Retaking the LSAT a third time?

[erh333]

I took a class through Kaplan prior to my first LSAT, which was helpful in bringing certain aspects of the LSAT to my awareness, but was also fairly destructive for my personality/study type. Thinking about their guidelines and rules while taking the LSAT stressed me out. It seemed like I was restricted from approaching the LSAT in a way that is more obvious, sensical, and natural to me. I also focused to much on learning their specific techniques than spending time with repetition of PTs. This was the first HUGE mistake on my part.

When I went to take the test for the first time in October 2013, I randomly filled in at least ten questions I didn't have time for and didn't even answer two - awful. I should have cancelled immediately. That was the second HUGE mistake on my part.

I received a 153. I discovered this about a month after taking the LSAT, as one usually does. Mistake number three? I should not have stopped studying after the October LSAT in the event that I did poorly and would need to retake, which is obvious in this scenario. I signed up for the December LSAT, leaving me with about a month to study. Then I got a stone/infection in my parotid gland. I could not concentrate and was on pain killers for a week. I was down to three weeks. That being said, in those three weeks, I did what I knew I needed the most improvement on, which was timing, and I took the tests with my own approach, adapting some of the techniques from Kaplan that I found useful. This was very helpful. In the three-week time frame, I scored a 158 once, 161 twice, 162 twice, 163 once, and 165 once. Still not amazing, but not any where near as bad as before.

In December, while still feeling short of being fully prepared, I felt much better upon finishing - maybe guessing on two questions total (when I say guessing, I mean not even getting to read the stimulus). I scored a 159. I am still upset about it, but I realize that the mean improvement the second time is ~2.7 points for a female.

Now I am wondering if I should go for a third time. Most people do worse, and I would be a little worried about that. At the same time, if I improved six points with only three additional weeks of studying, I think I could do some more damage.

As far as my GPA goes, I was a little distracted in undergrad and pretty ashamed of that. My cumulative is 3.21; my senior year I had a 3.53 and I received the award for the best senior thesis in my major (hoping this will boost me just a little). I have about two years of experience as a legal assistant.

I mostly want to go to school at U of Denver, U of CO at Boulder, or Lewis & Clark. Maybe Northeastern because their co-op program sounds amazing and I am trying to gain experience all over the country/world. A scholarship is also, of course, preferable since most of those are private or ridiculously expensive regardless, and I'm not crazy wealthy.

Sorry to bombard this post with info, but I'm hoping it will allow people to have better insight into what would be better to do at this point. Any thoughts would be appreciated!

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hey erh333,

Thanks for your post! Don't worry about bombarding us with information: the more you tell us, the better we can help!

First, congrats on (almost) hitting 160 in December! You didn't mention what your first practice test score was, but even when compared to your performance in October, the December score shows a significant improvement. I realize it's far from perfect, but it does show that you have what it takes to master this test.

Let me address some of the other points you raised in your post.

First, you claim it was a mistake to focus on learning Kaplan's specific techniques, and regret not taking more practice tests when studying for October. You are only partially correct in this assessment. It is pointless to take practice tests without improving your conceptual mastery of the material: it's like jumping on a scale hoping to lose weight Your mistake had less to do with trying to learn specific techniques than with trying to learn Kaplan's specific techniques. No offense to them, but they aren't the most obvious, sensical, or natural techniques in the world. That said, you do need to develop a solid methodological framework for approaching the various question types on the test, just like you need to understand how to work with arguments involving conditional reasoning, causation, etc. There is no way around that. As a matter of fact, your December LSAT score shows exactly how far you can go without such mastery: if you rely on mere common sense and train yourself to go a little faster (by burning through multiple PT's), you are bound to hit a wall at around the high-150's/low-160's. Any improvement beyond this point requires conceptual improvement in your core skill set.

I would also disagree with your claim that you needed the most improvement on timing. That's like taking meds to lower your fever: your fever may go down, but it won't make you healthier. Poor timing - just like fever - are symptoms of underlying deficiencies in your approach. For instance, do you always attempt to prephrase the answer in LR questions? Do you know how to weaken a causal argument in a split second? What about diagramming conditional statements? Do you notice limited solution sets in Logic Games? How far do you go in your inference-making process? How engaged are you with the RC passages? Rushing is not how you improve your pace: it's how you slow yourself down in the end.

With your current credentials, you do stand a good chance of getting into U of Denver and Lewis & Clark; U of CO at Boulder will be a reach, and so is Northeastern. You are unlikely to receive a scholarship at any of these schools. Assuming you want to apply for entry in the Fall 2014, the February 2014 LSAT is your last chance to take the test and have the score factored in the admissions decision. You also can't take the test more than 3 times in any two consecutive years, so if you re-take it in February - that will be it for awhile.

To be competitive for a scholarship at any of the schools you mentioned, you need a score in the high-160's... so, a 8-10 point improvement from now until February 7. This is doable, assuming you have about 20 hrs/week to devote to the LSAT. Let's examine your options:

The best (and probably most expensive) way to do this would be to get private tutoring, which will help you identify exactly what areas you need improvement on, and provide guidance along the way.

Another (perhaps just as effective) strategy would be to take an intensive Live Online course: in the course of a month, you will learn a ton, and trust me when I say this - you will likely find our techniques to be superior across the board. The last Live Online course that we have in preparation for the February 2014 test started on 1/9, and tonight is Lesson 2. All the lessons are archived, so you can probably catch up pretty quickly:

• http://shop.powerscore.com/PSStore_Clas ... 007dsa2IAA

You may also want to look into the Advanced Logic Games and Logical Reasoning courses, which are perfect for someone in the high-150's/low-160s who is struggling with some of the higher-level questions on the test:

• http://www.powerscore.com/lsat/advanced-logic-games/
  
  http://www.powerscore.com/lsat/advanced ... reasoning/

Finally, you can try to do self-study using PowerScore Bibles, currently the gold standard when it comes to DIY LSAT prep (and I'm not just saying that)

Here's a good study plan that might be useful in this regard:

• http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/331 ... r-February

Let me know if you have any thoughts about any of the above, and thanks for reaching out to us!

Good luck!