Although students still have plenty of time, it makes sense to start thinking about preparing for the June LSAT. We recommend spending 3-4 months on focused study, so starting in February would make a lot of sense. Here’s why we recommend the June LSAT for 2012 law school applicants (rather than later exams).

Rather than specify particular books or tests, I wanted to lay out a basic study plan to broadly capture what students should be doing month-to-month.

February

• Take a diagnostic exam. This will give you a great idea of what your goals should be and an initial idea of where you should start focusing your efforts. LSAC has a free sample exam here.
• Finalize your decision about prep. Many students will self-study, some students will attend classes (hopefully not too many!), and some students will engage a tutor.
• If you’re not getting professional assistance, order your books. You’ll for sure want at least 15 practice exams and probably more; I’d start with the 10 More Actual LSATs in addition to at least 5 of the most recent preptests.
• You’ll also want to get some sort of methodology book to guide you in addition to practice tests.
• This is the time to work your way through at least half of your methodology book. During this month, you can do all of your practice un-timed.

March

• Work through the remainder of your methodology books. There’s no need to try to save these for later; you want to commit all the methods to memory so you can practice better.
• It’s also time to start doing timed practice. Start by timing all of your practice sessions (35 minutes). When time expires, if there are questions remaining go ahead and finish, then review intensely.

April

• Re-evaluate your decision if you are self-studying. How is it going? We get tons of calls in mid-May from students who aren’t doing as well as they’d like, and by then it’s really getting late for tutoring to make sense. If you’re seeing the results you want, keep on trucking, but if not this is the time to ask for help.
• Now is the time to start doing regular full-length practice tests with review. Here’s how to get the most out of that experience. Working through full tests will be the basis of your prep going forward.
• Generally, work from the oldest tests you have to the newest. While there aren’t incredibly huge differences between Preptests 30 and 60, the difficulty of RC goes up significantly, so you’d like to be moving into those more challenging sections.
• In the month of April, all of your practice should be timed, while also taking significant time to review.

May

• The focus of your last month of prep should be on taking practice tests and evaluating. Sounds simple, but the art is in reviewing your work for progress.
• Think about doing 2-3 tests per week, plus intensive review of each.
• If you haven’t devoted the time to studying, you want to re-evaluate whether you’re ready for the exam.

June

• See our post about what to do the week before the test

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