The bad news: You certainly aren’t ready for real LSAT. Do not apply to law school…yet. The law schools regard the LSAT as more or less the IQ test for law school. At a practice score of say, 138, you are at a point where over 90% of official LSAT results are above you. Law schools will have the gravest concerns about your abilities, if you give them this score officially.
The good news: The LSAT can be mastered. If you are below 140, you are currently extremely low on the LSAT learning curve. But you can move forward.
Let me share the most positive story of LSAT mastery I’ve come across over the years. Note that this path was inexpensive. It did not require high-priced LSAT tutoring or courses. But it did require a considerable amount of time, in a disciplined and effective program of self-development.
“It took me about half a year to prepare for the test since I was still in school and had other exams to cope with. What I did was really simple! I took a test under simulated conditions on Monday. On Tuesday, I went over the test again, problem by problem, and analyzed the answers and marked the questions I didn’t really understand well, without any time restraint. On Wednesday, I took a break. Thursdays through Saturdays I repeated my Monday through Wednesday schedule. On Sunday, I restudied the difficult questions in the two sets I took in that week. The entire process took me 17 weeks. I took two weeks off to deal with school exams. In total it took me 19 weeks. At first glance, you may think I spent a great deal of time preparing for the LSAT. I took 34 practice tests! But counting the hours, it’s not that much. I believe I spent an average of six hours on each test, including two review sessions. That adds up to around 200 hours in total. My score improved from 151 on the first test (a 49th-percentile score that would definitely not be attractive to top law schools) to low/mid 170s on the last five tests. My actual test score was 177.” (This is a stunning 99.8th-percentile score that will cause law school admissions officials to fall out of their chairs).
“My improvement from the low 150s to the low 160s was quick, about seven to eight tests. But it took me 15-20 tests to go from 160 to 170. Once I broke 170, I stayed in the low to mid 170s for the remaining seven to nine tests. It seems to me that about three weeks and six to eight tests are needed to consolidate a level. That’s why I think it’s important to take as many real tests as possible (at least 25, 30+ is preferred).”
“I graduated from a college in northeast and am going to law school in the same region next semester.”
He was admitted to Harvard Law School with his 177.