I'm studying for the June LSAT, so I have plenty of time at the moment. But, I have a question about how much I should study every day. Right now, I set aside about 30-60 minutes daily to read prep books and do LSAT problems. Most weekends I don't study because I have to catch up on other homework. I plan on keeping up this schedule for the next two or three months, and then in March I plan to ramp it up and start studying at least two hours a day until the LSAT, more on weekends. Does this sound like a good plan? Any tips you have for studying or changes you would make to that schedule?
Thanks!
Since you are taking the June 2010 LSAT you have plenty of time to prepare. However, since you are just starting to prepare only putting in 30-60 minutes a day/per study session is certainly not ideal. It would be much better if you could work out a schedule to be able to dedicate substantially more time per study session, even if that means doing LSAT prep less days of the week, but in exchange being able to spend much more time dedicated to it each time you break out the books and get to work.
The LSAT is not a test like college finals where you mainly memorize a bunch of materials and then regurgitate that stuff on the test. The LSAT is a skills based performance test and you need to study and practice in a way to improve your performance abilities.
To substantially improve your score you need to spend a significant amount of time learning the concepts of the test and effective techniques and approaches to apply to the questions. During that time it is essential that you practice applying the concepts and techniques to actual LSAT problems to develop and improve your skills as you go. That helps you ingrain them into your thinking and approach so that eventually it will all become second nature. Doing it that way enables you to be able to apply all the things you learn much faster, which is essential given the time constraints you face on test day.
If you just spend 30-60 minutes reading a chapter or whatever from a prep book but then do not immediately practice applying what you learned to actual questions you might forget what you read and will miss out on the benefits of practicing what you learned while it is fresh in your mind.
This means that during each period you dedicate to LSAT prep you read/study a portion of your prep instruction materials and also practice applying it by working questions during the same study period. Since you will make mistakes as you go you also need to spend time during each study session reviewing the mistakes you make.
It's important to thoroughly review how you performed on the practice problems in the same sitting while everything you thought and did is fresh in your mind. It can be hard to go back a day or several days later to review the questions you got wrong and remember what you were thinking and how you approached them at the time to be able to identify the mistakes you made that caused you to select an incorrect answer choice.
30 minutes is typically not enough time to be able to do all that during the beginning study/learning about the test phase. Once you are much more fluent with the content and concepts of the test and techniques to use, then 30 minutes here and there can be enough to fit in some practice to refine your performance.
In the early preparation phase it is important to dedicate substantial periods of time per study session to really get into it in a way that will help you improve your score substantially. There is no magic number as to the appropriate amount of time, everyone learns at a different rate, but 30-60 minutes per study/practice and review session is unlikely to be sufficient unless you are already able to achieve a high score or a score that is close to what you would be happy with under timed conditions.
So you know, many people (and they are people you will be competing with for admission to a good Law School) put in multiple hours each day they prep, sometimes 8 or more hours. There is a reason that many full length LSAT prep course class sessions are typically 3 to 4 1/2 hours each (depending on which prep course provider it is) and having something in the range of up to 20+ class sessions. Consider the numbers of hours of instruction time that many people get and then throw in the number of hours doing the homework after each class. It adds up to far far more than 30-60 minutes 5 days a week and thousands of people serious about getting into a good Law School do that every year to be as competitive as possible.
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