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Tips to increase your score, almost guaranteed!
BirdLaw818
Free Trial Member
LSAT is in two weeks (little less). Having learned the hard way, please take this advice if you're grinding hard right now. Don't be sitting all day long studying from morning to night.
Before you possibly dismiss this advice because it sounds like you're being told to eat your vegetables, gather round and listen..
Get atleast like 30 minutes of some kind of exercise every day, come home and eat a clean and light meal and continue studying. Exercise and healthy eating not only has the obvious benefit of making all you sexy people look even sexier for the summer, but getting home from a workout/jog/movement, I've noticed I'm much more hyped and attentive and my brain feels like a well oiled machine.
If your practice test scores are leveling off and not going up and you're studying all day long and you just don't know why, it's because you can't study this sedentary way for the LSAT and you're not giving yourself time to reflect on the new information and give your brain a break.
On days that I bummed it and studied all day with no break no exercise and eating foods that weren't wholesome, my scores were lower than on days where I got some exercise and took breaks and ate cleaner meals. I am 100% sure that this was true in my case and by LSAT logic it obviously doesn't have to be true in all cases but give me the benefit of the doubt for a second!
You might feel okay right now and rested and your stomach is full and you're feeling warm, but I know the grind is tough. Studying for days on end and only moving from your bed to your desk, your thinking skills will get sluggish. I'm not selling you a fitness plan...I'm not a fitness guy by any means,but I think that this is how you maximize your mental capacity and agility leading up to the test and while you study. It's the second aspect of studying that MOST people completely ignore and not only ignore, but completely work against.
I was studying this wrong way leading up to my first LSAT in February. My diagnostic was in the 150s and my PT scores got to the high 160s which was my realistic goal. a few PTs went by and my scores were going down to the lower 160s where they leveled off at like 162 from the previous 167,168s I was getting. The week before the test my PT average dropped to 160 and 161 and even lower on test day to a 158. It was unimaginable. I was guessing my way (figuratively) to a 158 at my peak!!
When I started studying again, it took a week to get into the groove of things and now I'm reviewing old practice tests and realize I've made some very VERY stupid mistakes (that I didn't catch before even after reviewing)! nothing had changed except I was fresh n ready to go. The only difference now is that I took a break and study maybe 5-6 hours a day instead of 10-12 and maybe you need more or maybe you need less, but don't be afraid to take an hour or two away from studying in order to recuperate. If anything, it's actually part of studying so you're not wasting time.
we are studying what's IN the practice test book so hard that we forget to train the parts of us that are tested during the test. Just like you can play a sport like football and think you'll get better at tackling people just by repeated tackles, when in reality there are supplemental courses of action that these athletes take to assist them with it.
Or in LSAT terms, just because something (studying) contributes to an outcome (your highest possible score), it doesn't mean that it guarantees it.
Don't beat yourselves up, and please, try it for just one day and see how your studying goes the day after. We think we're grinding hard by being in our chairs all day when in reality we are being sedentary and it's messin with our potential.
Comments
Great advice, thanks!
Also, iv'e noticed that whenever i study late, around 12-1am, it's not the same as studying in the afternoon. So i stop studying at 12am, and usually try to exercise for at-least 30 minutes every other day, if not every day. And I take an hour out for eating and just not thinking about anything relating to the LSAT everyday.
I immediately went to logic when I started reading this. I've been doing this crap too long! But no, I get what you mean. Pretty solid advise here. Thanks!
LOL! When I read the title I was thinking "Ah more spam" but this is a great advice and I think it's overlooked often.
For anyone that is a while out (september and beyond), it would be interesting if you/we made comments on your PT's about days that you (worked out, ate healthy, ate poorly, hours slept, hours studies, etc) to see what the actual correlation there is between scores and lifestyle choices (if there is any correlation at all of course).
I agree that a healthy lifestyle leads to a healthy mind, which leads to maximizing your potential on this test. Good post, especially since a lot of people might start cramming unhealthily to "squeeze" as many points as possible from the June test. Burn out is real, and will negatively impact your score. So be smart about your studying these last few weeks!
I did a really extreme version of this, and I think it was really important to my success. I figured out everything I wanted to do before my test and when I wanted to do it. From going to bed the night before, to getting up and eating breakfast, having coffee, going for a run, cleaning up, warming up and reporting to test center, I scheduled out my ideal pre test day. Everything was done to ensure that when I sat down to take my test, I was at peak mental clarity. Because I'm a really bad dilly-dallier, I set alarms to keep myself on track. And for months, I lived that ideal day and established my pre test routine. The day of the test, I had a flawless morning and went into my test feeling great physically, mentally, and emotionally. It makes a big difference.
I love the way you write
Omg I concur! I can definitely attest to this since I've started my CC, it took a couple weeks to get in the groove of daily exercise and clean eating, but I can honestly say that I am retaining all of this material much better now, and my level of focus is SOOOOO much better after a good workout. An additional plus, I'm a little closer to #bodygoals -- it's a win win!