my 2 cents...
i didnt take a course because it was too expensive and felt that studying alone was worth more than in a classroom setting.
here is how i progressed:
took my first lsat blind, timed. i used this score as my baseline. i bought 1 book: Kaplan's LSAT study guide. i read PR, Kaplan, Arco, etc study guides and Kaplan really seemed to be the most logical and up-to-date. I took their strategies and memorized them.
then i went out and bought all the most recent LSATs from LSAC (as well as any others i could find). probably ended up with about 25-30 tests or so...
i tackled my hardest section first: logical reasoning. i really stunk at them. i did my first LR section in the kaplan book with the explanation for each answer. i did the next 3 LR sections untimed. this dramatically increased my score just on that section. then for the next section, i reverse-timed the section to see how long it really takes me to completely FINISH the section. (dont cheat yourself here...when i say finish, i mean double checking those you were unsure of, filling in the ovals, rereading ones that i had no clue about, etc. i dont mean just "finishing" the last question and calling time). when i did this for the next 3 sections, i averaged about 43 minutes per section. then i did another section but i timed myself, giving myself 40 min. after that, i gave myself 38 min, then 36, and so forth. after about 12-13 tries, i ended up being able to finish with about 3 minutes left.
i did this with each section, but not as rigorously on the logic games because that was my forte. for reading comprehension, i found myself doing weird things (i.e. taking medical or sociology journals, dissecting articles into 500 word clumps, then reading them within a 2-4 minutes and having my wife ask me questions on them). this helped me to read and skim more quickly. i used to be a really slow reader, but now i think im okay. i think ive had enough practice to last me a lifetime!
the thing about the lsats is that with repetition and sweat, it can be beaten. trust me...my first blind score was a 153 and i ended up getting a 178 on the actual test (and im dumber than most monkeys!).
one other thing...save yourself 3-4 latest LSAT preptests. one of those whenever you can straight through. then take the remainder at the exact same way as you would take them on the day of the test (start in the morning, find a location similar to your test location, someone to procter, etc). dont take breaks in between sections. i know there is one break in the actual test, but because there are actually 5 sections with the experimental, i think that going straight through will provide extra pressure. i believe in overcompensating.
sorry about the long post...but i do hope it helps in some way!
dan
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