So should we concentrate on the 60s and higher PTs first rather than starting in the 30s as per the study schedule?

Good luck! I took a week off work prior to the LSAT date to chill out and relax. I've been hitting my goal score on the last 5-6 PTs so I haven't been doing much other than 1-2 PTs a week.

I'm thinking of scheduling the LSAT Written in that week off so I don't have to think about it come LSAT time.

I'm interested too for either July or Aug. Did some light studying in the past (was looking at it a few years ago) but I'm more interested in getting a study plan together that isn't 34 hrs/wk as suggested by this site (not happening with FT work!)

I'm also aiming for mid-high 160s and my diagnostic was 150.

@ said:

You have like 7 months, you definitely do NOT need to be studying 35 hours/week. That's 5 hours a day and highly unrealistic even for someone not working full time to maintain from the end of January until August. Try to set aside 30-60 minutes a day during the week, more time on the weekend. Work through a curriculum before you start going too hard on practice tests.

Here's the suggested LSAT Trainer schedule. Obviously it's tied to their book, but it only suggests 8-10 hours a week for 4 months out. Much more realistic and should be manageable working full time. http://www.thelsattrainer.com/assets/16-week-lsat-study-schedule-2020.pdf

Also my initial diagnostic was around 150 as well, and I scored a 166 on the actual exam while also working full time, so you can definitely do it with some dedicated study!

Thanks! I clicked the link but I don't see how it's only 8-10 hours/wk (unless I'm not looking in the right spot)?

Is there any way to play with the 7sage schedule to make it 8-10 hours/wk?

I just did a PT in the 70s (the flower bouquet one) which JY suggested that one of the main ways to figure out if a Chart is better is whether the game pieces can repeat.

Can repeat = Use chart

Nice! Due to work, I'll have to take a fair few 1-week breaks (writing in June) so I'm glad that it's not guaranteed to hurt my exam prep.

I'll echo all the others and say 23 isn't too old. However, I'd suggest to get a job, travel (if you have money) and then get back into study mode for the LSAT in a year. Or, work for 5+ years (or whatever Mature Student category is in that school) - you'll have work and life experience that the schools might look favourably upon.

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I'm stopping and fool proofing each game before moving on, in a sense. I have a spreadsheet going with all of the games done thus far with notes, the last time I took it, and whether or not my last timed run fell within the goal for that particular game. I spend about an hour or so as part of my studies running through a bunch of them. After I do that, I continue on in the CC. I find cycling through the games in this way to be a better system for me then just doing a game 10 times in a row. If I give it a couple days, I'm less likely to remember all of the inferences.

That's what is working for me at the moment!

Yeah, that seems like a much better idea to me too. I might try that as well. Thanks!

Bumped as I have a similar question, but not as high stats.

Been out of school 14 years, worked/travelled around the world with the federal government and still doing so, prob to the detriment of my LSAT studying!

I'd be surprised if I got 170 or higher but am putting the effort for it, but my cGPA was 3.1 (L2 of 3.6)

I'll be taking my LSAT at 36. Granted, what my plan for law school/career is a little different so I don't think I'm too old to do this (the folks I've talked to that did what I'm planning on doing all went to law school in their mid-30s/early-40s).

Well, at least I don't feel so bad bc JY also picked the same (wrong) answer.

I probably have one of the strangest reasons to write the LSAT.

I'm in the Canadian military. About a dozen years ago, a girlfriend of a friend was preparing to write it and I had got it in my head that if she was going to do it, I'd take a look and see what this was about. I bought one prep test, tried it, bombed (obviously) and forgot about it, including that I also enrolled in the LSAT itself. Months later, I returned from some work travel with the friend and was having drinks when I realize that the LSAT is the next morning. I woke up and got to the testing centre completely hung over and wrote it. When we got our grades, mine were nothing to write home about (60% percentile or so) BUT I managed to beat her!

Fast forward a dozen years or so, I've stayed in but in a different job. I catch up with another friend who wound up switching his career to Legal Officer. We chat about what we've done in the years in between and I mention that I've always been interested in law. He tells me that he became a lawyer through a highly competitive program for currently-serving members, and it paid for his law school as well as keeping his salary. Add to that, he said that as a mature student, my work and life experiences would be an interesting fit for law school and that program in particular - "if you can devote the time to take it, you'd be stupid not to."

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Finally, it may be a faux pas, but I typically don't do the full BR in one sitting; if I do, it's always on the day after, on a weekend. I'm a full time student and I don't have the time during the academic term to spend six or seven hours (which is how long it takes me to BR including breaks) to dedicate to one single thing when I have constant due dates to balance at Zoom University. I find that, after your timed run, if you take a couple of hours at the least or a day at the most, it really, really helps. Sure, it won't be simulating the mental stress of timed conditions, but BR is about learning, not about simulating test-taking environments. Whatever conditions you learn best in are those conditions you should create for yourself, even if it's waiting a day to BR.

That's a great idea and I might start doing that too. I work FT but thankfully I have downtime, so I've been BR-ing after my PT. I might wait a day now to clear my mind.

The LSAT won't let you BR afterwards, so why not wait a day? It'll simulate waiting for your score anyway, lol.

#help I used the chart and discounted B because Powell doesn't mention a reason for only spending 60%.

@ said:

my test scores were hitting my target and now they are lower than they've ever been. no idea what's going on.freaking out!!

Despite what you may think, take a break. Even if you don't do any more PTs, the mental break will likely help rather than hurt.

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How is the writing portion administered? My initial thought was over ProctorU, same as the real LSAT, but we didn't sign up for any test dates/times for the writing portion. But I know that there is still a video and time requirement to ensure that you don't get extra help, browse the internet, etc. Any knowledge about this?

I just did it on Tues and received approval in about 24 hours. It's through a different program, which you download through the link on LSAC.

There is a video and time req but no proctor - they just record you doing it.

Thank you! Good luck to all the others taking June!

I'm also planning on taking LSAT Writing sometime this week (prob 3-4 days prior to my scheduled test). I'm calming myself down by knowing that it's unscored and I've had a lot of practice verbally BS-ing stuff (I work in an admin/staff job) ;)

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If you can squeeze it in, I would recommend reading the Loophole in Logical Reasoning by Ellen Cassidy. It really helped me see the similarities between all of the question types. It's also full of great advice and helpful drills.

@:

I read through Loophole and started doing the drills and CLIR, but I'm having trouble making my CLIR decisions work with the answer choices. Any advice for that?

I'd make a CLIR and see the stem, but then I'm frequently stuck on how the CLIR can get rid of answer choices. I sort of default to "powerful/provable" or "not red flag" choices, but I still seem to get a bunch wrong.

I really like Loophole but wish that Ellen (or someone) could do video explanations too!

@ said:

Hey there! I am in a similar situation as you and with a similar timeline. I am also doing a full time job and have been studying since Jan as well. I haven't really done any PT tests yet. I am focused on fool proofing LG and have been following along with the Loophole as well. My reasoning is that it is better to go slowly and lay the foundations first and then move on to PTing. If you don't mind me asking, have you already fool proofed games?

I haven't really yet. I've been a bit scattershot because I thought LG would be my big problem, but after doing the PTs I realized that LR is worse. So I'm in the middle of changing courses (again).

I'll take your folks' comments in and prioritize LG first. Thanks!

#help I still get tripped up by stuff like AC D, even though I've bashed suff/necc through my head (obviously not enough).

I know C is correct now, but if the AC was "mistakes the necessary for sufficient", would it also have been correct? AKA did I read it backwards?

@ said:

Agreed with the other posters. I read Loophole prior to finding 7Sage and she advocates reading the Stimulus first. It wasn't until my tutor convinced me to try reading the Question Stem first that I switched. It took some getting used to, but this leads you into the stimulus with much more direction and focus as to what you are looking for while reading/analyzing.

It makes sense and I'm surprised Ellen from Loophole advocates reading the stim first. I did the CC and read through Loophole, but when I do PTs I can't seem to follow her style (CLIR, etc). I will say that the Powerful/Provable as well as Red Flags answers help though, but I'm still getting like -9 on LR.

Sigh.