LSAT Diaries: LSAT Retake Score Increase

This installment of LSAT Diaries comes from Jeff, who improved from a 151 diagnostic to a 172 on his June LSAT retake after using my intense retaker's LSAT study plan!

If you want to be in LSAT Diaries, please email me at LSATUnplugged@gmail.com. (You can be in LSAT Diaries whether you've taken the exam already or not.)

Thanks to Jeff for sharing his experience and advice!

Jeff's LSAT Diary:

I'll preface my experience with one overarching theme that cannot be stressed emphatically enough: this test is learnable. It is not an IQ test, where only the very smartest get the top scores. It is a test that can absolutely be mastered if you have two things: work ethic and the proper techniques. Below is how I went from a 151 diagnostic to a 172 on the real thing - or, from the 48 percentile to the 99th.  As a side note, I work full-time in a demanding job with long hours. Bottom line: if you want it bad enough, you can make it happen.

I recommend that you learn a particular question type (its basic mechanics, its tendencies, its traps, the techniques to solve it, etc), and then drill specific questions or games of that type from previous tests. A lot of them. Follow it by taking full-length LSAT practice tests later on.

I held off on taking actual prep tests until about a month into my studying. My first PrepTest, after a lot of studying, was a 165.

As it got closer to February, I was taking a prep test every Saturday. My scores were in the mid to high 160s - solid, but not where I wanted to be. I decided there was no reason to take the test in February if I wasn't fully confident that I could get 170+, so I pushed it back until June.

At this point, the class had ended, so I decided to follow an LSAT study schedule on LSAT Blog to help keep me regimented and focused until June. So glad I did. Since I already had the techniques and basics down, I chose the "intense" retaker's guide, which I found to be really helpful and more appropriate for me than many of the regular guides, which start from square one.

The best part about it is that it forces you to drill specific question types by telling you what you need to complete within a given week. The "intense" version is, intense, and trying to keep up with it definitely made me drill more than I would have otherwise. I would 100% recommend focusing your studying around a set schedule (and an ambitious one). If you don't, you are more prone to slack off and think that doing a little bit here and there is good enough.

I would do my drilling during the work day if I had any free time, and then after work. This was tiring and annoying and whatever, but it's worth it in the end, trust me.

After drilling for about a month, I started doing a PrepTest every Saturday beginning in April or so. In late April/early May, I added in a PT every Wednesday as well - I would do these after work. I did 4 section tests for these (instead of 5).

During May, my PT's were solidly above 170 - I reached 175/176 a few times as well. In the final week, I took a PT on Wednesday (the test was the following Monday) and then did minimal studying over the weekend. At that point, I knew I was ready to go.

I cannot stress enough the importance of starting your studying early and giving yourself adequate time to prep. My prep was effectively seven months long - this seems like a lot, but it was worth it considering the last month or so I was solidly above 170 and, as a result, went into the test feeling super confident. I had the test down so well that I was literally 100% sure I was going to score 170+ as I walked into the test center. That is the level of preparedness you should strive for.

Photo by bobaubuchon