Master The LSAT With Learning Science

What’s the best way to study for the LSAT?

The traditional educational model dictates that you should read about the test and then try to solve questions, but recent research into learning science has uncovered breakthroughs that can save you time and energy on your prep.

Let’s say you were holding a bean bag toss tournament. One month from now, two teams would be given a target 10 feet away and told to hit it with some bean bags.

But the two teams would practice in different ways:

• Team 1 would practice on the actual, 10-feet-away target from the final competition.
• Team 2 would practice on a different target; one that would randomly reposition either nine feet away or 11 feet away.

Which team is your money on?

Unless someone’s expecting the trick (and, honestly, I was obviously trying to trick you), most people would put money on the first group that’s practicing what they’re eventually competing over. However, studies show that’s the wrong group to bet on.

Our brains work in mysterious ways, and studies are uncovering the counterintuitive principles underlying how humans learn new skills. Let’s take a look at how you can use these breakthroughs in learning science to study for the LSAT as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Also: Dax Bok Yat Koj Ped.

(All will be revealed in time; keep reading.)

Interleaving: Fixing a Block to Learning.

The study cited above is an example of blocked vs. interleaved study.

Thinking back to your education, how often would you sit down with a given piece of material and read it over and over again until you had it down cold? I’d venture as many times as you promptly forgot it the next day.

Blocked practice is focusing on a single topic during an entire study period. It is less effective.

Interleaved practice involves switching between different topics during the same study session. It’s more effective.

Why?

The two primary theories are:

1. Distinguishing strategies: One of the hardest things on the LSAT is recognizing when a concept applies. If you try to do all your learning on, for example, strengthen questions in one go, your brain will “load” the strengthen strategy once, and then cruise. If, however, you switch between topics, your brain will have to load and reload those strategies. Each time you reload the strategy, it gets reinforced.
2. Associations: Your brain is a network of pathways. The more concepts you’ve reviewed “close” to each other, the more pathways lead to that concept. These connections all make it easier to recall the entire map of concepts you’ve studied.

How can I apply interleaving to my LSAT studies?

Practically, this means you shouldn’t “focus” on one thing during your study sessions. Mix different question types together. Throw in a random LG setup in the middle of LR questions. Read a passage or two to bookend LG work. Mix things up so you have to keep recalling the strategies you’re practicing.

How long will interleaving my LSAT studies take?

Sounds like a lot to fit into one study session? Yep! They’re going to be packed. Especially since they should last no longer than one hour.

What? No cramming? Correct; no cramming.

Studying experts in many fields, and studying novices learning a new skill, 60 minutes tends to be the ideal length of studying in one go. Granted, the studies showed that several of these sprints per day was ideal (with plenty of rest between), but the results were stark.

When prepping your studies, it’s much better to do some in the morning, some at lunch, and some in the evening than to get all your studying done in one chunk of time.

Scaffolding: Not Just for Buildings, but the LSAT too!

Scaffolding is a teaching technique where a teacher provides just enough of an explanation to get a student past the sticking point, then allowing the student to work through the rest of the problem. As you can imagine, making the pupil do more work is more effective than making them do less.

Scaffolding is hard to do on your own. However, there are ways you can simulate scaffolding while studying by yourself:

• Quiz yourself.
• Create flashcards and then use them.
• When stumped and reading an explanation, stop at the “aha!” moment and rework the question with that in mind.
• Have a study partner so that you can serve as scaffolders for each other.
• In short, don’t read explanations; work to understanding.

Remember to forget. Forget to remember.

Do you remember the nonsense syllables from the intro? Hermann Ebbinghaus does. (Well, did. He died in 1909.)

One of the first memory researchers, Ebbinghaus spent decades memorizing nonsense syllables to see how learning worked. What he found out is that you need to forget something a few times before it’ll stick.

That’s right: Forgetting is an integral part of learning.

So don’t feel bad when you go to review material and you’ve forgotten it –you’re actually on your way to learning! Refresh the material, do some more interleaved practice on the subject and other areas, and then leave it for a while. You’ll forget it, repeat this process, and slowly build up your skills in a way that won’t leave you on test day.

(The syllables were Dax Bok Yat Koj Ped, by the way.)

Develop Implementation Intentions.

So much of LSAT prep is figuring out how what you just learned in a question about dinosaurs can be applied to future question about traffic signals. These patterns are what make up the “material” of the test, and they’re important to learn.

However, in the intensity of test day, it can be easy to get flustered and not be able to apply your strategies at the right time. How hard? Some might say as hard as following through on your New Year’s Resolution.

Luckily, learning science has shown us a way to both quit smoking and make sure we don’t lose our processes on test day: Implementation intentions will save the day!

Implementation intentions are if-then statements (that’s right, you can’t get away from conditional logic) that tell you when you’re going to do something, and what you’re going to do.

An example of an implementation intention might be:

Next time I am attempting a strengthen/weaken question, I will first check to see if the conclusion is causal.
There’s a whole strategy around what to do next, but you have to remember to check.

For every question during your studies, you should have at least two or three of these. There are only so many strategies to be used on the entire LSAT, and the more times you go over and implement them, the better off you’ll be.

So, if you finish reviewing a problem, then you will write an implementation intention. This is your first (and most important) intention; build a library as you work through prep. (For more on how to form good implementation intentions, read our blog post here.)

Master the LSAT with Learning Science.

Here’s how to put interleaving, scaffolding, forgetting, and implementation intentions together to study for the LSAT with science on your side:

1. Plan 2-3 one-hour sessions per day.
2. Read over your implementation intentions developed during the last study session at the beginning of the next one. (See point 6 for when to write these.)
3. Then, work on material, regularly jumping between different question types/sections.
4. If you hit something you don’t remember, great! Review it, and you’ll know it better.
5. When checking wrong answers, read explanations only until you have a breakthrough, and then retry the question with that new knowledge.
6. While reviewing (and then again towards the end of the study session), generate strategy takeaways in the form of implementation intentions for how you’re going to recognize concepts and what strategy you’re going to apply when you see them.
7. Demolish the LSAT.

Also, Dax Bok Yat Koj Ped.

Sound more familiar this time, don’t they? You’ll probably remember a few tomorrow.

Want to study even more efficiently? Get expert instruction and guidance with our LSAT Complete Course, built with learning science to optimize the effectiveness of your prep. You can try the first class session for free, so you have nothing to lose.

And don’t forget to Follow Manhattan Prep LSAT on Facebook to receive updates about live broadcasts from me, featuring tips and tricks to master the test.

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Matt Shinners is an LSAT Instructor and the LSAT Program Manager for Manhattan Prep. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Matt owns a perfect 180 LSAT score and has made a career combining his passion for teaching with knowledge of the test to help students achieve their goals. Manhattan Prep is a leader in LSAT prep, with courses engineered using the latest techniques in learning science to optimize high-level learning. Sound interesting? You can try the class for free.