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Economizing your LSAT Prep

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 10:52 am
by CardozoLaw09
Thought this thread may be useful for sharing ideas on what people do to remain efficient economically while studying for the LSAT. Like do you guys just print off PT's at home? For drilling do you print off the PDFs or just read them off the computer screen? I have stacks of PT's from the October prep and just random logic games lying around everywhere in my room. I think being organized can only help so I'm wondering how other people approach this aspect of their prep.

Re: Economizing your LSAT Prep

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 12:44 pm
by Cerebro
I print out all the material on my printer at home. I put everything in binders. I have a few different binders that I'm using for different purposes during all this.

Re: Economizing your LSAT Prep

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 12:55 pm
by jym_dawg
Also used binders & printed off two copies of each PT. Organized binder by PT # and kept the first, marked-up PT so I could easily compare mistakes/improvements between first and second attempts.

Re: Economizing your LSAT Prep

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 3:46 pm
by LSAT Hacks (Graeme)
CardozoLaw09 wrote:Like do you guys just print off PT's at home? For drilling do you print off the PDFs or just read them off the computer screen?
Don't do PT's off the computer screen. It's not the same.

If print costs are an issue, there are a few options:
  • Free printing at your school, work, or parent's office.
    Cheap bulk printing at a UPS or local print shop. Check who has deals.
Watch out when printing games and RC. You want to make sure to print the passage/setup on the left, and the questions on the right page. I once tried a PT with the passage on the opposite side from the questions, it was twice as hard.

Overall, I'd err on the side of overspending a few dollars on print costs. A good LSAT score can literally be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. View the spending as an investment.

Re: Economizing your LSAT Prep

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 4:41 pm
by Theopliske8711
graeme wrote:
CardozoLaw09 wrote:Like do you guys just print off PT's at home? For drilling do you print off the PDFs or just read them off the computer screen?
Don't do PT's off the computer screen. It's not the same.

If print costs are an issue, there are a few options:
  • Free printing at your school, work, or parent's office.
    Cheap bulk printing at a UPS or local print shop. Check who has deals.
Watch out when printing games and RC. You want to make sure to print the passage/setup on the left, and the questions on the right page. I once tried a PT with the passage on the opposite side from the questions, it was twice as hard.

Overall, I'd err on the side of overspending a few dollars on print costs. A good LSAT score can literally be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. View the spending as an investment.
Made that mistake a few times while making print outs. Really hurt me on the reading passages.

Re: Economizing your LSAT Prep

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 5:19 pm
by arcanecircle
I use the Cambridge PDF bundles from PTs1-38, I also have PDFs of all individual PTs. To be economical I used the laser printer at work, so all I had to invest in was the paper I used, a couple binders and filing folders. If I had to print everything myself though, I'd definitely invest in a laser printer. Here's how I went about organizing:

I have one big 5-inch binder for "done" LGs and LRs from the Cambridge packets, all are printed out single-sided, and I do the work for the games on the back of the previous pages, this way I can see the work for each problem side-by-side inside the binder, next to the respective LG. This also helps me save on paper because I only circle or cross out ACs lightly on the actual LGs, makes it easy to erase that for redos, while still having my old work accessible next to the LG. Same deal for LRs, I circle any wrong questions and come back to them later. I could probably have printed the LRs double-sided but since I printed all the LGs and LRs at once, I didn't bother :shock:

I made stickies for all the answer key sections of the Cambridge bundles, so I can easily thumb through the binder and see which problems I want to come back to. I also semi-reorganized the LG by type, since they were a little too over-categorized for my tastes. I moved around the LR material to be more in line with the MSLAT guides organization as well.

The unused Cambridge packets are in hanging filing folders in my desk (Since I study at home almost exclusively). I adopted this specifically for the unused material because having them loose leaf inside a folder is much easier than pulling them out of that big binder, never mind the time it took to 3-hole punch all those papers. Definitely worth it though, since its so easy for me to redo LG and LR now without having to struggle.

For PTs and timed sections I print them out single-sided with large margins so I can go back and write notes in them, then stick them into a separate binder, I organize them by section type and PT number.

One important thing was to always write lightly, being able to erase stuff I knew I would redo saved me a lot on paper.

Re: Economizing your LSAT Prep

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 5:43 pm
by Cerebro
arcanecircle wrote: One important thing was to always write lightly, being able to erase stuff I knew I would redo saved me a lot on paper.
For logic games, one thing you can do is get a few clear sheet protectors and use a dry-erase pen to solve them. I haven't done this, but if you're worried about saving paper, it might work out. My wife bought me 4 cases of paper for my birthday (YIKR?!), so I have 10,000 sheets to burn.

Re: Economizing your LSAT Prep

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 9:55 pm
by CardozoLaw09
arcanecircle wrote: and I do the work for the games on the back of the previous pages, this way I can see the work for each problem side-by-side inside the binder, next to the respective LG


The only disadvantage to this would be that you'd have more space to work with which distorts accuracy somewhat.

arcanecircle wrote:For PTs and timed sections I print them out single-sided with large margins so I can go back and write notes in them, then stick them into a separate binder, I organize them by section type and PT number.
Cerebro wrote:For logic games, one thing you can do is get a few clear sheet protectors and use a dry-erase pen to solve them. I haven't done this, but if you're worried about saving paper, it might work out. My wife bought me 4 cases of paper for my birthday (YIKR?!), so I have 10,000 sheets to burn.
Nice!

Re: Economizing your LSAT Prep

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 11:40 pm
by arcanecircle
Yeah I thought that too but with the LGs getting extra space I actually thought it would be wiser to get used to having extra space. I probably should have mentioned I never use one entire page for 1 LG, keeping in mind I might redo it again. I usually fold up the page in 3s, should be about as much space as you get on the real test, if not less.

The dry-erase idea is neat, but I imagine you'd have to write on the same paper as the LG which we won't be doing for more than 1 problem on the new LGs, they're laid out like RC passages now IIRC, only like 1 question will be on the rule page, so your work will likely be on the initial page and your hypo's if applicable will be written on the second page. I should look at 66 or 67 and see how it is, I think they might give you space on the other questions too...

Edit: Looks like each LG is two pages and you have about a half-sheet or more of room on each page.

Re: Economizing your LSAT Prep

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 11:51 pm
by CardozoLaw09
arcanecircle wrote:Yeah I thought that too but with the LGs getting extra space I actually thought it would be wiser to get used to having extra space. I probably should have mentioned I never use one entire page for 1 LG, keeping in mind I might redo it again. I usually fold up the page in 3s, should be about as much space as you get on the real test, if not less.
True - I keep forgetting this LG layout is the new norm.