- For the June 9 to 12, 2027 LSAT, a 16-week plan starts the week of February 15, 2027, and the registration deadline is April 29, 2027 [verify on lsac.org].
- The plan uses about 14 proctored full-length PrepTests, one a week from week 3, each followed by blind review the same day and a miss tally by structure.
- Weeks 2 to 7 build the system (twelve LR structures, conditional logic, RC structure map). Weeks 8 to 13 fix the subtle misses. Weeks 14 to 16 are rehearsal.
- Plan on 15 to 20 hours a week. Below 12, stretch the plan to 20 weeks rather than compressing the work.
- 158 to 170 is twelve points, roughly ten more questions right out of about 75. It is a realistic target for a student who does the review honestly, and it is a target, not a promise.
A 16-week plan for the June 2027 LSAT starts the week of February 15, 2027, runs one proctored PrepTest a week from week 3, and spends its middle ten weeks teaching the logical reasoning structures and reading comprehension map that account for the gap between 158 and 170. The gain is twelve points, which is roughly ten more questions right out of about 75 scored, and it is a target we set and revise honestly, not a promise. Here is the week-by-week plan, with what each week is for and what you should be able to do by the end of it.
The dates come from LSAC. The June 2027 administration runs June 9 to 12, the registration deadline is April 29, 2027, and scores release June 30, 2027 [verify at lsac.org]. Count back sixteen weeks from the test week and week 1 begins Monday, February 15. If you’re reading this later than that, the plan still works; compress the drilling weeks before you compress the rehearsal weeks, or move to August.
The shape before the weeks
Three things carry this plan, and if you keep only three, keep these. A proctored full-length PrepTest every week from week 3, taken under real conditions: four 35-minute sections, one break after section two, no pausing, no phone. Blind review the same day, before you check answers: rework every flagged question untimed, record a second answer, then score and sort every miss by cause. And a tally sheet, one page, with a row per logical reasoning structure and per reading comprehension question type, where you mark each miss. The tally is what tells you what to drill next week.
Hours: 15 to 20 a week. The weekly test and its review take about five. The rest is drilling, split roughly two to one in favor of logical reasoning, because LR is about two thirds of your scored questions on the current format.
Weeks 1 to 2: diagnostic and the vocabulary
Week 1 (Feb 15). Take a current-format diagnostic under full proctoring. If you have a recent official score or a PrepTest from the last six weeks with your answer sheet, use that instead and skip to the review. Blind review it. Sort every miss into the twelve LR structures and the RC question types. This is the week we run the debrief if you’re working with us; the output is a named target and the two or three structures that carry most of your misses.
Week 2. Learn the names. Read the twelve argument structures and, for three LR sections from old PrepTests, write the structure number next to every question before answering. Untimed. Your tagging should be nearly perfect by the end of the week. On the RC side, read the structure-mapping guide and map two passages a day untimed with the five-column table. No full test this week.
By the end of week 2 you should be able to name any LR question’s structure in under ten seconds and produce a five-column map of a passage in about four minutes.
Weeks 3 to 7: build the system
This is where the plan is heaviest, and where most self-study plans are thinnest. The goal is to make a prephrase automatic on every LR question and to make the RC map faster than reading for content.
| Week | Logical reasoning focus | Reading comprehension focus | Test |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 (Mar 1) | Conditional logic: diagram every conditional, write the contrapositive, name the converse trap. Two untimed sections. | Map with a visible timer, 3.5-minute target per passage | PrepTest 1, blind review, tally |
| 4 | Necessary vs sufficient assumption. Negation test on every necessary question. One timed section a day. | Comparative pair: map both, write the relationship line | PrepTest 2 |
| 5 | Flaw and method: name the gap in plain words before test language. One timed section a day. | Function and attitude questions; mark every pivot word | PrepTest 3 |
| 6 | Strengthen, weaken, evaluate: find the gap once, prephrase all three. Degree words circled. | Full timed RC section every other day | PrepTest 4 |
| 7 | Inference pair and parallel: skeleton the stimulus, match the conclusion first. | Full timed RC section every other day | PrepTest 5 |
Each week’s drilling pulls from the tally. If week 4’s test shows flaw questions carrying six misses, week 5’s flaw focus gets extra sections; if it shows two, week 5 is lighter and you borrow time for the week 6 material.
By the end of week 7 the prephrase should exist on every LR question before you read the choices, your RC read-and-map should be at or under three and a half minutes, and the weekly tally should have shifted: whatever carried the most misses in week 1 should no longer be at the top. Typical scores at this point, for a student who started at 158, are in the low to mid 160s. If you’re still at 158 to 159, that is the signal to get a hand review, because the misses are not responding to the structural fix and something else is going on.
Weeks 8 to 13: the subtle misses
From here the misses change character. You know the structures and you prephrase. What’s left are the five misses in the plateau guide: necessary treated as sufficient, scope shifts, the converse, degree mismatches and the true-but-useless answer. These are taught, not drilled into existence, and each is a one- to two-week project.
Week 8 (Apr 5). Revise the target. Look at the six tests so far and the tally. If the trend supports 170, keep it. If it supports 166, say so and plan for 166, with the option to retake in August. This is the honest checkpoint and it is more useful than any drilling you do this week. Drilling: scope shifts, subject-of-conclusion versus subject-of-premise on every flaw and strengthen question. PrepTest 6.
Week 9. Degree and quantity: circle every quantifier in the conclusion and in every answer choice for two full sections. PrepTest 7.
Week 10. The true-but-useless answer: for every strengthen, weaken and evaluate question in two sections, write what each wrong answer does to the conclusion (usually “nothing”). PrepTest 8.
Week 11. Timing. Two timed LR sections a day, targeting 35 minutes with every question attempted. Section-order experiments on RC: hardest passage first versus last, and decide. PrepTest 9.
Week 12. Weak-structure week. Whatever the tally says, and only that. PrepTest 10.
Week 13 (May 10). Stamina. Add a fifth section to the proctored test this week, LR or RC, so that four feels short. PrepTest 11. Registration closed April 29; your test center or remote slot should be confirmed by now [verify].
By the end of week 13 the tally should be flat and low. Flat means no structure carries more than two or three misses; low means total misses on the three scored sections in the single digits to low teens. That is the 167 to 170 range on most current scales.
Weeks 14 to 16: rehearsal
The last three weeks are about reproducing your practice score on the day, which is a different skill from raising it. Nothing new gets learned here; what you have gets rehearsed.
Week 14 (May 17). Dress rehearsal one. Full test at your real start time, in the clothes you’ll wear, with the breakfast you’ll eat, using the exact break length. Blind review as usual. Drilling drops to one section a day on your two weakest structures. PrepTest 12.
Week 15. Section-order and unscored-section protocol. Decide, in writing, how you will handle a section that feels strange: you will treat it as scored and you will not think about it during the next section. Practice that with a test that includes a deliberately hard borrowed section. PrepTest 13.
Week 16 (May 31). Dress rehearsal two, no later than Saturday June 5. Then taper: one light untimed section a day through Tuesday, nothing on Wednesday, test on your scheduled day between June 9 and 12. Do not take a full test in the final four days. A low score in the last week has never helped anyone, and a high one does not change what you know.
What 158 to 170 looks like on the tally
Twelve points on a current-format scale is roughly ten questions. A student who starts at 158 is usually missing around 20 to 22 across the three scored sections; at 170 they miss 7 to 9. Spread over the plan, that is about one fewer miss per week on average, which is undramatic and achievable. The misses tend to come off in clumps rather than evenly: a structure that carried five misses drops to one when the fix lands, and the score jumps three points in a week, then holds for two weeks while the next fix is built.
Expect two plateaus, usually around weeks 5 to 6 and weeks 10 to 11. They are not failures. They are the gap between learning a distinction and making it automatic under time, and they end when the drilling catches up. If a plateau lasts more than three weeks with honest review, that is the point to bring the tally to someone who can see what you can’t.
Rick’s note: I revise the target at week 8 with every student, out loud, with the tally in front of us. Sometimes it goes up. Sometimes I say “this is a 166 and a strong August retake,” and the student is relieved to hear it said plainly. Nobody has ever been helped by a tutor who kept saying 170 when the sheet said otherwise.
Adjusting the plan
If you have 20 weeks, add them to weeks 3 to 7, one extra week each on conditional logic, assumptions and the inference pair. Don’t lengthen rehearsal. If you have 12 weeks, cut week 2 to three days, merge weeks 9 and 10, and keep both dress rehearsals. Below 12 weeks from a 158 start, a 170 target is not realistic for June, and the right plan is August with the full 16 weeks; the June or August guide lays out that choice.
If you’re starting from 163 rather than 158, the same plan applies with weeks 3 to 7 compressed to three weeks, because you already prephrase; the gain is in the subtle-miss block, and you should get there by week 5. The plateau guide is the syllabus for that block.
What to do this week
- Confirm the June 2027 test dates, registration deadline and score release on lsac.org, and register if you have not. Put April 29 in your calendar as a hard stop.
- Count back sixteen weeks and write the sixteen Monday dates on one page, with the focus of each week from this guide.
- Build the tally sheet: twelve LR structures and five RC question types as rows, sixteen test columns.
- Take the week 1 diagnostic proctored, or dig out a PrepTest from the last six weeks with your answer sheet, and blind review it.
- Send the diagnostic and the first tally for a debrief if you want the target named by someone who has seen the pattern before. Then start week 2.
Questions people ask
Is 158 to 170 in 16 weeks realistic?
It’s a reasonable target for a student who puts in 15 to 20 hours a week and does blind review on every test. Twelve points is about ten more questions right across three scored sections. Some students get there in twelve weeks, some need twenty, and some land at 166 and apply with that. We name the target at the diagnostic debrief and revise it honestly at week 8 based on the tally.
How many PrepTests do I need?
About 14 full tests for the weekly proctored sittings, plus sections from another 10 to 15 older tests for drilling. LSAC’s LawHub provides official PrepTests; check the current catalog and which ones are in the two-LR format. Log every section you use so you never see one twice.
What if I miss a week?
Skip the drilling, not the proctored test. The weekly test and its review are the spine of the plan; the drilling is adjustable. If you miss two weeks in a row, shift the whole schedule back a week and consider the August test instead of June.
Can I do this schedule while working full time?
Yes, at the low end of the hours range: two hours on four weeknights plus a Saturday morning for the proctored test and its review is about 13 to 15 hours. Protect the Saturday block above everything else. If weeknights are unreliable, run the plan over 20 weeks from late January instead.
When should I register?
As soon as you decide on June. LSAC’s registration deadline for the June 2027 test is April 29, 2027, and scheduling for a specific test center or remote slot opens separately and fills, so register early and schedule the day it opens [verify dates on lsac.org].