Please help! Eggs-All-In-One-Basket vs. Hedge Your Bets Strategy?

LetsHigh5

Greetings, fellow 7Sagers and JY Ping fanboys (or fangirls). I'm hoping to use your collective brilliance to help solve a small dilemma I have regarding how to proceed in my studies. If you were slated to take the June 2016 test date, would you:

(A) Complete all of the 7Sage coursework and then take ALL of the prep tests (PTs 36-76) before the June test date. The goal here is to get as much practice as possible before the big day in June so that re-testing in Septemberis unnecessary. Let's call this the "eggs all in one basket" strategy.

(B) Complete all of the 7Sage coursework and then take MOST of the prep tests (PTs 36-65) before the June test. The goal here is to retain the remaining PTs (66-76) for practice, just in case I don't like my June score and want to improve by taking the LSAT again in September. Let's call this the "hedge your bets" strategy.

(C) Some other wonderful idea I have yet to think of (and of course, feel free to give that strategy the proper moniker of your choosing, as well).

Thanks in advance for all of your advice!

Jonathan Wang

I'd always hedge unless there is a VERY good reason that you NEED to ace the first test (as in, you're going to be deported if you don't). I wouldn't go 36-65, though; I'd stagger the latest 15-20 tests or so, so you have exposure to the 70s before your first attempt. Call it 36-55, and then 10 of 55-76, leaving the other 10 in case you need them. If you want, you can weight it more heavily toward the more recent tests on your first run, and go back and clean up the mid-50s/early 60s if you have to retake again. The specifics, I'll leave up to you.

Think about the timeline. If you call it two months for the coursework from today (which is optimistic, in my opinion), that leaves you at March 1. With the LSAT usually the first weekend of June, that leaves you 3 full months (call it 13 weeks) to take 45 preptests (36-76, Superprep A-C, Superprep2's new one) if you want to do them all. Believe me when I say that you aren't going to be able to take 3.46 preptests a week on average and still get what you need out of them review-wise unless you're already very, very good at the test (in which case an incremental 5-10 preptests won't matter too much anyway) or you're actually just a robot (in which case you should just program yourself accordingly and not bother with us mere mortals).

LetsHigh5

Jonathan, thank you so much for your thoughtful and thorough advice. I was leaning heavily toward the "hedge your bets" approach, as well. It would be catastrophic if I had burned through ALL of the tests leading up to the June date, only to be sick that day or have some other unforeseen occurrence doom my score.

Your idea to stagger the tests so that I have exposure to PTs in the 70s is something I hadn't thought of, though. And you're right; the timeline is quite short between now and June. Fortunately, I'm pulling out all of the stops to ensure I'm in tip-top shape by then.

Thanks again to you, Jonathan, and all of the other folks at 7Sage. I absolutely love studying for the LSAT and wish I had even more time to prepare. I did A TON of research before committing to a company/method of how I wanted to study. Your curriculum, web design, data analytics, responsiveness to questions, etc. make it abundantly clear that I made the right choice.

StandingOnTheSun180

My question is: What's the rush to get all the material in/learn it by June 2016?

In my opinion, I decided to take the September 2016 test, to give me more time to take in the material and based on the fact that most applications don't open until the beginning in the fall season. I feel you would definitely be in a good head space to take the June 2016 test if: have time available to study/get in the material (that's almost 25+h/week), set a definitive schedule that you follow through with on a daily basis, and had an achieve/reachable score that you're comfortable with achieving; this could just be general advice for anyone though >.<

But more power to you for taking the June 2016 exam & I wish you best of luck!!

LetsHigh5

I honestly would love to just wait until September to provide myself more time for deliberate practice here on 7Sage. However, as I stated in the previous post, you never know if you're going to get sick that day or have something else occur that greatly diminishes one's score. So, by taking the test in June, it fits in with my "hedge your bets" strategy, as well. Also, I don't want to be in the process of trying to study for the LSAT in the fall and trying to put together the law school application materials.

StandingOnTheSun180

Ahh makes perfect sense. Thanks!

nantesorkestar

I'm in a similar situation but I do have 25+ hours a week for prep. I moved back home for this and my only job in the next 5 months is a youth soccer referee starting in mid-March. If I am ready, I would love to take the June test but of course September is open. By early April I will decide whether to register for June and by that time I will be about 1.5 months in of PT and BR. Granted, I started studying back in August with October/December in mind but my score was too low. I stopped studying in late November and just purchased the Ultimate package today. Tomorrow is the day I start back up!

bbutler

I'm in a similar situation with you in that I won't finish the actual curriculum this time around until around April but I'm going to try and plug into the June BR group and take some of the 70's exams with them on Saturdays while I'm finishing up the curriculum. When I finish, I'll plug into taking all of the PT's with the BR group but I'll have missed about 10-15 exams that I'll be able to save for September if necessary. Depending on when you think you can finish the curriculum I highly recommend joining a BR group either for June or September. But if you do end up doing what I'm doing leading up to the June Exam you may have done some of the 70's exams 2x but the BR group is doing that already and you will still have some of the 50's-60's left over if you need for September.