Worried about wasting Practice LSAT's

PatrickMilone7

Hello,

I am a sophomore in college who is new to the LSAT preparation scene. If I am correct, there are only 80 practice exams released that I could use to prepare for the LSAT. I have been kind of hesitant to start taking tests because I want to make sure that I am maximizing my score from one test to the next. Can anyone give me any advice?

The Great White Shark

Hi! And welcome to 7sage!

First off, I applaud you for planning ahead and thinking about how to preserve practice tests, as they are a vital component to your studies. You should reserve a good portion, especially of the recent exams for the time period when you are closer to taking your official exam. I have been through different prep test courses and 7Sage's is the only course that I have worked through which is careful to preserve as many tests as possible for you to use as practice. The other companies' courses/books I went through pulled material from a lot of exams and also encouraged me to burn through a lot of recent exams at a fast pace. This isn't a good approach. At 7Sage you will find that the course focuses on making improvements in your score through disciplined study and blind review, not by continually rolling the dice by taking one test after another in the hopes that your score will magically increase. I truly believe that 7Sage has their students' best interests at heart.

So there are 89 numbered PTs available and some that aren't numbered as well. It is best to start out by getting your foundations in place by working through a course like 7Sage. I also think it is helpful to go through an intro to logic book, although it will have more in it than what the LSAT requires. All this could take up a lot of time so it is good to start early as you are doing. In the beginning of the 7Sage course you'll take a diagnostic exam to tell you where you are starting out. After that I wouldn't take another exam until you have worked through the course and fool proofed logic games. Blind Review is how you will get the most out of your PTs. Spend as much time as you need figuring our why you got questions wrong or why you felt unsure about your answer choice. You don't need to take full length PTs very often. I actually haven't taken a full PT in 3 months, but I take timed and untimed sections to develop strategy and I work through a lot of untimed problems. Also, reading complex, dry material for a few hours several times a week is helpful to develop endurance for this exam.

Something to keep in mind, however, is that the LSAT could change a bit by the time you take it. There has been talk about how the logic games section might be restructured or done away with completely. I am not sure about this. But it won't hurt you to study it for now. It is usually the easiest section at which to excel and it's only going to make you a more analytical person.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any further questions!

EagerestBeaver

The above comment is spot on. Beyond an initial diagnostic practice test, taking full length PTs consistently (weekly or more) is the last step of LSAT studying. How do you know you are ready for that step? You have finished the Core Curriculum, you have fool proofed early LG (maybe 10-35), and your blind review score will be about 170 or above.

Why those things? If you finish the CC, you will have the comprehensive knowledge of what each question type is asking from you. There is no point burning valuable resources to discover that you don't understand a question type.

That is similar to LG. This section is the most analytical and translatable from one test to the next. If you master the old ones, you pretty much will get the new ones. So save your PTs for that.

If your BR score is at about 170 or above, that means you get the test. If you look at it with no time pressure, you have the ability to truly get why almost each right answer is right and each wrong answer is wrong. The issue to practice is time pressure. Therefore, you are ready to take tests, diagnose results, work at problem areas, and repeat. If your BR score is not getting that high, that tells you you are missing something that needs to be diagnosed and will save you the headache of having burned your resources before you were ready.

These three things are not exhaustive, but I hope they give a benchmark of where you are at and help save you time and resources.