http://www.albertson.edu/politics/prelaw/lsat.htmI thought the whole article was informative. Especially if you have never taken the test before, or if you are undergoing a lot of stress preparing for it.
The more I prep for it, the more I look forward to taking it. The games section is starting to be FUN.
Prof. Homer's tips made a lot of sense to me:
"Prepare to concentrate immediately, intensely, steadily, and to your utmost. The passive test-taker gets nowhere. There's no time to re-read. Attack the problem actively the first time around. And be in condition to keep this up for 3 1/2 hours.
Take time to understand the directions. You're being tested on following difficult and unexpected directions. Pay particular attention to the exact working of definitions. Some of these are very strange, too.
Don't misread, don't skim, don't "speed-read". The time pressure comes from the required speed of thinking, not of reading. Read carefully for exact wording, exact meaning. Underline key words.
Never answer from your own knowledge or experience--that's not what's being tested. Never answer from your own opinions or prejudices, or because you think one answer is more socially acceptable than another. (You'll often be invited to do that.)
Read nothing into any problems. Deal only with what has actually been said. Beware of thinking you recognize what's going to be said, ("Oh, I know that.") because chances are good that you'll miss the actual point. Don't get involved with what you think must also be true, or must also have happened, unless you've been asked to do that. If "ifs" and "but's" come into your mind, forget them.
Omit nothing from any problem. Read all the options. Read every sentence in the stimulus material. It's true you're sometimes given irrelevant material, but don't dismiss it until you've actually assessed it in terms of what you've been asked.
Work with the test, not against it. Use the Four Important Points to Remember listed above. Taken together, they tell you the following:
a. work as fast as possible consistent with accuracy; don't allow yourself to get stuck on any question; don't rush to get the harder problems, thus possibly missing easy ones, since they all count the same; and leave no blanks!!!
b. One, and only one, of these options is correct in terms of the questions. Accept this; don't fight it. All problems have been thoroughly tested. Every word is there on purpose.
c. Avoid over subtlety--don't make the test harder than it is. (People who fight certain questions, as in point b above, tend to be oversubtle.)
As you select answers, be aware that one of the benchmarks of the good, professionally written question is the frequent presence of an option that is almost, but not quite, right: the "attractive" distracter.
Keep track of time but don't be possessed by it. Resist pressure by working at the faster pace than is productive for you. Many people don't finish. The score comes from getting questions right, not just from getting them answered, and a correct guess is as good as a right answer, whether you like it or not.
Don't waver about guessing. Decide quickly, once you recognize the possibility, then do it and forget about it. There is no pattern of right answers, so it doesn't matter what option you pick. Don't sit there wondering if you could answer it if you took more time; you've already taken too much time if you've worked long enough to get stuck.
In general, try to take the questions in order, but that's not a hard and fast rule. Your main concern is maximizing your score by getting questions right, so it often pays to skip around, locating the types of questions you personally favor. Just make sure you get back to the others.
Manage the answer sheet. Avoid stupid, nerve-wracking mistakes such as getting answers in the wrong column (picking A but marking B) or reversing the wrong number (answering #22 in slot #23). This is more common than you might believe. Have a system. And to insure yourself against panic if you do catch yourself misplacing answers, always mark your answers in your test booklet before transferring them to the answer sheet.
Finally, do try to keep a sense of proportion. This test is a difficult and important set of games. It's not a final judgment about your worth as a person or your potential as a law student. You're not the only one, by any means, who makes a lot of mistakes or who might not finish all sections. Don't waste time during the test worrying about things like that. Just do your job and take the test. "
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