PTing When You Work Full Time

msizzleee

Hi All!

For those who work full-time and study before/after/during (lol) work, I'm curious: How many PTs do you take per week and how do you schedule them?

I've been studying since January, finished the course in about March but have only taken about 10 PTs. I'm only able to take 1/week (usually on a Saturday) because I find myself unable to concentrate after a long day at work. I once took a PT on a Friday after work and my goodness, it was AWFUL.

I'm taking the October test and would really like to manage my time for PTs in the best way possible. Any tips?

Thanks!

Alejandro

I'm on your same boat, but I haven't started PTing yet. Aaaaaaarrrghhhhh!! What I would recommend would be to still take those tests after work. It is good to take them in unideal conditions and/or times where you are not going to be 100%. Those PTs are not there for you to impress yourself with how high you can score; but more so about actually improving in the LSAT. In my point of view, those mistakes you are going to make while not at 100% are going to make you realize weaknesses you wouldn't have been able to uncover in perfect conditions - and that is always a good thing if you seriously want to master the LSAT! You can also blind review much more thoroughly muahahahaha

jdawg113

I mainly did them on Saturdays as well (rarely do 2 in a row, good to test your endurance once in awhile ) but as test day got closer I added one on Sundays as well (take the PT's earlier in day, then relax, eat lunch and review + maybe another section or so/drilling) and on weekdays after work I just do either a couple of sections and w.e review I can get in or drilling and review depending on where I am in prep/my recent PTs

visualcreed

I work full time, I tried a few after work but I found that my scores dropped because of fatigue so I started just taking them on days off or during evenings that I felt pretty energized. I've only taken about 14 total and I feel pretty good about where I am so it's not too bad.

nicole.hopkins

I work full time and do not work on anything (including LSATs) on Sundays. I always PT on Saturday mornings; I've tried doing 2 PT's on Saturday but the second one always has a lot of "x-factors" to consider due to fatigue. I've been able to successfully add in mid-week PT's and plan to begin consistently PT'ing on Mondays or Tuesdays after about the second week in June.

I think if you're going to do more than one a week, taking after work one of the days is really the best option. Otherwise you'd have to get up at what I presume is an abnormally early hour and, again, many x-factors. Perhaps pick one day in the week as a PT day; do you have a slow day at work? Is there a day when you typically get off earlier? Etc.

sarkisp23

I also work full-time, but my schedule is a little all over the place, except for having Saturdays off. In my opinion one preptest a week on a Saturday morning from now until October is plenty, including the accompanying BR of course. I usually spend 1-3 days on BR until I really get it ingrained. That aside, instead of worrying about doing a full preptest midweek, I recommend doing section drilling. Perhaps even 2 LRs in a row followed by 1-2 days of BR.

There are still 4 full months until October, and I find that when I force studying, I learn less. I would rather do one 35 min section, BR it and learn something over a rushed full preptest that I barely have enough time and mental capacity to BR. In between all that, reading the economist and so on will have a positive impact on your RC mostly so that is also something non LSAT related that can help. And finally, on those days you're really tired and you come home late and all you want to do is chill, I just stream a documentary about one of the RC topics. Knowing subject matter in RC helps. So these are just some methods and some "workarounds" I guess that I use.

Anyway I didn't edit this at all so if it seems disjointed my apologies just take what you can from it as this seems to be working for me quite well so far.

Em.k.vanv

I also work full time, 9-5 mon-fri. A good plan for me is to do 1 test split up throughout the weekday evenings, and one on the weekend. That way you get a bit of a break and you're only doing and hour or 2 in the evenings. I try to work until my focus really goes and not to push it, once my brain checks out then I'm just wasting time. Even if you only get 1.5 tests done that week, it's still helping.

Dr. Yamata

@alejoroarios said:
I'm on your same boat, but I haven't started PTing yet. Aaaaaaarrrghhhhh!! What I would recommend would be to still take those tests after work. It is good to take them in unideal conditions and/or times where you are not going to be 100%. Those PTs are not there for you to impress yourself with how high you can score; but more so about actually improving in the LSAT. In my point of view, those mistakes you are going to make while not at 100% are going to make you realize weaknesses you wouldn't have been able to uncover in perfect conditions - and that is always a good thing if you seriously want to master the LSAT! You can also blind review much more thoroughly muahahahaha

^ THIS. I'd say over 99.9 % of the reason I blew it on Monday was that I was just NOT ready for that pressure.. and all my "sharpness" melted away. It definitely leads one to believe that studying when fatigued.. nervous.. distracted.. etc ANYTHING to handicap yourself is actually going to work to your benefit on test day. You need to be able to answer these questions in your worst possible state.. because on test day I promise you won't be your best.

bonjoursm

I did the same as @Em.k.vanv

LoraxMan

I work full time. I have done usually between 1 and 2 PTs per week. What I found was that I needed more than 1 day to actually take a PT, BR and review. The schedule I work with now is 1 PT on Friday evening (usually able to cut out of work at a reasonable time on Friday),and BR and review on Saturday. Then on Sunday I take another PT, and BR and review that one Monday Tuesday, and then drill Wednesday and Thursday

kittyahmed

@msizzlee if you did awful after a full day at work, then take more PTs after a full day at work. Every weakness you can find is an opportunity to eliminate it before you get in the room on test day.

I did about 1 or occasionally 2 PTs in a week, varying the time (unintentionally) to fit it in whenever I had a couple of hours. Sometimes I'd stay late after work and use an empty seminar room, sometimes close the dining room door at home and work before dinner (I have teens/older kids, so dinner time is sacred). The craziest was when I started a test at 11:30 p.m. The only correlation I ever found was that the busier/more hectic my day was, the better I did. Go figure... One time I never PT'd: Saturday or Sunday mornings. Several people above mentioned taking them in non-ideal circumstances, which I would wholeheartedly recommend. With that in mind, I took a couple of tests even on buses down the east coast (my lowest score was on a bus: 157. One of my highest was, too: 168. Scratching my head...) And @"Dr. Yamata" is totally right: anything you can do to disadvantage yourself when PTing is wise to do. Never baby yourself during PTs - the world isn't kind enough to return the favor on test day...

NotoriousCMM

When I was studying for June (and just started again for October), during the first 1.5 month I would take one practice test every weekend. I would also study during my lunch break in a quiet area and do practice sets after work.

Closer to the test, I did practice 3 times a week (M,W,Sat or Sun). Whatever weekend day I did not do a PT, I would review questions.

I would also like to point out that I work a second job on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and every other Sunday, so I was working about 60-70 hours a week.

This time around, I asked for all Sunday shifts off and will probably PT with the same schedule, but have some more time for BR -- which I did not do last time. It is tough but totally doable.

Hope that helps!

nicole.hopkins

@NotoriousCMM said:
I would also like to point out that I work a second job on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and every other Sunday, so I was working about 60-70 hours a week.

Hmmm this sounds familiar! Looks like I'm working on another trial on top of my full time day job; I take Thursday and Sunday off from LSAT. 3 PT's a week plus BR or bust.

I think it's important to ramp up, as others have said. Ease into it—don't start with a fully booked schedule. It's pretty easy for me to do 3 PT's a week now because I have gotten into the habit of doing a certain number of LSAT hours a week. A few months ago, this would have toasted me real quick.