Quick Tip

It’s OK to Pause

No, I don’t mean that you can literally pause the test, unfortunately. But I mean that you can pause yourself. We all have those moments where something doesn’t go right: the reasoning for an LR question isn’t clicking, a rule got misdiagrammed for LG, or the passage is word salad for RC. Instead of panicking and pushing through, take a second. I always tell my students to allow themselves 10 seconds to close their eyes, breathe, and then resume once they’ve collected themselves. While “wasting time” is not advisable, this is time you need. Pushing yourself through while panicked will compound errors.

Discussion

Studying While Working Full-Time

In an ideal world, everyone could study full-time for the LSAT. It’s the single most important part of your law school application. However, for most applicants, this is simply not realistic: people have work, academic, and family commitments. In this non-ideal world, how do people study for the test when other commitments are pulling them in every direction? 

First, be realistic when making a study schedule. If you’re working a 40-hour job each week, you aren’t going to have time to study five hours a day, for example. Don’t make “heroic” assumptions when preparing a study schedule. Instead, you should study for one week without a schedule but track your time diligently. Then, base next week’s schedule on the basis of how many hours you actually had. 

Second, consider studying in the morning before work. Some people find doing intensive study after work to be unpleasant; the LSAT requires focus, which many people don’t want after a long 9-5 day. Waking up an hour earlier allows you to be fresh for the LSAT in the morning and then unwind in the evening.

Third, load up the weekends, not the week. As the second point emphasizes, it’s challenging to carve out time during the week after work. But weekends tend to be more free. My advice would be to carve out around an hour during the week and then three to five hours for each day of the weekend. This ensures far more time, under less pressure. 

Fourth, try to do something each day. The way to make this more manageable—and avoid burn-out—is to take the LSAT in bite-sized pieces. Don’t put all of your studying on one day or skip weeks with frequency. You’re training yourself to speak a new language (Lawgic) and you cannot learn a new language by cramming. 

Fifth, be willing to extend the length of your study period. It’s not realistic to be ready for the LSAT with 1-3 months of part-time study. If it takes a year, it takes a year. If it takes longer, that’s also okay. Let the LSAT dictate when you’re done and ready to apply, not the other way around. This is the single most important part of your application, so give it the time it needs.

If you cannot study full-time, you’re not alone. Most of us are (or were) the same way. But by taking the above steps, it will hopefully be a much less stressful and challenging journey en route to your goal score!