The LSAT: What is it?

Oh, buddy. Where do I even begin? 

LSAT stands for law school admissions test. It is what Elle Woods famously had to score a 175 on (and somehow miraculously went from scoring a 143 on her practice test, to a 179 on test day, but I digress). The test is scaled from 120-180, with 180 being a perfect score. The test is broken up into 5 sections: 2 logical reasoning, 1 analytical reasoning, 1 reading comprehension, and 1 unscored experimental section that could be either LR, AR, or RC. At the conclusion of the test, there is an unscored writing sample that is sent with your application to the law schools to which you apply. So while you can totally draw DoodleBob or write “Charlie bit my finger!” it’s probably not very wise to do so.

So, how do you know a section is experimental? You don’t. However, the scored portion of the LSAT always consists of one logic games section, one reading comprehension section, and two logical reasoning sections. Therefore if you see two reading comp sections on the test, then you know that the experimental section was one of them. Similarly, if you have three logical reasoning sections, then the experimental was one of those. Some people claim to be able to sense which section is experimental because ‘it just feels weird’ or it 'contains strange questions.

I, personally, took the June 2017 LSAT, and had a third section of logical reasoning. Thankfully, my test was divided up very well, and each odd numbered section (1, 3, and 5) were all logical reasoning, so my brain didn’t shift into LR overdrive. I hoped that section one was my experimental section because of proctor issues (more on that later) and I actually turned out to be right. I think my prayers to Elle Woods the night before the test were definitely heard.

The test typically lasts between 4 and 5 hours. Each section is timed for 35 minutes, with the obvious beginning and concluding instructions before and after the test, as well as a short break in between sections 3 and 4. 

In posts to come, I will discuss the different study methods for the LSAT, how I personally studied for it, how long you should allow yourself to prepare for the test, and proctor issues that I faced and that you could also potentially face! I will also talk about what means more to schools: your GPA or your LSAT score, and how much soft factors on your application really mean to the schools you are applying to.

Until next time!

-Kelly

The LSAT: Study Methods

The LSAT is truly unlike any other test there is. It’s a whole different beast. A common misconception is that just because someone has tested well in the past, it means they will score high on the LSAT. This is simply untrue. Testing well on the LSAT requires you to think differently than you are used to. It requires months of prep and countless practice tests. It requires patience and dedication.

I took the June 2017 LSAT and began my studying in late February of the same year. I began by researching advice from those that had come before me (lawschooli.com, top-law-schools.com, etc.) and I found that the most productive way of studying was by buying actual tests that had been used previously. The books are titled 10 Actual, Official LSAT Preptests and they can all be found on Amazon. The tests range from being distributed in the 90s, all the way up to the last administered test (for me, that was the February 2017 test). I recommend buying all of these tests. It will allow you to see how the tests have changed (because they have. A lot.). 

If it is your first time taking the LSAT, I recommend taking your first preptest completely cold. No studying, no preparation, no time constraints, just sit down and take it. This will allow you to see where you are currently testing, and how much work you will have to do going forward to get your desired score (most schools want a score between 150-180).

After you have your cold score, identify your areas of weakness. Did you miss the most in logical reasoning? Then that section will require more attention. I also HIGHLY recommend buying the Logical Reasoning, Analytical Reasoning, and Reading Comprehension Bibles by Powerscore. These SAVED ME. Literally. They walk you through strategies for approaching each section of the test, as well as each kind of question that section may ask you. I went from getting 2 correct in analytical reasoning, to getting a perfect score.

Another thing you want to keep in mind is the order in which you take the tests. I did myself a disservice by starting with older tests and finishing with the most recent test as my last preptest before the real deal. Don’t do this. When you start taking full, timed tests, take the more recent ones. As I mentioned before, the tests have changed drastically. You won’t be able to properly prepare by taking a full older test. Use these tests for drills on certain sections, so you can see what you are learning. This will help you improve on your real preptests, as well as the real test.

If you have any other questions about prepping for the LSAT, feel free to send an ask my way!

feb 14/2019

happy valentine’s day, everyone! whether you celebrate today or not, i hereby send you some extra love just in case - on a side note, i am in love with how the light falls in my room atm it’s just so gorgeous ✨

HOW TO BE PRODUCTIVE ON THE WEEKENDS

Hi study buddies it is Saturday night and I’m home alone and one thing I hate about being alone is that I really never get anything done. I’m either cooking or I’m in my bed and I just hate doing that because I’m so unproductive. I know a lot of us just hate studying especially during our “down time” and we also have other priorities we need to do during the daytime. So today I’m going over some tips on how you can make your weekend a little but more productive and studious. 

STUDY EARLY + PLAN A SCHEDULE

Weekends are a time for you to relax, but if you can, try to start working early in the morning because you’re going to be more productive and your brain can actually function properly. 

By 12-1 AM at night is the time where the majority of people including me cannot be productive so just try to avoid working during that time period because it’s just not a good time to be trying to memorize math functions and write a week pieced essay. I know that every time I try to study during 1 AM or 2 AM I always end up being so slow at retaining information, it just becomes counter productive. 

FIND A STUDY PARTNER

So now that you have created a routine or something or you can follow. I’m going to go over some tips on how you can be more focused and concentrated on doing the stuff that you need to do.

NO MORE DISTRACTIONS

Another thing you can do is actually download some applications  that can keep you off sites like Netflix, YouTube, and Facebook.

FIND A STUDY SPACE

Experiment with where you’re studying because I know I cannot concentrate for my life In my bedroom.

TO-DO LIST

My fourth tip is to have a to-do list of all the things you need to do.

LISTEN TO MUSIC (or not, it depends)

Another thing you can do is actually play some music

Now that you have done all these things, You are for sure ready to be productive and focus on finishing all those assignments you need to do. GOOD LUCK!

self-care instruction manual

→ i get asked very often about bullet journals, so i put together a masterpost; happy journalling..!! —tia ♪ [+++] more masterposts | all | studygram

i. PURPOSE

ii. STARTING A BULLET JOURNAL

iii. SUPPLIES

iv. PAGES

v. STYLING YOUR JOURNAL

vi. ALTERNATIVES

one of the hardest things to learn as a depressed former Gifted Kid™ is that half-assed is better than nothing. take the 50%, 40%, even 20% job. scrubbing your face is better than not taking a shower at all. picking up your clothes is better than never cleaning. nibbling on some bread is better than starving.

DO THINGS HALFWAY. NOW YOU’RE 100% BETTER OFF THAN YOU WERE BEFORE.

One of my college professors used to say “anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.”  I didn’t understand that for years because I didn’t do anything poorly, I couldn’t do anything poorly, I had to Do Everything Perfectly.

But brushing your teeth for 30 seconds is better than not brushing them at all when that 2 minutes seems exhausting.  Doing ten minutes of yoga is better than 10 minutes of sitting when 30 minutes of cardio sounds impossible.  Changing my clothes is good when a whole shower is impossible.  Standing on the porch for a few minutes is worth it after being in the house for three straight days because I don’t have the energy to go anywhere.

Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly… because doing it poorly is better than not doing it.

a small guide on how i battle my essays! (click on an image to view it clearer) 

(keep in mind: i’m an english major so a majority of my essays are literature-focused!)

● Seize time opportunities. If I have 15 minutes until your next class, I sit down and do homework in the hallway. If I have a long commute, I’ll do flashcards. This works because you most likely won’t have anything else to do anyways, so it’s easier to get your work done.

● Start something. When I get a lab report assignment, the first thing I do is pull up the directions and at least start the cover page and pull up some research links. It takes 5 minutes but it gets the ball rolling and makes it more likely that you’ll finish what you started.

● Auto-mode. When I procrastinating, it’s usually because I’m too busy thinking about what I’m going to do. Instead, I like to pretend I’m in “auto-mode” and just get started as fast as I can. auto-mode means shutting out distracting thoughts or pleas to watch one more funny cat video and forcing your hands to open your textbook. Works every time.

● Personally, creating time schedules don’t work for me because if I fall out of time, the whole schedule falls apart and I usually give up. Instead I use time games. I’ll tell myself something like “work as hard as you can until 11:00 sharp and if you finish, you can have a break”. This is great for developing self discipline because it’s in the moment so you can be more realistic and flexible.

● I don’t like writing down earlier due dates in my planner because it’s confusing so instead, it’s good to have some sort of mental rule. for example, my mental rule is to finish everything at least two days before the due date. following through with that will keep you on track.

● Do a little bit every day. If you have a big project, chip at it within a week rather than stressing out 2 days before it’s due. the same goes for studying for an exam. if you review lecture notes and attend office hours after class + work on flashcards throughout the week, then do a final review at the end, you’ll be well prepared and won’t need to cram. It’s a good habit and you won’t get stressed. Two birds with one stone.

● Use mornings too. I’m not really an early bird, but using mornings to get some work / chores done is great because it gives you a productive start to the day, which makes you feel proud of yourself for knocking out half of your tasks in the a.m. 

a. Lay out your lecture notes / worksheets on the table the night before and open your work tabs on your computer so they’ll be the first thing you see when you turn on your computer.

b. Put your computer far away from your work space and go to sleep.

c. When you wake up, the first thing that you’ll see is your ‘paper’ work, so get it done first. then start on your ‘screen’ work (you’ll be less likely to get distracted if you do your ‘paper’ work first). when you open your laptop the first thing you’ll see are the work tabs you opened the night before. Your job is to go on auto-mode and get started.

Good luck with self-discipline. You’ll do great. -thoughtscholar

Basics of Linguistics: Morphology

What is morphology? It is concerned with the internal structure of words and with the various processes which allow us to constantly enlargen the vocabulary of our language

What is a morpheme? It is the smallest unit capable of expressing a meaning on its own

How can we classify morphemes? The three criterions are: 

1) autonomy: free or bound morpheme

2) function: lexical or grammatical

3) position: prefix or suffix

Exceptions/ special cases: portmanteau morphs and unique morphemes

What are allomorphs? They are realisational variants of morphemes

Important in morphology are word-formation processes like compounding, derivation,conversion etc., but I’m gonna make another post on it.

[These are some basics on morphology, if there are any mistakes or you want to add something, feel free to tell me or to do so!]

study less study smart

I decided to share my notes taken from this amazing 1 hour Youtube lecture by Marty Lobdell. i really liked him and his tips, i think they are super effective and cover a lot of situations! i highly recommend it!!!!! wow

but here are the tips and examples Marty mentions, so if you don’t have the time to go through the full hour, you can just scroll down. hope this helps somebody!

(don’t just scroll through this!!!! really think about these methods and how you can actually implement them so you can benefit from them!!! these actually work but only if you put them into practice boo good luck!)

YES. YES. ALL OF THIS. PLEASE READ ALL OF THIS. 

Studen Loan PSA

There’s an app you may or may not have heard of called Givling. It’s a free trivia game (although you can pay to play it additional times per day) that uses primarily ad revenue to pay back the student loans of those who sign up. That’s right - if you sign up, you’re in line to have your own student loans (up to $50,000) paid back by Givling. 

The app has been around for a while at this point with over 100,00 registered users, and anyone who has signed up recently has to wait quite a while to have their loans paid back by the app’s revenue, as there are only so many people who actually play it every day. But the more people who sign up and play, the more companies partner with the app to provide ads, the more revenue the app makes, and the faster each individual loan is paid back. So if you haven’t already, please download and sign up for Givling, and be sure to play for free once a day. Even if you don’t have any loans of your own, playing a trivia game for a minute or two every day could actually help a lot of people in a very tangible way. And don’t forget to invite your friends to play!

this is so awesome!! thank you @holdingpessoashand for messaging me about it :-) you can check it out here! 

DEALING WITH STRESS AND ANXIETY WHILE STUDYING

I have found that studying and having certain expectations placed on you by both yourself and others causes a lot of stress and often a lot of anxiety too. While I have not yet mastered how to chill out to a point where I am completely calm, I have developed a few techniques which I thought I could share to try and help others out there.

When I have a lot of things going on in my life, both personal and study-wise, I get a lot of anxiety and stress over the smallest of things. I feel myself constantly worrying about any and everything. And when one thing works itself out I worry about it all over again from a completely different angle. If I had a test coming up I would worry about whether I had enough time to study, and when I had studied as much as I could have I still worried that I could’ve done more. Even once I had written the test and felt I had done ok, I would worry all over again and doubt my own assessment of how it had gone. This has been a constant theme to my studying and it has fed into my personal life.I stress about everything, and worry so much that I am going to fail that I feel anxious constantly.

Not only has this effected my physical health (it effects my eyesight, and my fingers go numb from not breathing enough) it has also effected my mental health. This is too often not spoken about in the studying community. We are all so ready to focus on pretty notes, neat hand writing, and aesthetic desk layouts but we are too silent on what goes on behind the scenes.

Dealing with anxiety is a really common issue amongst a lot of students of all ages. As many as 1 in 6 people are effected by an anxiety disorder. In my case I experience only a part of what those with an actual disorder do, so I can’t give advice on how to handle anxiety disorders (if you do suffer from and anxiety disorder or think you may please go speak to your Doctor about dealing with it, because telling yourself to relax is not going to work). 

But this is what I suggest for how to handle a stressful situation and periods of anxiety brought on from studying.

1. PLAN YOUR LIFE OUT TO A TEE My stress and anxiety stems from a feeling of not being in control of my own situation and pressure to achieve. This combo spikes my anxiety to a whole new level and I am always convinced I am going to fall on my face and fail. What I have found as my best tool to defeat this feeling is to plan out everything. I mean everything. I assign a time to everything I do, which motivates me to keep pushing myself to get everything I need to done but also helps me feel like I am in control of all the moving parts of my life and that its not the other way round. 

Plan your meals, your studying times, what you have to study, when you will take studying breaks and how long those will be and what you will do during them. Set out hourly, daily and weekly goals of what you need to achieve. Work backward starting with weekly priorities and then decide which ones you will do on what day. From there determine when in the day you will be able to set aside time to get this done. Seriously this works so well.

2. TALK ABOUT IT Vent! People around you will be going through similar things as you, especially your friends who are in your classes etc. Other people feel your stress too, even if its not the same they will be able to understand it and can reassure you. I often get so worked up about the smallest things in my mind and once Ive spoken to my friends about it I feel so much better. Its not even about what they suggest but more about being able to unload your worries. Plus sometimes the advice is usually pretty solid.

3. EXERCISE Stress and anxiety have physical as well as mental side effects. I usually have tonnes of pent up energy from all the adrenaline when I’m really anxious (anxiety is caused by your body not being able to processes it). So releasing your energy through running or doing some type of activity will help you not only release all that energy but can also help you clear your head and get some quiet time to yourself and your own thoughts.

4. KNOW THAT YOU AREN’T PERFECT Accept that you are not always going to be perfect, and that if you don’t succeed you are not a failure but just a person. We all get it wrong sometimes, and cant do everything. You might not get that A or even pass a test. You might forget to do something on time or wont study enough as you could have. Don’t be so harsh on yourself, because you don’t need to be your own worst enemy. While its great to have high expectations for yourself, as this helps you achieve your goals, it is extremely self-destructive to tear yourself apart if you get something wrong.

5. SET OUT GOALS Create a vision board of your goals, aims or wishes. Stick it up somewhere you can see it often, as a visual reminder every day of what you are working toward is a great motivator to help you understand why you are in the situation that you are. I get really stressed out with studying and sometimes want to give up because the pressure is too much, but when I see my goals set out in front of me it serves as a great reminder of why I feel that stress — I want to achieve my goals. And its that realisation that I find has a calming effect as thats when the determination kicks in.

6. REFRAME YOUR THINKING  By reframing your anxiousness and stress from a negative thing into a positive thing, you can be a more productive version of yourself. By looking at your worries in a different way you can channel your stress into a positive outcome. Use it as a motivating tool to work hard, rather than as a distraction. While this is something that people with anxiety disorders can’t just do, if you experience stress and anxiety like I do you are more in control of your state of mind than you think. I give myself a little pep talk and realign how I am viewing a situation. You are the one who knows yourself best, so naturally you should be able to motivate yourself using the stress as a catalyst.

I hope this helps you calm down and take back control over your feelings of anxiousness and stress. These techniques work for me, but please add more that find help you! 

small ideas to adopt

This is mainly a reminder to myself tbh

Bouncing Back from Long-Term Burnout

A little background: Around a year and a half ago, I entered my junior year feeling de-motivated and overworked after my hell of a sophomore year schedule.  I definitely overloaded myself that year, and while I didn’t realize it at the time, it was slowly burning me out.  I didn’t start feeling re-motivated until about a month ago, and even now I’m not back at 100%.

To anyone who’s lacking that spark to study, I hope this helps.  These are the things that helped me feel better and eventually recover.  If you’re struggling with burnout, please please message me.  My inbox is always open <3

Keep up/at least do the bare minimum

Don’t slack on hygiene

Focus on your support system

Follow your interests

Be kind to yourself (yes this is cheesy but it’s important)

Again, if you’re struggling with burnout (or if you have questions about anything, really) feel free to message me!