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Related Discussions
Study before or after work
Bianca1234-1
Alum Member
When do you find the best time to study? Due to the early time of the September test, I am considering beginning to wake up around 5am to study rather than doing it when I get home from work (around 7pm). I find that at night I'm often pretty tired which affects my performance. Has anyone had good experience with this?
Comments
Depends on your internal clock/when you are most alert. I personally am a night person and don’t absorb anything before noon on any given day therefore I choose to study after work from about 7/8pm to 11:30pm. The real trick is seeing if you can pull off an hour or so of studying at work as well. Maybe find a side room?
Whatever is good for you. But I think you should mimic your actual practice exams to the time of the test though.
I've found that even if I "feel" like I'm awake enough to take a PT/study in the evening after work, I do worse than in the mornings. I think it's good to study in lots of different conditions though so that you'll be ready for whatever happens on test day. My current strategy is to study throughout the week at whatever time works, and then consistently PT at the same ish time on Saturdays to get ready for the real thing.
I agree. I studied at all times of the day, usually even on the train to and from work. Definitely not ideal conditions, and sometimes I would feel a little low energy, there would be distractions, whatever. But it really helped taking the test -- I hadn't slept well out of nervousness the night before, but going in, I knew that I could handle any distraction and that I was still able to perform under a tiny bit of fatigue.
It is so hard to give an answer that will provide any benefit since we know nothing of your work ethic, financial situation, health etc.. With that being the case, I would highly recommend experimenting and trying different things. For example when you get home from work, try a 15 minute workout to give you some energy and dopamine in your system, shower and then study ! Or wake up in the early in the morning and study like you thought, however keep in mind that it might affect your work performance since you would have used up most of your willpower studying, however just my opinion.
In conclusion, experiment and think outside the box, most of us are not born with a silver spoon and we actually have to work under sometimes undesirable circumstances to get what we want.
Morning makes more sense physiologically since you will be taking in the morning and you need to get your body in the routine of morning study.
I had a somewhat similar schedule while studying and I really liked it cause I was totally fresh to study in the morning. I feel like I learned a lot faster once I started studying first thing in the morning
I studied before and after work including the commute and found that to be extremely valuable in terms of shaping my mind towards LSAT thinking. Personally, studying when tired helped train my mental fortitude for this exam. Test it out for a month and see how much your score improves.
100% you should be studying in the morning. If you are writing your test at 8:30am, whether you are sharper at this time or not, you need to get used to doing this type of mental activity at that time. Not only will you be helping to recreate your mental/physical state on test day, but, if you are groggy in the morning, waking up this early will help adjust your body clock so, eventually, you will be alert at this time.
I hope everyone realizes that it could take an hour to get everyone into the room on LSAT day. Bags need to be searched individually. Then it takes like 30min to just do the bubbling in your name and signing certifying statement part (they go through it veryyy slowly). Your brain doesnt actually need to be working at 8:30am on the dot. I think that for most people it's not too hard to turn your brain on at around 10am. You're also going to be running on a lot of adrenaline (hopefully, like seriously get yourself pumped beforehand). Groggily waking up at 5am to study immediately before work doesnt feel quite the same as waking up amped as hell after a restless nights sleep to take the LSAT. If one has to get to work around 8-9am then you don't really need to change your sleep schedule drastically.
With that being said, I did study the most effectively when I did an hour before work, 30 min during lunch, then an hour or two after work. I was much less exhausted than just studying 7-10/11pm after work.
I really think it's individual, whatever works for you. I briefly attempted morning studying, but I am 100% the opposite of a morning person. I couldn't focus on anything and didn't absorb it. I studied only on lunch breaks and after work like 7:30-10pm on average. I didn't do PTs early in the morning either - I generally took them at my local library and it doesn't open until 11. But the week of the test, I worked hard to make sure I was as rested as possible. Took Friday off work to do fun things and be low key. Saturday morning, took a brisk walk to wake up and did a few warm up questions just before going into the test center. And as mentioned, you won't be testing right at 8:30am. I think mine started around 9:45. 8:30 is when they start checking people in, which took at least 30 minutes. Then once everyone is settled, they start passing things out, guide you through filling out the bio stuff, etc. It takes forever. So you do have a while to get your brain moving before seeing the first test question.