Taking the Law School Admissions Test is no small task. It takes hours and hours of deidcation, studying, and preparation. I knew even before i started college that one day i would attend law school and become a civil court attorney. It is never too early to start studying for the LSAT exam and even in my freshman year of college i studied for the exam a couple of times a month for it. The first step is ultimately to ask yourself, do i really want to go to law school. Going to law school can be a huge financial burden, even more so than college costs. The cost of tuititon for most law schools exceeds $40,000 in tuition and fees and many other law schools are much more than that.
The next step is to start studying for the exam. First you will need to buy a review book. The best review books im my experience are made by Kaplan and Princeton test centers. You will find that their review books come with plenty of practice exams and an online CD that you can use for even more practice. They also give you great strategies in solving for problems on the exam. On the logic problems, the best strategy as advertised by Kaplan is to make a diagram and chart and to slowly transfer all of the information into an easy to read diagram. You also want to make a list of what information you know and what information the question is asking you. You also want to try and form a relationship between these facts.
For example:
if the question says that Paul is sitting next to Sarah or Jim on the left side of the table and also says that Jim is sitting next to Mike on the other end of the table, then you can infer that Paul is sitting next to Sarah instead of Jim.
The logic sections i have found take the longest ot figure out. If a person had an unlimited amount of time to solve the problems in the section, then most people would get the majority of questions correct. However there is usually only a 35 minute time limit so response times have to be rushed at certain times and you have to be quick in yuor thought process to answer the question and find the right answer
The LSAT exam is made up of five sections; at least one is a long reading passage section, two logic sections, a short reading passage section applied to one or two questions at a time, and an experimental section that doesn’t count on your score for the exam. You will not know which section the experimental is so treat each section the same because you never know which sections will count and which won’t.
Another helpful tip is to ask an academic advisor if your school offers practice LSAT exams given on campus. At my college, Kaplan test prep came and gave a free diagnostic test to anyone who wanted to take it. Every section was given under timed test conditions except for a writing section. The results were given back extremely quickly, within five days, and Kaplan gave out a detailed explanation of each problem that you got wrong and how to improve your score in certain areas. Kaplan also offered a discount price to any student who wanted to take their LSAT prep course.
Advancing Your Education: From College Degrees To Exciting HobbiesThe test prep courses are another feature i recommend that every test taker ultize. If you can afford the price of a review course, its usually around $1200 or $1300 i strongly suggest you take it. Kaplan hires friendly instructors who specialize in teaching the exam to students. THey teach you tricks of the trade and helpful strategies to use on the exam. Princeton review also gives a course on doing better on the exam. Some students feel that the same thing they print in theiir review books is taught in the course. That may be so but in my experience i felt the course was very helpful. They give you many practice exams with an in depth analysis on how to do better next time on the exam and which sections you need the most help on. Other students prefer to hire a private company for help and feel that they do better when they receive private attention. Most private tutors come to a persons house for an hour or two a week.
On your own, you should be reviewing for the exam a few times a week and when the exam date gets closer to you, your preapration should slowly increase. On the day of your exam you should know exactly where your test center is. Bring proper identification and pencils. You should also bring something to eat or drink during the ten minute break that happens after you have taken your third section of the exam. I also recommend bringing tylenol with you just in case you get a headache during the exam. I remember when i took a full length practice exam, my head was numb becuse it is so much information and so much reading you have to do. You sit in a chair for several hours using your brain and it can be quite painful.
Many people find the reading passages to be quite hard. The questions can be broken down into the following: main idea, detail and definition questions. A helpful Kaplan strategy to use for the main idea question is to read the first third of the passage to get the main idea instead of waisting time and reading the entirev passage. This extram time will come in handy in the timed section. For the detail and definition questions you should read the entire sentence that the question realtes to as well as the previous sentence and the sentence that comes after it to get the best idea of what the correct answer is.
The short answer questions with short passages require that you read the entire paragraph and then carefully analyze the question. Some questions are analagy questions that compare examples to each other. These questions require that you have a full grasp on the main idea of the section.
I wish you the best of luck on the LSAT exam. Use these helpful tips for doing well on the exam and you should raise your score in your results.
