“It’s summertime, and the livin’ is easy.” This blissful lyric may ring true for some lucky folk, but for anyone gearing up for the October LSATand working tobalance a summer internship, a weekend job, and a social life, the summertime can be an extremely overwhelming and stressful time of year. As much as we love to embrace the warm weather, the shining sun, and the weekend festivities, it is undeniable that these distractions only dampen our focus and motivation to hit the books and master those daunting logic games.

What is also undeniable is the fact that the October LSAT is less than three months away, which means that it’s time to toss the excuses and start cracking down. To get you on track, we have compiled some useful tips to help you stay focused through the summer and up until test day.

Start Early: Personal trainers often tell their clients to hit the gym first thing in the morning so that there are no excuses to blow off working out later in the day. Take this advice and apply it to your studies. If you know that your energy dips in the afternoon or evening or that your group of friends likes to get together at night, schedule your study time early in the day.
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For all its flaws that arise in practice, and for all the valid criticism that can be wielded against it, the judicial system currently in place in America is one that—at least theoretically—places a premium on two fundamental ideas: (1) individuals are innocent unless proven otherwise, and (2) everyone, regardless of who he or she is, is entitled to this presumption.

These principles aren’t sufficient for a fair and balanced judicial system, but they sure are necessary.

This week, I visited the Conciergerie in Paris, which is a pretty grim building in France’s judicial history. It was a royal palace until, during the French Revolution, it became a prison where hundreds of people were housed before being carted off to the guillotine to be executed. Marie Antoinette was among them. The Revolutionary Tribunal also sat for a time in the building, which is jarringly small considering all that happened there. Read more

Need to keep busy while you wait for your LSAT score? Why not paint your apartment!?

It’s late June, which means those of you who took the test earlier this month are “playing the waiting game,” as they say (the same people who use expressions like “have a case of the Mondays” and “TMI”). I wanted to write a post on how to wait when you’re impatient, so I googled “how to wait.” The tips that I found included suggestions like doing something you enjoy, and trying not to think about whatever it is you’re awaiting. I deserved these results, of course, for actually googling “how to wait.”

In the interest of sharing some ideas for dealing with impatience that aren’t patronizing and useless, here are a few activities that have worked for me in the past**.

1. Manufacture drama. Break up with someone! Go into debt! Adopt a cat and put it on Craigslist two weeks later! Creating drama can be an incredibly effective means of quelling impatience. The emotional trauma you will experience is guaranteed to be distracting, and your LSAT score will have arrived before you know it.
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My sister got married a month ago, and as the maid of honor, I saw it as my duty to do what any good maid of honor does: plan a flash mob for the reception.

I choreographed a routine to Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jagger,” uploaded a humiliating instructional video onto YouTube (of yours truly doing the dance in my Brooklyn apartment), and spread the word (link). In the video, I say, “We want at least 40 people in the flash mob in order for it to look good. And if it has 50 or more, that’ll be amazing!” Read more

We incorporate the latest discoveries in learning science into our LSAT course to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of your prep. Want to see? Try the first session of any of our upcoming courses for free.

Hungry? If you’re gearing up for the LSAT, now is not the time to grab a Snickers. As the clock ticks closer to the big day you may have found yourself in the repetitive study, eat, sleep, routine. Hopefully by now you have the studying and sleeping down to a science, but it is just as crucial to keep in mind that what you put into your stomach could be just as important as all that LSAT knowledge you’ve been planting in your brain. Before you hit the grocery store this weekend, check out some of the top brain food to add to your list as well as the best times to indulge in order to have your mind ready for optimal performance on test day. Read more

In the last session of my spring course this week, I asked (pressured?) my students to author inspirational LSAT poetry. Wooed with promises of drinks for the winner (oh yeah, it was a contest), they submitted the following. Since it has been months since I blogged my own original LSAT haiku, the time is ripe to present haiku once again. This time, they come from my students. Enjoy!

Games make my head hurt;
I don’t care who won the race;
All losers to me.

Help me find the flaw!
We can make inferences!
Bang head into wall!

Don’t fear the LSAT.
I won’t do poorly, okay?
You will look better.

Same film like three times?
Open assignment be damned.
This club is BS.*

*The author wishes to clarify that this haiku was in reference to a game on an old prep test in which members of a film club watch the same movie repeatedly. Familiar to anyone else?

Share you own LSAT haiku in the comments!

It is a natural human tendency to procrastinate. Some of the most productive people I know procrastinate habitually. To procrastinate on some things, though, can be seriously detrimental to overall goals (and we know how important goals are). Preparing for the LSAT is one of those things!

If you are hoping to begin law school in the Fall of 2013, now is the time to begin planning your LSAT prep. The October LSAT is 19 weeks away, so if you haven’t given a thought to what you’re going to do this summer to prepare, now is the time to start planning.

In the spirit of getting you off your butt and beginning to prep for the LSAT, here are some famous quotes on procrastination: Read more

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has taken a bit of inspiration from rapper/hip-hop mogul Sean Carter (more commonly known as Jay-Z) – but did you know that the best rapper alive actually has a bit of decent legal advice to offer? A friend of mine in law school posted this on her facebook wall recently: “How Valid is Implied Legal Advice Given in Jay-Z’s  ’99Problems‘ “?

It turns out that most of the Hova”s implied legal advice in the song is fairly sound! While I doubt the Jigga man will be looking to make a career change any time soon, I’d love to see the God MC in the court room – closing arguments would flow as effortlessly as a track from The Blueprint. Alas, for some, swagger in the courtroom is frowned upon.

What do you do when you go on vacation? Do you whip out a book of logic puzzles? Yes, I do. Say what you will, but this is what it’s like in the life of an LSAT geek.

On my latest vacation, I started in on Alice in Puzzle-Land, by Raymond M. Smullyan. I recommend it if you have some extra time on your hand for strengthening your logic brain power. The puzzles are arranged in sets that build on similar logical themes. Some are pretty easy, and some are killers. Here’s a summary of the first puzzle of the book:

There are two brothers. One is named John. I forgot the other one’s name. One always lies, one always tells the truth. I forgot which one does which.

Your job is to figure out which one of the brothers is named John. But, everyone is in a rush, so you may ask only one brother a three word question. That’s it! You need to be able to figure out which brother is John from that question.

Ideally, you should figure this out while sitting in a hot spring on vacation. Go ahead and post your answer or e-mail it to me (my first name @manhattanprep.com/lsat/)

When I was in third grade, a lot of the kids dreaded going to Sunday School because it was boring. I dreaded it for another reason. At eight years old, I had become deeply skeptical about the existence of God. (Okay, maybe not that deeply.) This was particularly inconvenient as I was the minister’s daughter at our Baptist church. I was not supposed to be an atheist. Especially not before I was tall enough to ride most roller coasters, old enough to drink caffeine, or able to multiply by six without using my fingers.

So when my Sunday School teacher passed around bright, green, half-page sheets with the heading “Proof that God Exists” at the top, I couldn’t read fast enough. Proof! Here was proof! Give it to me!

Under the heading were several lines. They read (something like):

1. God is the greatest thing that can be conceived.
2. We conceive of God.
3. It is greater to exist in reality than only in the imagination.
4. Therefore, the being of which we can conceive must exist in reality. (Otherwise, we could conceive of something greater, which is impossible.)

On the bottom of the page was a single name: Anselm. Forget Madonna or Prince. Anselm was my new celebrity crush. Read more