The Most Tempting, and Least Useful, LSAT Strategies
The LSAT is an exam uniquely suited to make studying difficult. Despite the fact that you’ve successfully made it (or almost made it) through college exams, many people find that they study and study but don’t improve their LSAT score. The simple reason behind that is the LSAT is designed to test how you think, not what you know or even how you apply what you know. Beware of failing into these very common, and very useless, studying strategies.
1. Taking every test you can find
I have to admit, when I first started studying for the LSAT, I started by buying a book with 10 LSATs in it and plowing through them all, one every other day or so. My score on the last test was virtually identical to my score on the first test. The reason this strategy fails so completely is that the LSAT is designed to monitor whether and to what extent you can think logically. Repeatedly measuring this is just like stepping on the scale every day and not understand why you’re not losing weight.
2. Cramming the night (or month) before
Logical thinking is not something that can be learned quickly. It requires significant analytical skills, both about the argument and about your own thought processes. Because it is a difficult and complex skill set, it’s not something that can be learned quickly. You can certainly pick up a few tricks and improve your score somewhat in a short time span, but to really excel, you need to invest a large chunk of time. Think of this process as similar to learning a physical skill. You can’t become a pro basketball star by practicing non-stop for the month before a game. The skills build gradually and with concentrated effort over time.
3. Ignoring Your Strengths
It’s easy and natural to focus on weaknesses. Let’s say you can handle basic ordering games and tend to get 4-5 out of the six questions right. The other styles all take way to long for you to make any progress. As a result, you ignore basic ordering games and study all the rest round the clock. It’s true that (hopefully) this will help you improve the other games, but there’s a better way. Including a thorough study of basic ordering games will benefit you in two ways. First, it’s likely easier to improve your accuracy on a game you’re comfortable with than one you’re not, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to bring that 4-5 correct up to a complete 6 out of 6 correct. Second, you can significantly lower the amount of time it takes to finish these simpler games. If you can complete the easy games quickly, you have more time to spend on the harder ones, giving you a better shot to improve your accuracy there too.
4. Only working in testing conditions
Making sure you can work well under a time crunch is important, but it’s difficult to really master a difficult skill if you’re only giving yourself a few minutes. It’s better to work under a mix of timed and untimed conditions, focusing more on the timed ones only as you master skills and get closer to your test date.
Studying for the LSAT is a time-intensive, skill building process. If you want the highest possible scores, make sure you’re willing to invest the time and study the right way. You’ll be able to use these skills in law school, so the investment is for more than just a test.