you've taken recently and similar sources of fatigue).

That said, I started prepping for October eight months before the test, probably averaging over 30 hours a week, so I had the luxury of a long enough road to take breaks, and spread out my prep, and so forth. I didn't want to take the test until I was averaging 178+ and still wouldn't if I hadn't.

None of this is the golden rule by which you must abide. For all I know, taking tests every day is what will work best for you. Your mind and body will respond in their own unique way to all your training and you need to keep a careful eye on what helps you and what doesn't.

[cahwc12]

Any tips for success on the LSAT (170+) using these resources?

PTs are in LSAC book/PDF format, I have LG's organized by question type, I am using 7sage's LG Explanations (planning to watch all of them), using 7sage BR method, considering keeping a few tests in case I do a retake (any thoughts on this?).

I may be open to getting Kaplan's Mastery book just so that I have RC/LR organized by question type as well.

start prepping, then worry about refining your approach. If you hold off so that your plan is perfect, you'll wish in december that you had started 3 weeks earlier

[izzy895]

Personally, I did full-length tests almost every day for about a month. Also, towards the end of my studying, I did stuff like give myself 2 minutes less per section just to see if I could finish in time.

Just to offer a contrasting view, here are two things I found in my LSAT prep that don't totally line up with that advice:

1) Review is much more important than just grinding out PTs, which, without a bunch of accompanying review, is a pretty big waste of time and effort. The purpose of a PT is to get a snapshot of your weaknesses, so that you can spend time working on those weaknesses and hammering out your technique. Most of your improvement will not happen while you're PTing, it will happen when you review and drill things that, in your review, you find out needs work. If you spend all your time PTing you won't see nearly as big an improvement as if you spent AT LEAST HALF of your time reviewing. Maybe this isn't true for everyone, but it's definitely true for me and there are lots of others on this board who feel similarly.

2) I found that over-PTing was the worst thing I could do for my scores, because I have an (apparently, compared to other people in the LSAT Study threads I traversed) especially low threshold for burnout. Each time I spread out my PTs a little, and even each time I took a break from LSAT entirely, I jumped. Conversely, whenever I started PTing more frequently, my scores started to dip. It was tremendously difficult to slow my PT roll, since I felt lazy and like I wasn't working hard enough, but the data telling me to slow down was staring me in the face. Not saying that will be your case, but either way you need to listen to your scores and look at your progress and not just work a certain way because it works for others. I took detailed notes on how I slept, what I ate, physical activity etc. and was always looking for trends in my performances. The LSAT is, above all, a performance. As such it is susceptible to influence from all sorts of factors (like how many PTs you've taken recently and similar sources of fatigue).

That said, I started prepping for October eight months before the test, probably averaging over 30 hours a week, so I had the luxury of a long enough road to take breaks, and spread out my prep, and so forth. I didn't want to take the test until I was averaging 178+ and still wouldn't if I hadn't.

None of this is the golden rule by which you must abide. For all I know, taking tests every day is what will work best for you. Your mind and body will respond in their own unique way to all your training and you need to keep a careful eye on what helps you and what doesn't.

I'd like to second this. When I started hard on my test prep all I did was grind away at pt's and casually review wrong answers and tell myself okay I won't do that next time. I improved in some spots but my scores were very stagnant and I figured that I would eventually improve. I was averaging pretty consistently 169-170 until the more recent tests where rc killed me. I had burned through most of the pt's when I decided to re evaluate and came here for advice. Went through my tests and tallied wrong answers and was literally getting the same questions wrong each time. I bought the Cambridge packets and all the normal pts to work on my problem areas and took advice from tls1776's guide to write on each pt mistakes I was making etc. I have found this so much more effective the second time around. Not that my pt range was as high as most of these guys but I am improving.

[Mahone Shore]

Really Helpful! Can't agree anymore about the importance of reviewing! I basically do at most two PT per week. and rest for reviewing.

Personally, I did full-length tests almost every day for about a month. Also, towards the end of my studying, I did stuff like give myself 2 minutes less per section just to see if I could finish in time.

Just to offer a contrasting view, here are two things I found in my LSAT prep that don't totally line up with that advice:

1) Review is much more important than just grinding out PTs, which, without a bunch of accompanying review, is a pretty big waste of time and effort. The purpose of a PT is to get a snapshot of your weaknesses, so that you can spend time working on those weaknesses and hammering out your technique. Most of your improvement will not happen while you're PTing, it will happen when you review and drill things that, in your review, you find out needs work. If you spend all your time PTing you won't see nearly as big an improvement as if you spent AT LEAST HALF of your time reviewing. Maybe this isn't true for everyone, but it's definitely true for me and there are lots of others on this board who feel similarly.

2) I found that over-PTing was the worst thing I could do for my scores, because I have an (apparently, compared to other people in the LSAT Study threads I traversed) especially low threshold for burnout. Each time I spread out my PTs a little, and even each time I took a break from LSAT entirely, I jumped. Conversely, whenever I started PTing more frequently, my scores started to dip. It was tremendously difficult to slow my PT roll, since I felt lazy and like I wasn't working hard enough, but the data telling me to slow down was staring me in the face. Not saying that will be your case, but either way you need to listen to your scores and look at your progress and not just work a certain way because it works for others. I took detailed notes on how I slept, what I ate, physical activity etc. and was always looking for trends in my performances. The LSAT is, above all, a performance. As such it is susceptible to influence from all sorts of factors (like how many PTs you've taken recently and similar sources of fatigue).

That said, I started prepping for October eight months before the test, probably averaging over 30 hours a week, so I had the luxury of a long enough road to take breaks, and spread out my prep, and so forth. I didn't want to take the test until I was averaging 178+ and still wouldn't if I hadn't.

None of this is the golden rule by which you must abide. For all I know, taking tests every day is what will work best for you. Your mind and body will respond in their own unique way to all your training and you need to keep a careful eye on what helps you and what doesn't.

[bp shinners]

Review is much more important than just grinding out PTs, which, without a bunch of accompanying review, is a pretty big waste of time and effort.

This should be on a coffee mug that everyone taking the LSAT should own. This is the most important thing to know, and it couldn't have been said better.

[izzy895]

Review is much more important than just grinding out PTs, which, without a bunch of accompanying review, is a pretty big waste of time and effort.

This should be on a coffee mug that everyone taking the LSAT should own. This is the most important thing to know, and it couldn't have been said better.

I never really thought about it until now, how similar this is to playing golf. Your game doesn't really improve until you are consistently hitting the driving range to work on weaknesses. It's very hard to adjust on the fly when you are in the middle of 9 holes. Often times you can play even worse if you are trying to over critique yourself in the middle of play. Just thought that's be helpful if someone was looking for a real situation. I can speak personally on the lsat and for golf lol.

[wowhio]

Personally, I did full-length tests almost every day for about a month. Also, towards the end of my studying, I did stuff like give myself 2 minutes less per section just to see if I could finish in time.

None of this is the golden rule by which you must abide. For all I know, taking tests every day is what will work best for you. Your mind and body will respond in their own unique way to all your training and you need to keep a careful eye on what helps you and what doesn't.

The moral of the story here is that you can only know what is going to work for you once you start actually studying. That was definitely true for me and sounds like it was true for McGruff too. Start studying and if you're getting frustrated or burning out or not seeing improvement, trying something else for a bit. It seems like lame advice, but it's really true. Don't let anyone else dictate your LSAT study routine. You've gotta study the way you want to when you want to and how you want to.


Also, to clarify: I wasn't suggesting PTing at the expense of reviewing. You have to do both, and spend a lot of time on both. But hey, it's possible to take a PT and review it in a single day.

[bp shinners]

But hey, it's possible to take a PT and review it in a single day.

That is strongly dependent on you receiving a certain score, and as you go down the scale, the total time necessary to review a test grows in a more-than-linear manner.

Why?

As you're lower on the scale, you have more questions to review, but you also will need more time to review each question. So someone scoring ~165 can probably get away with 5-10 minutes review on each LR question, but someone scoring ~155 should be spending closer to 15 on each one. Lower on the scale equates to more time spent with a question before you truly understand the intricacies of it. Sadly, the lower you are on the scale, the less likely you are to spend that time on review because you don't yet see all the intricacies of the question, so you just go over the right/wrong answers and move on.

If you're 165+, I think PT/review in a single day can work, no problem. Lower than that and you're probably short-changing the review.

[Every_LSAT]

Am I missing anything? (except for time - nothing I can do about that...)

Any tips for success on the LSAT (170+) using these resources are welcome!

Note: PTs are in 10 actual books/PDF format, I have LG's organized by question type, I am using 7sage's LG Explanations (planning to watch all of them), and using 7sage BR method (aka taking a timed pt, then going over any questions I was uncertain about before checking my answers).

Thanks in advance!

It seems like you are missing PTs A, B, C and 68-70. I have links on how to get these in my blog SPAM. Hope this helps, and good luck!