166 in Feb, 173+ in Sep possible?

[joseph_cheung]

I have studied for LSAT since December last year, and finished PT 30-60, ranging from 164-173, with an average score of 169. Got a 166 in the real one, frankly a bit disappointed.

My current situation is LG -2, LR -3~-4 for each session, and RC -3~-8. I dunno what's wrong with my capricious RC performance lol.

I really want to raise my score, ideally above 173 in the September test (because I am studying at a university in Hong Kong famous for low GPA. my current GPA is 3.5, which is already 5-10% in my year). Is this even possible? I can spare 28 hours per week from March to May, and 50 hours per week from June to August. I don't wanna burn out so I've plan an 10 day trip in the summer.

I am thinking of buying the LSAT Trainer, or registering for the Manhattan / 7Sage courses. Do you think they are helpful?

Any suggestion will be much appreciated!

[ohthatpatrick]

Hey, Joseph.

Of course it's possible! That's a TON of study time you're talking about.

It's also, of course, possible it's not possible. By that I mean, it's really impossible for us (or even you) at this point to diagnose whether you'd would plateau short of 173.

It mainly comes down to how good a reader you are. Probably the biggest thing I would recommend is that you allocate a good bit of that study time you were describing to becoming a more voracious, varied reader.

You'd ideally like the topics to be varied and the vocabulary / sentence complexity to be upper-intermediate.

I have a subscription to NY Times online and it would be pretty easy for me to just spend 15 mins, three times a day, pulling up some articles and reading about complex, grown up topics.

Your comfort/interest level when it comes to analyzing art, following scientific studies, understanding the complexities of legal problems, and reading anthropological/historical stuff is huge.

So if you were really thinking 28 hrs a week (4 hrs a day), you should plan to break up your 30-45 min LSAT study activities with a stretch break, and "read something grown up" break, a stretch break, and then into another 30-45 LSAT study chunk.

With that much LSAT practice, you will probably get fast enough at Games to be able to finish the section almost every time, so you'll be 0-2 wrong, based on whether careless mistakes occurred.

In terms of books / class / resources, yes I think it's helpful to get at least some test prep wisdom on LSAT. The people who've studied it forever can alert you to possible patterns / simpler ways of thinking about some correct/incorrect answers.

You could always start with a book now and see if your score moves enough by the summer. If not, maybe see a tutor starting around June.

Classes would be of some value to you, but starting from where you're at, classes will begin by feeling like they're discussing a lot of fundamentals that you already know.