One-Year Study Plan- June 2019 LSAT Forum

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vattah

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One-Year Study Plan- June 2019 LSAT

Post by vattah » Sat May 19, 2018 1:24 pm

Hello guys! I'm a rising Junior and looking to start a one-year study Plan for the LSAT in June of 2019. My GPA is quite high so I'm shooting for T-14's, hence my drawn-out approach to studying. Is there anyone in this similar boat? I plan to familiarize myself with the LSAT this summer by taking a cold diagnostic and familiarizing myself with the sections and what they entail, as well as some studying. I'd be increasing my study intensity as the date approaches. So far, I'm considering using the LSAT trainer by Kim, and the 3 LSAT bibles, as well as some real practice tests. Any criticisms on this approach or changes I should make? Thanks in advance

chad2

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Re: One-Year Study Plan- June 2019 LSAT

Post by chad2 » Mon May 21, 2018 4:42 pm

Hi vattah,

First off, I'm a strong believer in the one-year study plan, so props. I was exactly where you are now when I started practicing for the LSAT, and when I told people I was planning on taking it a year later some people looked at me like I was crazy, but the extra time will absolutely pay off.

There's nothing wrong with your approach per se, and I think a big part of the answer will have to do with what your weaker and stronger sections end up being, but some of my preliminary advice to anyone studying for the LSAT would be:

-Unless you excel at logic games off the bat, or conversely are doing exceptionally worse on either LR or RC, I would start by devoting pretty much all of my time to Logic Games, even to the exclusion of other sections. As I'm sure you've already heard, it is (for most people) the hardest at first but that easiest to learn. This absolutely held true for me. The other two types of sections are much more comparable to the kinds of things you've already seen on standardized tests (albeit with a bit more emphasis on arguments and logic). When you get within -5 or so on Logic Games, I'd branch out to the other sections.

-On that subject, if for no other reason than to save money, unless you *really* think you'll need all 3 LSAT bibles I would highly recommend just purchasing the Logic Games bible. Powerscore (and really all test prep I've encountered) puts a strong emphasis on certain formalized question-answering processes that don't really mesh well with reading passages or written out arguments in most cases. For example, they'll spend time formally categorizing questions as "must be trues" or "could be trues", to the point that if a question stem asks you which of several answer choices must be false, they'll advise you to start by noting that, really, the question stem is asking you which of the answer choices "CANNOT be true." That's such an obvious, easy intuition that it really just distracts to even think about things like that in the first place, and a lot of their advice is similar to this in nature. However, I do recommend the Logic Games Bible because in most cases its diagramming rules are fairly intuitive.

-I'll qualify my advocacy of the Bibles even further by saying that, even when it comes to Logic Games, if a certain way of diagramming a problem is more intuitive to you than the ones the book suggests, *use the more intuitive way*. A huge part of doing well on Logic Games (and really all the LSAT) is coming up with your own personalized routine for every question that best fits the way you think about things.

-After you get the basics of Logic Games down through the Bible, I would ignore pretty much every other test prep book and study exclusively by taking actual tests. I don't know if I'm allowed to advocate this without getting banned, but get an account at scribd. It's about 8 dollars a month and has almost every single LSAT ever released on it. That alone will potentially save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars on formalized test prep.

-When you start taking tests, always make sure you know *why* you're getting questions wrong. Repetition is key, but it doesn't mean jack if you're not taking anything away from each go. I recommend 7sage's video explanations for walking you through how to do Logic Games, and the Powerscore forums for walking you through LR and RC questions. The test instructors have explanations on the forums for why pretty much every answer is right and every incorrect response is wrong, and once again you can access these explanations for free.

-Because you have time on your side, I'll go a step further and say that you should always make sure why you get specific questions right. Sounds crazy, but this can also be helpful. If it's a no-brainer, then no need, but if you find yourself answering a question correctly just because none of the other options made sense, or as a guess, then it helps to clarify what the key thing you were supposed to be doing to get the question right is. Once again, I recommend the 7sage and the Powerscore forums.

-Everything I said about intuition applies to all the advice I've given here. That is, if what is intuitive for you is different than what I've said, ignore me!

That's all that comes to mind right now. Hope that helps and let me know if you have any other questions!

vattah

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Posts: 18
Joined: Sat Apr 21, 2018 10:33 pm

Re: One-Year Study Plan- June 2019 LSAT

Post by vattah » Wed May 23, 2018 6:14 pm

chad2 wrote:Hi vattah,

First off, I'm a strong believer in the one-year study plan, so props. I was exactly where you are now when I started practicing for the LSAT, and when I told people I was planning on taking it a year later some people looked at me like I was crazy, but the extra time will absolutely pay off.

There's nothing wrong with your approach per se, and I think a big part of the answer will have to do with what your weaker and stronger sections end up being, but some of my preliminary advice to anyone studying for the LSAT would be:

-Unless you excel at logic games off the bat, or conversely are doing exceptionally worse on either LR or RC, I would start by devoting pretty much all of my time to Logic Games, even to the exclusion of other sections. As I'm sure you've already heard, it is (for most people) the hardest at first but that easiest to learn. This absolutely held true for me. The other two types of sections are much more comparable to the kinds of things you've already seen on standardized tests (albeit with a bit more emphasis on arguments and logic). When you get within -5 or so on Logic Games, I'd branch out to the other sections.

-On that subject, if for no other reason than to save money, unless you *really* think you'll need all 3 LSAT bibles I would highly recommend just purchasing the Logic Games bible. Powerscore (and really all test prep I've encountered) puts a strong emphasis on certain formalized question-answering processes that don't really mesh well with reading passages or written out arguments in most cases. For example, they'll spend time formally categorizing questions as "must be trues" or "could be trues", to the point that if a question stem asks you which of several answer choices must be false, they'll advise you to start by noting that, really, the question stem is asking you which of the answer choices "CANNOT be true." That's such an obvious, easy intuition that it really just distracts to even think about things like that in the first place, and a lot of their advice is similar to this in nature. However, I do recommend the Logic Games Bible because in most cases its diagramming rules are fairly intuitive.

-I'll qualify my advocacy of the Bibles even further by saying that, even when it comes to Logic Games, if a certain way of diagramming a problem is more intuitive to you than the ones the book suggests, *use the more intuitive way*. A huge part of doing well on Logic Games (and really all the LSAT) is coming up with your own personalized routine for every question that best fits the way you think about things.

-After you get the basics of Logic Games down through the Bible, I would ignore pretty much every other test prep book and study exclusively by taking actual tests. I don't know if I'm allowed to advocate this without getting banned, but get an account at scribd. It's about 8 dollars a month and has almost every single LSAT ever released on it. That alone will potentially save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars on formalized test prep.

-When you start taking tests, always make sure you know *why* you're getting questions wrong. Repetition is key, but it doesn't mean jack if you're not taking anything away from each go. I recommend 7sage's video explanations for walking you through how to do Logic Games, and the Powerscore forums for walking you through LR and RC questions. The test instructors have explanations on the forums for why pretty much every answer is right and every incorrect response is wrong, and once again you can access these explanations for free.

-Because you have time on your side, I'll go a step further and say that you should always make sure why you get specific questions right. Sounds crazy, but this can also be helpful. If it's a no-brainer, then no need, but if you find yourself answering a question correctly just because none of the other options made sense, or as a guess, then it helps to clarify what the key thing you were supposed to be doing to get the question right is. Once again, I recommend the 7sage and the Powerscore forums.

-Everything I said about intuition applies to all the advice I've given here. That is, if what is intuitive for you is different than what I've said, ignore me!

That's all that comes to mind right now. Hope that helps and let me know if you have any other questions!
wow, thank you so much for your response! I probably don't need all 3 bibles, I'm just a bit of an overachiever sometimes haha. I will definitely heed your advice and practice with the Logic Games first, and take a look at scribd and the 7sage videos as well. Thanks for all of your helpful advice, and I'll be referring to this post as I study!

vattah

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Joined: Sat Apr 21, 2018 10:33 pm

Re: One-Year Study Plan- June 2019 LSAT

Post by vattah » Tue May 29, 2018 9:00 pm

Took my first diagnostic and scored a 157 cold. Took a 2nd diagnostic and scored a 162. Does anyone else get really exhausted while taking these tests? Like i could literally feel my eyes glazing over the RC section and had to basically bring myself back to the test. Anyway, I scored the best on the RC section (-2) (i guess being a bookworm finally came in handy). I scored the worst on the LG section (my timing was really bad too). The other LR section was between the two.

I also just bought the LG Bible, because this is the section I'll probably need the most practice on. This section reminds me of a Discrete Math class I took.

The LR sections are very reminiscent of composing/dissection arguments in Philosophy. (my major)

I was pleasantly surprised at my RC score because by then I was so tired, and I've heard this is the most difficult section to improve in [could be wrong].

Also, I want to buy the LSAT trainer by Kim but it literally shot up on Amazon from a price of 40$ to 160$. Um. I'll wait.

Let the LSAT games begin.

chad2

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Posts: 28
Joined: Mon May 21, 2018 1:36 pm

Re: One-Year Study Plan- June 2019 LSAT

Post by chad2 » Sat Jun 02, 2018 10:38 pm

vattah wrote:Took my first diagnostic and scored a 157 cold. Took a 2nd diagnostic and scored a 162. Does anyone else get really exhausted while taking these tests? Like i could literally feel my eyes glazing over the RC section and had to basically bring myself back to the test. Anyway, I scored the best on the RC section (-2) (i guess being a bookworm finally came in handy). I scored the worst on the LG section (my timing was really bad too). The other LR section was between the two.

I also just bought the LG Bible, because this is the section I'll probably need the most practice on. This section reminds me of a Discrete Math class I took.

The LR sections are very reminiscent of composing/dissection arguments in Philosophy. (my major)

I was pleasantly surprised at my RC score because by then I was so tired, and I've heard this is the most difficult section to improve in [could be wrong].

Also, I want to buy the LSAT trainer by Kim but it literally shot up on Amazon from a price of 40$ to 160$. Um. I'll wait.

Let the LSAT games begin.
Good on ya for the philosophy major, same here. That'll help immensely with LR. The tests can definitely be fatiguing, don't have much specific advice other than to say that it gets easier the more tests you do.

MissMusicLaw

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Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 12:20 pm

Re: One-Year Study Plan- June 2019 LSAT

Post by MissMusicLaw » Tue Jul 24, 2018 1:51 am

I’m studying in advance too! My apologies for asking a question within a question, but did you self study that whole time @Chad2? This isn’t the best time for me to enroll in an LSAT class and I’m going to self study.
chad2 wrote:Hi vattah,

First off, I'm a strong believer in the one-year study plan, so props. I was exactly where you are now when I started practicing for the LSAT, and when I told people I was planning on taking it a year later some people looked at me like I was crazy, but the extra time will absolutely pay off.

There's nothing wrong with your approach per se, and I think a big part of the answer will have to do with what your weaker and stronger sections end up being, but some of my preliminary advice to anyone studying for the LSAT would be:

-Unless you excel at logic games off the bat, or conversely are doing exceptionally worse on either LR or RC, I would start by devoting pretty much all of my time to Logic Games, even to the exclusion of other sections. As I'm sure you've already heard, it is (for most people) the hardest at first but that easiest to learn. This absolutely held true for me. The other two types of sections are much more comparable to the kinds of things you've already seen on standardized tests (albeit with a bit more emphasis on arguments and logic). When you get within -5 or so on Logic Games, I'd branch out to the other sections.

-On that subject, if for no other reason than to save money, unless you *really* think you'll need all 3 LSAT bibles I would highly recommend just purchasing the Logic Games bible. Powerscore (and really all test prep I've encountered) puts a strong emphasis on certain formalized question-answering processes that don't really mesh well with reading passages or written out arguments in most cases. For example, they'll spend time formally categorizing questions as "must be trues" or "could be trues", to the point that if a question stem asks you which of several answer choices must be false, they'll advise you to start by noting that, really, the question stem is asking you which of the answer choices "CANNOT be true." That's such an obvious, easy intuition that it really just distracts to even think about things like that in the first place, and a lot of their advice is similar to this in nature. However, I do recommend the Logic Games Bible because in most cases its diagramming rules are fairly intuitive.

-I'll qualify my advocacy of the Bibles even further by saying that, even when it comes to Logic Games, if a certain way of diagramming a problem is more intuitive to you than the ones the book suggests, *use the more intuitive way*. A huge part of doing well on Logic Games (and really all the LSAT) is coming up with your own personalized routine for every question that best fits the way you think about things.

-After you get the basics of Logic Games down through the Bible, I would ignore pretty much every other test prep book and study exclusively by taking actual tests. I don't know if I'm allowed to advocate this without getting banned, but get an account at scribd. It's about 8 dollars a month and has almost every single LSAT ever released on it. That alone will potentially save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars on formalized test prep.

-When you start taking tests, always make sure you know *why* you're getting questions wrong. Repetition is key, but it doesn't mean jack if you're not taking anything away from each go. I recommend 7sage's video explanations for walking you through how to do Logic Games, and the Powerscore forums for walking you through LR and RC questions. The test instructors have explanations on the forums for why pretty much every answer is right and every incorrect response is wrong, and once again you can access these explanations for free.

-Because you have time on your side, I'll go a step further and say that you should always make sure why you get specific questions right. Sounds crazy, but this can also be helpful. If it's a no-brainer, then no need, but if you find yourself answering a question correctly just because none of the other options made sense, or as a guess, then it helps to clarify what the key thing you were supposed to be doing to get the question right is. Once again, I recommend the 7sage and the Powerscore forums.

-Everything I said about intuition applies to all the advice I've given here. That is, if what is intuitive for you is different than what I've said, ignore me!

That's all that comes to mind right now. Hope that helps and let me know if you have any other questions!

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