The idea of taking practice exams is not a novel one. Many people have used practice tests to hone their skills and get ready for other exams. Law schools have also long employed practice exams to gauge their applicants’ readiness for the legal profession. Now, the administration is taking over that tradition and making it mandatory for all potential members of the legal profession to take one or more practice exams each year before they are allowed to become a full-fledged member of the faculty. This is part of the reforms implemented by LSC to improve the quality of their recruits.
The main purpose of these practice exams is to assess how well you are prepared for the real thing. You will have to pass a very difficult multiple-choice exam, then write a comprehensive essay all about your experiences as a practicing attorney. All of these are then timed in order to gauge your reading speed, verbal communication skills, written communication skills, as well as your attention span. The focus of these assessments is not on scoring a perfect score on the LSAT, but rather to determine if you have the right intellectual capacity and the personality to pass the LSAT.
It will be hard to resist the temptation to click away and take some quick notes during the administration period. But the temptation might also tempt you to skip the exams altogether. The reason why this temptation is strong is because many law school graduates and fresh law school graduates are busily searching for the perfect school to enroll in. And some students are also so busy with their hectic schedules, that they may not even have time to take a deep breath and think about their studies seriously. This can really be a huge mistake.
If you are one of those students who don’t take practice exams seriously, then you really need to reconsider. Not only will you be wasting your time, you will also be exposing yourself to having false sense of confidence, and a low ceiling to the expectations of your peers. Your grades will reflect your attitude. So, if you want to excel in Law School, you need to be serious about your studies.
One way of ensuring you are serious is to set a daily time to study. You will need a set time for every day to focus on your studies and nothing else. Make sure you stick to it. If you cannot stick to a schedule, then you are wasting your precious time and energy.
Practice the questions the same way as you would normally do them. Do not try to memorize all the answers. Only when you feel confident that you understand the question, will you try to memorize the answer. Most likely, the prior administration exam gave you a hint or two about the right answer. So do not copy the exact format of the question and then try to derive the answer from memory. Memorizing the format will only give you false confidence.
Another way of preparing for the test is by studying the problems in algebra and physics. This will prepare you for any kind of question in calculus. In addition to studying these concepts, you can also take a review class in any relevant areas of law school. You can then apply what you have learned and ace the exam.
