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Should I Give up Now
Crack LSAT175
Alum Member
I prepared LSAT from 2016, while I wasted the best time to prepare it. Now I have a job and have to work every single day, thus time for LSAT preparation is too precious and rare for me. I still get 150 - 155 after several months' review, and now I doubt whether I make a right choice, to take LSAT and to go to law school? Am I not talented in law and LSAT?
I find that my vocabulary volume is low, and I do not even have logical sense (maybe?) I do not know how to restart. Building up confidence? Preparing vocabulary? Watching course videos? Or just do preptest again? I have no idea about the test, about what should I do. My username looks so ironic now. I do not even know if it is desirable to spend time on complaining myself here instead of doing more PTs or blind reviews.
Thanks for reading my incoherent narrative. Maybe I need someone to dampen the enthusiasm of me to give up LSAT as soon as possible and the dream of becoming a JD student.
Comments
When are you planning on applying? What’s your BR score?
I would stop PTing and restart from the basics, as if you know nothing about LSAT. Sometimes when you study for longer period of time, you start to skip on the fundamentals because you think you already know them. I see you’re an alum, get a new book. Start over.
LSAT vocab is highly repetitive. After BR, or review just look up the words, they’re going to show up again, if you see them again and still don’t know, just look it up again and you’ll remember it next time.
But at the same time, ask yourself what you want to do with the degree. Going to law school is just one step towards your next goal. When I feel down, I think about all the cool mundane and insignificant legal research I would be doing once I become a lawyer. And telling people they’re wrong.
Thanks for your reply. After my BR, the score increased about 5 points. I have made a one-month plan today to start from LR by type. You are right, I always avoid the basic ones since I think quantity makes skillful/quality, but it does not work. Before today, I prepared for June test and 2020 enrollment, but now I just want to finish my monthly plan first. If not, I would give up, since I do not think I have the ability to enter law school, that is, if I cannot even insist for one month, I am not qualified being a JD student.
Thanks for your vocabulary recommendation, it sounds cool, I will try it
Like you, I always think about what will I do when I become a lawyer, it's the greatest thing to encourage me now. Hope you could get a perfect score.
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Hi there,
As a veteran low-scorer, long time LSAT student, the dejection you feel is completely normal. There is very much about the rigor of law school, that actually begins with the admittance process/ first milestone---the LSAT, that tests your endurance and commitment to your pursuit. The longer you study without seeing results, the more monumental it all feels. If the JD is something you really want, you have to find your reason for pushing forward and sticking to it.
A mid-150s score is still in the 'average' range, and contingent upon your other admissions stats, may be sufficient to go to a law school, albeit lower-ranking, if that were a consideration for you. Over time, I have reconfigured my goal score to be 'good enough' for my needs. This may not be your case and you aim higher...it is still possible to get that 175+! I simply do not have the discipline or the time to wait for myself to get a high score as I started out quite low. Studying on and off for so long has shown me that I am not mentally disciplined enough to be a T-14 student, and for me, that is okay. Set a goal, consistent with the medians of the schools that you'd want to attend, and work towards it.
The LSAT is learnable, although with much difficulty. I just am really over LSAT prep and would like to be back in school and move on with my life. The LSAT is a test of skills, and constructing those skills takes strategic and consistent effort. I have been down this road one too many times to know that your mentality has a great deal to do with your study success. You have to be consistent...even when life gets in the way make your best effort to squeeze in quality study time. Don't do another PT just yet!
First things first...return to the fundamentals. You need to reacquaint yourself with the fundamentals to be able to approach the LSAT. From personal experience, I have come to learn that when I fell off the LSAT wagon, even after just a few weeks, any slight progress retreated. Forgetting approaches to Q types in LR, messing up pacing on timed sections, navigating RC passages too slowly, etc. I have come to learn the value of consistent practice and a strategic approach. Learning curriculum over again can only help you reap benefit to best showcase your knowledge on PT's.
I've gotten to a point of dejection where I just felt like I couldn't bare to see any LSAT material, and after a few months break I signed up for a commercial, in-person, meeting once weekly, LSAT course. While that runs contrary to many 7Sager's beliefs, it suited me better than self-study. I needed structure that meeting at a certain time and focusing on LSAT materials for a consistent set of hours at a time, with someone who could assess my strengths and weaknesses and give me pep talks was invaluable for me. While my score increase with the in person course may not be enough to propel me to be a top-scorer, it motivated me to study and also gave me a clearer path on how to maximize my score. My advice to you is this:
-Set dates with yourself much like appointments at times to which you know you can commit to studying for at least an hour or two, as many days of the week as you can, before and after work if and when possible. 4 hours for full practice tests later in your studies.
-Only do un-timed practice when drilling question types. Incorporate timed full sections of all types even when you are focusing on one section. You can squeeze in more timed testing material via individual sections when you have a busy schedule, while still being able to get consistent practice before working on endurance and sitting for 5-section practice tests.
-Identify strengths and weaknesses. Build upon strengths to ensure that you don't ever miss those on test day and improve highest-priority weaknesses first.
-Keep a journal of your progress, noting vocabulary that gave you an issue. Build vocabulary all around perhaps by installing a word-a-day app on your phone.
-Approach review with this in mind: How could I have scored a few points higher? What potentially attainable points did I miss? Did I spend a lot of time on this one question/game/passage that could have better be spent on attaining points in other, more navigable areas within the section? Do not harp on fuzzy questions/time warps during timed practice, opt for skipping/elimination strategies as you break into the 160s, and progress from there, as the margin of error is far more narrow the higher scale the score.
-Going to law school is still very much possible!
Final thing, your goal is possible if you put in the effort. You are capable. Give it your best efforts and in saying that its finally go time, work consistently and strategically and you can make your dreams come true. Best of luck.
I'm sorry you're feeling that way, it really sucks. I've had those thoughts cross my mind as well when it seems like I'm putting in all this effort and not seeing the results that I had hoped for. But self doubt will not help you whatsoever! It will actually bring you down, kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I understand it's difficult to build confidence because attempting to conquer the LSAT can be so defeating sometimes. If you're already scoring anywhere in the 150's, I definitely believe you can score somewhere in the low 160's with the right combination of determination and commitment. 170's is a reach, but nothing is impossible, that would most likely take a lot more time and effort. And remember, sometimes it's not about the amount of time you spend studying, and has more to do with how well you're studying. Analyze your practice tests, build on your strengths, perfect your weaknesses as much as possible, you can do it!! And remember to celebrate all of your improvements, no matter how minor; it will help you build up your confidence, momentum, and motivation
You'll need to really do some soul-searching and find out if you want to be a lawyer or not. I had the same dilemma in 2015. I started studying for the LSAT for a few months then stopped as I was getting nowhere and then got promoted in my Accounting job. So I decided to stick with Accounting and do my CPA instead. Fast forward three years later and the thought of law school kept coming back to me. When I turned 28, I decided it was now or never, and if I wanted to be a lawyer I wasn't going to let some stupid test get in my way. Once you have that resolve, I think you can start to buckle down and study. I say this because you'll hit walls where your score remains stagnant for weeks or months and you'll need it most during those times.
Wow! There has been some great great great advise already! I think I often struggle with this as well because I will start thinking that just because I'm not seeing any jumps in my scores, maybe I'm not doing this properly. Just simply taking a break and coming back to these tests can help so much. You want to make sure that you have the right mindset, where you're not regretting and hating every single minute of LSAT Prep. I doubt that people are very very excited for it, but we still have to go in thinking that okay, even if I don't score amazing on this timed section, I'll learn something from it. I still beat myself up over missing questions during timed, but that's why BR is so important. Try to join LR study groups that they have online because it may help to talk to other 7sagers. Just creating a study group and trying to see how other people go about questions help, and even if you're totally lost, that's okay. Those people are going to figure out how much they truly know the material by trying to explain and lead you in the right direction as well. As another user said, it's important to figure out why you want to go to law school for sure.
I suggest:
1) Make a list of schools you want to go to including reach, safety, and target schools.
2) Figure out what LSAT score you need for that score and what your chances are to get a scholarship with that range. Say a school's median is 152, but you score 158...maybe you have better chances of a scholarship.
3) Work towards those schools and get into that LSAT range.
Thanks for your detailed info. I started from LR by type yesterday, and finished several simple parts such as cannot be true, complete the passage and evaluate. Thanks for sharing your story and encouraging me.
Thanks for your comment and I feel better now
I have already restarted yesterday. I hope I could get 160+ soon, and I will do my best.
Thanks for your reply, I am 27 now, and maybe this is the last try to the law school. As what you mentioned, I hope I could hit walls on my way to being a JD student.
Love your suggestion! I have listed dream schools and safety schools already, and there is a huge gap between them
I will try my best
I get rid of PT temporarily, and start from the basic LR now, hope I can finish them!
.
Lots of great advice here already. My additional suggestion is to try and be less focused on your scores. Of course, the point of the test is to score well and get into law school. However, focusing too much on your score on a PT can add extra pressure and cause you to lose motivation when you aren’t scoring as high as you want to.
Try to look at missed questions as opportunities to learn from that mistake and recognize it in the future so you won’t be fooled. After a PT, spend a few days reviewing it blind before you check the score. You should be able to do substantially better on blind review and will get some encouragement from how well you did on BR and that will soften the blow of a score that is lower than you hoped for.
Definitely practice good timing strategies and skip questions that you are stumped on so you can answer other questions later in the section that you understand better. Don’t try to get a 170+ and answer every question just yet! Your score needs to improve incrementally, so just a couple of extra correct questions per section is the goal and build from there. This means you can skip a significant number of difficult questions in favor of accuracy on easier ones.