Law School Admissions: Mastering the LSAT - How to Score 160 or More

It's been some time since I gave a lot of thought to the LSAT (Law School Admission Test). More than four years, in fact. I came across a thread at lawstudents.ca, which I thought was quite ingeneous and useful.

The original post said:

I'm writing to inquire of the methods/techniques ppl who scored 160+ [on the LSAT] used to get the score they did.

1) What score did you get?

2) What books did you use? (Kaplan, Powerscore LRB, Powerscore LGB, etc)

3) What prep courses did you take (if any)? Full length, weekend?

4) How long did you study for, and under what conditions? (during school, during the summer, etc)

5) How many preptests did you do?

6) What would you change if you were to do it again?

7) Any other misc comments/suggestions.

8 ) What undergrad degree did you do? (or are doing)

I was intrigued to read the answers given by a variety of posters. You may find this information very useful if you hope to score well on the LSAT. There's even one fellow who scored 171 (98th percentile). I get the feeling that most of these posters took the LSAT very seriously!

I myself did 2 or 3 practice exams, used some prep book that I got out of a bargain bin at Chapters, which included a CD-ROM with lots of practice questions on it. I had a real adventure the first time around (read my book to find out the story), and managed to do quite well the second time around, once I got my bearings and my attitude right.

The LSAT is not a small-potatoes test for most people. There are those out there who can ace it without ever studying, but most of us mere mortals probably need at least some preparation to help guide us. The one sense I have gotten over the years is that prep courses are often a waste of time. You need to find your own tricks, and just practice, practice practice.