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Hi. Trying to figure out how much time a "normal" person would need to prepare for the LSAT and do very well guys. At the risk of sounding arrogant , I'd like to score a 180. heh heh. I always believe it's best to shoot for the moon!!

So if I want to take the LSAT next June, would that mean that I should start studying this January? I will have only 3 college classes compared to my usual 5 next semester, because I'm doing an honors research program where I will spend time writing an original thesis and that will pretty much clear my whole plate next semester (I'm purposely dropping other stuff to do this, because I might want to do Ph.D. and want to do a good job on this honors thesis). Other than my honors research seminar, my other two classes are kind of easy. I purposely chose an "easier" load.

So, out of curiosity, how much time do you guys think a person would normally need to study for the LSAT? I think the shortest I heard was 3 months of intense study. The longest I heard was 9 months to 1 year I think.

Thoughts?

Don't knwo if this helps either, but I'm a philosophy major and have had formal logic before.

I have heard the LSAT has some of that on there, but I'm not sure how much. I got an A in my formal, symbolic logic class. Will that speed my progress any?

I'd say get your feet wet with the test soon. Take a PT or two, read LRB and LGB, read the MLSAT strategy guides, check out the study schedules on this thread, etc. Then get a study plan together for the new year. If you have the time you might want to have gone through every released question but this certainly is not necessary.

You will absolutely have enough time. There are countless "schedules" out there to guide you in formulating one that works for you.

I spent 6 months studying, I won't even give my schedule because it changed throughout and it is all about what works best for you, but my one piece of advice would be don't get stressed/burned out too early. Just keep making steady progress.

scifiguy wrote:Don't knwo if this helps either, but I'm a philosophy major and have had formal logic before.

I have heard the LSAT has some of that on there, but I'm not sure how much. I got an A in my formal, symbolic logic class. Will that speed my progress any?

They will definitely help. I hated my formal and symbolic logic classes during college since I thought they were pointless - talk about something coming back around to smack me in the head years later. Conditionals, biconditionals and contrapositives form the backbone of many of the question types on this test. I basically had to re-learn a lot of this knowledge on my own in order to get into the 160-170 range for this test.