Want to be a future lawyer? LSAT is your path. Most premier law schools and other law institutions consider the LSAT score the ultimate determinant for granting admission. Your undergraduate GPA and the LSAT score carry equal weightage when accepting students for law admission. Your LSAT scores are the most critical factor for securing a seat at your deemed law institution.
LSAT is a challenging exam, and every tiny bit of the exam needs massive preparation. Innumerable students doubt their caliber when performing well on the LSAT exams. You can only give it your best through strategic planning and intelligent work.
How Many Study Hours are Needed? – How Long to Study for the LSAT?
One of the pertinent questions regarding LSAT preparation is – how long to study for the LSAT or how many hours of daily study will be enough to crack the LSAT. The answer to this question is relative. All students will need different study hours to achieve optimum performance. But there are specific standards which you can abide by. Experts expect a minimum of 120 hours of robust preparation to perform well in the exam. You need to focus on two rationales here- first is minimum, and second is perform well.
Performing well in the LSAT will often fetch you what you want once you perform the best. Also, a minimum of 120 hours of study is needed, so you will have to dedicate more than 120 hours to prepare. At most, 120 hours can be conducive. If you are willing to belong to at least the 90th percentile of the LSAT, 150 hours of preparation should be the bottom-line target. 300 hours of preparation is ideal for scoring more than average on the LSAT.
The figures may sound intimidating at once, so let us break them into shorter denominations. We consider that LSAT preparation should be dedicated to at least 3 months. That means your weekly target should be 20- 25 hours of study.
25 hours every week is a feasible period for almost all the students. This truly means that you need 25 hours of exclusive self-study. Keep your coaching sessions out of this time frame. Apart from the 25 hours of self-study, you have to accommodate time for solving past year papers because they truly help to enhance your performance. It is imperative to appear for mock LSAT tests often, indicating whether you are preparing on the right track.
You may avail of innumerable study materials from multiple online resources, but the idea is to know how to filter them so that you don’t waste time reading unnecessary things. 25 hours of study will include only reading meaningful content that will help you improve your concept. You can include making self-notes and watching some related video lectures. The ideal prep method is not to go by the time; instead, focus on how much output is achieved.
Plan for the LSAT Study Schedule
Planning is one of the core domains every LSAT aspirant should focus on. If you can ideally plan your LSAT study schedule, prep becomes more accessible, meaningful and high yielding. The idea is not to rush but to maintain a steady speed throughout. One of the many problems that LSAT students face is that their energy levels are at their peak during the first few weeks of preparation, but towards the end, they lag with drooping energy levels and enthusiasm. Always remember that students who crack the LSAT are often not the ones who are most intelligent; they are the consistent students who maintain the schedule till the very last day. A strategic hard work equally dispersed over the entire prep period of 3 months will yield much more than the vigorous study of 1 month and then a period of inactivity for the rest of the time.
Here are some tips on how you can get started with planning your LSAT study schedule:
Start With Daily Goals
Success is always an ongoing event. It is the right thing done consistently every day. So, when you sit down with your planner for the LSAT, set three types of goals – immediate, intermediate, and terminal. The terminal goal is to crack the exam with an excellent percentile rank. The immediate goal would be your daily progress. Include three parameters to check your daily progress – devotion to study hours, solving past year papers (practice), and allocating extra minutes daily to your weakness. If you can do all these every day, you reach your immediate goal. The intermediate goal can be setting monthly progress targets focusing on how much syllabus you can complete in a month. If the month is too long, set your intermediate goal for every fortnight. Emphasize preparing for LSAT writing samples.
Don’t Overestimate
Most students plan an unrealistic schedule for LSAT preparation, assuming they will be capable of studying 10+ hours daily, which is practically impossible. Your routine should be flexible and realistic. Don’t overestimate yourself. If you don’t have a fair idea of how many hours you can genuinely devote, check out on yourself for a day or two. Try to analyze your performance and set authentic and realistic study goals. When setting intermediate goals as well, be rational.
Essential to Crack the LSAT
Lastly, try to understand the exam well. Some exams have different strategies. LSAT focuses more on assessing your analytical capacities. You must read books and practice papers to sharpen the same skills. Consider learning exam time management right from the beginning. The ideal tip would be to break down the LSAT exam into several components and work individually on each of them. Instead of dealing with the LSAT preparation in bulk, try to deal with it in micro bits. Identify your strength and weakness and the demands of the exam. Channelize your time and energy for the best.
