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The Best Way to Use Your LSAT Practice Tests

Getting ready for the LSAT is awesome! It’s like going to the dentist every day, or that scene at the end of Reservoir Dogs with the ear...

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LSAT scantronGetting ready for the LSAT is awesome! It’s like going to the dentist every day, or that scene at the end of Reservoir Dogs with the ear, or like when you’ve already got a headache and there’s this car alarm RIGHT UNDER YOUR WINDOW AND IT WON’T STOP WHAT ON EARTH.

Wait. Maybe “awesome” wasn’t the word we were looking for?

Anyway, once you’re ready to start your prep for the LSAT, you’re going to want plenty of practice (because, duh). Let’s think for a minute about how to use the available PrepTests to your best advantage:

First, don’t just chew through the tests like you’re some kind of rabid animal. Come on. You’re better than that. PrepTests don’t do you much good if you only take them timed over and over; it’s just really hard to learn anything that way. Instead, try to be intelligent in your approach to your practice exams.

Here are four solid ways of approaching practice exams:

1. Take tests for learning. This approach is probably the best one to use when you’re first starting your LSAT prep. When you’re using this approach, don’t time yourself. Instead, take it nice and slow, making sure you get everything you can out of every question. You could even look up right answers question-by-question as you go, that would be OK, because after all IT’S YOUR WORLD, DO WHAT FEELS RIGHT. One thing, though: When you take tests using this kind of technique, it’s super important that you’re never just satisfied to learn that the right answer choice is (B). Instead, you make it your mission (BECAUSE YOU’RE ON A MISSION JUST LIKE ETHAN HUNT EXCEPT NOT IMPOSSIBLE) to understand why answer choice (B) is the right answer. Does that seem clear? Good.

2. Take tests for review. This approach is useful after you’ve done a few weeks of Approach One. One thing you might enjoy doing to check that your skills are sharp is to run stop-time drills. Here’s how that works: set the clock to run at 35 min/section, but pause it every time you run into something difficult. Then, write down what you thought was hard about the question. While you’re at it, go ahead and write what you think the answer is, and if you’re feeling like a superstar (YOU ARE A SUPERSTAR), make a note of why you think any possibly good-looking bad answer(s) is/are wrong. This drill can give you a real-time assessment of where your head’s at, so you’ll have a clearer review process than you could expect to get after the fact.

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3. Take tests like practice. This approach is great to mix in after about four to six weeks of prep. For this one, you will time yourself, but with a watch counting up instead of a countdown timer. While you work, just leave your watch face-down, and don’t worry about the time (time, that fickle mistress, will continue to run on you no matter what you do) – instead, it’s your job only to do the work to the best of your abilities. As you finish each section, jot down how long it took you to finish, plus how many questions you got right. This way, you’ll begin to understand how much you can do, and also what you need to get better at in order to do it all within your 35-minute limit. (Also, imagine how you could combine Approach 2 and 3. YOU KNOW, FOR FUN).

4. Take tests like a dress rehearsal. This approach is probably best reserved for once you’ve been doing the first three approaches until you’re good at them. When you take a PrepTest this way, you go find yourself a neutral site (like a common room at a library, because it’s quiet there but not silent, which is what Test Day will be like), you use strict (I’M TALKING CATHOLIC SCHOOL STRICT, NOT ANY OF YOUR PUBLIC SCHOOL SHENANIGANS) timing with 35 minutes for each section, and you make yourself take a 10-15 minute break after Section 3. If you do this, you’ll get the most accurate possible measure of your current scoring range, and that can be a useful sign post for where you’re at and how far you have to go. When you use this approach, it is extra-super important that you do a thorough review of your work.

So, adopt a mix of all these approaches when you’re working through your cache of LSAT PrepTests, and pretty soon you’ll have Kung Fu (LSAT Kung Fu. Not real Kung Fu. I want to be very clear on this point).

Article by Dave Hall of Velocity Test Prep – Velocity offers an online LSAT prep course and a wide range of free LSAT prep resources.

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