How much warm up is too much?

vitamincoverdose

I’ve noticed my PT score gets significantly lower when PT is the first thing I do in the morning. (Confirmed by the two PTs this week:P) There was 10 points difference between the one I did at 8:30am sharp, and around 11am cause I was lazy and BRed LG from the previous PT on the day of the next PT. Surprisingly I scored a lot lot better after BRing LG before PT, which took me around two hours.

Would two hours of pre-studying before the test be too much for the actual test? I found it helpful but at the same time I’m only doing 4 sections, so it might be different on the real thing. Maybe get too tired by 5th section?
I’m thinking about implementing warm up to my pt routine, so would like some suggestion on what’s the optimal amount.

So wish the tests were all at 1:30PM... why lsac... even proctors wouldn’t want to wake up before 7AM... nobody should be forced to wake up before 7am... just wish everyone’s lifestyle would shift a few hours later so we (more like I,) could be more happy and productive. It’s not like we still live in a time where we have to align our everyday life to sunlight... no more...

Alex

Like most LSAT answers, it depends...

Experiment and keep data points to figure out what a sweet spot for you will be.

I found that I did better the more I warmed up. I’m sure there would have been a point of diminishing returns, but I never pushed it that far. I would do a set of games and the first half of an LR section I had already seen. However, for me, fatigue/endurance was never too much of an issue.

Leah M B

I think 2 hours is way too much. Keep in mind that check in for the test is at 8:30am. If you did 2 hours of warm up, it’d probably have to be from like 5:30-7:30am. If you’re not a morning person, you’d go into the test exhausted.

I do think it helps a little bit to warm up the brain though. Here’s what I did on test day:

6:30am - wake up, get ready, go for a ~15 minute brisk walk outside.
7:15am - do 1 easy one line sequencing LG.
7:30am - make and eat breakfast (2 scrambled eggs, banana, 2 toaster waffles with peanut butter). Make travel mug of green tea to drink on the way to test center.
8am - arrive test center. Sit in car with a LR and LG section. Calmly read over a few problems of each.
8:15am - walk inside to test center

I think it is very valuable just to do some super light review. All you want to do is wake your brain up though, not tax it. You want to make sure not to be too tired going in. I’d advise try taking a PT doing something like the above routine. I did the brisk walk on someone else’s advice and I also think that helped a lot. You want to wake up your body and get the blood flowing a little bit more before going in to the exam. It will help you feel more alert. I think you could do a little more review than I did, but I think 2 hours is way too much.

alumivacui

I really really like what Leah said. Honestly, warm up how you feel best. I personally like lists and find them incredibly useful. I personally spend the beginning of my time reviewing fundamentals very briefly just to get me into "the logical mindset".

I had a statistics professor tell me to do this for all my exams and it truly did work. Always start with the practical work--in this cases it was equations-- before moving onto the multiple choice stuff. For, in starting with the practical work you're actually engaging with the concepts and thereby getting into the grove... or atleast that's how I feel

So I do alittle something like this
Logical indicators [x]
Logical symbols [x]
Logical forms [x]
Types of arguments [x]
Types of nonarguments [x]
Fallacies [x]
Sufficient and necessary conditions [x]
Contrapositives [x]

This obviously isn't exhaustive, but i find it helpful to just review or get back to where i left off from the night or day or week before. best of luck and if you need a reliability partner hit me up!!

MIT_2017

2 hours is a lot. Don't overthink the warm up, as its impact on your score pales in comparison to the hours upon hours of prep work you've done. Just do something like 1 RC passage, 1 Game, and 5-10 LR questions. You could do a bit more than that, but I'd keep it to less than 1 hour for sure...

vitamincoverdose

@Alex @"Leah M B" @MIT_2017 Thank you! I guess one section sounds reasonable. Will have to try it and see how it feels.
@alumivacui Reviewing fundamental thing sounds really good. I’ll definitely do that. Thank you.