What's the most effective study method for long study periods?

ilovethelsat

Hi everyone! What is the most effective study method for long study periods for you? If you study for 5 or 6-hour stretches, for example, do you take a break every hour? I tried the Pomodoro method, which entails studying for 45 mins and then taking a 15 minute break, but that didn't work too well for me because I wasn't disciplined enough to follow through on it. Do you study and then take breaks as needed? Thanks

taschasp

The best way is if you can study as if you are taking the LSAT itself. That means do 105 minutes, take a 25 minute break, then do another 70 minutes. At least have something like that every time you study, and then for the remainder of the time, you can chunk it out however you want. But that way each time you study, you're also practicing endurance which will come in handy by test day.

Oni LSAT

Taschasp, do you recommend digital form PT or paper form PT? The skill would translate but did you feel any different when PTing on either form of PT?

lexxx745

Agreed, ideally most effective is to just copy the LSAT formatting with time. If you cant, i guess second best is to take breaks as you need, because if you dont, your mind wont work as well under that time you arent taking a break. Then again, one could argue its still better to do that so you can train your mind to work effectivley under long periods anyway

taschasp

@Oni_LSAT said:
Taschasp, do you recommend digital form PT or paper form PT? The skill would translate but did you feel any different when PTing on either form of PT?

I don't think it makes much difference, and it didn't for me! I mostly prepped using paper ones and did more digital PTs near the end. People's scores don't really change between the two formats, so I think it's sufficient to just take the free digital PTs on https://familiar.lsac.org/ to be comfortable with it during the actual thing. But for general practicing, digital or paper should be about the same.

The exception to that is if you try the digital and find that you're doing worse, or it doesn't feel comfortable to you. Some people have trouble with diagramming the games on a separate sheet of paper and going back and forth between their scrap sheets and the test. If you find that to be the case, then maybe you want to use more of 7sage's digital prep tests, at least until you feel comfortable with the format.

taschasp

@lexxx745 said:
Agreed, ideally most effective is to just copy the LSAT formatting with time. If you cant, i guess second best is to take breaks as you need, because if you dont, your mind wont work as well under that time you arent taking a break. Then again, one could argue its still better to do that so you can train your mind to work effectivley under long periods anyway

I'm glad you mentioned this because I should have brought it up: it's normal to feel like 105 minutes all at once is a lot. I agree that if that's too much, taking breaks is good at first, but you want to gradually work towards eliminating them, pushing yourself to go longer stretches of time until you can make it to 105.

Oni LSAT

@taschasp Thank you for the guidance. I prefer the Digital Testing because my neck isn't sore after looking down at the paper format (plus blind review) but I like to try paper as well so it's easily portable and I can do them anywhere I want.

How do you guys add a fifth section? Old PTs so you're not wasting future PTs?

taschasp

It's not a waste! Treat the "experimental" as being as important as any of the others. If you're about to do PTs 60-64, I'd cut up PT 60 and do one alongside 61, 62, 63 and 64, respectively. Then when you're done those, you can score PT 60 as if it was its own test and see how you did.

But personally I only did a few 5-section tests, because I (correctly) assumed that on the actual test I'd have enough adrenaline to just push me through the last section. But that's a case-by-case call you gotta make for yourself!

Cant Get Right

I had to learn to plan ahead for the next day. I always had big plans for tomorrow, but the problem was that when tomorrow came, it had turned into today and my plans were still for tomorrow. That's probably unnecessarily complicated, but the people that can benefit from this will know what I mean, haha. So, I learned to make my "tomorrow" plans as specific as possible.

My new study plans would be something like this:

08:00am - 10:00am: PT 57's LG and foolproof
10:00am - 10:30am: Break
10:30am - 12:30pm: Foolproof next games in "Trouble Game Bundle."
12:30pm - 02:30pm: Lunch Break
02:30pm - 04:30pm: PT 57's LR 2, Confidence Drill, BR, Timing analysis
04:30pm - 05:00pm: Make Tomorrow's Schedule; Quit for the day!

I even set alarms at each start/stop point so I'd know exactly what I was supposed to be doing at every moment. Scheduling the breaks and quitting times were critical. From there it was just a matter of self-discipline to do what I was told when I was told it. This was not easy, but after a few days of agonizing self-enforcement, I settled in and got into a comfortable rhythm.

Oni LSAT

@taschasp

That is a brilliant approach. Getting more productivity out of my study. Thank you!

learn2skipQs

soo... u guys r taking off of work and school to study? ..

Amit.Dhaka

@"Cant Get Right" that is so accurate! my biggest hurdle is psychological, just getting the mindset to do it. Can you share some tips on the psychological aspect of studying?