The following is a guest post by John Rood of Next Step Test Prep:
Regular readers of Ann’s blog <https://www.lawschoolexpert.com/blog/lsat/now-you-can-change-your-mind-about-the-lsat/> know that the LSAC recently changed its policies to include a withdraw option. This lets students decide up until the day before the test to chose to not take the exam without having to be marked absent or cancel a score.
This policy significantly increases student flexibility but comes with a price: students now need to give serious thought to whether they are ready to take a given exam since there is little penalty to postponing. Especially for June test-takers (who can easily postpone to October), this can be a tough decision. Here is some guidance:
1) Have you spent at least two months of focused LSAT study? Some students have successfully reached their top scores with under 4 weeks of study, but they are few and far between. Additionally, if you started with plenty of time but let your study taper off as Dancing With The Stars heated up, you might want to refocus. Another metric to consider is that if you haven’t done at least 10 timed LSAT practice tests, you’re probably not where you should be.
2) Have your LSAT scores leveled off? The goal is always to get the very best score possible; if you’re still seeing significant increases as you put in more work, it might be beneficial to hold off until you’ve started to plateau.
3) Are there areas where you fundamentally don’t understand what’s going on? Nearly everyone misses a few problems, but if there are particular issues that you can identify holding you back, you need to address those before sitting for the test. While you might have been able to stumble through algebra without knowing how to factor, if you don’t understand formal logic you really just aren’t ready to take the LSAT.
4) Is one section significantly weaker than the rest? While some variance is normal, if you routinely get 25/26 in LR but only 12/23 in LG, you probably have the aptitude to do a lot better on the games. Glaring weaknesses can usually be addressed.
If you just didn’t devote enough time to the LSAT, re-committing might be all that’s required. If you’re still missing some basic concepts, it might be time to consider a different set of books or an LSAT tutor.
Next Step Test Preparation provides complete courses of one-on-one tutoring with an LSAT expert for less than the price of a commercial prep course. Email us <mailto:info@nextsteptestprep.com> or call 888-530-NEXT (6398) for a complimentary consultation.
