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Hey all,

I am planning on taking the LSAT in September. I reviewed a bunch of reviews and study plans on this forum/elsewhere and I feel as if Testmaster's and Powerscore are the two best courses.

I wanted to start off with a prep course and then self study the rest of the way; however, I am moving to NY in June and I feel as if I waited until then to start a "foundations" course it would be too late. Considering this, I thought instead of taking a course, it may be best for me to self study and then when I get to the PT portion on my study time, potentially, work with a tutor.

What are your thoughts on how I should approach studying this summer?

jagerbom79 wrote:Hey all,

I am planning on taking the LSAT in September. I reviewed a bunch of reviews and study plans on this forum/elsewhere and I feel as if Testmaster's and Powerscore are the two best courses.

I wanted to start off with a prep course and then self study the rest of the way; however, I am moving to NY in June and I feel as if I waited until then to start a "foundations" course it would be too late. Considering this, I thought instead of taking a course, it may be best for me to self study and then when I get to the PT portion on my study time, potentially, work with a tutor.

What are your thoughts on how I should approach studying this summer?

I advise you not to waste any time, and to start studying as soon as possible. If you like the idea of a structured course, there are several online LSAT prep services out there - I'd suggest looking into those. Otherwise, get some books and start going through them. I like the idea of working with a tutor once you've gotten your feet wet and hopefully worked through all the material. A tutor can help you narrow down your particular weaknesses, assess what's lacking in your approach, and set you on the right path. It's a lot more effective to work with the tutor if you've already learned the basics and done a bit of practice.

You can try some of the online courses, I'm fairly sure most of the large prep courses offer their curriculum virtually. I can personally attest that PowerScore has hours of video content that is available for their in-person course, I'm sure those same videos are provided to online students.

7sage also offers free Logic Games reviews as youtube videos which are very good, I believe they also have an online class.

The above poster is so right on how the earlier you can review the content the better off you are, I wish I had taken that advice earlier. It also lets you know where you stand. I started at a 152 and had to claw my way up to a 164 average only to get a 161 LSAT in October. Comparatively one of my co-workers got a 162 on her very first diagnostic.

Just an aside, as someone who has burned through several 10 PrepTest books, either make copies of the pages before you mark on them or mark everything on scratch paper plus a copied bubble sheet. You will not regret it months later after you have gone through dozens of tests.

Thanks to both of you for your advice! I was initially hoping to take the December LSAT and have two more months of study, but it seems like September is smart so I can potentially get my apps in earlier if I crush it first try and if I need a re-take. Im fresh off taking the GMAT and scored well, so I think that I also have some test-taking momentum going into my LSAT studies and it won't be so foreign to me.

I am going to look into online courses or may even just follow one of the recommended self-study plans posted on here. I did an online course for GMAT for the foundations and then self-studied and I definitely have the discipline still to do that; but my weakness in my GMAT study plan was effectively analyzing my weak areas, taking notes on what I got wrong on PT's, and then focusing my time on ironing out those errors.

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jagerbom79 wrote:Thanks to both of you for your advice! I was initially hoping to take the December LSAT and have two more months of study, but it seems like September is smart so I can potentially get my apps in earlier if I crush it first try and if I need a re-take. Im fresh off taking the GMAT and scored well, so I think that I also have some test-taking momentum going into my LSAT studies and it won't be so foreign to me.

I am going to look into online courses or may even just follow one of the recommended self-study plans posted on here. I did an online course for GMAT for the foundations and then self-studied and I definitely have the discipline still to do that; but my weakness in my GMAT study plan was effectively analyzing my weak areas, taking notes on what I got wrong on PT's, and then focusing my time on ironing out those errors.

If you're killing the GMAT, then you will already have some notion of the LSAT's Logical Reasoning which is 1/2 the test.
https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/foru ... t5384.html

The strategy I am using right now is going back over sections I've done for Logical Reasoning and re-doing the questions that I've missed. Obviously there is a difference between taking a full test or 35-minute drill versus going over four to six questions, but you will start to notice there are things on the LSAT which you get really quickly and then content that you will not understand even after drilling it for weeks (If you're anything like me of course). The purpose of doing this is to really see what you've been missing and specifically targeting those question types, rather than using up a limited number of questions/PTs. However, we're all different in how we learn and this may not work at all for you. The best thing is finding strategies that you learn best with.

I'm in the same boat as you [well, I guess a week or two behind] but my current situation allows a great deal of flexibility. Working my way up from 166 sort of [didn't really do the June 07 in test conditions]

Not to hijack thread, but, to anyone who has responded here, do you see any value of doing an hour or so with a tutor early on? Then go to see them again when you start to plateau again.

Also, any resources to recommend tutors for someone aiming to score high [172+] on LSAT?