re: Who here has taken the LSAT?

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My biggest improvement was in logic games/AR, no question. I've always been pretty strong on reading comprehension and logical reasoning was fairly easy for me. For most of those three months, pretty much all I did was logic games over, and over, and over again, with an LR or RC section thrown in here and there. I use the word "grind" for a reason, that's what it was, just an absolute grind. I don't really know how to explain it but eventually it clicked and I started seeing the deductions and inferences I needed.

As far as my study plan, the first thing I did was read the Powerscore bibles, all three. For LR, all I had to do was familiarize myself with how they structure questions and the common types, nothing special there. For RC, I actually had to slow myself down, when I first started studying I was reading quickly, almost skimming, which I often do day-to-day. I was completing RC sections in well under five minutes, but getting a few questions wrong. So, I slowed it down and got my timing down and that was pretty much it for RC. I did some fine-tuning toward the end of studying, but I can't offer much advice for people having trouble with RC or LR as those were fairly easy for me.

As for the AR section, after reading (and doing all of the drills in) the Powerscore bible I was still having trouble. Typically, I'd say I was getting maybe 12-14 questions right in a full AR section. Also, I was running out of time at the end of the section when I did timed practice, so building speed was important. I read the Blueprint Logic Games book as well, did all the drills in that, and used kind of a hybrid system between the two for diagramming, just whatever made sense to me.

I registered back in October, and started doing the Khan Academy prep course, which was great for me. I set my goal score as 176 and practiced nearly every day, taking a few days off when I felt burned out and after each full practice test. I put in anywhere from half an hour to three hours plus, almost every day.

I think the key was actually practicing logic games without any time limit or time pressure at all, for a long time. You can't build speed until you've reached the point where you can get almost every logic game 100% if you stare at it long enough, I had to focus on working through them s-l-o-w-l-y, then start worrying about speed for maybe the last month. Even then, I wasn't rushing, I was more worried about seeing every deduction and understanding the structure of the game than about time.

Slow, steady grinding, for me, was the key for logic games. Probably not a very satisfactory answer, but it worked, eventually. It definitely wasn't easy, even up until the last few weeks before the LSAT I was running into games that just did not fit in my mind. If you know that one with the circular table and a number of couples who can't sit next to each other, and other restrictions on who each can sit next to, I was hitting a brick wall on that until basically the week before the LSAT.

One note, with Khan Academy, I recommend ignoring their recommendations on difficulty level, at least to an extent. After I got to the point where I could get 100% (taking my time), it started recommending only advanced games. Unfortunately, there aren't that many of those available, so I eventually hit a point where I was seeing the same six games or so over and over again. That's good at first, working through the same game until you see what makes it tick, but you also need some variety. So I started doing mostly easy and medium difficulty games toward the end of my study plan, and found that some of them were actually harder for me than the more "advanced" games. I was absolutely nailing complex over/underbooked combo games, then being stumped by a basic ordering game the next second. Which game is more difficult is sometimes subjective. For me, absolutely the most difficult games are often straight ordering games with a large number of players and conditional rules. So I put some extra time into those.

Ultimately, I took all ten practice tests, and actually choked on the very last one I took before the actual LSAT, scored a 169. The best I did in practice before that was 176, also scored several other mid-170s.

Morning of the LSAT was almost a disaster, I set my alarm on the phone but somehow left by bluetooth earbuds connected, so I overslept. I owe my girlfriend one hell of a favor for waking me up in time. I did a warm-up that morning, one each logic game, reading comprehension and a couple of logical reasoning questions, had a healthy breakfast and a moderate amount of caffeine.

That's a long, rambling response but I hope some of it is useful, if you've got any questions I'd be happy to try to answer.

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TDcline

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I was a lazy pos and never took full, timed tests; however, I was consistently in the high 160's and low 170's when I combined the individual timed sections. With that said, you absolutely want to practice practice practice in a timed environment. Not being a lazy arse will pay off.

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That was a long arse time ago, so I don't remember specifics about my preparation, but I do know that my bubble filling game was weak af on my second try.

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Get cold at setting up the game section. That is one section that practice will greatly increase your score. I think I used the logic games bible by powerscore and was generally close to perfect on those sections when I didn't go full retard with the bubbles.

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If the test has changed a lot since the early 00's, don't waste time reading any of this bullshite.

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I scored a 46.
But the scoring starts at 120?

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