Posted 17 February 2012 - 08:21 PM
I'm not sure if 6 weeks is the best timeline if you want to get a good score as the LSAT isn't something you cram for. You generally want to have a margin of error from your PrepTests to the real thing, as you shouldn't underestimate nerves once you're writing the real thing. If you can PT with an average of 166+, you're going to be in good shape to hit your target score of 163. That said, I always tell people to aim as high as they possibly can as you don't know what new doors a high LSAT score can open for you.
Let me start by telling you that a 154 is a good diagnostic score (mine was lower than that, but I ended up with a 99th percentile score.) -8 on RC is a pretty good spot to be, as it's the most difficult section to improve, and there's no agreed-upon formula to attacking those sections, unlike certain types of LR questions or LG in general. And it's good news for you if LG is where you're losing a lot of points, because this is where massive gains can come with practice. One thing I should caution you about RC is that if your diagnostic test was from earlier tests, the format and framing of questions has changed in the more recent LSATs. LR is not necessarily harder, but there are more obscure types of questions. LG has gotten trickier with a greater emphasis on hybrid games that aren't easily setup. RC is just plain harder, with denser passages and more inference-like questions, instead of the older RC passages which sometimes ask you to regurgitate what the author said.
Not knowing your free time, I'd recommend budgeting a few hours a week until April if you can to go through the Bibles slowly, as this stuff doesn't click that quickly for most people. The skills you learn along the way build on each other, and if you understand the fundamentals of answering certain questions, the harder stuff that comes next will be easier and so forth. Drilling individual sections timed is a good idea, and most important of all, you should be reviewing every question you got wrong, review all the choices and figure out why each choice is right or wrong. Do this for any questions that you found difficult, but got right anyways. One thing about the LSAT is that sometimes 2 choices may appear right, and in those cases you should be doing a "why is this wrong" test, and reviewing question choices will teach you the more common flaws with answer choices.
Always do PrepTests timed and with experimental sections that you pulled randomly. Do them in an area with some minor distractions, like your university's library, and simulate real conditions with a analog watch. Also, don't do too many PTs a week, maybe 2 or 3 at most, and make sure you spend a few hours reviewing each one, which is much more constructive than chugging out multiple tests a week and making the same errors over and over again. Try to focus on the more recent PTs, especially those after June 2007, but use the earlier ones as practice. Get your hands on more PTs (order them online, or through Amazon, I'm not going to encourage anything illegal.)
Just as a final note, it's good you're planning to write in June. Don't beat yourself up if it doesn't go well as you'll have October and December to fall back on.
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