I started my journey in April 2021 with a 141 diagnostic as well, have scored 165, 168 on 2 LSATs and now I'm PT'ing in the mid 170s and hope to break into the 170s on the January LSAT. It is SO possible to achieve your goal score despite how far away it may seem. I had people tell me the most I would raise my score is 15 points but that was unacceptable to me and my motivation was to prove it to myself that I've already come so far, and that this is a very learnable test with the right amount of practice and time. The only person putting limits to what you can achieve, is yourself, if you tell yourself you can't do it, you won't, so do your best to stay positive and really take this as an enjoyable learning experience and see how it impacts your view on the LSAT for the better!

I use LSAC's tablet for the test so I've used my stylus pen to follow along as I read and it was never an issue so I'm sure it's fine

I received my offer to Osgoode yesterday! I'm an Ontario applicant

I've had RC-LG-LG-LR before but I think it's fairly random for the most part. What I typically do is put the sections into a random name picker and choose my experimental based on that so that way I'm not unintentionally giving myself a section I prefer

Congratulations from a fellow Ontario applicant :) Where were you accepted?

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lol everybody here being all healthy with the meditation and exercise and here I was thinking of taking sleeping pills the night before to calm myself down.

I mean I did try this the first time around and my anxiety was so bad even the melatonin only lasted about 4-5 hours before I woke up anxious lol

LSAC has confirmed that it is allowed! Some proctors aren't aware of all the rules so what I like to do is know my accommodations and allowed tools that seem 'unusual' beforehand and make the proctor aware that I know what's allowed on the test. Ex 'i just wanted to confirm that you have my 50% extra time accommodations and that you're aware we're allowed to use ctrl f during the test' and they always say yup you're good to go

yes ctrl+f is allowed :)

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Any tips overall or for RC/LR?

The biggest thing for LR I'd say was noticing trends, often times it's not as simple as a certain question type that gives you trouble, and you have to recognize those to make larger strides. For myself for example, it was always 3-5 questions I'd miss from the end of the section which are typically more difficult, so I would work backward from a section and focus on 10-15 questions/day with BR. By focusing on the more difficult questions, I not only got more confident where I had issues but also became so much quicker at completing the first 12 questions that I could spend more time making sure I was reading the stimulus correct--on that note, a lot of silly mistakes I'd make was just misreading a word in the stimulus or answer choice, so really try to capitalize on the easier questions you can get faster. For RC, since it was my most volatile, instead of just doing timed sections, I would slow down and analyze how I was reading the passages in a section and pause after every paragraph to make mental notes about the topic/point of views/framework/tone. I stopped underlining/highlighting as it just wasted so much time for me and I found that doing very low resolution summaries on each paragraph on my scrap paper was super helpful

ex. Para 1: -topic ___

-author POV at line 5

Para 2: -old vs. new theory explanation

Para 3: -pros and cons of old theory

These brief notes/words helped remind me of where everything was in terms of organization and made me pause after every paragraph to take in what I had just read so I could recall info better during the questions without having to frantically search for keywords/ideas. Lastly, accuracy is key on RC, if you don't understand a whole passage, the questions won't be any easier so slow down, take your time reading the passage and you'll get better at picking out the supported answer choices from the text--learning to go from -7 to -2 on RC for me was speeding up only on the last passage when time was running out and had about 3 questions left that I could guess/be 80% confident in but better than letting so many other points go! Hope this helped a bit :)

For myself, being able to break into the high 160s-170s was all about reviewing and practicing my weaknesses (typical, I know). If you're scoring in the mid 150s at least, I'm sure you have the foundations down and what will help you increase your score is sitting down with questions you got wrong and without looking at the right answers, keep at it until it clicks. It was so tempting to want to know the right answer and just say "okay now I get it" but that wasn't actually helping. That being said, I don't recommend just drilling sections after sections if you're getting quite a few questions wrong or see a trend. For instance, I take 1-2 PT's a week, the day after the PT, I will blind review and analyze those questions I flagged and contemplate life until I understand what I did wrong. Then I create a study plan based on my strengths/weaknesses--my strength is LG so I would limit myself to doing 1 timed game (5 star difficulty)/day just so I don't regress. LR, it was always 3-5 questions I'd miss from the end of the section which are typically more difficult, so I would work backward from a section and focus on 10-15 questions/day with BR. Lastly, for RC, it was my most volatile, so instead of just doing timed sections, I would slow down and analyze how I was reading the passages in a section and pause after every paragraph to make mental notes about the topic/point of views/framework/tone. I would do my best to remain close to the allotted time but if I took a bit longer, I didn't sweat it. Your strengths/weaknesses may be different so adjusting this regimen to your needs is advised of course, and moral of my rant is that you don't have to be doing crazy amounts of PT's and timed sections to see big improvements, a lot of it is about recognizing your thought process on right/wrong answers and making changes to what you focus on in the day so you're not beating yourself up trying to keep up with a loaded schedule :)

I've been able to up my mid 160 score to 170s by using the "hunt mode" on: SA, NA, Flawed/Parallel Method of Reasoning, Main point and Argument part questions. I find they're the easiest to prephrase/know what I'm looking for, great thing about this is that many of the questions in a section are these question types which gives me generally an extra 5 mins at the end to double check questions I was iffy about

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I would say it really depends on what schools you're applying to and your best/last 2 years gpa; as for an LSAT in the 150s, the only schools I know that are more likely to accept them (granted you surpass their gpa median) are Ottawa and Windsor, others are more unlikely unless you applied Access category or have some amazing EC's and statements. I was accepted last round to Osgoode with a 165 and 3.55 gpa so having one stat compensate for the other can help. Hope this helps!

Did you fill out the portion of the application that asks you about any extenuating circumstances? We have similar stats and I applied to Osgoode this cycle: 3.45cGPA/3.8L2&B2 and I'm scoring in the 160s right now, taking January and I'm confident I'll be at a 165 by then.

I did! If you'd like to know more about my circumstances to see if its comparable, feel free to dm me. If you can score a 165 in January, I'm sure you have great odds!

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3.55 was best two?

My best/last two years is 3.88. Do I stand a chance with that and a 150s for osgoode? Also, in which month did you receive your offer?

3.55 overall, my best/last two was 3.67. Your GPA is great, but are you referring to a low-mid-high 150? Definitely will have a better chance with higher 150s like 158/159 but anything lower, I'm not sure is very competitive especially with the higher number of applicants. I received an offer in January!

I would say it really depends on what schools you're applying to and your best/last 2 years gpa; as for an LSAT in the 150s, the only schools I know that are more likely to accept them (granted you surpass their gpa median) are Ottawa and Windsor, others are more unlikely unless you applied Access category or have some amazing EC's and statements. I was accepted last round to Osgoode with a 165 and 3.55 gpa so having one stat compensate for the other can help. Hope this helps!

From most of the LG sections I've done, there is usually a trend of having 1 harder game and 3 easy-moderate ones, as long as you can consistently get through 3/4 games with accuracy in a short amount of time and spend the rest time on the difficult one and get it right as well, that's all that matters and what I think is kinda the point of mastering the easier games so that you have that extra time with the harder games. I don't think it's necessarily a lack of knowledge but perhaps not being used to the type of unique thinking thats sometimes required of the harder games. Hope this helps a bit, ultimately, consistency is key!

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@ Osgoode is my DREAM school and I saw you were accepted (huge congrats!) so perhaps! :)

Also is your last name Moreno? Because mine is too hahaha! Couldn't help but notice the username.

Thank you! :) I believe in you to get in! I'm sure you saw my subpar gpa haha so nothings impossible especially with your Jan LSAT score.

LOL omg yes it is, what a coincidence! Send me a PM if you wanna keep in touch haha, would be nice to know more people wanting to go to Osgoode/school in Ontario

Congratulations, best of luck this round! :) perhaps we'll be classmates in the near future

@ thanks so much! :)

@ thank you! I was working part-time during my study period so realistically I was studying about 3 hours a day for 6 days of the week, I chose Sundays to give myself a break so that I could start the week fresh. My 3 hours was also not a consistent block, I have ADHD so I really worked to break up my studying in 30 min time blocks and after every 30 mins I would give myself a 5 minute break, this really helped me avoid distractions and giving myself that small reward helped keep me focus throughout those blocks. 3 months before the January LSAT I started doing prep tests 1-2 times a week so it would be slightly longer than 3 hours studying, especially with blind review but was never significantly more than 4-5 hours, and if I had these long study days, I made sure to balance it out the next day by doing a smaller task.

Ex. Monday: Prep test

Tuesday: Blind review + analysis

Wednesday: 1 LG + 1 LR section

Once you start taking Prep tests, focus on your weaknesses and if you find you're really good at lets say LG, keep your LG practice to 1-2 games a day only and then do a whole section of your weakness. It's not about quantity but the quality of your studying :) Hope this helped!

@ thank you so much! best of luck on the LSAT and your law school journey :)

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YAYY!! CONGRATULATIONS! You are always so kind and helpful on this forum. Best of luck to you in all your future endeavors.

Aw thank you, I really appreciate that! Best of luck on your journey as well :)

@ Thank you! Prior to September I wasn't doing any practice tests but I would test my knowledge by doing timed sections (when timing was an issue, I would give myself an extra 5-7 mins at first then would gradually reduce the time as I got more comfortable with the fundamentals--this was super helpful getting me to have a few extra minutes to review at the end and feel more calm as I tackled the questions). During this time I used the powerscore books and I found them super useful to practice with while using LSAC prep plus to get used to the actual lsat format.

When September hit, I was constantly scoring in the low 160s but not seeing much improvement. I decided to start doing a PT once a week and BR for a whole day and use a wrong answer journal to really understand my thought process. It's easy to take shortcuts and say yeah I understand this, I'll skip it but really breaking down every stimulus, every reading and every game set up, that's where growth comes from. Logic games became my strength just by continuously practicing the games over and over until it became second nature, if you have more specific questions about LG feel free to PM me. LR was my toughest section with really varying results so I decided to get The Loophole by Ellen Cassidy and it was a game changer. It allowed me to "dumb down" the really complex stimulus and find ways to question the arguments, that it became second nature to prephrase the correct answer before going through the answers. RC for me was mostly just timing, for myself, taking notes and underlining/highlighting was not helpful at all and in the end was more time consuming and I'm one of those people that thought everything was important so basically my whole passage would be marked lol--I ended up learning to just take my time reading it slowly the first and only time and made mental notes of the framework of the passage, the main point, authors tone and brief organization of the passage.

In hindsight, I would have begun doing PT's so much sooner and taking my time to review so that I could come up with a much better analysis of what my weak sections are (not just LR/RC but in terms of question types, game types, difficulty question level etc.)

Hope this helps a bit, and best of luck studying!

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What was your GPA and LSAT?

when I was accepted it was CGPA 3.47, L2:3.6, LSAT: 167

As long as you're confident that you wrote a killer personal statement, your CGPA can definitely compensate for a slightly lower LSAT score! If you do consider retaking, I'd just make sure that you're positive you can achieve a much higher score. Best of luck, UofT is one of my top choices as well and the stats are definitely on the higher end compared to the other schools but we got this!

As a fellow Canadian applicant, a 157 may not be as competitive if your GPA is also below the schools median but there are some great schools that do consider a 157 LSAT competitive. If you truly think you can put in the work to get above your 157 for January, I would definitely pursue that option to give you a better chance! Best of luck :)