LSAT Test Day Strategy

The following advice was given by an individual on top-law-schools.com. 

When should you take the LSAT?

The February, September/October, and December administrations of the LSAT are all given at 9:00 A.M.; the June administration, however, is at 1:00 p.m.  Considering this, the June test has the advantage of allowing the taker to complete his morning routine and sit the test undistracted by hunger, lingering sleepiness, and other "morning effects". Also, as we know, stress can interfere with sleep in various ways. In my case, anxiety keeps me from falling asleep at night, but it does not cause me to wake up earlier. The afternoon test, then, gave me the luxury of sleeping longer in the morning and getting more total sleep.

With this in mind, one should consider when they function best.  Some people do better in the mornings and should use that to their advantage. 

What should I do the day before the LSAT?

In an attempt to minimize test day stress, One should visit the test site the day before the test to plan out their driving route and investigate the parking situation.  If going by bus, you may want to find out where the room is that you will be taking the test in.   There may be unexpected construction and parking could be chaos.  Arriving early on the day of the LSAT is very important.  Also being fully prepared is crucial.  If you are in a hurry to be prepared, consider purchasing a good supplement to help you maximize your LSAT score.  Or, better yet, begin a solid study plan and put the LSAT off until next time.  A high LSAT is very important if you want to get into the best law school that you can.

The Day of the LSAT.

 Some people function best with caffeine (which I don't recommend myself - but if it works for you consider it). Since you aren't allowed to drink during the test, I brought a bottle of iced coffee in my plastic bag and chugged it during the break, which worked pretty well for me. My general advice about caffeine is simple: don't make any changes to your regular routine. Don't take extra for an extra cognitive boost, don't take less than usual to minimize bathroom breaks, and don't get it from a different source than usual for the sake of convenience; it isn't hard to see how these strategies could backfire. Do whatever you would do for a practice test. Incidentally, the same should go for any psychiatric medication that is taken as needed (e.g., benzodiazepines, beta blockers, psychostimulants, etc.).

Finally, I think one of the things that helped me on test day was the fact that, on some level far deeper than the jitters and the cold sweat I had developed during my parking debacle, I was looking forward to the test. The LSAT wasn't easy, but it sure was a lot more fun and engaging than most of the things I did in school or at work. It was also an opportunity I was thrilled to have. Here is a day where you can sit down in a climate-controlled environment, excel at thinking for a few hours, and change the course of your whole life. I looked at the LSAT the way many people look at marriage – anxiety is to be expected at the time, but in overall scheme of things, it's a happy day.

i)    The critical reader may have made a second objection at this point: if stamina and concentration were indeed issues for me, wouldn't these B test scores be artificially high, since each section was completed during one of the first three sections of a test, never in the fourth or dreaded fifth slot? This is a valid objection, and one for which I never really found an answer. I could have allowed the experimental section to occupy the fourth or fifth slot in some of the A tests, but this could have compromised the accuracy of my scores on those A tests, since, after all, the point of simulating an experimental section was to ensure that, as on the real test, roughly half my score on each A test would come from questions completed during the fourth and fifth sections. I felt that knowingly risking inflation of the B test scores would be preferable to interfering with A test scores willy-nilly, so I did confine the experimental sections to the first three slots of each A test. The bottom line is that, while this would have been a problem if I were tracking my scores for some type of experiment, it did not interfere with the effectiveness of my studying.

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If you want to do well on the LSAT, consider purchasing the book: "Ways of the LSAT Winners."  This book will walk you through how you can get a score of 170 or higher on the LSAT.  A score of 170 will open doors for you at schools you didn't even dream of getting into.  A good LSAT score can wipe away a mediocre undergraduate GPA.  Schools are ranked largely on the LSAT and that's the most important factor they use when accepting an applicant.  So, if you want to do well on the LSAT, it's best to create a plan of action and spend a good deal of time preparing for it.