A holiday break can pull your LSAT studies in two directions. On the one hand, you will probably have more free time than usual between. On the other, this is likely your first real break since you started prepping for the LSAT, and studying will be the last thing you want to do with your time.
Fortunately, there is a happy medium you can strike over the holidays, and it lies somewhere between binging holiday movies while your brain muscles atrophy, and making yourself miserable while everyone else is experiencing holiday cheer without you.
Here are some LSAT tips to navigate balancing your study obligations with your social (and all other) obligations this season.
1. Keep Your Schedule Consistent
If there is one thing I look forward to when I get a long holiday break, it’s the chance to sleep in until 2 p.m., subsist on various holiday-themed candies, and stay up until the wee hours with friends.
Not so if you’re preparing for the LSAT. While there will be some days over the holidays where you should enjoy the freedom of your relaxed schedule, you will be better off come exam day if you try to keep a fairly consistent sleep schedule. You’re going to be much more prepared for the exam if you’re using your time to get yourself used to a study routine, or at a bare minimum, waking up sometime in the morning.
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2. Plan Ahead
A major bummer about studying over the holidays is missing out on the parties and other fun that everyone else gets over the break. And while the LSAT is a wonderful excuse to get out of the more tedious holiday activities, like caroling or pictures with mall Santa, you don’t have to sacrifice all the events you look forward to to get a good LSAT score.
Rather than pushing your studying to the last minute, note the holiday celebrations you don’t want to miss, and give yourself a manageable study schedule around those.
3. Tell Your Family About Your LSAT and Law School Plans
No one ever complained about having a lawyer in the family—there’s a fallacy in there, somewhere. So if your relatives are giving you a hard time about neglecting them, tell them about your goals, law schools you’d like to attend, and progress on studying for the LSAT.
For one, they’ll be reminded that you’re dedicating time toward improving your future. And, failing that, if you go into enough detail about the minutiae of your studying process and the various LSAT tips you’ve picked up, they’ll probably avoid future conversations with you so that they aren’t bombarded with boring details again.
Further Reading
💻 A Pre-Law Parent’s Guide to LSAT Prep
⚖️ What Is the LSAT? A Beginner’s Guide to the Law School Admission Test
4. Plan Breaks Into Your Study Schedule
No one can (or should) study for the LSAT 24/7, so for the sake of your mental health, you should incorporate some down time into your study plan. Around the holidays, it works well to time your study breaks with other plans you may have. If you were already planning on taking a day off, you might as well take that day off when you’re stuck at your aunt’s house all day, attending your friend’s destination wedding that was selfishly scheduled for New Year’s Eve, etc. etc.
When you want to have some fun, just schedule it into your normal study plan!
5. Involve Your Family and Friends
Who else has a bigger stake in your LSAT prep than you do? Even if the LSAT is not a test your family has the slightest experience with, there is a way that they can help you out.
When you are reviewing a question you struggled with, a great LSAT tip to master the material is to teach it to someone else. For instance, you take that Soft Must Be True question from your homework that gave you a hard time, you review it on your own, and then you walk your dad through the problem.
The greatest part of this study method is that it works equally well when your study partner is your eight-year-old niece or your best friend’s dog, because the benefit comes from you working out the problem out loud until you’re comfortable with it. Just don’t try this method with cats. They tend to be judgmental and uncooperative.
Final Thoughts
Overall, try not to stress too much about your study schedule during particularly busy periods. Find time to study wherever you can using these LSAT tips, but don’t beat yourself up if you’re not able to get as much done as you usually would. And, if all else fails, don’t forget that you can always suddenly come down with a terrible case of the “flu” and barricade yourself in your bedroom for a few days.
Don’t forget that even if you need maximum flexibility with your LSAT prep, Blueprint LSAT courses are perfect for your busy schedule. Whether it’s in a Live course led by Blueprint LSAT instructors, in a Self-Paced Course that gives you total control over your schedule and studying, or one-on-one with a tutor, we have the LSAT prep that can get you to your goal score.
If you need help planning your prep, create a free Blueprint LSAT account to access our personalized study planner!
