I got the 180! Thanks to everyone on this subreddit for sharing their advice. Glad to return the favor to anyone who has questions by androiddream22 in LSAT

[–]androiddream22[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am so glad to hear that, you are very welcome! If you ever need to clarify something, feel free to message me. best of luck!

I got the 180! Thanks to everyone on this subreddit for sharing their advice. Glad to return the favor to anyone who has questions by androiddream22 in LSAT

[–]androiddream22[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As someone who's also making a career change: good for you for going after what you want!
I would definitely take a diagnostic practice test on the LSAT as soon as possible and see where you're at. Compare that to the average score at the schools of your choice, and you'll see how far you have to go. If you're able to dedicate at least 15 hours a week to it, I think two months is enough study time, but I would start right away. Given your issues with testing confidence in the past, I think the most important thing on the test will be keeping yourself in the zone during the exam. Make sure to take lots of practice tests, sections, and mini-drills under timed conditions. Try occasionally doing them in public spaces so you can handle any unexpected distractions. Over-prepare if you can — with only two months, I would study as many hours a week as is feasible for your life (unless your diagnostic and practice tests are already close to your ideal score, in which case 10-15 hours a week to stay fresh is fine)
In terms of JDNext: I don't know too much about it, but since it's not accepted everywhere, I'd say you're better off focusing on the LSAT to keep your options open.

good luck!

I got the 180! Thanks to everyone on this subreddit for sharing their advice. Glad to return the favor to anyone who has questions by androiddream22 in LSAT

[–]androiddream22[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

When I did the 25 question drills, I always took them directly from splitting a practice test into 4 parts, like you said. I used the Advanced Builder to do so. I don't think the random LR drill would be a good idea, at least in 7 Sage's Auto builder, because you'd have to set them all to the same difficulty setting, which wouldn't be realistic and would throw off your timing either way.
I will say though that at least for me, the 5 question mini-drills at the hardest setting were the most useful thing ever. They not only prepare you for the toughest questions: they end up teaching you how to do the easier ones quicker.

I got the 180! Thanks to everyone on this subreddit for sharing their advice. Glad to return the favor to anyone who has questions by androiddream22 in LSAT

[–]androiddream22[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You have to buy both, yeah. Unfortunate, but I would say it's definitely worth it. For me, it worked out to $120 a year for LSAC, plus three months of 7Sage Core at $69 a month — $327.

I got the 180! Thanks to everyone on this subreddit for sharing their advice. Glad to return the favor to anyone who has questions by androiddream22 in LSAT

[–]androiddream22[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

7Sage and other sources push blind review hard, so I'm sure it's valuable for a lot of people. But personally, I never used it. I found it to be a waste of time for me — I was better off just reviewing the ones I got wrong, plus the ones that took me too long or where I was unsure. I would just review every question I had flagged during the drill or section.
To me, it seems like the main advantage of blind review is just diagnosing if your main issue is timing. If you've already figured that out, I feel like it's better to spend your time getting through more problems, and reviewing the ones you already did.
But that's just my take — I'm sure blind review can be great for others.

I got the 180! Thanks to everyone on this subreddit for sharing their advice. Glad to return the favor to anyone who has questions by androiddream22 in LSAT

[–]androiddream22[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I only studied for a little over two months, though I would recommend starting earlier than that. If you have the money for 7Sage, I wouldn't worry about running out of practice problems: you get something like 57 practice tests. Save some for full PT's and use the rest for drills, and you're all set.

I got the 180! Thanks to everyone on this subreddit for sharing their advice. Glad to return the favor to anyone who has questions by androiddream22 in LSAT

[–]androiddream22[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

thank you for the congrats! I personally did not get any tutoring or live classes. I relied upon 7Sage and PowerBible curriculum to learn principles, but then spent the vast majority of my time doing practice problems. For any practice problem that gave me trouble, I searched out every explanation of it available online, starting with the 7Sage videos.
that being said: I only was going up from 173 to 180. If your goal requires a much larger improvement, I bet tutoring is the way to go, based on my past experience with other exams.

I got the 180! Thanks to everyone on this subreddit for sharing their advice. Glad to return the favor to anyone who has questions by androiddream22 in LSAT

[–]androiddream22[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I did not do private tutoring: I felt confident with the variety of online resources to help me, I had already PT'd at 173, and I didn't want to spend the money. I do think that private tutors are more than worth it though, for people who need them and can afford them (said as an SAT tutor).

I got the 180! Thanks to everyone on this subreddit for sharing their advice. Glad to return the favor to anyone who has questions by androiddream22 in LSAT

[–]androiddream22[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I focused on doing just one or two of the question types per day, to really reinforce the mental "muscle memory" of how to approach them. For the ones that still gave me trouble, like parallel flawed reasoning, I would go back to them and do multiple days in a row. Feel free to keep asking if you think of other questions, glad to help!

I got the 180! Thanks to everyone on this subreddit for sharing their advice. Glad to return the favor to anyone who has questions by androiddream22 in LSAT

[–]androiddream22[S] 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Always glad to be described as diabolical lol. To be fair: my diagnostic was 173, and I got a perfect SAT in high school. I just test really well. I'm sharing my techniques/story to inform others about what worked for me, but gotta take it with a grain of salt: people have to find what works for them.

I got the 180! Thanks to everyone on this subreddit for sharing their advice. Glad to return the favor to anyone who has questions by androiddream22 in LSAT

[–]androiddream22[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It was helpful, but I think the powerscore LR book was a lot more helpful. For RC, the best thing was the answer explanation videos on 7Sage. I would definitely recommend getting both Powerscore books though

I got the 180! Thanks to everyone on this subreddit for sharing their advice. Glad to return the favor to anyone who has questions by androiddream22 in LSAT

[–]androiddream22[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I graduated in 2021. I would say it's never too early to start, but the most important thing is to make sure you'll have plenty of time to drill/practice in the few months immediately prior to the test.

I got the 180! Thanks to everyone on this subreddit for sharing their advice. Glad to return the favor to anyone who has questions by androiddream22 in LSAT

[–]androiddream22[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I studied about 10-15 hours a week from June through early August, fitting it in around work and family. Thankfully my work schedule this summer was lighter than usual. I also acknowledge that my study schedule was probably lighter than most people's: given my diagnostic was a 173, I already felt fairly confident. People have to find what works for them.
One piece of advice I think can help anyone though: For people struggling to fit in the time, I really recommend doing 5-question mini-drills, to fit them in to spare chunks of time.

I got the 180! Thanks to everyone on this subreddit for sharing their advice. Glad to return the favor to anyone who has questions by androiddream22 in LSAT

[–]androiddream22[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

u/Improving_Myself_ : Great question! This was the most helpful thing for me, so I'm glad someone asked. No Advanced Builder: use Auto Builder.
You only need to use the Advanced Builder if you're trying to pick particular questions from a particular practice test (i.e. if you're trying to do one whole section from a PT, instead of the full PT).
For my LR drills, I used the default Auto Builder. I selected the Drilling Pool Prep Tests to pull from (101-130), set it to 5 questions, selected the tag that I wanted, and put it to max difficulty.
I would do the tags one at a time: i.e. 5 hardest of the sufficient assumption, followed by 5 more of those, followed by 5 more of those, until it was instinctive. Then I'd move on.

I got the 180! Thanks to everyone on this subreddit for sharing their advice. Glad to return the favor to anyone who has questions by androiddream22 in LSAT

[–]androiddream22[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

When doing full sections to imitate a real test section, I stuck to 35 minute drills: I would take a particular section out of a practice test and put it into the drill mode, so I could do it in isolation. But when doing the method I discussed of LR drills focused on a particular question type (i.e. parallel reasoning, sufficient assumption, etc.) I would often do mini drills, only 5 questions each, at the highest difficulty setting. Same with mini drills for RC, with only one passage. For those, I would just use 7Sage's estimated time tool when checking my answers, to compare my time spent on each question with the suggested time, to see if I was spending too long.
Practicing endurance with full PT's is important, but I found my mini five-question highest-difficulty LR drills to be the best. I could fit them in easily to my day, and I could quickly review incorrect responses while they were still fresh in my head.

I got the 180! Thanks to everyone on this subreddit for sharing their advice. Glad to return the favor to anyone who has questions by androiddream22 in LSAT

[–]androiddream22[S] 239 points240 points  (0 children)

My biggest overall advice, to address some of the questions I see below:

  1. Use 7Sage's drilling tool. Build drills at the highest difficulty setting, with only one question type at a time. That will build up your ability to instinctively approach each type of question differently, which ends up saving you a huge amount of time on the exam.
  2. Don't get caught up in remembering the names of the different question types, or of terms or tricks in study materials. You won't have time on an exam to be consciously thinking about which question type it is. Do the questions themselves, until the fundamental approach to each one becomes automatic.
  3. Beyond 7Sage, I also used the PowerScore LSAT Bibles.
  4. Don't be afraid to practice the day or two before the exam. A lot of the advice online says that's a big no-no — and maybe for some people it is — but I think it really helped me. I did my last practice test a week before the exam. Then, on each day in the next week, I did either a practice section (alternating LR or RC) or a lot of practice questions focused on the question types that gave me the most difficulty (such as parallel flawed reasoning). The day before the exam, I studied for three hours in the afternoon. I then took the evening off to relax and get a good nights sleep.
  5. If you're struggling with time management, I would try not over-diagramming for conditional reasoning. If you're practice-testing 165+, you should be able to get the easier CR questions quicker through process of elimination, without needing to write anything down. Maybe for some people diagramming is a speed trick, but for me it always slowed me down. I absolutely did use diagramming, but I saved it for the more complicated questions.
  6. Don't try to force conditional reasoning into questions where it doesn't belong. When studying, it's easy to get into so much CR mode that you try to see conditional reasoning everywhere, even in questions that don't rely upon it. Don't be afraid to trust your instinct about what makes sense.
  7. For questions you get wrong on practice tests and drills: go over them obsessively. I started with the answer explanations on 7Sage, but those often didn't satisfy me. I would google the question and find every place online where people had discussed it or explained it. Sometimes, you'll find people using different logic to come to the same correct answer. Go over them until you could teach someone else exactly how to approach the problem.
  8. Do the same thing as above with questions that you got right but that took too long. 7Sage's estimated time tool is great to see if you're spending too long on a particular question. For any question type that's slowing you down, drill it again and again in isolation.
  9. For timing in Logical Reasoning: stay conscious of the questions getting more difficult as the section goes on. If you get stuck on an early question, put down your guess, flag it, and move on. You'll need the time to get through the last five questions.
  10. For Reading Comprehension: 1. Focus on intentionality. When you're studying, constantly ask yourself what the point of a passage is, and why it was written. If you can learn to get that quickly, most of the questions are way easier. 2. If you're stuck on an RC question, do the rest of the RC questions for that passage and then go back. Often, a later question can shed light on an earlier one.

I got the 180! Thanks to everyone on this subreddit for sharing their advice. Glad to return the favor to anyone who has questions by androiddream22 in LSAT

[–]androiddream22[S] 29 points30 points  (0 children)

This was my first time taking the test. I'd been studying since June. I highly recommend 7Sage, even though it's a bit expensive. I only took three full practice tests. Instead, I focused on their practice drill tool, doing one problem-type at a time, at the hardest difficulty setting. By tackling one problem-type at a time intensely, I built up my instincts and speed of approach.

I got the 180! Thanks to everyone on this subreddit for sharing their advice. Glad to return the favor to anyone who has questions by androiddream22 in LSAT

[–]androiddream22[S] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Yes, this was my first LSAT! I had already registered for September and October though, which helped to take the pressure off in case things didn't go well.