An Honest Guide to LSAT Preparation
Introduction
Before I started studying, and even for the first few weeks, the LSAT freaked me out a little bit. It has this weird ~mystique~ around it. Some people are studying for 8 hours a day for months and just barely getting by, others are rolling up to the test with no prep and scoring a 177. It’s truly unclear how to start studying, how to keep studying, how long to study, what to study, who to listen to about studying, how much to pay to study under, and a million other things. Sources of information are spread out widely and often seem to either be selling something or bragging in some way (at least that’s how it felt to me, while I was intimidated, unsure, and totally green starting out). It also, to state the obvious, feels like a pretty big deal, but also weirdly mundane.
I want to share this to talk about my LSAT studying process in some detail. I think a lot of the accounts online are really impressive, either in the way someone studied or the score they got, but they also feel daunting, overwhelming, or unattainable. I studied in a diligent, trial-and-error, not-perfectly-optimized, not-perfectly-scheduled way, and ended up doing well but not 99.9% well, and I think narratives like these are important to get out there. You can reach your goals without doing everything perfectly or spending thousands of dollars on courses, tutors, and books. I think when I started out, and even throughout the process, I was unsure that this was the case. I want to be a voice of reassurance to people who are feeling the same uncertainty, fear, and pressure.
I don’t want this to have any kind of hubris (nor am I in a position to speak with that kind of confidence, plenty of people did way better than me and know much more than I do), but more want to be transparent so that this piece has context. I had a diagnostic score of 160. I ended up scoring 11 points higher on test day (my second time around), and got a 171. It wasn’t a 180, but I achieved the goal I started out with (break the 170 barrier) and feel confident moving forward. As someone who has now gone through this process, I wanted to write an honest reflection on what I did to study, how I did it, and what I would recommend looking back. As you will see, my process was far from optimal in a ton of ways, and this is exactly why I felt compelled to write about it. The accounts you see online are largely either from people trying to sell you courses or from people who are studying in an unbelievably impressive way (the 40+ hour week crew).
I did end up spending a lot of time and energy on this test, but it wasn’t a perfect process by any means, nor was I perfectly consistent or strategically that smart. Hopefully, my story can be a source of knowledge (learn from my many mistakes) and confidence (I messed up a lot and wasted a lot of time, and didn’t do very well my first time around, and I turned out doing almost exactly how I wanted to when I started out). And even more hopefully, someone can learn from this, study way smarter than I did, maybe combine it with other resources, and blow my score out of the water in far less time.
For convenience, I’m dividing this piece into sections: The TLDR; The Journey; The Resources; The Quick Tips for LR, RC, and Writing
Section I: The TLDR
This is mostly just steps and stages, see SII for more details.
I started out with a Diagnostic Test in mid-October of last year. Then I went to Khan Academy (which they just discontinued, but you can find a ton of prep on LawHub now, which KA refers you to). I did 13 practice tests through KA (the amount they offer), about one a week, and a bunch of drill sections, which were 6-question, topic or skill specific practice sets based on your test performance. I barely reviewed those tests (a mistake), anxious to push onward and improve my score on the next one, and did probably 1–2 hours of drills a week, though some weeks I’d forget, or only do 30 minutes. During this time, I watched and read some question explanations and walkthroughs (maybe 3–4 hours worth total), which were helpful especially for Games, which aren’t a thing anymore lol.
Then, I bought a book of tests, PTs 82–89, which were really hard (PT 88 was my genuine nemesis…I almost quit a section in). I started reviewing the questions I missed after each test and drilling a little more consistently, but school and sports were crazy busy. About 3 weeks before my April test, I started panicking. I started doing 1–2 hours of drilling a night, focused mostly on Games but integrating in other stuff too. I took April. I felt a little shaky. I ended up getting a score 5–6 points below my goal, which I had hit in a couple PTs, but not many. I was bummed and nervous. In the score-waiting-period, I did some solid drilling and took a few practice tests, but then scores and Finals hit and I didn’t study too much for a week or two.
After school ended, with a few weeks until my test, I locked back in. I focused on understanding every single question on each test I took, moving slowly through sections and not worrying about time. I found out that every PT is available in PDF form online, and that there are a bunch of websites that explain literally every question on those PTs (links below). I figured out that with time to think, I actually could work through almost every question. I was doing an hour or two of drills a day and taking 1 full test a week, sometimes 2, that I’d review in depth. I was reviewing any question I had any uncertainty about or struggled with at all, and double reviewing the ones I got wrong. I was hitting my goal score almost every PT.
I pumped myself up with music on the drive to the testing center and took the test. Where the first time I was overcaffeinated and stressed, trying to optimize every single thing, this time I was loose and excited, a little less particular about the details of the day and just trying to relax and enjoy. I walked out not brimming with confidence, but not beaten down either. I felt like it was a test much like the ones I’d been practicing on. A few weeks later, and I got confirmation that that was true.
In total, I probably took 30–40 practice tests over 8–9 months. I spent some weeks not drilling at all, and some weeks in a groove, doing a few hours of focused work and review a day. A lot of weeks were somewhere in the middle. Some drilling, probably 2 or 3 days of drills but not too long on them, and a practice test. Sometimes I’d get distracted by work or sports, or get burnt out, and lose progress when I came back from a week off. Sometimes I’d consider just scrapping the hole thing, it felt hopeless and like I’d hit a wall I couldn’t break through. It ended up more than okay. The LSAT is a logical test, and there is a way to think through every question. Better still, there are people who know how to do that, and they make it easy to learn from them how they do it, and try to emulate it.
Also, sorry: for a TLDR, that was relatively L.
Section II: The Journey
I decided to start studying for the LSAT with an explicitly “slow burn” mentality. I knew I would get pretty busy during the year with school, sports, volunteering, and some other things, and so I wanted to give myself enough time that I could study a small-to-medium amount each week that would eventually add up to long-term gains. In hindsight, this may not be the optimal strategy. Part of the gains you make, or I made, are in familiarity with the material and similar themes or patterns of reasoning emerging between different questions and sections. This really emerges through reps, reps that are ideally close enough together that they relate to one another, which frequency could have helped. Still, this was my plan.
I took a free diagnostic test through Princeton Review, and then moved to Khan Academy. I actually did consider paying for a program of some kind, or maybe even working with a tutor. I looked around, and was immediately confronted with a ton of options: LSAT Demon, 7Sage, LSAT Trainer, Powerscore, Blueprint, on and on. Most were expensive, especially on my personal budget, and it wasn’t clear from the way people talked about them online that any one could ensure the results I wanted. I was paralyzed by options, scared of wasting money or putting all my eggs in one basket, let alone the wrong one. I decided to set out on my own.
As I mentioned, I worked through Khan’s free tests and did 6-question drill sections between tests. These might be on, for example, “Science Passages” or “Law Passages” for RC, or on “Necessary Assumptions” or “Flaws” etc. for LR. Especially early on, I watched a fair amount of videos and read a fair amount of short articles through the site, explaining how to think through, at a general level, the different kinds of questions. These were offered through the KA website, and now are offered through LawHub.
As much as I feel like I’m putting myself down, I actually did make progress. My scores jumped up a few points to the mid to high 160s after a month or two of studying, and while they fluctuated, sometimes going up for a test or two then dropping down 2 or 3 points, they stayed consistently higher than my baseline. Once or twice, I hit a nice score, one I would have wanted on test day, but I usually couldn’t quite replicate it. To me, this signaled (mostly in hindsight) a lack of understanding. I got lucky in that my reasoning went through on one or two tests and got me close to my goal, or even had me meet it, but the failure to replicate indicated that I didn’t have the depth of understanding of each question necessary to score that way consistently, especially on tougher tests or with tougher curves.
There came a period of tests where I hit probably 5 or 6 in a row of 168s and 169s, basically one question off the coveted 170 mark. This was pretty frustrating, but I pushed through it with more tests and more drill sets, sure that working hard and bringing intensity would solve that problem, push me past the plateau. This wasn’t entirely misguided, but the key element–understanding, largely through review and revision–was still missing. This wouldn’t really come into focus as my number one priority until later. When it did, it was a game changer.
As April drew closer, I had worked through the KA tests and was now taking the PTs in the 80s. These are notoriously tough, especially 85, 86, 88, and 89. They’re great practice, even just for LR and RC, which remain without Games. They actually got me down a little, because on a few section, I felt very confused in a way I hadn’t for a while since I had started studying. I was nervous that I might come up against sections like these on the actual test and be left floundering, missing too many questions in one section for the others to redeem my score. By the time April came, I had done I think 25 PTs, scrapping together the KAs, the 80s, and a few random ones from various websites (LSAT Demon offers a couple free ones, as do a few random services as a way to entice you into their service).
On test day, I was really concerned with optimizing everything. I brought water, two energy drinks, a bunch of candy (quick energy, fast carbs, I thought), an apple, a couple protein bars, a sweatshirt, and a bunch of pencils (just in case they could come in with me). I went in buzzing and caffeinated, nervous and a little intimidated. As an aside, I would recommend using a Prometric center to test. I used them both times, and the staff, for me, were amazing. Very professional, very organized. All you do is go in and take the test. I know not everyone has this experience, but I have heard enough remote-test horror stories and also think it seems like enough of a hassle that Prometric is the way to go.
Something I’m not entirely sure of is how the scheduling works. You do have to schedule a few weeks in advance, but they say that the lobbies open at a certain time, and then I’d check in at exactly that time (staring at the clock from minutes before, airline check-in style) and be way, way back in line, and have only one or two slots I really could do. For June, the only time I had available was an 8am, and since I would have had to take a train there, it would have meant a 6am wakeup. I opted to use an out-of-state test site at 1:30pm and borrowed my girlfriend’s car to get there, which was clutch but not something I want everyone to have to count on. I would honestly recommend an early check in just to see if you can, because that’s the only way I can understand being so far back in line both times, unless I just got unlucky twice.
But anyway, back to April. The test was relaxing at first, because I realized it felt similar to the practice tests I had taken. I settled in and got to work. However, as it went on, there were a few questions in every section that I felt shaky about. I worked through the sections, but found the LR and RC taking longer than normal, and confusing me in a way where I was reviewing and rereading up until the end of time, whereas often I finished most sections, aside from Games, with a fair amount of time to spare. I was jittery as it was, and all the caffeine and candy probably didn’t help to settle me. The center was tense, because everyone there was tense, and I felt increasingly stressed. I left feeling like I could have done well, but I didn’t have the confidence I would have liked. I was uncertain and nervous. Maybe everything would go my way, maybe I would have to climb the mountain again.
Fast forward a few weeks to score release day. I had been stressing, talking myself in and out of feeling good and bad about how I had done. I had taken one or two practice tests in the meantime and done some drilling, but not a ton. It was somewhat distracted work, unsure if I would need to retake or if this was just wasted effort. I could barely sleep the night before scores came out, I kept having score release dreams and I couldn’t tell what was real. I woke up and check right at 9. I didn’t hit my goal: I had dropped to a 166. Not a bad score, and definitely an improvement, but neither my goal score nor consistent with the way I had been preparing and performing in practice.
I knew I was headed back to the grind, maybe in in a more serious way than before. I decided to take a few days off to reset and give myself grace. During that time, I learned that while some people did great on April, a lot of people actually found it really difficult, abnormally difficult. Many people fell significantly under their normal PT range. I felt a little better, at least like I wasn’t alone in my experience, but knew that come June, I needed to be ready even if an insanely hard version of the test popped up on my screen. That was the task.
Get Noah Tunis’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
It was somewhere in this time, I don’t remember exactly when, when I found what I now call “The Quora Post”. In certain ways, it shouldn’t have been as impactful as it was, but again, I want to emphasize that I came at this process without many mentors, without much guidance, swayed in equal measure by Redditors, Course Sellers, random anecdotes picked up from people who had taken the test, and my own hunches and ideas. Here it is: The Post.
Disregard the score-specific stuff (not my question btw), and you’re left with the message that I needed to hear from day 1. Your task in the LSAT, or really during your studying/prep is not necessarily getting questions right. Your task is thinking through each question 100% and making an informed, intentional choice as to what you think the answer is. Then, you need to understand exactly why that answer was right or wrong, and why the right answer (if it wasn’t yours) was right. In doing this, a few things will happen. First, you’ll actually grow from your prep. 30 minutes of work, or an hour, or two hours, is not evaluated on how many questions you can get through but on how many questions you can get through with quality, and understand fully. We have a saying on my team at school: Slow is Smooth and Smooth is Fast. You need to understand questions before you can get them right at pace/with time pressure, which you ultimately will need to do.
The cool thing that I found was that this method actually didn’t take me that much longer than normal. Because I relaxed while doing it, wasn’t thinking so much about time or about getting to the right answer as fast as possible, I could just flow a little more. I focused on thinking clearly, on reading carefully, on weighing evidence and conclusions and arguments. I started going through tests a section at a time with this method, pausing to check after each section, sometimes every 10 questions or so.
It was around this time that I also found 3 of my game-changing resources: LSATHacks, Crack LSAT, and unlimited PTs. LSATHacks is an amazing website from the notorious Graeme (he’s a legend, especially on Reddit). This website has some cool course functions to it, but it also has question-by-question walkthroughs and “think-throughs” for a ton of practice tests in full. Like a TON. Also, Graeme offers a 5-day, free e-mail course that was INSANELY VALUABLE. Honestly, I’d get on this first thing. It helped my thinking so much, and would I’m sur ebe veen more valuable to someone just starting out. He’s the GOAT.
Crack LSAT is very similar, but a little more bare-bones in appearance and style, but still AMAZING. It also has a ton of drill sets (maybe useful now to supplement LawHub) for LR and RC (and Games, but RIP) and full answers and explanations for a ton of PTs. Unlimited PTs isn’t one resource, it’s more a concept. Just google “PT # LSAT PDF” and “PT # LSAT PDF ANSWERS” and both shall appear. It’s like magic. Never ever ever ever pay for tests. They’re unlimited and free online. Power to the people and all of that.
So anyway, maybe a month before my test, or somewhere in that realm, maybe 3 weeks, I locked in, but not in the way I had before, the stressed way or the confused/distracted way. Now, I had a plan. Section by section work. Reviewing constantly, anything I got wrong reading exactly how Graeme on LSAT Hacks thought that question through. Anything that was confusing, I could cross-reference on the Powerscore or 7sage forums.
I was doing 1–2 tests a week and 1–3 hours of focused work every night. I was getting busy again during this time with summer internship stuff, and so I was often doing this work in the 9pm-12am after a full day of activity and after working out. I was usually pretty beat. I actually think this was another helpful piece of my journey. I learned, slowly, that even when I relaxed, even when I didn’t focus on time, and even when I was dead tired, cranky, annoyed, and a little anxious, I could still perform. I could think through question after question and understand exactly how I was thinking. I could learn from my thinking and adapt it as I learned better ways, ways more suited to the LSAT and the LSAC’s logic. I got faster and faster, as well as more accurate. I also got more confident. I started to trust myself, no matter how I felt. My tests were consistently in the low 170s, with one outlier 176 in the mix. Better than that, I felt confident while taking them, not as nervous, largely because I had a lot less uncertainty. I knew how I was thinking about each question, the process I had used, and why I had chosen the answer I had chosen for each. That gave me a lot of peace of mind.
Also during this time, I found the PowerScore Crystal Ball on the LSAT Reddit. This is like a prediction of what will be on the next LSAT and recommended sections of past tests to practice to prepare. A lot of these sections are just great prep in general, and many are pretty challenging. You should look for this webinar if you can, it’s a cool resource and a great surce of knowledge and guidance. I went through their recommended “curriculum” and did a lot of the sections as my drill sets.
Then, the week of my test, I hopped on Reddit again. I knew people couldn’t talk about exactly what was on the test, but I didn’t realize that they could discuss some things. People talked about how hard/easy they felt it was, about the orders of sections they got, about how it compared to varying PTs. This was honestly EXTREMELY HELPFUL. I felt like I knew what to expect walking in in terms of level and in terms of potential orders. I knew I had taken PTs that people compared it toand could handle them. I knew I was ready.
This time, I didn’t stress so much on test day. I knew I could perform even when tired from a really long day, late at night, cranky, anxious. I knew that when I relaxed and thought clearly, I could succeed. I made a PB&J and brought an apple and drank a Yerba on the way. No candy this time, no Monster in my locker. I cranked old Cee Lo Green and random electronic music in the car and sang out my nerves. I walked into the test center really excited. The Prometric worker told me “You’re too happy, you can’t take the test today.” We laughed. I felt comfortable and calm.
The test wasn’t necessarily easy, but I trusted myself. I thought through each question. I didn’t panic when I got confused, because I’d been there before. I stayed in the moment, stayed with the process. I left feeling confident. Two and a half weeks later, I got my score. Right where I had been PTing, and right at my goal: 171.
During my waiting period, though, my confidence was shaken by the force of time. I doubted myself a little and second-guessed myself. I pored over LSAT Reddit, searching for some clue as to how I might score, or anyone who had somehow gotten theirs early. I watched Powerscore’s curve predictor and psyched myself out. I also did some thinking. About my journey, about how far I had come, and about how intimately familiar I had become with this weird, complicated test. I decided that if I hit my goal score, even with my unorthodox, disorganized, untutored, imperfect process, I should write up what I did and share it. Maybe a successful test would signal that I had something worthwhile to say. Not the final word, not by a long shot! And not that I want to be any kind of thought leader or deserve to be, but because I want someone out there who feels like me to have something to engage with that’s not just “Treat it like a job, 40 hours a week” with little guidance, and not “Pay me X a month and I’ll teach you”. Both of those will probably work. But here’s what I did. You might say “8 months? 11 points? You could have done more!” or “You shouldn’t be giving advice.” Maybe those are true. Even so, I learned a lot along the way, largely from mistakes and struggles. I hope that those can either help someone avoid them or make them feel seen while they struggle too. No one is alone. We’re on this road together. Thanks for reading (if anyone ever gets this far. I doubt it, haha).
Section III: The Resources
LawHub: https://app.lawhub.org/library/lessons
The Quora Post: https://qr.ae/ps3wC8
LSAT Hacks: https://lsathacks.com/
Crack LSAT: https://www.cracklsat.net/lsat/logical-reasoning/
Powerscore forum: https://forum.powerscore.com/viewforum.php?f=455&sid=45fd6fdaaaefdcd353f7dd09d01d1501
Writing Section Help: https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/lsat/lsat-lessons/general-test-information/a/gtp--lsat--overview-articles--writing-sample
LSAT Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/LSAT/
Section IV: The Quick Tips for LR, RC, and Writing
Here’s just a few quick tips, honestly largely they come from Graeme’s 5-day course, thanks again. They just stuck out as helpful to me, so I’m including them here for easy access.
LR: Understand the conclusion of the argument. Understand what evidence THEY use to get there. Make sure it’s not just your evidence or your thought process, and be aware of any gaps you fill in. Check yourself for assumptions, but also see what assumptions they are making if any jump out. If the evidence doesn’t seem to lead to the argument, take note of this fact, and try to fill in what’s missing before going on. This sounds laborious or unrealistic, but it gets pretty quick and pays ridiculous dividends. If you can do this, understand clearly the conclusion and the exact evidence to build it, you can then go about answering a ton of LR questions more easily. This is key knowledge, and requires slowing down a little, but is critical and will make you faster in the long run.
RC: Understand the main point and key evidence of every paragraph in a passage. Go back after each paragraph and summarize it quickly in your head. Ideally, go back after you read the passage and do this again quickly. It will make the main idea Qs and paragraph based Qs and structure of the passage Qs way easier. It also takes way less time than you think, maybe 30–90 extra seconds, and makes answering the questions easier and faster. This helped me a TON in RC, which ended up being a tricky section to do really well on, especially on harder passages and tests, which do happen and you want to be prepared for.
Writing: I honestly forgot about this until testing week. For those who don’t know, this isn’t scored, but it is sent to schools. Basically, do a good job, show you can think analytically and write clearly and with nice grammar and spelling, and you should be okay (is the sense I’ve gotten, anyway, who knows…). I read the Khan Academy guide (AMAZING AND CLEAR)and took detailed notes, then did a practice version, and then did the real thing. Done with all of this in like 1–2 hours. Do a few practices if you want, but I honestly wouldn’t stress over this too much.
Conclusion
Thanks for reading, if you did. I think you can prepare better than I did and in much less time with focus and consistency, active reviewing, and a focus on comprehension. More than anything, I hope any part of this helped, or may help later on. If you have any questions, please reach out. I’d genuinely love to help if I can. I’m just grateful to be done, haha. My email is ntunis@haverford.edu.
You can do this. Honestly, you can. I wasn’t sure I could starting out, and felt that way many times throughout the process, and if you feel this way that’s fine. Don’t let it stop you. Stay committed, take breaks when you need to, and give yourself grace, then keep going. You can do it!!!!
