by Ryan McKeen
One of the most frequent questions I get about being a lawyer is: whether or not attorneys have to show up for jury duty? I’m not sure why I’m asked this but it happens frequently.
The other question I often get comes at this time of year and goes something like this: I’m planning on taking the LSAT’s this fall. Do you have any advice?
Of course, I have some advice.
First, sign up for a prep course. Learning how to take the test matters big time. Prep courses are a good place to learn the skills you’ll need for actual test.
Second, do practice questions everyday until your eyes hurt. Make sure you correct your practice tests and understand both why you got answers right and why you got them wrong. When you’re sick of doing practice questions….do more practice questions.
It’s not exactly sexy advice but I think it’s solid advice.
I second the advice about the practice book, but in all honesty I felt the only value of the prep courses was getting the practice tests. The classes were useless for me.
If you can find practice tests elsewhere for less money, I recommend going that route.
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Ryan Reply:
July 15th, 2010 at 10:36 pm
See I didn’t take the course and I really wish I did. In fact, the first time I took a prep course for anything was BarBri and PMBR for the bar exam. I really felt like it made a significant difference knowing the test and having the structure of a course. That said, nothing can make up for doing hundreds of practice problems.
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Ryan,
Do you have any opinions about which classes are superior? From my short term research it looks like (Powerscore || Testmasters) > (Kaplan || Princeton Review), in terms of instructors and material.
I’m registered for Aug 14 – October 9 Powerscore.
Missconduct,
I also read it is what you put into it, and agree that a class alone doesn’t guarantee a high score. I’m planning on doing every practice question from real LSATs that I can get my hands on between now and the test.
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Misconduct, it’s easy to get practice tests. Over 50 of them are available for purchase on Amazon. The best deals are the “10 Real LSAT” books, each of which have 10 practice tests for around $20. You can order the most recent tests individually for about $8 each.
Classes are good if you are just starting out studying and would like to know the basics. Unlike the bar exam, you aren’t trying to assimilate a large body of knowledge to get a “pass” score. You’re trying to learn a thought system and get the very highest score possible. There are often limits as to how effectively this can be done in a class given that they must be paced for “avergae” students (~150′s).
John
Next Step Test Preparation
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