As Haribo put it, "Yay I've always wanted to post in this thread, and now I can!"
TLS1776's Thoughts on the LSAT
A little about me:
During my senior year of college I began looking into law school and discovered that my GPA would qualify me for HYS. However, my GPA was closer to their 25th percentiles than their 75th, and from an undergrad that was ranked around 75th in the nation (i.e. a good but not outstanding school). After reading about how the USA Today rankings work (and how influential they are in admissions decisions) I figured that with an LSAT score above the 75th percentile I would be a competitive applicant.
I also read that 1) law schools don’t typically care when you apply, 2) they prefer to see one LSAT score rather than a gradual increase over the course of several scores, and 3) a dramatic increase in your LSAT score is possible if you devote an immense amount of time to the test. All of this information suggested a particular ideal strategy for being accepted by HYS: focus completely on the LSAT until I thought I could get a score above the 75th percentile, and then spend as much time as necessary to get whatever work experience would make me an attractive applicant (assuming my numbers were still not sufficient). As time went on and I became better acquainted with the test, I learned that, because of frequent test-day drops in score, I could be PTing at the 176 level and end up with a 172 on test day from bad luck. So I dropped the “176+” mindset and started shooting instead for a perfect score.
My intended audience for this guide is people who are in a similar situation; people shooting for a perfect score. Certain things I label as “must-have” or “must-do” may not be necessary for someone who is just shooting for a 165 (or even a 175). I’m going to start the guide by following the format of the “How to Get a 160+ on the LSAT” thread, and then I’ll move on to some thoughts on various other aspects of prep that I consider important.
1) What score did you get?
A 180. However, I don’t think a person's score necessarily determines the usefulness of his experience; while prepping for the test I found that the best thing about advice on TLS was that it 1) motivated me to study harder, and 2) gave me study method ideas that I could use in my prep. I think this article is perfectly capable of meeting both of those criteria for others regardless of the fact that I got a 180.
2) What books did you use? (Kaplan, Powerscore LRB, Powerscore LGB, etc)
I’m going to divide the material into three categories: “Phase 1”, “Phase 2”, and “Other Stuff”, to reflect a general trend I observed in my LSAT prep. In the first phase of LSAT prep I learned everything that the test-prep companies could teach me; in the second phase I had to move beyond test-prep material and learn things about the test that nobody had put in a prep book yet, or things that can’t really be taught but must be learned through lots of time spent with the test. Someone observing me would have seen me gradually shift from spending all of my time with test-prep books to all of my time with official preptests. “Other Stuff’ has material that doesn’t fit into the previous two categories, including supplementary material.
Phase 1 (“Learning the Ropes”)
- Powerscore Logic Games Bible (LGB) – Must-have for those who start off weak in LG. Beware, though: I think it places far too much emphasis on making initial inferences. You will also need to be able to attack games by using hypothetical arrangements of the variables (hypos); Master the LSAT almost exclusively uses hypos, and thus is the Yin to the LGB’s Yang. I went through the LGB twice.
.....Also: I tried and failed to memorize their categories (something they recommend doing). I wouldn’t worry about that; to use an analogy from my own life: you don’t need to be able to read music to be able to play a few particular piano pieces beautifully. In fact, when I’ve tried to play the same pieces by muscle-memory and then by referring to the music, I find that the latter makes me far less effective. To bring the analogy back: if you memorize the categories and then rely on them to decide on an approach to each game, you may end up taking longer and being less flexible than if you just learn what approach to take through repetition.
- Powerscore Logical Reasoning Bible (LRB) – Must-have for the sections on conditional reasoning and what it calls “formal logic”. The rest of the book is recommended but not necessarily “must-have”. I went through the book twice.
- Powerscore Reading Comprehension Bible (RCB) – Recommended. I never bought this; instead I went through part of my study partner’s copy. I also never went through the whole thing. Nevertheless I would recommend you go through it just so that you give RC the time it needs. If you’re shooting for a 180 you may end up in a situation similar to many others, in which you spend so much study time focusing on LR and LG that you neglect RC and lose a disproportionate number of points there.
- Powerscore LGB Flash Cards (LinkRemoved) – Recommended. I went through the flash cards once, set aside the ones that I had trouble with, and then went through those difficult ones a few more times. I think it was helpful, but it was definitely one of the more expensive parts of my prep ($25 for not many hours’ worth of prep). My biggest problems with the cards are that 1) I found a lot of them too easy to be helpful, and 2) the deck doesn’t contain some things from the Bible that I was hoping to use the flash cards to learn. Nevertheless, I think it’s probably worth going through them once after your first or second pass through the LGB just to test yourself and make sure you’ve absorbed everything.
- Powerscore LRB Flash Cards (LinkRemoved) – Recommended. I must warn you: I bought these but never really used them. However, I just flipped through a few and think it’s probably worth going through them once after your first or second pass through the LRB just to test yourself and make sure you’ve absorbed everything. My biggest problem with the cards is how much they cost ($25).
- Master the LSAT – Must-have for those who start off weak in LG, for its emphasis on a hypo-centric approach to LG. Many games will require you to use hypos rather than make initial global inferences, so you can’t rely solely on the LGB’s approach. Just make sure you actually read his explanations if you want to get the benefit of seeing a different approach. I didn’t go through this book until well after I’d gone through the LGB twice.
- I got this book on the recommendation of a 180er, but not specifically for its LG section. To be honest, I was instead interested in its RC section, which I’d heard good things about. In hindsight I don’t remember that section being helpful, but it was worth going through it anyway.
- The book was written back in the ‘90s and uses fake questions to teach the material; I approached it as a supplementary text and would not recommend it as someone’s sole source of test-prep material.
- According to Steve Schwartz of LSAT Blog, the preptests in the back of the book are 7, 8, and 9 respectively, while the split-up one is preptest 2. This book was the way I was able to take preptests 2 and 8.
- Kaplan’s LSAT 180 – Not Recommended. This is the first LSAT test-prep book I looked at; I checked it out of my local library, did a few of the LG and LR sections, and then didn’t use it again because they were too hard for me at the time (it uses fake questions that are often more difficult than anything actually on the LSAT). I gave it a second look later on in my prep and decided not to use it because the fake questions seemed too dissimilar from those found on the LSAT. Nevertheless, if you’re shooting for a 180 I’d recommend you look at it at some point and decide for yourself whether to use it.
- Informal Logic (Walton) – Not recommended. I got this because JDewey, a 180er, recommended it. I already had a good grasp of logical fallacies and so didn’t find this helpful (if you don't have a good grasp of logical fallacies, search Google for one of the many compilations of them). Nevertheless, if you’re shooting for a 180 you should probably check it out from a library anyway and see if it does anything for you.
Phase 2 (“You’re On Your Own Now”)
- 10 Actual, Official LSAT Preptests – Must-have. Yes, the tests feel different (for new people: there is a common belief that PTs have changed a lot over the years). In hindsight I probably would have put them to better use as experimental sections for the next two books (see below).
- 10 More Actual, Official LSAT Preptests – Must-have. I ended up buying two copies: One for an initial pass (many months before game-day), and a second copy for a second accelerated pass within weeks of game-day.
- The Next 10 Actual, Official LSAT Preptests – Must-have. I bought two copies and went through this twice as well (see above).
- The Official LSAT SuperPrep – Must-have. The long introductory section is well worth reading for insights into the test (the test-makers acknowledge that they try to trick you in certain ways); I didn’t end up reading most of the explanations for the questions because I didn’t find them especially helpful, although I probably should have read them all anyway just in case there was some nugget of wisdom I could’ve gleaned. The games sections from PTs B and C are the hardest official games sections I encountered in my prep.
- Individual Preptests 39-59 – Must-have. I was able to get hard copies of every PT except 39, which I ended up printing out at Kinkos from a pdf I got off the Internet. Amazon has a 4-for-3 deal; I also got a bunch off craigslist.
- ACE The LSAT Logic Games – Must-have. It contains 14 sections with explanations, and the games will make almost anything LSAC throws at you seem like a piece of cake. The trick is to get good enough that you can finish the section and fill in the answer sheet within 35 minutes (rather than just do each game individually and take as long as you want). It may not be a good idea to use this book until you’re already very good at LG. I had already gone through the LGB twice, Master the LSAT, and many PTs before I started using this. I got this book after hearing about it from bgc, who got a 179 and went to Yale. I ended up using the sections as my warm-up before each 5-section test I took, and it was a very, very good idea.
- LSAT Proctor DVD – Must-have. It isn't perfect, but it's well worth the money. I used this DVD every time I took a PT, and even when I was taking individual sections (e.g. my warm-up ACE section before PTs). It will get you VERY comfortable with having a proctor announce time (rather than using a watch to keep track yourself). Aside from choosing the option to take a full 5-section test (with 10 minute break), the DVD also lets you jump in during any one of the sections (via a chapter menu), or lets you take the 5 sections in a noisy environment (sneezing, people entering and leaving the test room, people tapping on the desks, etc.).
- I ended up being very happy that the DVD simulated a 10-minute break, because on the real LSAT I got a 15-minute break. A 10-minute break forces you to eat and use the bathroom about as fast as you can, which makes a 15-minute break feel like a lot of time. Had I been using my own timer and taking 20 minute breaks, though, that 15-minute break may have felt like no time at all. Remember this basic idea: your training should at least occasionally be tougher than the actual test.
Other Stuff:
- Will Shortz’ Ultra Easy Pocket Sudoku – Recommended. I found Sudoku boring but useful for learning certain lessons: First, the importance of double-checking your work: if you make a mistake in Sudoku and don’t immediately notice it you will have to start over again from the beginning. I eventually learned that the best way to prevent this from happening was to double-check every number I filled in; I carried this lesson over to the LSAT’s LG section by double-checking my hypos against the rules as frequently as time permitted. The second important lesson was that it is important to develop the ability to hold various bits of information in your mind at once. I discovered this after a 180er recommended that I do the puzzles without writing any notes down; eventually I got good enough with LG that I was able to visualize some hypos without having to draw them out (but this method can be very liable to mistakes, so be careful).
- USA Today Everyday Logic: 200 Puzzles – Recommended. Like Sudoku, I found this book boring but useful. It includes a variety of puzzles that are very different from LSAT logic games, but the ones that are most similar to the LSAT games are useful for learning certain lessons. First, I learned the importance of paying close attention to details in the clues; USA Today puzzles will invariably try to sneak in bits of information without your noticing it, and learning to spot those tricks made me more likely to look back at the rules in an LSAT game to make sure I had a correct understanding of them. Second, I learned the importance of returning repeatedly to the clues to see what the next step is in the chain of inferences that will lead you to the solution. You’ll have to make many passes through all of the clues to solve an entire USA Today game; likewise, on the LSAT there are often times when you need to make multiple passes through the rules to see how a certain given piece of information eventually forces certain variables into certain positions. You can see an example of this in the scanned LG section later in this guide.
- Kaplan LSAT Writing Workbook – Recommended. Most people advise that you not spend much (or any) time preparing for the writing sample portion of the LSAT; most people are also not going to get into HYS. Take the writing sample seriously. That said, I didn’t buy this book and I didn’t read most of it (the parts that focus on common errors in grammar, spelling, and composition); the book’s most useful advice is on what step-by-step method to follow when approaching the writing sample, and can be condensed to a page or two (which I copied into a word document and used to refresh my memory). The other useful part of this book is the collection of several prompts and completed writing samples they offer; I copied one prompt and sample response into a word document and used it as a stylistic comparison for my own practice samples (e.g. Did I spend too much space discussing the first criterion? Was my language too informal? Did I touch on all of the major issues?). I doubt my writing samples were outstanding examples of argumentation, but I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to walk into the LSAT without having practiced at least a few times to get the timing down and learn what basic elements to include.
- The Economist & Scientific American – Recommended. The LSAT seems to take a lot of its RC passages and LR topics from articles in the Economist and Scientific American. Even the prose style of the LSAT seems to echo those magazines (especially the Economist). I probably read fewer than 10 magazines’ worth of articles during my prep, and wasn’t able to fulfill my goal of reading every current copy of the Economist from cover-to-cover leading up to the test (it simply took too long and I got bored). I instead tried to find books that I found interesting and would be excited to read.
- Other Reading Material – Above all you should look for books that you find interesting (as long as they aren’t fluffy), but if you need recommendations then you might be able to make use of this list of books that I read while I was prepping: Guns Germs & Steel (very relevant to LR and RC passages about Native Americans and our evolutionary ancestors), Anna Karenina, Consider the Lobster and Other Essays (very engaging), Economics in One Lesson (a bit dry but very useful; its short chapters make it easier to stay motivated), essays in Chomsky’s For Reasons of State that caught my eye (his writing makes RC passages look like a joke), selections from Feinberg & Coleman’s Philosophy of Law that caught my eye (some of these, too, make RC passages look like a joke), Law’s Order, Ivy Briefs, The Monk and the Riddle (highly recommended), Good to Great, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Being an Entrepreneur, and probably others that I can’t remember.
3) What prep courses did you take (if any)? Full length, weekend?
None. It’s often asked whether taking a prep course a good idea. I think the answer probably depends on an individual’s situation. I must admit that, of all the people I’ve seen who’ve gotten a 178+, I can’t recall any who did it solely by attending a prep course. I have seen the instructor profile of a guy who works for Blueprint which says he got a 180 after taking a Blueprint course, but Blueprint sounded so excited about it in the profile that I can’t help but wonder how much of it was Blueprint’s doing and how much of it was a result of lots of individual time spent with the test. I think a prep course may be useful to move more quickly through the first phase of LSAT prep (“learning the ropes”), but if you’re serious about a 180 you’ll probably end up wanting to read the various test-prep books out there anyway to pick up any bits of advice that your prep course didn't include (or that they did include and you forgot about).
4) How long did you study for, and under what conditions? (during school, during the summer, etc)
I sat for my first PT on a whim, without preparing at all, at a Kaplan event at my college in March 2009; I got a 161. I sat for the actual exam in June 2010. I studied intensely during my Spring break of ’09 and then almost not at all during the rest of the semester. I graduated in early May of that year and then basically centered my life around my LSAT prep. I had a one-day-a-week internship from June till November (of ’09) and then got a job as a substitute teacher in January of 2010, but otherwise had no commitments. This is not to suggest that I was studying 20+ hours a week for a full year; I was definitely more relaxed through most of the process than I would have been if I was operating on a 3 or even 6 month schedule. In fact, I often went for weeks in the summer without cracking any books. However, even using a relaxed schedule I was able to devote a larger total number of hours to my prep than people who study for 3 or even 6 months (see below for my estimate of total time spent prepping).
5) How many preptests did you do?
That depends on what you mean by “do”.
- If we’re talking about the number of PTs I saw, the answer is 57. I did almost every widely-available preptest. I did not do 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 17 because I didn’t know of an easy way to get my hands on them, but I did the rest from 2 to 59, including A, B, C, and 51.5 (June 2007).
- If we’re talking about the number of times I simulated the test-day experience (3 sections, break, then 2 sections, on a test I haven’t seen before), the answer is 37 times, at an average rate of about once a week.
- If we’re talking about the number of times I did 4 or more sections in a row (where “in a row” includes 5 or 8 section tests with a 10 minute break after section 3 or 4 respectively): the answer is 56. The 37 tests listed above plus the 19 I retook leading up to the test.
To get more general:
- If we’re talking about the number of times I did a full section at once, including full tests, individual sections, and repeats, I would estimate the answer would be 85+ PTs’ worth of sections (so 340+ sections). I’m getting this estimate by adding the 57 PTs I went through plus the 19 PTs I retook, plus the 14 sections from ACE The Logic Games book (about half of which I took twice), plus individual sections that I did with my study partner at Borders, plus a few other sections I can remember doing.
- If we’re using the question to get an idea of the total number of hours of my life that I’ve traded for my score on the LSAT, I would estimate the answer would be somewhere between 300 and 400 (hours). I’ll now explain how I came up with this range:
198 – The 340-section estimate above results in 198 hours’ worth of studying.
50 - I also went through the LGB twice, the LRB twice, and Master the LSAT once (if we estimate each takes an average of 10 hours to get through, that’s 50 hours total). So now we’re up to around 250 hours.
25 - I did ~150 sudoku puzzles, and if we estimate 10 minutes a puzzle that gives us another 25 hours, bringing it to 275 hours.
10 - I’d estimate I spent at least another 10 hours on the USA Today puzzle book, bringing it to 285.
5 - At least 5 hours going through typed-up LR questions that I’d gotten wrong, bringing it to 290.
10 – At least 10 hours (and almost certainly more) spent searching TLS for advice, compiling it, reading it, and rereading it (I’m not including time wasted on TLS perusing amusing-but-useless threads). That brings the estimate to at least 300 hours.
On top of all that there was a lot of miscellaneous studying (e.g. staring at a logic game, LR question, or RC passage for an hour to figure out how it worked), time spent traveling to and from various study locations (Borders, libraries, Kaplan centers for practice tests), time spent at Kinkos printing and cutting out dozens of LR questions, and probably other things that aren’t coming to me.
6) What would you change if you were to do it again?
- I did not spend as much time preparing for the writing sample as I probably should have, mostly because I hated practicing for it: I’m a deliberate writer and don't like writing under extreme time constraints (obviously I’ll have to get over this when the time comes to prepare for law school exams). I was also worried about spending too much time focusing on the writing sample (to the detriment of my actual score). I should have been doing one practice writing sample each week from the very beginning of my prep, and I should have focused less on the timing at the beginning than on having good form (i.e. following the steps outlined in the Kaplan book, such as having an outline of all the ideas you will mention and then sticking to it). In that sense the writing sample can be approached a lot like the LG section of the test.
- I did not spend as much time preparing for RC as I probably should have, mostly because I was so concerned about LG and LR. If I could do it over again, I probably would have started using old RC sections to warm up before my 5-section PTs rather than ACE LG sections (once I got good enough at LG to tackle ACE sections without trouble).
7) Any other misc comments/suggestions.
I have quite a bit more to say about the LSAT. For the rest of my thoughts, see my guide at the link below:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=120471