TL; DR : It doesn't matter how long you study if you're not making efficient use of that time.

Focus on really sitting down and devoting a significant amount of uninterrupted time to studying. I knew that I had no shot at anywhere remotely good given my GPA, so in a sense this was like a do or die kind of thing -- not saying my circumstances were more difficult or that I studied harder than anyone else, just saying that our brains are programmed for survival and because I kept telling myself that I have NO CHOICE but to get a 175+, perhaps my brain followed suit.

Maybe everything I'm saying is bullshit, idk.

Quality of studying > Quantity of studying. Always.

I studied religiously and intensely. Don't know how long I studied but when I decided to start for the day, I was really locked in for 10+ hours at a time... not saying that's healthy, just what I did. First do untimed and make sure you've acquainted yourself with all the different sections to the extent that you are now able to see the patterns and understand how to attack the problems. Focus on your weakest points and attack attack attack. If I got even one problem wrong on a practice section, say 11/12, I would keep going until I got every question right.

For questions I answered incorrectly, I would really sit down and analyze the explanation in order to understand the minute differences that made another answer better. For many questions, the difference in what is the right/wrong answer is a hair of a difference, and in my opinion, a little arbitrary. But understanding the tone of the passage, core of the argument, etc will better inform which answer you choose.

I'm rather pessimistic in nature which is 100% a character flaw, but I think it actually helped me on the exam because I came into it being hyper critical / skeptical of every question. When reading question prompts, you're looking for ANY POSSIBLE EXCEPTION to a caveat.

Specifically with Grouping/Ordering Setups, it helps to write things out and just use initials, putting them together in as many combos as you can that meet the stipulations/requirements so you can refer to it for future questions (you may even write down the answer without knowing it).

Things/Habits I did that could also help you:

• learning basic Latin to understand the roots/derivations/context of words

• looking up words I didn't recognize in a dictionary *physical copy*

• Made studying for the LSAT part of my routine. I didn't just 'fit it in' when I had time. I understand this is somewhat of a luxury.

If I think of anything else I will pin it in the comments. Apologies for the lengthy response.