BEFORE THE TEST
1. Sleep well the night before. Don’t get drunk on Friday evening. Have a nice meal with a group of people, if you can.
2. Don’t do a practice test on Friday
3. If and when you get nervous between now and saturday, look over one or two LR questions picked at random. Get them right. Know that you got them right because you know how to get them right.
4. Don’t worry about how hard/easy the test is going to be: it won’t help you, it will just make you feel nervous, and the scale will adjust for it in any case
DURING THE TEST
RC
1. Don’t start answering questions until you know what the passage is saying, how it is structured, and what the authors pov & tone are
2. Answer the most general questions first - it’s easier and quicker that way, and it will incrementally build context which will be useful for the specific and inference questions that you do later
LR
1. Every question is worth one point. Don’t spend 4 minutes on a parallel reasoning question just because you’re being stubborn. Do these last, if you have to.
2. Underline/mark/highlight the conclusion of every stimulus. Know exactly what it is saying and what it is not saying. 90% of LR questions depend on understanding & referring back to the conclusion.
3. Mark the premises (superscript 1, 2 or whatever)
4.a Elimination of wrong answers is necessary for a high score and for speed. 4 of the 5 responses to each question are wrong. You can MAKE them wrong. The only one that you can’t make wrong is TCR.
4b. Often, you’ll very quickly get down to two options. Remember that one of them is WRONG. Pick over every word and phrase in each, find a reason to make one of them wrong.
5. Inferences do not have to follow from the conclusion. They may flow from a single premise. That’s a useful thing to remember.
6. Know your pace. The first 13 or so are usually quite straightforward. 14 to 19 are usually the trickiest. 20 to 25 are usually easy, but just take longer. Break the LR section into thirds, and have a general idea of where you want to be by what time. Keep to it (more or less).
GAMES
1. It’s all in the set-up, baby. Worth taking the time up front to set it up carefully.
2. If you’re really dazed and confused in the middle of a game, your set-up is likely screwy (you might have mis-interpreted/mis-written a rule): check it and make sure.
3. Don’t let one game screw up the whole section for you. If you can’t figure it out, move on to the next one. Don’t let a smaller problem become a huge problem.
Don’t sweat small stuff in your testing environment. This is between you and the LSAT, not about the jackhammer outside or the guy sniffling next to you. You need to be in the zone, and when you are, nothing will be noticeable to you except the question in front of you and the timer that you’re using.
Don’t obsess in between sections and tell yourself that you’ve truly messed it up. Don’t wonder which section was experimental and which wasn’t. Go to the bathroom, or something. Plenty of time for that later on LSD. Plus, you’ll have company.
Good luck, and kick some ass.
Discussion
Resources
