Hello! Just wanted to challenge myself as the September administration rolls around the corner. If you have any LSAT-related questions or concepts that you've been struggling with and you just can't wrap your head around it, I can try my best to help explain it! I'm not a tutor, but I have been studying for a long time and can hopefully gain some insight and deep review while helping you out!
Just leave the question number below, as well as any of the qualms you might have with the answer. Thanks!
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Hi! Best of luck with applications. I just took the August LSAT, and since my GPA is on the lower side, I really need a strong score to compensate. I'm considering retaking it in October or November.
For August, my main focus was timing since I had only practiced untimed before. Now that speed isn't an issue, I'm trying to close a 12-point gap between my PTs and official score. Do you have any recommendations for building a study plan to address these weak spots?
@qtaro Hi! I also took August, wishing us both luck in the coming days for score release 😵💫
I'm glad that timing is working out for you now! That's a massive hurdle. What do you consider some of your weak spots? Are you struggling more with LR or RC? What are your highest priorities for question/passage type?
The biggest thing that I wish I had done earlier is doing targeted drills on my weakest question type. I kept burning through sections and not understanding why I wasn't improving -- it was because I was reinforcing the same bad habits on certain question types! To get a strong score (such as 170+), the unfortunate reality is that you need near-perfection and can only sacrifice a few questions per section. If you have a certain question type or passage type that you are struggling with, you must target those before trying to burn through more PTs! Review lessons, watch videos, and drill!
I think you have around 8-9 weeks until October, and a little more for November. From now until your exam, I would plan out a week-by-week schedule + goal that you aim to reach by the end of each week. It doesn't need to be super strict or unrealistic, but it helps to keep a pace to rely on when you get busy or burnt out.
@haena Hi! Thanks for sharing that—wishing us both the absolute best of luck for the August score release too!
Honestly, I think RC is actually harder for me. Since I'm not a native speaker, it sometimes takes me a little extra time to fully process and digest the passages, which makes the strict timing feel even tighter.
That tip about targeted drills is super helpful, though. I definitely fall into the trap of just burning through entire sections instead of slowing down to fix my weak spots. I'll definitely start carving out time to focus specifically on passage types and pacing for RC, alongside a week-by-week schedule leading up to test day.
@qtaro Yes, of course! And just to add onto that, I had an LSAT tutor who was ESL student and she gave me a lot of tips about how to dissect RC passages without getting too absorbed into the material. Ultimately with RC, you really don't need to understand the content as much as you need to understand structure and voice. It's definitely really challenging with differentiating between LSAT-friendly assumptions and real-world assumptions, especially in RC, so it helps to keep a journal/log of all of the unfamiliar vocab/concepts to reference from time to time (i.e. knowing that the word 'traditionally' on RC typically introduces some sort of shift in thinking, like a new hypothesis or a new theory that may replace/challenge the 'traditional' one). Even though I am a native speaker, I also keep an LSAT-specific vocabulary log because it's intentionally different from our day-to-day speech! I wrote about it a little more in depth in this previous response to someone else.
Realistically, it won't be easy to digest complex English words as an ESL student, but you can find comfort in knowing that LSAT loves to repeat certain topics (i.e. jazz/black artists, Vermeer/art forgery, molecular biology, astronomy, ecology/environmental science, copyright laws, international law, etc). And while you ultimately can't predict exactly which passages you will get on the real day, if you go through all of the RC passages, you will likely find some repeated topics that will hopefully feel familiar and less daunting to you.