Am I studying the right way?

[Jay]

Hello.

I started studying for LSAT sporadically for six months in total. I read all three powerscore LSAT Bibles last year and did a timed lsat and got 154. (untimed 171) on Superprep C.

Then I stopped studying for a while and started studying again this year. I did a timed PT 17 and my score went down to 148.

I've been going over the questions I got wrong. and really been trying hard to see why I got those questions wrong and writing down how I can do better next time (lessons learned from each question). I've been also memorizing any unfamiliar vocabs I see on PT, using flashcards and dictionary.

Can you give me any more tips and strategies on how to effectively study for LSAT? I feel like every time I see the explanations on questions on powerscore forum, I go "Ugh. Obviously!" but when I do the PT, I just make similar mistakes over and over again.

Any sentence of your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!!

[Adam Tyson]

It looks like you are already on the right path, Jay. Taking some practice tests and studying the results to try learning from them is an important part of preparing for the LSAT. What you may want to do more of, though, is study the strategies and concepts more, rather than focusing as much on individual questions. Look into building better and more consistent habits. Are you prephrasing every LR question and most RC questions, or are you diving into the answer choices unprepared? Are you building diagrams that connect rules and make new inferences, or are you just getting the rules down and then heading to the questions? When you get to the answer choices, are you sorting them quickly into losers (answers that are clearly wrong) and contenders (everything else, including anything that you are unsure about), or are you stopping to analyze and test answers before you are done with that sorting?

Success on the LSAT comes from a firm grasp of the concepts and strategies needed for every question type and a consistent application of those strategies, coupled with good habits that produce positive results and keep you from losing focus and straying from what works.

Finally, it's as important to study the wrong answers as it is to study the right ones. It's not enough to know why the right answer is right - you have to know why the wrong ones are wrong, so you can spot those tricks and traps and problems more easily next time. As one of my colleagues likes to say, if you are only studying the right answers, you are only studying 20% of the test!

Check out our self-study area on our website for study guides and other helpful resources: https://studentcenter.powerscore.com/self-study/

Also, consider working with one of our excellent tutors for a few hours to identify problem areas and get some guidance towards a better process. And of course, keep coming back to us here in the Forum for more!