How to prepare?

So we discovered on the last post, that the LSAT is a measure of relativity designed to rank candidates and to serve as a predictor of how well they will do in Law School.

Again THE LSAT IS NOT A MEASURE OF ALL AROUND INTELLIGENCE.

It is a standardized exam that does not test your knowledge.

TIP: If you ever encounter a question where you're using your own knowledge to answer the question, you've got it all wrong!!

So how does one prepare for the LSAT?

There are several options:
1. Do as many tests as possible over months, weeks, etc.
2. Take a really expensive prep course
3. Intelligent studying??

As you all know, there are 3 sections to the LSAT:
Logical reasoning = 50%+ of the exam
Reading comprehension = 26-27% of your exam
Logic games - 22-24% of your exam...

There are usually 101 questions, so you do the math.

We all have our strong points and weak points. How can you get better if you cannot identify your weak spots?

As I had previously mentioned, my weakest point was SPEED. Whenever I did practice LSATs, I never tried to improve my speed. I was always doing the same thing. How can one expect to get better if one always does the same things (= also repeating the wrong things) over and over again.

So let me outline the first two steps that anyone studying for the LSAT should take:

LSAT PREPARATION STRATEGY:

1. About 6 weeks before the test, do an untimed practice exam, all 4 or 5 sections, just to get a feel. See what score you get without time constraints. What are your major strengths and weaknesses??

• Get a hold of some classification system for LOGICAL REASONING such as Powerscore, Kaplan, and others have, or create your own. This means that logical reasoning questions can be classified as: must be true, resolve the paradox, parallel reasoning, etc. This will allow you to know what questions you perform best on and which ones are most problematic. You can then identify what your are doing wrong. LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES.

2. After going through that exercise, see what effect SPEED has on your score. Choose another exam and allow yourself 34min a section. How was your score impacted?

To start off my preparation, I did exam # 40 with about 40-45min/section and got 75 questions correctly, which translates to about a score of 160-163, depending on the test. I answered 20 out of 23 question correctly on the logic games... However when timed I timed two other tests, I got a 148 (54 correct answers) and a 151 (57 correct answers).

• How does time affect you? It was always my case that I could get most answers correctly in the Logic Games section. Unfortunately, when timed, I would only have time to answer half correctly... My strongest section, became my weakest because of the time constraint. That meant losing 10 whole points because of speed (or lack thereof).
  
• How well did you do in each section when timed compared to untimed?
• Did you have recurring problems with the same question types?
• Were you able to do all questions and if not, how many would you say that you were comfortable doing in each question?

After doing just 2 exams, you have a pool of about:

• 100 Logical Reasoning questions from which you can analyze your strengths and weaknesses
• 8 different logic games
• 8 sets of reading comprehension questions

Now, after doing just 2 tests, do you realize how similar both tests are? If you do 4 tests for diagnostic reasons, you will definitely get a better sense of where you are now and where you need to get.

Do 4 timed test in 2 weekends, spending the time in between analyzing your STRENGTHS and WEAKNESSES and you've already done more of a service to yourself than anything else.

Note that most prep classes will start out with a diagnostic class. Why pay for something you can do for free??

Tune in for the next post on how to improve upon your weaknesses :)