LSAT Diary: "That Dog Just Don't Hunt"

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Please leave Rob some encouragement and advice below in the comments!

Rob's LSAT Diary:

Imagine you’re a young lad in ancient Greece just trying to make your mark on, oh I don’t know, western thought. Of course, you need a school to join first, otherwise, your advances in thought will be undisciplined and without context. So you shop around – hedonism seems fun, but rather undignified; eclecticism is interesting, but rudderless; and the Stoics? Those guys definitely do not get the ladies.

I firmly believe that shopping around for an LSAT philosophy is much the same way – you have to find a system that works for you because it will become the foundation for all your future study. (From now on, just assume that I’m writing this for all my fellow mere mortals out there. The rest of you trying to get over a 175 can go dissect the ‘Dinosaur’ game or something.) People have a tendency to parade around their LSAT prep company of choice like it’s a badge of honour – “Oh, you prepped with Princeton Review? Well, I’m a Kaplan man myself.”

Whomever you study with, I think it is very important to find your company of choice and stick with them. Your system of attacking the LSAT must stay consistent. Especially when it comes to terminology and question classification, LSAT prep companies develop their value through a proprietary lexicon -- nothing is worse than hearing a perfectly confused fellow student try to explain the difference between the “Denial Test” and “Negation.”

I like to think of myself as a ‘fallen Kaplan.’ Yes, I shelled out the 1200 clams for the full LSAT course, all the books, the whole shebang. And (for those following my ‘diary’) that was before I got my simply stunning 151 (note: my Kaplan diagnostic test was a 156). Admittedly, I am guilty of what I like to call the ‘set-it-and-forget-it’ syndrome. Often, when you pay for one of these courses, you think you’ve paid so much money that if you just show up to the classes somehow you’ll learn the method through sheer osmosis. Using the rhetorical tradition of my current state of residence, "That dog just don’t hunt."

I’m sure Kaplan works for some people, but it definitely didn’t for me. I switched to the blog's LSAT study schedules and found that style much more to my liking. Again, it’s all down to personal preference (God, how often do you hear that cop-out during LSAT preparation), but if you’re struggling with what plan to use for your study, consider using the schedules to guide you.

My next little tidbit of advice: the necessity of a study-buddy. I long ago accepted the fact that, no much how potential I have, I am an innately lazy bugger, and that is doubtful to change. Luckily, my fiancée realized early on that she has as much invested in my LSAT score as I do. So began my own personal hell. She requires 5 hours a day of LSAT studying. And remember, I have a full time job. I get up at 7am, get to work by 8:30am, work until 5pm, get home at 6pm, chow down some dinner, and am in my ‘study dungeon’ by 6:30pm for 5 hours of uninterrupted study. Rinse and repeat. Honestly, I have run out of Asian dictators to compare her to on my Facebook status updates. Tomorrow I’m googling African dictators just for variety’s sake.

To her credit, she does everything in her power to maintain a ‘conducive’ study environment in our house while I’m studying – and believe me, with an active 4 year-old, that is no easy feat. When we decided that I should take the October LSAT, we had almost exactly two months of studying to work with. We made the judgment call to trust my visual memory (which has always been good) on the Reading Comprehension, and focus on Logical Reasoning and Logic Games.

The first month, I took pages upon pages of notes and worked through every example. Then, in the second month, I have been taking timed LSAT after timed LSAT (one a day), then breaking it down, and reviewing. For the most part it is working; with an average LSAT score between 160 and 164. But when you take 15 tests and they are all in the same range, how do you push beyond that range? What happens when you exhaust every little technique you have read?

Stay tuned for the next installment: ‘LSAT Diary: Practice Tests Score Plateau.’

Photo by snakphotography