Low LSAT Score

[mel97]

My LSAT score was a lot lower than I was expecting. I was wondering if anyone has recommendations for a prep course I could take? Not looking to spend $1000 on one, but am willing to pay if it will help me out! On my practice tests I was scoring high 150s but on my January LSAT I only got 150. Still applied to two schools, as I applied before my score was released but I am not getting my hopes up

[Chef Justice]

If you haven't already, I would look into 7Sage. A lot of students studying for the LSAT find that 7Sage (myself included) helped them greatly improve in all three sections of the test, with Logic Games being the biggest difference to notice. You wouldn't be spending too much money and the overall consensus on 7Sage is positive. 

Feel free to message me if you have any questions!

[GGrievous]

Might be helpful to know what your score broken down by each section was.

[Kimura]

I second 7Sage. I liked being able to go at my own pace, rather than having to keep up with the pace of an in person class. The explanations are great and it's affordable in comparison to some other courses out there (although, I do think it has gone up a wee bit in price over the past few years). 

Which sections are you struggling with?

If it's LG -> you need to "Fool Proof" the LG section, meaning you should go back to the very first LSATs and do all of the LG from the beginning. You need to drill the shit out of the LGs. Trust me - if you're struggling with LG now, you'll be in a much better position once you've cranked out all of the LGs available. 7Sage has explanations for each LG on youtube for free so you can watch an explanation after your attempt. Then you need to drill those LGs until you hit the target time for that specific LG.

If it's Arguments -> this makes up 50% of the marked portion of the test. If you're struggling here I suggest 1) hire a private tutor who can help you identify where you're having trouble. Maybe you're having trouble with a specific type of argument question such as Necessary Assumption and Must Be True, whereas you may be killing it with Sufficient Assumption. Once you narrow down where you're struggling 2) Pick up some Cambridge drilling packets and drill the shit out of the specific question type you're having trouble with. You don't necessarily need a private tutor, but I found it helped me identify where I was having a hard time.  

If it's Reading Comp -> All you can really do here imo is practice...use old tests to drill and then of course you'll get practice when you run timed PTs

Couple other things to note:

1) Drilling and reviewing is far more important than simply burning through PTs. I did a PT once a week on Saturdays for 3 hours. I would then spend the rest of the day 'blind reviewing' my PT (i.e., I would go back and re do the test in its entirety, untimed and without looking at the answers, to see if I would keep my answer the same as I had chosen under timed conditions and if so, why). Once I was done that, I would review my answers against the answer key. If I still got a question wrong after working on it for 10-15 minutes, I knew I didn't understand the question and needed to work on that question type.

2) 7Sage has a useful answer key tracker where you can enter in all of your scores - use it. It's very useful to know where you're doing well and where you're doing not so well so know where to focus your energy. If you're not going to hire a private tutor, this is necessary for you to figure out where you're going wrong.

3) In between PT's, go through older PTs for practice.

This is coming from someone who had a hard time with the LSAT. It did not come naturally for me. I had to put in the time and effort. I wrote the LSAT twice to get the score I needed to get into law school, and I jumped about 8 points between attempts using the above.

Anyways, best of luck!

[McDavid97]

7 hours ago, Kimura said:

If it's Arguments -> this makes up 50% of the marked portion of the test.

Lots of great advice in your reply, but just an fyi there's only 3 scored sections now.

[luckycharm]

5 hours ago, McDavid97 said:

Lots of great advice in your reply, but just an fyi there's only 3 scoredConside  sections now.

I hired a private tutor after scoring 153 and 155.

[Kimura]

8 hours ago, McDavid97 said:

Lots of great advice in your reply, but just an fyi there's only 3 scored sections now.

Wow, really? Do you write 4 sections then? Are there still 2 arguments sections?

[Chef Justice]

When I wrote the October 2021 test, there were three scored sections and an experimental section that could be either LR, LG, or RC. In my case, I got an LG-RC-RC-LR test (of course it was double RC). So, there aren't two scored LR sections anymore. 

[McDavid97]

33 minutes ago, Kimura said:

Wow, really? Do you write 4 sections then? Are there still 2 arguments sections?

After COVID, they changed the format to 3 scored sections only (1 LR, 1 LG, and 1 RC). No unscored section. Roughly the same amount of questions per section as before (23-24 for LG, 25-26 for LR, and 27-28 for RC). Then starting in August 2021 (the exam I wrote) they re-introduced an extra unscored section which can be any of the aforementioned 3. Luckily for me it was a second LR section, which was nice because I was mainly doing full-length exams as practice.

[Lilbb19]

7 sage 

[Four_Leaf_Tayback]

Personally, I used the PowerScore Bibles to learn each section and then Khan Academy to do most of my practice. I had purchased some extra test books and practice question books for each section. I was able to purchase all of my books from one person I knew, so my total cost for all my LSAT prep was less than $175.

I can't speak to the other prep platforms that people used, but I found PowerScore to be relatively easy to grasp. I looked into a few other courses, but they have slightly different approaches and I wanted to avoid any confusion with the techniques I learned in PowerScore. Basically, I used PowerScore to learn the fundamentals and then just drilled using my books and Khan Academy leading up to the test. I am sure that the courses other users have recommended are fantastic as well, but I wanted to avoid learning too many approaches, if that makes any sense. 

Khan Academy is decent, but I will caution anyone who uses it that it does not have a deep question pool. If you are stuck repeating the same difficulty/type of questions, you will very quickly start memorizing the correct answers because there are not many tests they pull the questions from. What I do like about it is that you can very rapidly work through practice questions and the website is quite slick. If I was crunched for time and couldn't get in a good practice session, I could always hop on Khan (even at work) and fire through some questions in 20 minutes.

I also used the practice tests on Khan and they were a good analog for the actual test, now that it is all web-based. The practice tests that you are given access to from LSAC, when you register for an LSAT, are IMO the best tests to practice on when you are getting close to your test date. The interface is exactly the same as the real test, so you not only practice the LSAT, but you get familiar with the UI and where you click to get through the test, which may save only a few seconds, but they accumulate in the end. 

[AllanC]

Before deciding on a prep course you'll want to identify two things:

A) What are your problem areas? Certain areas & sections - such as logic games - are much more conducive to being improved through formal training than others

B) What kind of student are you? Not everyone benefits from a class whereas others wouldn't achieve their score any other way

For example, I find that students who are deficient in their LR/LG fundamentals generally benefit from a course because it provides them a regular schedule and they get to hear explanations for things they wouldn't otherwise ask or discover on their own, which at some point just makes the entire enterprise "click" for them. On the other hand, students who have a good grasp of the fundamentals (read: nearly perfect on untimed sections) but lack timing generally benefit more from periodic tutoring where the focus is less on the question specifics so much as it is on how to pick up time (that they implement mostly through self-study). Others still are best off with some self-prep books and left to their own devices because they are not auditory learners at all!

You also indicated that your test day score was many percentiles below your PT average. While some decrease is normal, going from high 150s to 150 on the nose is a tad abnormal. You want to think deeply about whether it was just a blooper (shit happens) or anxiety got the best of you or what. Depending on your answer, as well as your answers to the above, your decision to take a class may or may not change.

If you have any specifics in terms of problem areas you want to discuss please do post a thread on this forum and we will do our best to help. Best of luck!

As far as recommendations for resources go:

Classes

7Sage as mentioned above

Manhattan LSAT

HarvardReady (in full disclosure I work here)

Self-Prep Books

Manhattan LSAT Series (this is by far and away my favourite for self-prep and currently on-sale for only $113 which is a bargain compared to $200+ usually)

LSAT Loophole

The LSAT Trainer

PowerScore Bibles (these are the conventional go-to, and the series I was reared on. However, I vastly prefer the Manhattan series for today's exam)

Edited April 9, 2022 by AllanC