If you’ve recently taken the LSAT and you’re not entirely happy with your score or you want to do better, the first question you might be asking yourself is “how do I approach the LSAT differently so I can improve?”
Luckily, there are several methods to help you get a better score.
With so many options, you can try one, a few, or all, depending on what works best for you.
Today, we’ll look at 15 strategies to help increase your LSAT score (check out my LSAT retake class video for more detail on each).
LSAT Retake Strategy #1: Understand the Questions
Most test-takers feel like they worked through an overwhelming number of practice exams and wonder how much additional practice it will take to get a better score.
They tend to ask questions like, “How do I study?”, “What do I do going forward?”, “How do I evaluate myself?”
Diagnosing your problem areas is a start, but it’s crucial to learn thoroughly understand what each question is asking in order to answer it correctly.
You can use outside resources, but it’s wise to stick with more recent LSAT content and carefully analyze each question. This is the most important strategy.
LSAT Retake Strategy #2: Consider Additional LSAT PrepTests
There are nearly 100 released LSAT exams that provide solid study material. Most are numbered, but several unnumbered ones offer additional practice material.
These exams include June 2007, SuperPrep exams from the late 1990s, PrepTest C2 from SuperPrep II, and the official LSAT Prep Test Book with Explanations (Feb 1997 exam). This additional exam material will help you practice your skills and improve your score.
LSAT Retake Strategy #3: Avoid Fake Practice Tests
If you're searching online, it's easy to find fake LSAT questions – avoid these like the plague! If a test prep book does not have an associated PrepTest number / date administered, it’s probably fake and should be avoided. These questions may contain mistakes and are unlikely to be realistic.
That said, if you're very good at logic games, the fake ones may be a fun way to sharpen your logic skills through spotting the mistakes.
For even more fun, you could search Amazon for LSAT test prep books with bad reviews. Find those, and you’ll have even more opportunity to practice finding the mistakes.
My unofficial LSAT logic games also provide challenging practice material, without any mistakes; and if you were to find one in any of my games, I’ll give you $1,000 – I’m that confident they are valid and reliable.
LSAT Retake Strategy #4: Identify Your Weaknesses
Your exam may have been unreleased - if so, your first thought may be, “how can I evaluate myself if I can’t see where I went wrong?”
While it would be nice to know this, it’s not necessary. What’s more valuable is looking at how you did on your most recent 3-5 practice exams. Those results will paint a better picture of where you stand. They will also give you a better sense of how you perform under pressure, the types of questions you might get wrong, and your particular weak areas.
The exam you just took also provides insight, but the point is that by looking at your performance over the past 3-5 exams, and averaging the results, you can get a good idea of where you currently stand and identify your weak areas.
Looking at your recent practice exams allows you to delve into how you worked through each question that you missed and identify where you may have gone wrong (i.e. looking at your notes, what you crossed out, etc.)
LSAT Retake Strategy #5: Review All Areas of Difficulty
Another pitfall when planning out your retake strategy is to focus only on the questions you missed. I would highly recommend including any question type you find difficult, such as the questions where you were able to get down to two options and had to guess (and possibly got lucky on).
Evaluating these can be valuable because you can analyze why you chose what you did and come to understand the question better.
Bottom line, in your retake prep, include both types of questions: ones you missed and the ones you struggled with (even if you got them right).
LSAT Retake Strategy #6: Identify and Avoid LSAT Tricks
LSAT questions contain tricks to trip you up. For example, a sufficient assumption may be offered as a tempting wrong answer for a necessary assumption question.
You quickly find the sufficient assumption, think it’s the correct answer and mistakenly choose it, when another choice (often appearing later) would have been the correct way to go.
A valuable exercise when prepping for an LSAT retake (and for your LSAT review process in general) is to identify your problem areas in each question:
Was your issue with the stimulus, the question stem, or the answer choices?
Knowing which particular areas give you trouble (and the particular tricks you are prone to falling for) will help you avoid them in the future.
LSAT Retake Strategy #7: Perform In-Depth Socratic Review
Thorough analysis and review of each question (what is being asked) and its corresponding answer choices is crucial to selecting the correct answer.
For the questions you answered incorrectly, ask yourself:
-What tempted you to make your initial selection?
-What ultimately made it wrong?
-What was it about the correct answer that made it unappealing?
-And what made it correct in the end?
Keep asking yourself these questions to delve deep into why you steer yourself in the wrong direction.
When answering a question, it’s critical to spend time reviewing it and all of the possible answer options.
When doing this, write down your thought process and analysis – and when I say write down, I literally mean by hand – no typing.
It’s been proven that writing by hand stimulates a variety of neural connections, so what you discover and learn through the review and your handwritten documentation of this review establishes a stronger learning experience.
In addition to writing things down, talk about what you are reviewing and thinking.
Have discussions with other test takers, LSAT instructors or even explain what you are learning to a friend.
Using multiple modes of communication to actively engage with what you are learning makes it stick better.
LSAT Retake Strategy #8: Changing Your LSAT Study Plan
Before you commit to retaking the LSAT, think carefully about what may have prevented you from getting a better score. Where did you mess up? Did you have a busy work or class schedule, leaving little time for studying? Think about how you can reduce those hours and focus on test prep. Maybe take fewer classes or talk to your supervisor about temporarily reduced hours. Shift your schedule around a bit to see if you can fit in more prep time.
Maybe the resources you used before weren't sufficient. Look at what you were using and consider changing that up a bit. Look for resources that are comprehensive and cohesive.
If you were using a random LSAT prep book, maybe it’s time to invest in one that is rated better. Make sure you're using actual official LSAT questions. Consider taking a course.
Many ask if it’s worth it to buy more tests or books. Personally, I've found (and my students have found) that investing in quality test prep material results in better test scores, helping you get into a better law school and/or graduate with less debt, giving you more career options after graduating.
In this way, making the extra investment in quality test prep material will have a huge impact on your career. The key is to try something different (and possibly better) than what you did last time.
LSAT Retake Strategy #9: LSAT Study Schedules
Many times, LSAT students will start off studying by taking exam after exam, evaluating their results and moving on to the next one. I call this the Obsessive Practice Exam Narrative (OPEN).
Unplanned test prep, whether it be the first time or for a retake, is inefficient.
Instead, try organizing your prep into three parts:
(1) build your foundation and accuracy
(2) work on timing, completing 35-minute timed sections to see your accuracy under the time constraint
(3) work on endurance by working through a full-length 5-section exam with only 1 break.
By building a strong foundation first (i.e. get the answers correct) and then combining that with getting the correct answers quickly, you naturally progress into being able to complete a full exam.
LSAT Retake Strategy #10: Focus on Weak Areas
As I mentioned earlier, it’s always a good idea to focus your retake prep on your weak areas.
Once you’ve identified them, make it a point to work on those question types. Work on untimed and times exams now and then to mix things up. There is no need to worry about the specifics of whether or not to do timed sections or timed exams, practice questions by type, or any of those small details.
Do a little of everything, but make sure you are focusing on your weak areas. How to focus is your choice, but a mixture of varying sections of prep is always beneficial. My website and study plans make it easy to find practice material by category, so you can zoom in on your weak areas and address them.
LSAT Retake Strategy #11: Prep for the Digital LSAT Specifically
Borrow or get a tablet and take tests in the digital format. When you're using books, treat them like screens (don't write on them). To avoid repeating myself, I'll referral you to the material I've released about Digital LSAT prep on the LSAT Unplugged YouTube channel and podcast - check them out for more.
LSAT Retake Strategy #12: Take Your LSAT Prep to the Next Level
If you want to push the envelope, I highly recommend engaging in this exercise:
*Write your own questions.*
This means writing your own answers, writing your own games, etc.
It forces you to understand the concepts as you go through the process of thinking about how someone could interpret something and get this wrong.
Of course, writing problems can be difficult, and it's not for everyone, but there's no denying that it forces you to really understand the concepts and the logic behind the questions.
LSAT Retake Strategy #13: Can You Explain It to a Friend?
Find a study buddy or enlist a friend to help. Being able to talk about something helps you work out your thoughts and forces you to engage on a deeper level. You've probably heard that teaching something helps you understand the concepts better, and this is a good way to do it.
LSAT Retake Strategy #14: Write Your Own LSAT Explanations
If Strategy 14 is not always possible (maybe your friends need a break from your LSAT oratory), just write down your thoughts - or dictate them. Talking or writing down your thought process helps you understand the reasoning underlying each question.
For the ones you got wrong, your written explanations will help you uncover where you went wrong. For those you got right, you will solidify your thought process and approach to answering that question type.
LSAT Retake Strategy #15: Reduce the Stress
Remember that while the LSAT as a whole is incredibly important, no one particular LSAT test date will make or break you. Law schools don't average multiple LSAT scores - they only consider the highest.
Feel free to reach out if you need anything as you prep for your retake.
-LSAT Steve
No comments:
Post a Comment