LSAT Diary of a 20-Something American in Asia (Singapore)

This LSAT Diary is from T, who's doing his LSAT prep while living in Singapore.

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Here's his LSAT Diary:

I have been considering law school since my first year of college, but going into my final year after my second summer abroad, I realized that I wanted to take some more time to get experience and see the world. So, after my last year of college, I headed to Singapore on a fellowship to teach for two years.

LSAT Prep – The Beginnings
Last year, I kept postponing my LSAT preparation, which had a lot to do with the fact that I had no idea where to start or what to do. I have several friends that have taken the LSAT, but they all had different approaches or schedules. It was around that time that I found Steve's blog, and felt I finally had a good plan to follow.

My first attempt at preparation failed because of a family issue I had to deal with, and so I decided to postpone the LSAT. When I finally decided to start again, I had a disappointing discovery - the February exam is not offered in Asia! Although I was ready to start, the timing was not that big of a deal since I am planning on applying for the class of 2011 or 2012.

During all of that time, I focused my efforts on training and preparing for a marathon, which was a great pre-LSAT experience. The mentality for both the marathon and the LSAT is very similar - hard work, dedication, and discipline, followed by one single day of intense pressure, and the ability to see how your time paid off.


LSAT Prep – Finally Started
Although I have a full-time job, activities, and language classes, I do have one thing as a teacher that a lot of people wish they had: school vacations! When my semester ended in March, I decided it was time to get serious, so I took a week off of work, and hit the books. I will probably apply to law school in the early fall (when my top choices start accepting), but there is a chance I will wait another year, depending on my job situation (that means I would start 3-4 years after Undergrad). Even though I might not be applying right away, I decided that this is the best time for me to take the test since I do have days and weeks off between now and then.

For the first four weeks, I completed almost every recommended section and chapter in Steve’s 3-month plan (save a fair amount of actual LR questions). I have made a few variations in materials and prep methods:

* Week One Practice: I did about half of the games untimed, and the other half timed.
* Week Three Materials: Instead of reading the recommended book on arguments, I watched a series of lectures on Logic from Oxford University. To find these free lectures, go to iTunesU (within the iTunes program, or from an iPod/iPhone), and search ‘Logic’. These video lectures were nice when I wanted to do something productive, but was too tired or lazy to do practice questions. It is easy to get 20 or 30 minutes of formal logic in while eating dinner or even having a beer.


My studying over the course of a week:

Saturday
I am heading in to my 4th week on the 3-month study schedule. It took me a while to get moving, but after a big cup of coffee, and one episode of CSI, I decided it was time to start.

There were still a few sections I had to finish from the previous three weeks, plus a couple of games to review. I had about 4 games that I wanted to review, so I started with that. To begin, I look at my setup, then the correct answer, and try to figure out what I did wrong.

For the logic games, I am doing fairly well, but sometimes I miss questions or waste time because I leave out a detail. This usually happens in questions that ask for possible orders or combinations, I’ll attack the answers choices with the various rules and Not Laws, and then discover that there are two answers that appear to be possible. For example, let’s say I have narrowed it down to the following (made-up) answer choices:

1. 2 green sedans, 1 red van, 3 yellow sports cars, and 2 blue convertible.
2. 2 green sedans, 1 red van, 2 yellow sports cars, and 1 blue convertible.

Now, my problem is usually something like this – I stare at the answers, check the laws, and cannot find any violations. FINALLY, after either wasting too much time, or getting the answer wrong, I re-read the question and realize that there can only be 6 cars in total. (There are lots of variations of these mistakes, and it is hard to make-up examples!)

This means I am being a bit careless, and not taking enough time to think about the scenario and the various rules. I am confident that this will get better with practice.

After some review, I worked on some unfinished games from PrepTests 29-38.


Sunday
Nothing specific to the LSAT, but I did watch one of the Oxford lectures on Logic. The lesson focused on deductive and inductive logic, valid and invalid arguments, and the strength of arguments.


Monday
I have to come to the office this week, but I don’t actually start teaching for a couple of weeks. I have a few things to do before next lessons start, but I can still give myself a couple of hours each day at work for the LSAT.

Today I read some Logical Reasoning tips on LSAT Blog. I thought about doing a few practice questions, but didn’t want to make it too obvious that I was doing LSAT stuff at work!


Tuesday – Thursday - The problem with distractions
Distractions can be a bitch, especially since they always take up more time than we think. If a colleague comes to speak with me for five minutes, it usually takes an additional 10 minutes for me to get back to work. While that is not a major issue, my distractions from the LSAT tend to be.

Recently, I had to put down the books and focus on preparing for a job interview. It was a bit unexpected (I had not put much effort into the job search since I started getting serious about the LSAT), so I ignored everything but the interview.

After two full days, I completed the interview, but found myself having a hard time pulling the books off the shelf. It reminded me of a line from Dumb and Dumber – “I can’t start and stop again, it stings!” On Thursday, I was sitting at my computer tired and debating whether to work. I decided that I needed some inspiration, and so I came up with a plan.

My first step was to do some reading about my top choices. After all, I was not 100% about wanting to attend law school until I found a couple of very specific programs that got me excited. This excitement eventually turned into motivation, since most of the programs are at top schools.

Next, I sought motivation from another source. Thinking back to my marathon training days, I remembered a couple of awesome inspiration movies that helped me out (I know, it sounds lame, but whatever helps, right?). My movie of choice was Without Limits, which is about the Olympic runner Steve Prefontaine. I was ready to go.


Saturday
Two new sites!

This site has two logic tests (validity), and some links to other sites on logic and philosophy.

This site has a ton of information to help you learn logic (I am really amazed at how much free information is out there these days!), but probably not worth spending a ton of time on.

By the way, for those wondering, I found these sites by ‘Stumbling” the logic section of StumbleUpon.

I am skipping actual LSAT stuff for the day, but will get back to it tomorrow.


Sunday

-Morning

I decided to switch things up a bit, but it means I am going to be a bit behind next week. Instead of doing the Logical Reasoning questions, I decided that I would tackle all the remaining Logic Games from 29-38 in chronological order. For me, I think I would rather focus on the questions in the practice tests by section.

-Evening

I had a chat with a good friend that has taken the LSAT twice. I was discussing my goals, and mentioned that it is probably time I take a full test to get an idea of where I am. I think this will help me figure out how much time I need to spend until the June exam. She agreed, but was kind enough to remind me that most people score 3-4 points lower during the actual exam…

Photo by bobaubuchon / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0