Study Schedule Forum

[splitsohard]

So I have all the Manhattan Prep books, the Cambridge drill packets, The Power Score books, access to Kaplan's test study channel/online resources, Kaplan strategy books (that I have already reviewed but will no longer be using), and every practice test available.

Here's my question: with all the study material I have available, I'm not sure how to best devise a study plan. When I've been going through the strategy books, I've been focusing on one section at a time. After I study that particular section, and take a practice section test, I score very well. After I move onto studying the next strategy book and review my score declines in the last section that I had studied. I'm aiming for a 170+ with preferably a score about a 176. Currently I'm at about a 159 but haven't been studying for very long, or very consistently,

What are some general things that people do to improve their scores, and to study? I'm taking the December LSAT.

Logic games is my best section, so I was thinking I could do logic games every morning with blind review. But how should I approach logical reasoning, which requires a lot of attention, and reading comprehension, which is my weakest section.

Thanks!

[kcho10]

Hey,
Reading Comp I can't really help you with because I'm working on it myself, but for LR I made some pretty good improvement (usually miss about 2-3 now...VERY rarely -0)

This is awesome that you have all these resources. My advice would be DO NOT start off timing yourself for LR.
I started off isolating each question type, using Kaplan's SPR. I think Kaplan is great because they help you identify the trends. I would do their practice questions for only one question type only, and I would drill using cambridge lsat and Kaplan Mastery and Timing Practice until I felt like I really got it down. Then I would do the next question type, etc. I found that doing this helped me naturally gain speed without even trying. As I was doing each question I made sure I understood each of the answer choices and why one was correct and the other was wrong. If I got it wrong, I would note how I can prevent that mistake in the future. Sometimes if I had a recurring mistake I would jot it down in a notebook and refer back to it later. This helped me notice patterns in my mistakes and after reading over it many times the tricks the LSAT tried to throw at me would stick out. Also, make sure to review the past question types as you go or else you might forget how to do them (happened to me lol)

Hope this helps and good luck

[splitsohard]

Hey,
Reading Comp I can't really help you with because I'm working on it myself, but for LR I made some pretty good improvement (usually miss about 2-3 now...VERY rarely -0)

This is awesome that you have all these resources. My advice would be DO NOT start off timing yourself for LR.
I started off isolating each question type, using Kaplan's SPR. I think Kaplan is great because they help you identify the trends. I would do their practice questions for only one question type only, and I would drill using cambridge lsat and Kaplan Mastery and Timing Practice until I felt like I really got it down. Then I would do the next question type, etc. I found that doing this helped me naturally gain speed without even trying. As I was doing each question I made sure I understood each of the answer choices and why one was correct and the other was wrong. If I got it wrong, I would note how I can prevent that mistake in the future. Sometimes if I had a recurring mistake I would jot it down in a notebook and refer back to it later. This helped me notice patterns in my mistakes and after reading over it many times the tricks the LSAT tried to throw at me would stick out. Also, make sure to review the past question types as you go or else you might forget how to do them (happened to me lol)

Hope this helps and good luck

Hey thanks that actually helps a lot! I think at this point I'm wondering how you started studying for reading comprehension? not necessarily how you answered questions for that section or anything, but rather how you were able to start integrating RC studying in with LR or some other section?

Thanks again!

[kcho10]

Hey,
Reading Comp I can't really help you with because I'm working on it myself, but for LR I made some pretty good improvement (usually miss about 2-3 now...VERY rarely -0)

This is awesome that you have all these resources. My advice would be DO NOT start off timing yourself for LR.
I started off isolating each question type, using Kaplan's SPR. I think Kaplan is great because they help you identify the trends. I would do their practice questions for only one question type only, and I would drill using cambridge lsat and Kaplan Mastery and Timing Practice until I felt like I really got it down. Then I would do the next question type, etc. I found that doing this helped me naturally gain speed without even trying. As I was doing each question I made sure I understood each of the answer choices and why one was correct and the other was wrong. If I got it wrong, I would note how I can prevent that mistake in the future. Sometimes if I had a recurring mistake I would jot it down in a notebook and refer back to it later. This helped me notice patterns in my mistakes and after reading over it many times the tricks the LSAT tried to throw at me would stick out. Also, make sure to review the past question types as you go or else you might forget how to do them (happened to me lol)

Hope this helps and good luck

Hey thanks that actually helps a lot! I think at this point I'm wondering how you started studying for reading comprehension? not necessarily how you answered questions for that section or anything, but rather how you were able to start integrating RC studying in with LR or some other section?

Thanks again!

No problem, glad i can help!
I don't think this is how other people studied for reading comprehension, but this is what I did. I also used Kaplan for this section. Reading Comp has only a few question types whereas logic games has a lot. I would read a passage and focus on just getting the main idea of the passage down really well. Then I would only answer the global questions (questions that ask about the passage overall-main point, purpose, structure). I would keep doing that until I was getting all of the global questions right consistently. Then I went back and re-did the passages, this time answering both the global and inference questions (questions that ask about what is implicitly stated in the passage.) Then I went back and re-did them again, answering global, inference, and detail questions(questions that ask about what is explicitly stated in the passage). This method helped me to practice the strategies for the question types individually and to get a feel for them. Also, as I went along I made sure to make several annotations..I would underline the main idea of each paragraph,and focus on the PURPOSE of the statements in the passage rather than actually trying to comprehend the passage. My initial strategy was to go through the passage quickly and "bookmark" everything so I could refer back to it. Using this strategy, I was able to get almost all of the easy-to medium difficulty passage questions correct, but I'm still struggling with the difficult passages. I was recently suggested to try slowing down and practice absorbing the material so that I get to the point where I never have to refer to the passage, so I will try that as well. Either way, just like logical reasoning, I would suggest starting off untimed and work your way up after you consistently get the questions right.

Sorry, I'm still working on reading comp myself so I don't think I have the best advice...I hope this helps though