Self-study
Hey folks,
I got my June score back, and it was as I expected based on the difficulty of the exam. However, I’ve taken nearly all of the “modern” LSAT practice exams and all of the recent ones. I am kind of puzzled as to how to prepare for the real thing, because it has become very different from the last exam administration we have materials from (2020).
I was shocked by how time-consuming the questions were and the total focus on causality/phenomenon-hypothesis over anything else. Nothing I’ve ever practiced with feels remotely comparable, so I feel like all the drilling I do is on easy mode.
June exams were all new content (no reused content other than a single RC passage) which could explain the new style, but I haven’t really seen anyone else with this take, so I might just be hallucinating.
Does anyone have any advice on how to prepare for August?
My observations:
1) Parallel reasoning without formal logic to make the answer choices less strong
2) High amounts of wordy causal reasoning and phenomenon hypothesis questions with much more intense answer choices than I’ve seen before
3) A much harder time crunch on LR, but RC has remained the same
4) An emphasis on quantifiers/math style questions
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2 comments
following!
Hey there!
These are great observations; even if the test feels like it's changed significantly, there are still ways to use the materials we have:
-drilling 4- and 5-star causal reasoning connections, same with quantifiers, and PR
-using stricter time restrictions on drills and PTs/sections
Even if the test leans on some skills more than others, the basic skillsets still apply. If you hone them, they will translate, and there are always ways to get faster. You can't prep for every variable, but you can still prep for a lot of them.
I hope this was helpful, and sorry if it felt redundant/obvious; in the absence of hard data, it's a bit hard to be more specific. I will say that these observations alone are a good sign for how you'll prepare: you're already thinking critically about the specific skills you want to target and improve on. Happy studying, and good luck in August!