How Can I Begin Improving Rapidly? JUMP to 150s

liltrogani

I am an upcoming senior looking to apply in the 2026 applicant pool. I have an LSAT coming up in Sep. and Oct. I got a late start because I was studying abroad last spring semester...so I have had May-Aug to study. My initial diagnostic exam was a 144 and after 3 months, 4 more practice exams, and a lot of rushing to complete core syllabus I have only improved each time by a point to a 148. I have just started doing constant drills of my weak spots. What else can I do to drastically jump my score to at least a 158! (I am not a great test taker and just trying to find what niche works best!)

Looking for recommendations and motivational stories to help

L up North

Hey! There are a bunch of things that can help in the score range you're in to get you into the 150s- good news is that increasing the number of questions you get right is easier in the 140s-150s than it is in the 160s-170s because you are generally dealing with more broad things that are easier to correct vs addressing a bunch of tiny flaws that might add up to get you a point or two. I'll just list off a bunch of stuff that helped me- you may already know a lot of these! It sounds like you might need to go back to the core curriculum for the types of questions you are having a hard time with. After that, it may be worth doing untimed drills and get the accuracy on those down before going back to timid drill to make sure you aren't practicing bad habits. Memorizing the common logic flaws (I used flashcards) can help you identify wrong answers quickly or identify what's wrong in the logic of a stimulus that you are trying to deal with in your answer choice. Make sure you have a specific way/prescribed steps to approach each question type so you know as soon as you see what type of question you're dealing with, you have a check list to go through to get you the answer. Instead of looking for the right answer in the answer choices, focusing on eliminating the wrong answers can be extremely helpful because there are no "maybes" on the LSAT- answers are either 100% wrong or 100% right, and often it's easier to explain what's wrong with an answer instead of digging through them all to find the one that might feel more correct. Also, it made a big difference for me if I highlighted the conclusion in every single stimulus to keep straight what you're actually trying to do in a particular type of questions (ie, weakening= making that conclusion at least 1% less possible, sufficient assumption= guarantee that conclusion happens when you add your answer to the provided premesis, flaw= why do these premises not add up to this conclusion?, etc.). If you lose track of what the conclusion is, you're going to have a really hard time finding the right answer. Timing was also a big issue for me initially- I was missing at least 2 or 3 questions in every section which is a big chunk out of your score (like a full score bracket chunk). Maybe work on a timing strategy (ie, one minute for each of the first 15 questions, then 2 minutes for each of the last 10, or starting RC from the last passage and working back because the last passages require more time, etc). All of those little things add up, and can get you into the 150s. I hope at least some of these are helpful- good luck, and know that so many people have struggled with this test and ended up smashing it in the end! It is very doable!