study plan and materials question retaking many years later Forum

[sunsheyen]

Hello everyone. I have applied to a few schools (no blanketing, only the ones I might actually attend) but ended up on waitlists. I am strongly leaning towards withdrawing and retaking to strengthen my position. I applied really late as well, which I'm sure didn't help my cause.

I took the LSAT twice in 2010, and haven't thought about it since. My first try (pretty cold, had only done the practice test on lsac) was a 159, but i was stressed because I had totaled my car the day before, and had all the drama that comes along with that. I retook in June and got a 167. After the poor Feb showing, I got the first "actual" tests book and someone gave me the cracking the lsat book, and these were my study guides. I never did anything rigorous and would like to do so now.

I've read a lot of threads here, especially those stickied and the threads referenced therein, and am looking at the Powerscore Bibles and some Manhattan prep, along with the actual LSAC test books. I have a few questions:

1. I haven't really seen the Powerscore workbooks referenced much, and didn't know if that was an assumed when these books are being recommended. Are these used often? I see from the descriptions that they come from previous tests; is this why they aren't used since the material is available elsewhere (just in unsorted form)? Are they valuable beyond the categorization?

2. Manhattan practice test books...are they worthwhile? The Amazon description says they are a good accompaniment to the LSAC test books, and says they contain Preptests from previous administrations. Are preptests the same as the original tests, and if so, what would the benefit be to purchasing this set of books?

3. Since it has been so long, I can theoretically take the next 3 administrations, and set up study schedules appropriately. I am very late to the June party, and will probably take that with the barest of study, just to give myself an idea of where I am. Is a solid study prep something that can be worked in for the September administration with a little less than 6 months out? I would have to do something with an established timeline, as I am quite the lazy one and will not obsess over calendars and hours.

[haus]

You might want to take a look at the LSAT Trainer. There website provides several chapters of the book as a preview so you can see if the presentation is to your likening, and the author has been very active answering questions in a thread here on the forum.

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 6&t=209573

Early in this book there are several purposed schedules depending on the mount of time you plan to study for the exam.

[sunsheyen]

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply. I don't think I had seen that program mentioned in the compiled threads that I've been reading. (or may not have gotten to it yet). I'll check that out.

[haus]

Likely the LSAT Trainer has not made it into many of the well tread threads here as it was published only about a year ago. Although it does appear to receive fairly high marks from those who have used it.

Good luck with you prep.