April 2024 LSAT

[Sameer Asad]

Hello. I am an international test taker giving the LSAT in April. I have been studying for almost 3 months and my diagnostic score was 149. Since then I have improved considerably and my highest score in 2 different PTs has been 168. However, there is a lot of variance in my scores where I've even fallen to early 160s such as in PT 85. However, on average, my score lies in the 165-166 range across multiple PTs.

The breakdown on average is -2 -3 on LG and RC both and around -5 on LR. My aim is to cross at least a 171 for the April LSAT and would want any tips on how to schedule my study for the next 3 weeks. I have read the PowerScore bibles and done many drill sections too. From amongst the latest PTs, I have PT 86-94 left to do. Should I focus more on drilling individual questions, doing timed sections, or should I heavily prioritise doing as many PTs as I can?

Also is a better approach at this point to solidify my RC LG even more to get a -0 -1 or should I focus on LR to get it to -2 -3 to be able to get my desired score.

I can spare about 4-5 hours daily for the next 3 weeks so would love some help on figuring out how to plan these last few weeks.

[EmilyOwens]

Hello. I am an international test taker giving the LSAT in April. I have been studying for almost 3 months and my diagnostic score was 149. Since then I have improved considerably and my highest score in 2 different PTs has been 168. However, there is a lot of variance in my scores where I've even fallen to early 160s such as in PT 85. However, on average, my score lies in the 165-166 range across multiple PTs.

The breakdown on average is -2 -3 on LG and RC both and around -5 on LR. My aim is to cross at least a 171 for the April LSAT and would want any tips on how to schedule my study for the next 3 weeks. I have read the PowerScore bibles and done many drill sections too. From amongst the latest PTs, I have PT 86-94 left to do. Should I focus more on drilling individual questions, doing timed sections, or should I heavily prioritise doing as many PTs as I can?

Also is a better approach at this point to solidify my RC LG even more to get a -0 -1 or should I focus on LR to get it to -2 -3 to be able to get my desired score.

I can spare about 4-5 hours daily for the next 3 weeks so would love some help on figuring out how to plan these last few weeks.

Hi Sameer,

First of all: great work on that score jump! It takes a lot of time and dedication, and you’ve gotten a solid grasp on fundamental concepts of the LSAT. Take a second and be proud.

You’re doing the right thing in calculating your average across tests. I encourage students to use that last 4 practice tests when determining their average score. With that, we can get to work on how to guide our studies!

If you haven’t already, I would recommend creating a wrong answer journal. A journal will help direct you as it shows you patterns over time. Do you get particular question types wrong? Are the last 2-3 questions in each section the problem? A wrong answer journal will make these things apparent! Additionally, I suggest including the following when documenting in a journal:

• Test Number

• Test Section

• Question Number

• Question Type

• What lead you to choose the answer you did

• What the correct answer is and why

• Method to prevent choosing the wrong answer in the future

If your journal shows you a pattern, you can focus on that pattern in your drilling. For example, if you notice 3/4 of your wrong answers on an LR section are Parallel Reasoning questions, you know what to drill! If you notice the wrong answers from your Logic Games are Unbalanced Grouping games, you know what to tackle to improve.

After organizing this, I would recommend drilling your pain points, prioritizing Logic Games and Logical Reasoning first. Logical Reasoning will help inform how you approach the majority of your Reading Comprehension questions as well, but with the ability to work through more questions during a drill set. I would also recommend keeping your practice tests consistent — don’t overexert. The last thing you want is to feel like you’re burning out just before the test! It’s also great to have so much modern LSAT material to tackle. Great work.

Again, congratulations on such a jump. It took me at least double the time to get where you are! This speaks to your dedication and I hope it shows you getting to that 171+ is possible!

Hope this helps

[Sameer Asad]

Hi Emily!

Thanks alot for your response. A few follow up questions:

1) For me, the answering process on LR is mostly very intuitive. Of course, the intuition is formed by consistent practice over a period of 3 months, but when it comes to journaling, and specifically the part where I have to write WHY I chose the answer I did, becomes slightly tricky. In that sense, then journaling sometimes doesn't feel very effective for me. Do you think there is a way to tackle this so I can journal effectively or is there some alternative to journaling altogether?

2) For LG, I am doing good on all sorts of games except Mapping games mostly. There's also very less practice games for Mapping games. How would you suggest I go about those?

3) There's no specific pattern to which questions I get wrong on the LR. It is mostly strengthen questions with Conditionality/CE which I am drilling but other than that it's just different 3-4 questions in the Last 10 usually. So, the effective strategy would then be doing Test Sections for LR and Super Sets perhaps?

4) Lastly, unfortunately I have to give the LSAT remotely because test centre in my country is closed on test day on account of a National holiday and the LSAC refused to reschedule my test. Any specific tips or prep points for the remote LSAT?

Thanks alot once again!

[Luke Haqq]

Hi Sameer!

1) For me, the answering process on LR is mostly very intuitive. Of course, the intuition is formed by consistent practice over a period of 3 months, but when it comes to journaling, and specifically the part where I have to write WHY I chose the answer I did, becomes slightly tricky. In that sense, then journaling sometimes doesn't feel very effective for me. Do you think there is a way to tackle this so I can journal effectively or is there some alternative to journaling altogether?

That's totally fine if you don't think that journaling would be useful in your situation. To distill a reason that Emily suggested doing so, it's of paramount importance to understand why you are getting questions wrong to be able to make more strides in improving your score. I'm of the opinion that, given the amount of time between you and test day, the most useful thing for you to do at this point would be to take as many full, timed practice tests as possible. But doing the test alone wouldn't be all you'd want to do--rather, you'd want to make sure you review each full test after you take it, and really work to understand why you selected wrong answers and why correct answers are right. That can go a long way in helping prevent you from making similar mistakes again, and it may also help you catch some of the strategies and tricks that the test makers repeatedly use.

2) For LG, I am doing good on all sorts of games except Mapping games mostly. There's also very less practice games for Mapping games. How would you suggest I go about those?

Since there aren't as many of this type of game, that suggests that it's potentially feasible for you to do all the practice games available. I think it'd make a lot of sense to do them together as a drill--for instance, perhaps doing a handful and then reviewing them, then doing another handful and reviewing them, until you've completed all the practice games.

3) There's no specific pattern to which questions I get wrong on the LR. It is mostly strengthen questions with Conditionality/CE which I am drilling but other than that it's just different 3-4 questions in the Last 10 usually. So, the effective strategy would then be doing Test Sections for LR and Super Sets perhaps?

Given that there's no specific pattern, I think this bolsters my suggestion to take as many practice tests as possible. If you can spare 5 hours daily, that should give you enough time to complete a full test and review it. Since you hope to score at least a 171, that means you need to be getting through all of the LR questions, so keeping up the practice can hopefully help your endurance and make it less likely that you miss questions later into the section as you note.

4) Lastly, unfortunately I have to give the LSAT remotely because test centre in my country is closed on test day on account of a National holiday and the LSAC refused to reschedule my test. Any specific tips or prep points for the remote LSAT?

If you can, try to keep up the same routine as much as possible, and keep that routine going on test day. For example, take your practice tests at the same time of day that you'll be taking the actual test and generally simulate the testing conditions when you're taking practice tests, so that when the test day comes it won't be much different from what you've been doing anyways.