Self-study
It seems like all over the internet, there are anecdotes saying it takes about 4-6 months to break 170+. However, this seems strange to me because it is not super accurate.
I have a theory that it takes about 600 good hours of studying on average to break 170+. 600 actual recorded study hours, not including breaks and zoning out.
Thought?
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4 comments
I hit 172 after 5 weeks of about 2 hours a day or less, reading LH, and practicing here on 7sage. There is no one “right answer” to your question. It depends on where you started, what your baseline lexile level is, how much you read outside of school, what types of classes you’re taking in undergrad, whether you’re using ChatGPT on every assignment or not (you think I’m kidding but I assure you I’m not), your personality, your physical health and habits (if you’re drinking way too much caffeine or alcohol or you’re not ever working out and never meditate, that’s going to impact your score bc this is an endurance test and yes I have sources), etc. Also your mindset. If your mindset is desperate and thirsty because you don’t see a future for yourself without the LSAT then you will have a slightly anxious outlook every time you take it. If you tell yourself it’s just opening another opportunity and you’re happy with your backup plan, then that anxiety goes away and it’s easier to enter a flow state.
It took me roughly a year of on-and-off studying starting from the mid-150s, and more than half of that was spent trying to break from the 160s to the 170s. That, however, was just my experience, and it is different for everyone.
theres no magic number of hours to hit it. this is like saying how many hours of lifting does it take to bench 225. depends entirely on where your starting point is and the quality of your training. focus on quality not quantity
Prefacing my answer, I spent a while convincing myself whether I wanted to do law school in the first place so my opinion stems mainly from an attitude adjustment to the test & understanding the limitations of the exam itself.
To my actual answer, it is really dependent on how you study, whether you are optimally interrogating why you are missing questions/having difficulties with certain questions versus others, and, ultimately, why you are going for this exam at all (this sounds unrelated but believe me that having a reason that pushes you through the monotony of LSAT studying really helps you persevere)
I started with around a 140-something my junior year of college about three years. I treated the test like a interesting but hard curiosity and was doing horrible because I didn't understand, nor want to understand at the time, the material. Now, after life experiences changing my world and me changing how I studied the exam, I'm PTíng around the mid 170's consistently.
I will say that it does take time (for me, I read The Loophole by Ellen Cassidy to solidify an LR approach, read more articles by the Financial Times and Economist to get used to more convoluted writing for RC, and did 7Sage to have access to drills & tests), but I believe you can optimize the approach to either cut down your hours or get more out of the same amount of hours. LSAT can only create so many question varieties and your brain, after exposure to so many, will begin to automatically see consistencies, continuities, and egregious wrong answers when you read similar structures, stims, and answers.
A piece of advice I have to anyone wanting to score in that range is to treat your studying like you're doing a dissertation. Ultimately, you chose to pursue this line of work (which is studying for the LSAT), so treat it like you're trying to present the best product to someone who could change your life (AKA the law schools). Refine your technique, ask questions as to why you're doing what you're doing, and actively think about the stimulus/organize the passage as do questions. In my experience, developing your skills and letting that overtake your opinions on the test has let me achieve ranges I didn't think possible when I was younger.