So you’re thinking about taking the LSAT. Whether you’re a college junior/senior mapping out your post-grad plans or a few years out and ready to chase that law school dream, you’re probably equal parts excited and overwhelmed. Let’s map out everything you need to get started with studying for the LSAT.
Studying for the LSAT 101
Start with Yourself
Before you answer a single practice question, we need to talk about YOU. Your mental health and mindset play a big part in your success with this test.
Growth vs. Fixed Mindset
If you believe the LSAT measures some fixed IQ ceiling, you’re limiting yourself. No one is born knowing how to diagram conditional statements or spot a logical fallacy. These are learnable skills, not innate abilities.
A fixed mindset says, “I’m just not a logic person.”
A growth mindset says, “I’m not good at Logical Reasoning yet, but I can learn.”
Guess which one leads to better scores?
Fueling Your Brain
Studying for the LSAT is a marathon, not a sprint. You’ll need to build mental focus, stamina, and resilience, which means treating your brain like an athlete treats their body:
- Sleep: Aim for 7-8 hours. Your brain consolidates learning during sleep, so those all-nighters are counterproductive.
- Nutrition: Eat! Your brain runs on glucose. When you’re hungry, you can’t focus.
- Exercise: Even a 20-minute walk can improve cognitive function. Don’t skip this.
- Focus blocks: Can’t focus? Try studying in chunks of 35 minutes, the length of an LSAT section. It might feel hard at first, but this helps gradually build the focus needed to power through the exam.
Stress Management
Test anxiety is real, and it can tank your score even if you know the material. Start building your stress toolkit early. That means plenty of the above — sleep, nutrition, and exercise — but here are some other ideas:
- Box breathing: Take a 4-second breath in, hold it for 4, breathe out for 4, hold for 4. Repeat. Great for managing in-the-moment stress.
- Test-day dress rehearsals: Take your practice tests in the same clothes you’ll wear, on the day/time you’ll test, with the same snacks you’ll bring. This repetition instills familiarity, which brings comfort.
- Keep burnout at bay: Keep any single study session to a three-hour maximum. Consider taking at least one off day each week.
Handle the Boring Stuff First
Nothing kills momentum like discovering you missed a registration deadline or can’t get accommodations approved in time. Handle these logistics before you dive deep into studying:
1. Registration Deadlines and Fees
When in doubt, always consult the LSAC website for relevant test dates and deadlines. But here’s what to expect:
- Registration typically opens in May for August through June test dates.
- Regular LSAT registration deadlines are usually 5-6 weeks before the test.
- Look into LSAC fee waivers if you qualify. They can save you hundreds in LSAT fees and law school application fees!
2. Test Location
You’ll need to choose between taking the test at home or at a test center. At-home testing offers convenience but requires a reliable internet connection and a quiet space. Test centers take care of these details, but involve travel and less environmental control.
3. Accommodations
If you need extra time, breaks, or other LSAT accommodations, start this process immediately. The documentation requirements are extensive, and approval can take months.
Understand the LSAT
The LSAT has changed significantly in recent years. The current format includes three scored sections: two Logical Reasoning (approximately 24-26 multiple-choice questions, each based on a short passage with five answer choices) and one Reading Comprehension (approximately 26-28 questions with five answer choices divided among four longer-form passages). You’ll also take a fourth, unscored “experimental” section, but you won’t know which section it will be.
There’s also a writing section called LSAT Argumentative Writing that you’ll complete either before or up to one year after your test date.
The big change here, of course, is that Logic Games have been eliminated. This means Logical Reasoning now makes up roughly two-thirds of your scored questions. Each section is 35 minutes. So you’re looking at about 2.5 hours of testing time, plus breaks and administrative stuff.
Logical Reasoning 101
Since Logical Reasoning now makes up about two-thirds of your score, this is where you’ll spend most of your time. Key concepts include:
- Argument structure (premises, conclusions, assumptions, fallacies)
- Logical relationships (inferences, correlation/causation, conditional reasoning, comparisons, scope shifts, principles and applications, disagreements, etc.)
- Incorporating Outside Information (strengthening and weakening arguments, resolving paradoxes, supplying assumptions)
Reading Comprehension
Reading Comprehension may sound straightforward enough, but there’s more to it than meets the eye. It’s not simply retrieving information. Instead, you’ll succeed best if you focus on:
- Mapping passage structure (viewpoints, conclusions, evidence)
- Identifying author attitude and tone
- Making disciplined inferences (not wild guesses)
💡 Pro tip: When practicing these, be sure to hit all the different passage topics to expand your comfort zone. For example, if you always avoid science passages, they’ll always be your weakness!
LSAT Scoring: What the Numbers Actually Mean
The LSAT is scored on a 120-180 scale. What score constitutes a “good” LSAT score is obviously relative, but the median score is right around the middle at 153. Top-ranked law schools typically have median LSAT scores at or above a 166 (approximately 90th percentile), while T14 law schools (among the most prestigious) have medians in the low-to-mid 170s (95th percentile and above).
LSAT scoring is curved, meaning your raw score (number of questions correct) gets converted to a scaled score. Don’t get too caught up in the math — just know that every point counts!
Plan Your LSAT Study Timeline (Work Backward)
Most students need three to six months of consistent prep, totaling around 200-300 hours of study time. However, your LSAT study plan should be personal, not generic.
A good place to start is with the date of your goal exam. What upcoming LSAT administration gives you enough time to study, while being early enough to allow you to retake (if necessary)? If you know where you want to apply to law school, be sure to check those schools’ deadlines.
When putting together your plan, be realistic about your schedule. How many hours of prep can you realistically accomplish on the average, hectic week? What major, life-disrupting events (exams, work projects) are in your near-future? Even vacations are okay; you just need to plan around them.
Finally, your score goal should influence your timeline. Someone aiming for the upper-150s might need less prep time than someone targeting 170+. When in doubt, err on the side of giving yourself more time — most students underestimate how much they need!
LSAT Study Materials: Less Is More
Now that you’ve got your plan, you’re going to need some prep resources for studying for the LSAT. Many students take a live course, while others take a more self-paced approach. (By the way, Blueprint offers both options.)
In researching LSAT prep materials, many people think, “If one study resource is good, three must be better!” Resist this impulse. While there are plenty of test prep options, mixing and matching strategies from different sources is a recipe for disaster. At best, you’ll have wasted your money on a bunch of books you barely use; at worst, you’ll confuse yourself and muddle your strategic approach.
Don’t get me wrong — if your current prep plan isn’t working for you, you can definitely make the switch. I’ve worked with plenty of students who came from other companies’ materials. But it’s better to do your research up front and invest in one comprehensive resource, one that covers all aspects and strategies of the test and contains all the tools and questions you need for practice and review.
The Accuracy-to-Efficiency Journey
The LSAT is a demanding test. Our success depends on our ability to work efficiently, answering a lot of questions in a short span of time while maintaining accuracy. It should come as no surprise, then, that we have two primary goals when it comes to studying for the LSAT: accuracy and speed.
Throughout our entire LSAT journey, but especially early on, accuracy is king. There’s no point in learning to do a skill faster if we cannot do it well. This means that starting out, timing doesn’t matter! Instead, we need to focus on learning the strategies associated with each LSAT question and passage type. Then, we need to reinforce those strategies through intentional practice and review.
As we begin to build accuracy, we can start to introduce timing pressure. Initially, this may mean simply doing small handfuls of practice questions or a single Reading Comprehension passage at one-and-a-half times “test speed.” Ultimately, as we grow more comfortable, we can increase the timing pressure to full “test speed” (about 9 minutes per Reading Comprehension passage or about 90 seconds per Logical Reasoning question). Review remains crucial at this stage, as we continue to refine and streamline our processes and become more “automatic” with implementing strategies.
When we get to the home stretch, timed sections and full-length practice exams become paramount. As we attempt to squeeze those last few points out of our LSAT score, we begin thinking of things like test strategy and pacing as we continue to pursue both greater accuracy and endurance. Even at this stage, untimed accuracy is important, as we revisit different question types and try to optimize for speed and efficiency. (Here, I am reminded of the old Navy SEAL mantra: “Slow is smooth; smooth is fast.”)
Review Beats Raw Volume
In your pursuit of LSAT perfection, you may be tempted to crank the questions and practice exams to 11. While I admire the work ethic, you can’t just grind through thousands of questions. In order to squeeze out the most improvement from your practice, you need rock rock-solid review.
This starts by keeping a Lessons Learned Journal of your mistakes. When you get a question wrong, create a new entry in your medium of choice.Paper diaries, notes apps, and spreadsheets all work. Still,Blueprint has this functionality built-in to their courses. For each question you missed, mark down:
- The question type you missed
- Why you chose the wrong answer, and what “red flags” you overlooked
- Why the right answer is correct, and what kept you from selecting it
- Any repeating patterns you recognize (Are you always falling for the same traps?)
While this can be a painstaking process, it’s about learning from every single question you see. Pretty soon, you’ll start correcting mistakes left and right before you make them. That’s when the improvement really happens.
Test-Day Preparation: Logistics Matter
At the end of this arduous process comes test day. Here, a little preparation goes a long way in ensuring that this day goes smoothly.
If you’re taking the LSAT at home, you want to have the tech side of things sorted. That means testing your internet connection multiple times, making sure you’ve updated the testing software to the latest version, and having a backup plan in case your connection goes haywire.
For you in-person test-takers, make sure you have all the transportation and logistics covered. Have a checklist or “ready bag” with your valid ID, snacks, water, and other test-day items. Have your destination mapped out, know where you’re parking, and plan for the worst-case scenario in terms of traffic.
Ideally, the more of these things you can think through in advance, the more you can focus on what really matters on test day: Crushing the LSAT.
Final Thoughts: Trust the Process
I’ll say it again: The LSAT is a marathon, not a sprint. Most students need months of consistent studying for the LSAT to see significant improvement. There will be frustrating days, plateau periods, and moments when you question whether you’re cut out for this.
My advice: Keep putting one foot in front of the other. The students who find the most success on the LSAT aren’t necessarily the smartest — they’re the most persistent. They show up consistently, learn from their mistakes, and trust that small daily improvements compound into significant score gains.
Your LSAT journey starts with a single practice question. Then another. Then another. Before you know it, you’ll be crossing the finish line with a score that opens doors you never thought possible.
