I am trying again after a break- I would appreciate any advice on restarting my studies!

lsatgodjk

Hi, all,

I've taken about a 4 month break from the LSAT do to personal reasons and just simply giving up. However, I am proud to announce that I am back and aiming to take the October 2019 LSAT.

Considering the LSAT is now digital, how should I resume? I was floating around the 155 range when I stopped and my break down was as follows:

Games: -2 to -6 on games (I've had perfect sections once or twice)
LR: -11 on the easier LR and -12-13 on the harder LR (My BR isn't much higher, i really need to work on my LR foundation)
RC: -15 on RC - Never really practiced this, I plan to go through the CC portion or the LSAT trainer on this section.

I'm aiming for 160, but please let me know what a reasonable jump is in about 15-16 weeks.

Any advice is MUCH appreciated, I am also open to PM's. THANKS!

MissChanandler

I think a 160 is very reasonable in your timeframe. There have been a few really great threads on here about studying for the digital test, but basically, it still tests the same things. You don't need to completely change your studying, you just need to take digital tests instead of paper when you PT so you're used to it.

I would recommend (and it sounds like you're already planning on this) redoing portions of the CC where you know you lack solid fundamentals. Foolproof games, and definitely practice RC. If you can get a couple more questions right per sections, you'll be at 160. Have you considered a skipping strategy?

Wesley-B

Here's an abridged version of what I did in a similar situation, but was looking for a bigger jump.

Hopefully this may help you game plan how you want to use your time between now and October.

April 2018 - stopped. My top score was 162 and had stalled out at 159-160.
November - January - Core Curriculum
February - March - 6 PTs, decided against March LSAT (score maxed at 167 w/ 164 avg)
March - late April - 12 PTs as timed sections. Score steadily rose to 174 in the broken down sections.
Late April - June - Took 11 full length PTs, was burnt out and didn't do as well as I wanted.
June LSAT - burnt out and didn't do as well as I wanted.
June-July - 2 more full length PTs, doing sections to stay sharp before July on Monday.

I don't want to speculate on timelines of other people, mostly because I don't know how many tests you have taken during your last prep period. I think hitting the LR CC could be really helpful for you though. I found it really helpful to go through the RC sections untimed and writing out where the answers came from, and writing the paragraph summaries. It is the most fragile portion of my test still but I started at -10 and got it down to -1 on a full length test.

I have a Google Sheet that I'm happy to share with anyone looking for more information.

Hope this was helpful!

Cant Get Right

I agree that the CC needs to be an important part of what you do here. Until you get that BR up on your LR, you’re going to be pretty much stuck where you are. RC also provides a lot of opportunity to grow. I’d aim to pick up about 5 points on each of LR and RC. That seems achievable on your timeline given quality, disciplined study, and I think that should comfortably add five points into your score.

What’s your deal with RC? RC is really dynamic because it’s testing skills we’ve all been exercising in one form or another for a long time. Our unique strengths and weaknesses are therefore more important to improving on RC because they’re more deeply ingrained. Sometimes a single, well-targeted adjustment can give people the kind of jump I’d be wanting to see here. So where exactly is that -15 coming from?

lsatgodjk

@MissChanandler I skip the 17-22 or 23 range because I've heard those are the hardest (for LR), thanks for your advce

@Wesley-B sounds like quite a journey, is LSAT full time for you? how many hours per day or week are you studying?

@"Cant Get Right" I am sending you a PM

MissChanandler

They're not necessarily the hardest- there can be easy ones at the end or hard ones at the beginning. Furthermore, it's not about what other people say is hard- you should be skipping ones that are hard to you. __

Wesley-B

@lsatgodjk LSAT is full time for me right now. I have a family situation so I quit my job to help out. With that being said, it is easy to do too much and burn out when you're doing LSAT "full-time."
I don't track the time I spend on studying, but I would guess it's a 15-35 hours a week range with an average in the mid to high 20s.