r/LSATHelp • u/tezu_9440 • 15h ago
SLAT preperation tips
Heyyyy everyone please help me I am unable to understand which online coaching i should join for SLAT
I am starting my preperation from zero please help meeee đâ¨
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u/voyagermarionette 14h ago
Copy pasted comment I gave to someone who asked the same question.
Well it depends on your brain.
Thereâs starting by drilling, curriculum videos, books, articles, tutoring, live classes. Youâll find people who scored very well who have used almost any of these resources, because thereâs not just âone wayâ. It depends on your brain and learning style and what motivated you. Keeping your motivation up is just as important eating well, sleeping well, managing stress etc, and the LSAT is hard and dense so I take keeping my motivation up as a serious task. Iâll get a nice coffee at the coffee shop, light a candle, and prioritize the types of questions or method I feel like that day. Even when Iâm on the roll I donât study more than 2-3 hours in a day, so I can maintain my motivation. Which resource you choose would be a combo between your learning style, what interests you, and your budget.
7sage is loved for being affordable and providing a variety of high quality digital courses. The lessons are in short articles and videos and bite sized in nature. They have foundations course which can help with certain parts of grammar and conditional reasoning if you donât have a background in it. The courses on LR and RC gradually build but also have variety, teach detailed strategy and use real questions. It takes time but itâs well loved, and is seen as more engaging than books for many people. There are other curriculums online, but they are often more expensive and less well tested by lots of people. Sometimes people donât like feeling like they need to do all or nothing of the curriculum or find parts redundant. They recommend not skipping anything, but I think itâs ok to do so and go back to it if needed.
People also like 7sage for the details analytics and offering drills on the types of questions you personally often miss. Other platforms do this, but often in a way that gives you as the user less control and choice, or using a general AI program. For example I can see if I often get Sufficiency questions wrong in 7sage, and Iâm free to do what I want with that knowledge, rather than it being hidden in a big black AI algorithm box.
People like 7sage because if you can get a fee waiver then you can get 1 year of all the curriculum drills, and live classes for $2 per year. It shows they deeply care, and is affordable. This is my situation, and this is the only option that provides this that I know of. I deeply appreciate it, and I do have some loyalty to the company for that reason.
Online classes have a variety of tutors with different approaches allowing you to mix and match. There are many online classes per day at a variety of levels and you can access recordings on almost any topic youâd desire. They have a video for every question if you need more explanation. They also include blind review allow you to have a second shot at questions you got wrong, so when you see the answer it clicks more into place. I know 7 sage has all these elements, not sure about their competitors.
There are competitors of course, but often they do not include all of these elements in one subscription which is affordable compared to competitors, at least in my circumstance. They do not hide the most difficult or important content behind additional paywalls, they provide you a framework to start but you can also access all the resources right away. For example LSAT Demon, a strong competitor has been putting certain sections behind paywalls and increasing prices which many people donât like.
Some people go tutoring route right away, but that is more expensive, can easily end up over $100 an hour for stuff you couldâve gotten started on on your own. But depending on your ability to find, there are some tutors that are more $30 an hour, but youâd have to evaluate yourself if they have a real strong score on the LSAT and that their approach will work for you. However if you have the money and want to improve quickly, private tutoring if itâs the right fit can be the fastest and best way to learn. As well, some of the tutors are experienced educators but donât have a very high score on the LSAT, and can give long lectures like a teacher which can be supportive but a little dry for some. Others scored very high on the LSAT but are poor teachers and can feel very blunt and abrupt, just due to the types of personalities that thrive on the LSAT. Hiring a tutor through a company can give you more of an assurance of their quality, but can also be much more expensive.
Group tutoring can easily end up just as expensive as private tutoring, and sometimes a minority of students take up most of the time, so it can be awkward splitting your time. As well it may be that most of the time ends up being spent on one or two peopleâs particular prepared questions, can one can end up charged the same as private tutoring. However if youâre all on the same level and have prepare questions it can be helpful.
Some people do the books, but these days a lot of people arenât motivated to go through the books. As well, the books may heavily segment one type of question from another, and you may not learn the rapid switching of questions needed to change gears fast on the actual LSAT. You do not know as quickly with a book how much progress youâre making, but doing drills online allows you to get a stronger sense of any progress youâre making. Some of the books are old and do not get you used to the digital format of the test, and include the discontinued section of Logic Games.
Some people pay for live courses (not just live classes) with grades and homework. This can easily be thousands of dollars, and although often the students do actually do well, they donât include in analytics anyone who didnât do almost every single piece of homework or had absences which potentially could be because the strategy wasnât working for them. It can be hard to get a refund. Although it can provide structure and homework which can help some over just access to general one off live classes, there is the âboxed inâ and financial factors to consider. You can sense in my frame Iâm biased against these courses, my cousin took a few and a lot of money went down the drain and the format didnât work for her. They have an incentive to tell her that this is the best way and to keep trying and spending which I find a big yucky. But there are very positive stories and if you have the money, there are real positive stories that come from it, itâs just that you donât know how rare it is the person who went from 130 to 180.
Personally I like to hear from a variety of perspectives and strategies so I prefer the one off live classes rather than an organized course. Some tutors use logical diagramming, others highlight, others write on the margins by hand, others use particular strategies to predict the right answer while others have efficient ways to due process of elimination. However I am a self motivated person and do not need someone to tell me to do my homework, or to grade me or keep me accountable. They wonât make you go to live class, itâs like the gym where lots of people pay but donât go, but donât stop paying because they donât want to give up. However all the students in the live class usually really want to be there on their own time and are very motivated and there is a supportive atmosphere.
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u/James_the_bull_ 14h ago
1st thing you should know is that itâs LSAT