[originally from http://discuss.princetonreview.com/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=6&Message_ID=3610561, If you'd like to see the entire archived thread, please go here.] Go to John Galt's advice. Date: September 14, 2002 09:29 PM Author: Propeller Head Subject: Propeller's LSAT Manifesto As always, yours is very good advice, John. I have no regrets about eschewing an expensive prep course in favor of self-study, although that is probably easy to say when I haven't taken the real thing yet. The LSAT is remarkably consistent from year to year. Some people will tell you that recent tests are really hard, but I don't really think that is true. I think that post-1998 exams are noticeably DIFFERENT from earlier exams, meaning that they emphasize certain concepts more heavily than before and others less heavily. It is important to see all of the new exams for this reason. Basically, the bottom line is that learning the LSAT is like learning to drive: there are only so many themes, situations, and relationships to go around, and the test repeats them over and over and over again - the only difference is subject matter. The goal in LSAT prep is to learn to look through the subject matter to determine what type of logical relationship is being presented and tested. There are few "tricks" to the test, but I do have some suggestions: 1) Remember the 2/5 rule. On any question, there will be 3 answer choices that are easily recognizable as wrong. You need to learn to spot these, slash a line through their letter, and focus on the remaining two. 2) Always time your preptests strictly and work without a rest period! 3) Experiment with answer gridding strategies. My favorite one is to write the letter of the answer choice I want next to the question in the test book. I then wait until I'm at the end of a section -- one reading comprehension passage, two pages of arguments, or one logic game -- and then transfer the answers at one time. Be careful to indicate any questions you have skipped by putting a question mark next to those, and you might consider writing the question number next to the letter for the first question in each of these mini-sections. This will help you avoid blocking in 7 answers in the wrong space, a truly horrific scenario! 4) Learn to move on. If you've spent too long on a particular question, circle it and move on to the next one. The notion that your fate hinges on whatever question you're looking at is very seductive, but is detrimental to your performance. The LSAT is not arranged in order of difficulty, so move on. When you return, you will most likely find that the break allows you to look at the question in a different way, and you will see something you had previously missed. 5) Buy the Powerscore Logic Games Bible. I've seen several texts that give strategies for diagramming the logic games, but none of them is so comprehensive or effective as the Bible. I am no wizard on the games, and in one recent score, I barely did better than my first diagnostic. Nevertheless, I am much more proficient at them generally than before, and you can be, too. 6) Circle any questions you find difficult, even if you found the answer. If you complete the section early, you can then hone in on those quickly and check for obvious mistakes. However, don't change an answer unless you have a good reason to! 7) Carefully review every question you missed on each practice exam, along with those you circled for difficulty but got correct anyway. Try to do this without looking at the correct answer choice, and see if you can find the correct one the second time around. Knowing that the correct answer is in the back of the book becomes a crutch that will inhibit the learning process. Oh yeah, for those who want numbers: I started out with a 161 and my highest score (and second most recent) was a 177. My median, mean, and mode, I think, is 170, but the significance of those averages is altered by an obvious upward time-trend. Best of luck! |
