For instance, many law students find that they struggle far more than they realize to grasp the concepts of statutory interpretation. A lot of students find that they simply don’t have the time or the confidence to understand this part of the course. It’s perfectly understandable; calculus is much too demanding to tackle within a single year. However, as a result of spending so much time studying for the exam, many law students choose to take the LSAT and then leave the topic so behind that they fail the LSAT. That’s a huge mistake! Spend your time studying for the different sections of the BCPA, and then try to brush up on the statutory interpretation skills as well.
You see, one of the best ways to prepare for the LSAT is to actually practice every topic. You can’t just wing it. You have to make sure that you understand the material well enough to pass the test. The first thing that you need to know is exactly how much time you have to study. Generally speaking, you should study for at least four months before you take the LSAT.
Now, I know that some of you law school professors are going to scoff at this advice. After all, you’re not going to be able to take a full load of exams at once. However, that’s not really helping you. Rather, you should consider dividing up your time appropriately. If you have three topics to focus on, then you need to spend approximately four months on each of those topics. You may even want to divide up your time by topic so that you can spend more time on practice LSAT exams.
By the way, don’t make the mistake of thinking that you’re going to have to study as if you were preparing for a true measurement or regression analysis in engineering. For instance, when you’re asked to draw a graph, you probably won’t have to do anything more than memorizing the graphing function. You won’t have to write a sentence about quadratic equations. All that you have to do is follow the prompts and pass all of the exams.
If you’re going to go over your entire course of study, however, then you might as well consider a textbook. At the very least, you can start with the most important topics. Those are definitely the ones that you’ll need to spend the most time on. As you move through the textbooks, you’ll likely be tempted to skip over topics that you’re not quite as familiar with yet. This is fine – you can always get another day to tackle those concepts.
When I took my BCAP, I made sure to put at least some time toward practice. And I did learn a lot of stuff on the BCAP. In fact, a couple of years ago, I got a C average on all three sections! But I still didn’t have the confidence to do well on the actual exam. When I started practicing, however, I quickly began to see just how much of the material was really relevant.
Now I’m studying just like everybody else. I’ve been reading up about the different kinds of exams and have been reviewing my notes constantly. I’ve also spent a lot of time practicing, and I’ve found that it pays off. I’m getting closer to my goal. As long as I do all of these things, and get some practice exams, I should do very well on the BCAP.
