Misery loves company, as they say, so if you have a friend who is also studying for the LSAT you’ve probably already discovered the joys of commiserating about the devious questions created for you by LSAC.
That’s all well and good, but perhaps you and your friend have decided to take your relationship to the next level. Perhaps you’re ready to take the leap and start – yep, you guessed it – studying together.
First of all, you’ll want to find a quiet location. Light some candles. Put on some mood music and open a bottle of wine – wait, scratch that last part. In all seriousness, even though studying with a friend might involve more talking than your normal studying, you’ll still want to find a relatively quiet place to work. You’ll likely be spending a fair amount of time working on questions independently, so it’s important that you’re able to concentrate.
Having a study buddy can be beneficial for both parties because not only can you (hopefully) have some of your points of confusion explained by a friend, but explaining LSAT questions to someone else is a great way to make sure that you fully understand the question. In fact, I tell my students that when they get a question wrong, they should review that question until they can explain to me exactly why the right answer is right and why the wrong answers are wrong. Together, you and your friend should be able to figure out the finer points of any questions that have been giving you trouble. Your friend can also help keep you on track with your studying; it’s a lot harder to justify opening your laptop to see what’s new on the Internet when you have someone across the table from you deep in their LSAT books.
That said, you and your friend both need to make sure that you’re actually going to spend your study time together studying. We all had that friend in college who would arrange “study groups” and then spend the entire time talking about the latest episode of The Bachelorette. Don’t be that friend.
Though it’s far from necessary for success on the LSAT, studying with a friend can be a great addition to your solo study time (though not a complete replacement for it). So if you’ve been considering asking your friend out on a (study) date, take the plunge! But save that wine for your post-LSAT celebrations.
