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Hey everyone, I was browsing on Google after a recent practice LSAT due to being unsatisfied with my result. I saw the great advice that people have gotten on here so I figured I would ask.

I am planning on taking the June 2014 LSAT and I am taking a Kaplan Prep class. I got a 151 on my first diagnostic. However, when I took my second test, my score remained exactly the same. I went up approximately 5% in both RC and LG, but I went down in LR by 7% (I found this odd because I was maintaining pretty high accuracy doing mastery sessions of about 25-30 questions). I might have gotten thrown off because of an LG section that I found to be more difficult than anticipated and I was frazzled by that. Not sure if it was the cause but figured it was worth mentioning. I didn't find timing to be an issue on any section but games and I admittedly froze up on one or two of them and barely got 1-2 answers figured out in those games. Moral of the story: I was disappointed in my lack of improvement.

I was aiming for a score of 158-162 on the real thing, but I am questioning whether that is realistic. I feel like I can improve enough to get there. I know I can dedicate myself to improving, as I am the kind of person who does not have difficulty committing to schedules and long term tasks. I have been doing all the Kaplan homework assignments and additional work as well. I try not to let a day go by where I don't do at least one LSAT related thing. That is what I found to be most discouraging. I am going to definitely turn my studying up a notch because apparently this was not sufficient for improvement.

Some other background information about my academic profile is:

3.85 GPA at Penn State (Univ. Park)
Criminology Major (Bachelors of Science)
Business Minor
Sociology Minor
Haven't missed Dean's List throughout college
Elected as member of executive board for a student business organization
Internships with County Judge and Office of Attorney General of Pennsylvania (Mediation)

Essentially, my post boils down to a few questions:

1. Is my goal score (159-162) possible?
2. What is the best piece of exam prep advice you can provide?
3. If, God forbid, I don't improve, is it worth it to go to law school? If yes (considering my whole academic profile), to what sorts of schools can I expect to gain acceptance?

1. Yes, and definitely capable of being greatly surpassed
2. A proper study regime that incorporates adequate amounts of drilling, PT, and rest (yes rest) [Consult one of the many guides on this forum, browse it, join a study group, all ways to start #2]
3. You will improve, see point 2

Play around with this:

http://mylsn.info/r/pre-law/admissions/search/

See what a great LSAT score could do to compliment your great GPA. Don't waste such hard work over your 4 years in undergrad on settling for an average score/Law School. If you really work at the LSAT and get a good score you will be looking at t-10 schools with good scholarships.

Also throw away and delete from your mind anything gleaned from Kaplan.

These are by common consent the most helpful materials:

PowerScore Bibles
Manhattan LSAT series
The LSAT trainer
Every Practice test available
Cambridge drilling packages (use the ones from tests 1-38 and save the rest for actual full practice tests)

Additionally, LG are the easiest section to improve, but it does take diligence and constant grind for awhile, but they will come and then you can focus on the other sections (if you choose to do LG first, I did and it is a great motivator knowing there is a section that I can go -0 on).

HTH

Edit: Scooped by Nonconsecutive; I just expounded a bit.

BTW congrats on SLS Nonconsecutive

CTel92 wrote: 2. What is the best piece of exam prep advice you can provide?

Above all else, learn how to really break down and analyze arguments properly in order to get really good at figuring out the flawed assumption(s) BEFORE going into the answer choices. Developing that skill and prioritizing it in your hands on approach is the main key to perfecting the LR sections.

Just reading the arg, spotting the conclusion and jumping right into the answers without carefully and critically analyzing/evaluating it is a common reason for poor LR performance. The better you understand the argument, its main assumption and flaw, the easier the answer choices will be to understand and process accurately, usually making the CR clearly stand out unlike how you perceive it after a rushed superficial read of the stimulus.

Seriously, making it habit to do this and getting good at analyzing arguments properly is the #1 key to LR success. It makes the section much easier, less confusing and more manageable since you'll be thinking on the right level to understand what is going on. With the assumption/flaw in mind you can easily recognize correct answers and spot traps without needing a bunch of artificial 'tricks' you've learned from various prep advice for POE that are largely about superficial answer characteristics and other non substantive-logic based analysis shortcutting tactics that frequently fail.

I suspect that the Kaplan class has loaded your head with a bunch of junk -"memorize and do this"- non-logical tactics for analysis such as guidelines to memorize about picking answers with extreme words like 'ALL' and other words and stuff. If you're using a bunch of memorized 'tips and tricks' like that, you must get rid of them and learn to just focus on the actual logic to get into the 160s. You can easily do it just by focusing on learning how to properly evaluate and analyze arguments before diving into the answers. It's all about clearly understanding the logical structure of the argument, the core and the main flawed assumption. Once you get good at doing that, everything else makes much more sense and gets easier to deal with.

Thanks for the help everyone. I'm definitely going to look into the Bibles because everyone seems to think that they are really beneficial. I really appreciate all the advice that's been provided. I'm kinda disappointed to hear about the negative reputation that Kaplan holds although I tend to agree about the lack of thorough explanations. I can't even say how many times an explanation for an incorrect answer would simply be something like "you can rely on previous work to eliminate this".