This is where having a STEM background comes in handy. I was a Biomedical Sciences major in undergrad and the science passages all feel familiar. I've maybe taken 1 PT ever where there was a science concept introduced that I had never heard of before. Of course I didn't know every concept on every PT, but being at least familiar with all of the basic concepts and topics really helps in those sections. Like other people say, the only thing you can really do to gain this familiarity without studying it in school is to study it on your own (reading science articles, learning basic biology, etc.)

I think that most people would agree with you that the difficulty has fluctuated over the years. The earlier tests tend to be slightly easier and get marginally harder over time. However, the latest practice tests (mid- to late-150s) are actually easier in my opinion than the mid-140s through the early-150s. PTs 145-152 are probably the hardest batch, and therefore the ones that you should definitely take before the real thing, in my opinion.

Taking a month-ish long break, if you've been really grinding for 2-3+ months and are feeling burned out is actually something I would recommend. It helped me really get back into the game after I was feeling frustrated with my progress and I gained a lot of improvement in the period immediately following the break. It also helped me when I took my actual test because I felt much less of that "brain mush" feeling that you start to get after months of studying. That said, this is just anecdotal and I think you should avoid taking anything more than two months to assure that you don't lose your progress or your drive to get started back up again.

If there's anything I've learned from the past year that I've spent reading these "Chance Me" posts on Reddit and other forums, it's that you will never get a consistent answer. If people said, "you don't have a very good chance," would you just quit? Do you need people to say, "hey, yeah your softs are great, so you have a chance if you get a 17X LSAT," to keep trying? If you are already going to apply to law school anyway, then I think your best bet is to just ignore what people online are saying, get the highest LSAT score you possibly can, write the best essays that you have ever written in your life, and leave nothing on the table.

@k13lawwwwww I 100% agree with this hot take. 7sage is great, and I've really appreciated a ton of different features that they offer, but Blind Review just seems like such a trap and a time-suck. In my experience, spending even more time just sitting there and staring at questions doesn't give you the best ROI. In fact, it probably hurts you when you consider not only that you could be spending that time doing something more productive, but also that staring at questions you don't know the answer to for 30 more minutes will fatigue you and provides opportunity for distraction. I did Blind Review like one time and thought to myself, "well that was a waste of time." Instead of Blind Review, I just would go straight to results and immediately begin wrong-answer journaling.

There is actually a browser-based tool that somebody made recently that I used for my wrong-answer journal and really liked it. Whoever made it posted about it on Reddit, so I checked it out. I was pleasantly surprised. The UI isn't the best in the world, but it DEFINITELY beats doing it all manually. As far as I know, it's completely free, although I did stop using it about a month ago after I took the test and quit studying. The website is lsatjournal.com (not an ad).

For full length PTs, I like the questions to all be new, but honestly, I like to redo questions. If it's been 3+ months since I last saw a question, I usually vaguely remember the topic (especially RC passages) but I rarely remember the correct answer. Additionally, going back through and redoing every question I've gotten wrong has been super helpful, because it's the easiest way to automatically target your weaknesses. As you know, 7sage has lots of helpful filters that have made it easy for me to go back and redo questions that I either got wrong the first time or just did a long time ago, and I feel like I still benefit from this practice.

I agree with the people on here saying that working full-time makes it easier to study than being, for example, a college student. The structure of having the same hours every day really helps establish a solid study routine. As soon as I get home, I go straight to studying for two hours before I do anything else. Having a rigid routine and a predictable schedule makes studying feel less like an impending chore that I want to avoid and more like just another part of my day. (For those with variable work schedules and odd hours, I've got nothing. Sorry, that must be very difficult.)

In my experience, the best way to specifically train stamina is simply volume. Just like with running long distances, the best way to not get tired with a set quantity is to practice at about 1.5-2x that quantity. If you're trying to run a 5 mile race, make sure that you occasionally run at least 10 miles in practice. If you're trying to take a 4-section test, make sure that you, at least occasionally, take 6-8 sections in a row. (Source: I took the LSAT just a few months after I took the MCAT, which is an 8 hour long test, and the LSAT felt like a breeze in comparison, stamina-wise. Now that I'm studying to retake the LSAT over a year later, I've been struggling with stamina as well because I haven't been practicing at the same level of pure volume like I was when I studied for the MCAT back then.)