A marathon is a marathon is a marathon. No matter where you are, it’s still 26.2 miles, you’re still going to have to put Vaseline on your nipples, someone is still going to be twitching on the side of the road, and you’re still going to not be able to move for a week.

The LSAT is the same way. Whether it’s February, June, September/October¹, or December, you’ll still have to complete five sections of logical reasoning, logic games, and reading comprehension; you’ll still have to complete a writing sample, and you’ll still have to write a passage in cursive that will wreak havoc with what little muscle memory you have left in your wrist.

When to Study

That said, we at Blueprint Test Preparation want you to know that the preparation you put in for each individual test varies greatly. With the September/October LSAT, the preparation is starkly different from that of the other administrations, because, with the September/October test, college students have all summer to study. For those of you in the workforce, summer is also a time when taking time off work is acceptable, so it can be a good administration for that reason, too. At Blueprint Test Preparation, we know the summer is plenty of time to study for the LSAT. However, don’t make the mistake we at Blueprint Test Prep see some students make, which is to begin studying at the start of summer but wait until the month before the LSAT to do homework. That way lies madness, (and probably a poor LSAT score).

How to Study

In total, we at Blueprint Test Prep recommend setting aside two to three months of study time (approximately two to four hours a day with occasional breaks). The first month should be spent familiarizing yourself with the test and working out a methodology for each section. If you’re taking a prep course or studying from a book, you’ll be learning the methodology from a company. If not, you’ll be figuring it out on your own.

Once you’ve settled on a good methodology, we at Blueprint Test Preparation recommend that the second month of your time should be spent practicing the methodology correctly until applying the method becomes second nature. Then, we at Blueprint Test Prep think it’s time to start taking LSATs. At Blueprint Test Prep, we see many LSAT students who study by taking practice LSATs over and over again at the beginning of the process, but we find it’s rarely as effective. After all, how can you gauge your performance on an exam before you’ve even figured out how to approach the test?

We hope you found this helpful and wish you luck on the September/October LSAT!

1. At Blueprint Test Preparation, we use “September/October” to refer to the fall LSAT which some years occurs in 
September and other years occurs in—you guessed it—October.

Article by Jodi Triplett and Trent Teti of Blueprint Test Preparation. Blueprint Test Prep offers live and online 
LSAT prep courses and law school application consulting. Blueprint Test Preparation was formed in 2005.