The September LSAT has come and gone. Once everyone decides whether to cancel, all that will be left to do is wait until LSAC releases the scores.

Accordingly, let’s turn our attention toward the December LSAT. Classes have begun, and if you’re shooting for the December administration, it’s time to get your studying in gear.

Here are some pointers as you get started.

Start Studying Now
It’s easy to procrastinate when the LSAT seems far away. It’s coming up sooner than you think. To be exact, you have just a little more than nine weeks until the big day. Also, the foundational stuff is really important. If you’re in Blueprint classes or self-studying with our online course, a lot of the homework in early lessons will really help with the difficult material that comes next. If you fall behind now, it’ll be a pain to catch up.

Set A Study Schedule
Without a schedule it’s very easy to fall into one of the following traps, depending on your disposition: You might procrastinate, and that’s no good. Or you might end up constantly feeling like you should be studying. That’s no good for your sanity, and losing sanity is no good for your LSAT score. Your schedule should have lots of time for studying, but you should also schedule some days off. You’ll need them.

Start Slowly
Build mastery before speed. I’ve seldom met an LSAT student who wasn’t concerned about finishing the test in time, so it’s tempting to work on speed from the beginning. But save the timed practice for later. If you try to blow through questions before you really know what you’re doing, you’ll just end up getting things wrong faster. And that’s not really the point. Furthermore, it’s really important that you learn the concepts thoroughly. Mastery now will help you go fast later.

Review Carefully
Doing your LSAT homework is great and all, but you’ll really learn the most by going back through the homework carefully. When you get something wrong, don’t beat yourself up. Try to figure out what’s going on. Why is the wrong answer wrong? (It’s not just a worse answer, there’s a reason it doesn’t work.) Why is the right answer right? How should you approach something similar next time?

Live Well
It might be tempting to crawl into an LSAT cave for a couple months of instant-ramen-fueled study binging. Granted, you’ll have to study a lot and you’ll have to make sacrifices to do that. It’s nonetheless important to get some exercise, eat reasonably well, and get some approximation of enough sleep. You’ll learn better if you do.

Good luck! If all goes well, before you know it you’ll be done with this test forever. Let that be your motivation.