LSAT study plan for a 160s starting score

A 10-week plan for starting in the 160s. Your remaining points are hiding in hard questions and review discipline.

Plan tools: the study plan generator builds a custom schedule, and the free diagnostic finds your starting point.

Who this plan is for

This plan is for you if your diagnostic landed in the 160s and you are aiming for the high 160s or 170s. You already score well. Gains now come from hard questions, careful review, and full-test stamina. About 100 hours of study time, estimate.

The plan, week by week

1. Week 1: find the leaks
   • Take a full diagnostic or use your most recent score.
   • Sort misses into three piles: careless, timing, genuinely hard.
   • The genuinely hard pile is your syllabus for the next month.
2. Weeks 2-3: hard LR types
   • Drill parallel reasoning, point at issue, principle, and method of reasoning.
   • Use difficulty 4 and 5 questions only. Easy ones teach you nothing now.
   • Review every miss by writing why the right answer is right and the trap is wrong.
3. Week 4: RC at the top end
   • Focus on detail and strongly supported questions.
   • Read for what the author thinks, not just what the facts say.
   • Do two hard passages per session. Check every answer against the text.
4. Weeks 5-6: timed sections
   • Two timed sections per week, alternating LR and RC.
   • Review every question you flagged, including ones you got right.
   • Track where time goes: which types eat your minutes?
5. Weeks 7-8: full tests
   • One full timed test per week. Morning, quiet, full timing rules.
   • Review the next day. Re-do every miss without looking at the answer.
   • Watch for score variance. Consistent beats spiky.
6. Week 9: repair week
   • Study only from your miss log. Nothing new.
   • Re-do every question you have missed twice.
   • Re-drill your two worst types one last time.
7. Week 10: taper
   • Two light drill days early in the week.
   • Rest. Handle test-day logistics: ID, admission ticket, route, sleep.
   • No new material. Trust the work you did.

Rules for this plan

• At this level, review matters more than volume. One hour of review beats two hours of new questions.
• Blind review is the whole game now. Cover the answer and re-argue it.
• Careless misses are a system problem. Slow down on the first five questions of each section.
• Do not chase one more point with a new strategy in the last two weeks.
• Sleep is a study tool. Protect it.

More study plans

• 140s starter plan - a 12-week plan for a 140s diagnostic score.
• 150s starter plan - a 12-week plan for a 150s diagnostic score.
• 5-hours-a-week plan - a 16-week plan for 5 study hours per week.
• 10-hours-a-week plan - a 12-week plan for 10 study hours per week.
• 15-hours-a-week plan - a 12-week plan for 15 study hours per week.
• 20-hours-a-week plan - an 8-week plan for 20 study hours per week.
• RC-focused plan - a 10-week plan that puts Reading Comprehension first.
• LR-focused plan - a 10-week plan that puts Logical Reasoning first.
• balanced plan - a 10-week plan for even scores with no clear weak section.
• 5-point retake plan - an 8-week plan to gain about 5 points on a retake.
• 10-point retake plan - a 12-week plan to gain about 10 points on a retake.
• final month plan - a 30-day plan for the last month before the test.
• final week plan - a 7-day taper for the week before the test.
• summer intensive - an 8-week full-time summer LSAT plan.
• winter break intensive - a 4-week winter break LSAT plan.
• first week guide - a 7-day starter guide for your first week of LSAT prep.

Back to all study plans

Last updated October 12, 2026