LSAT Test Day - how to prepare

In case you don't have the time to watch that right now, I’m going to give you 5 of the best ways to prepare for Test Day. (If you want the full list of 10, click here.)

In true listicle form....


5 recommendations for the week leading up to the test:

1. Visit your LSAT test center.

The best way to get rid of pre-test jitters is to see where you'll be taking the LSAT.


2. Decide what you'll wear.
This isn't Project Runway - I'm talking about comfort. Wear a couple of layers, including your lucky t-shirt or sweatshirt. It doesn't matter what time of year it is. The room you're in might be hot or cold. Hoodies aren't permitted, though. When I took the LSAT, security wouldn't let me bring mine in. I was forced to stash it in a nearby park because test centers don't have a place to check banned items.


3. Decide what you'll bring.
Fill a see-through plastic bag with your admission ticket, #2 pencils, energy bars, bananas, a bottle of water, photo ID, a logic game (#9 explains why), and an analog watch. Make sure you bring a watch because it's possible that the room won't have a clock. Consider bringing a magazine or something to read on your way to the test center. See the Law School Admissions Council's day of test rules since the rules are updated frequently. Security does not allow you to bring a cell phone, so plan how you'll manage.


4. Relax the day before your exam.
If you studied for a decent period of time, one more day won't make a big difference. It's good to take a break so you don't burn out. Remember - there's a world beyond the LSAT!


5. Get to bed early the night before and set multiple alarms.
You want to be well-rested for the exam. Make sure you don't drink anything with caffeine after 3PM.


There's a LOT to think about in the final weeks before the exam. And most students don't realize the strategies they need to be using until it's too late.

In order to avoid a massive score drop, you need to be ready for anything.

That's why my LSAT courses provide anxiety-reduction techniques and strategies to simulate even the worst test centers.

But that's not all - they also review the most important rules and strategies you need to be aware of before walking in.

I share what top-performing students do in the lead-up to Test Day to ensure success while others - even smart, talented students - get stuck and don’t know why. 


In this course, I show you:
  • the 3 biggest mistakes students make when taking timed practice tests
  • the most common test center problems (and how to avoid them)
  • how to manage and overcome LSAT test anxiety
  • how to simulate Test Day conditions and predict your score
  • how to avoid an unexpected “Test Day Score Drop”

I’m going to show you the system I use to prepare my students for Test Day that approaches it from every angle. If you want to increase your LSAT score and reliably perform at that level in real-world conditions, I’m going to show you some of the most effective and powerful LSAT Mindset techniques I've developed and refined over the last 12+ years. 


  • you’ve never taken the LSAT before and are worried about what Test Day will look like
  • you’ve taken the LSAT, but it didn’t go well, and you want to improve on your retake
  • you feel like you won’t be able to translate your understanding at home into “real-world” conditions
  • you’re on the fence as to whether or not you should take it because you have major test-taking anxiety
  • anxiety starts kicking in at the first section, and even if you manage to calm down, you still can’t finish in time because you had to keep rereading

Join now and set yourself up for LSAT Test Day Success.


Very truly yours,
LSAT Steve



P.S. As always, if you have any questions or need anything as Test Day approaches, feel free to ask. I’m here to help.


P.P.S. Next time, I’ll share some advice on choosing a test center.




0 comments

The LSAT and J.K. Rowling

I think most people would agree LSAT Reading Comprehension can be thoroughly and completely boring.

If you ever wondered why that is, it’s actually by design.

There are a lot of factors in what goes into writing a Reading Comprehension passage, and they almost always conspire to make it incredibly dull to read.
The good news is it doesn’t have to be!

Believe it or not, Reading Comp passages can be more like Harry Potter than deciphering Greek.

How? Here’s a counter-intuitive piece of advice: don't try to absorb all the content.  


Here’s what I mean by that:

Read quickly, but don't skim.

When most people think of skimming, they think of reading on a superficial level. They try some silly strategy like reading the first and last sentence of each paragraph. Hey, if it worked for grammar school textbooks and the SAT, it'll work here, right?


Wrong.

This isn't grammar school. The LSAT's not going to bake you cookies or read you a bedtime story.

LSAT Reading Comp passages are organized differently than textbooks (or SAT passages), and they have a different focus.


You want to read quickly, but you don't want to skip the middle of a paragraph just because it's the middle. The LSAT often includes important nuggets in the middle of passages because people tend to gloss over them.

Read slightly slower than a typical skim, but faster than a thorough read.

You're not reading for content or facts. Instead, you're reading for argumentative structure and for the positions and viewpoints presented.


If you know the structure, you'll know where to find each nugget of info in the passage when the questions ask for it.


Next time, I’ll share some ideas to help you prepare for Test Day.

Stay tuned!

LSAT Steve


Recommended Resources:
1. LSAT Courses
The best of my LSAT materials, with my full curriculum for each section, including video courses, guides, and study plans to keep you on track. You can save hundreds of dollars with an LSAT course package.

2. Reading Comprehension Explanations
The explanations that should have come with the LSAT. These don't just fall back on "out of scope," but actually tell you why the wrong answers are wrong, why the right answers are right, and the easiest way to get the correct answer.

3. LSAT Vocabulary Builder
A handbook that guides you through confusing LSAT language, but not by forcing you to memorize hundreds of words. Instead, this comprehensive guide focuses on the LSAT's most commonly-used words and phrases and gives you their meanings on the LSAT.




0 comments

LSAT Quantity Words - You keep using that word…

…I do not think it means what you think it means.

For bonus points, does anyone know what movie that’s from?
Ding ding ding! The Princess Bride! One of the all-time greats, if you haven’t seen it you’re really missing out.

And that, in a rather roundabout way, brings me to the purpose of my email.


One of the most annoying things about the LSAT is it tends to use words we are familiar with in ways we aren’t used to. There are way more of these than there should be, but today I’m focusing on quantifiers.


Quantifiers are numbers that indicate a number of something and the LSAT can be a bit deceptive about how it uses them.

I’m going to go over two of them here:


Several / Many

If I told you that I have a box of a 100 chocolate-chip cookies, I confirmed that several of them are tasty, you wouldn't truly know how many I ate, or how many of them are actually tasty.


"Several" and "many" refer to some kind of sizable (and plural) number, so we know it's more than one or two, but how many exactly? It's impossible to say. This is an indeterminate number. Like most/majority, it allows the possibility of all.


Several / Many = a range of more than 2 - all the way up to 100%

For purposes of simplicity, we can think of it as 3 - 100% or 3 - all.


Some
Let's suppose I catch you stuffing your face with cookies from that 100-cookie box. I ask, "How many did you eat?" You reply, ""Some..."

Vague, right? Maybe you ate only 1, or maybe you had 5, 10, 49, 75, 99, or 100. Without more information, we don't know just how many you ate.


Like the many/majority example, making a claim regarding "some" does not exclude the possibility that "all" have that characteristic, whether it's with regard to how many of them were delicious or just how many were eaten.

In order to know that you hadn't eaten all the cookies, you would've needed to specifically claim that you had eaten "some, but not all", so I'll know that there's still at least 1 cookie remaining for me to eat.


Some = a range from 1 - all the way up to 100%

For purposes of simplicity, we can think of it as 1 - 100% or 1 - all.


Like I said, annoying. But, it’s important to know so you don’t get tripped up on something simple.

If you found that helpful, I wrote an article with a whole lot more for you to read on quantifier words - here's the link ---->


Talk soon,
LSAT Steve, the Vocal Machine


P.S. If this gave you a bit of a headache, don’t worry. Next time we’ll be talking about something more relatable (another famous movie), so it’s sure to be a more enjoyable read.


Recommended Resources:

1. LSAT Courses
The best of my LSAT material with exclusive access to attend my Live Online LSAT Master Classes + Q&As, and on-demand video lessons you can watch anytime. Plus, LSAT study plans to keep you on track. Save hundreds of dollars with an LSAT course package.

2. Logical Reasoning Explanations
The explanations that should have come with the LSAT. These don't just fall back on "out of scope," but actually tell you why the wrong answers are wrong, why the right answers are right, and the easiest way to get the correct answer.

3. Logical Reasoning Cheat Sheet
Based on what I'd typically do in college: read what the professor emphasized and condense it all onto a single piece of paper. It gave me a quick reference, making things a lot less threatening and a lot more manageable.




0 comments

Should you diagram LSAT Logical Reasoning Questions?

And we’re back!

I’m not gonna waste too much time. Let’s just get into it, shall we?

A little while ago, I showed you an excerpt from an interview I did with former LSAT question-writer Dr. Stephen Harris on whether you should read the stem or stimulus first (if you missed that one, you can see the relevant article here).

Today, I’ll share a bit from my discussion Dr. Harrisabout diagramming Logical Reasoning questions.
Here’s what he had to say when I asked, “how important is diagramming for Logical Reasoning questions? Is it advisable?”
This is a great question. My take is that, with rare exception (maybe the odd matching structure item) diagramming on test day is not a wise investment of time. However, diagramming is important to practice while preparing because some questions will ask about structure in a way that presupposes the ability – if you couldn’t diagram the argument you wouldn’t know how to answer the question. That said, on test day you shouldn’t have to actually draw a diagram to get the question right; you should be able to just tell that, for example, the first statement in the stimulus is a subsidiary conclusion. This point applies to many of the skills tested on the LSAT, in my opinion. 


There it is. You only get so many minutes on test day, and you might be wasting them if you’re taking the time to diagram these questions.

There was a lot more to this interview, which you can read here.


Also, I’d be making a huge mistake if I didn’t remind you to read ALL of the interviews I’ve conduced with Dr. Harris. Check them out.

Next time, we’re going to get into one of my favorite subjects because of how infuriating it can be (ironic, I know).


Want to know what it is? Too bad! Gonna have to read my next article to see.

That’s what we call “a tease” in the biz.

See you then!
LSAT Steve


Recommended Resources:

1. LSAT Courses
The best of my LSAT material with exclusive access to attend my Live Online LSAT Master Classes + Q&As, and on-demand video lessons you can watch anytime. Plus, LSAT study plans to keep you on track. Save hundreds of dollars with an LSAT course package.

2. Logical Reasoning Explanations
The explanations that should have come with the LSAT. These don't just fall back on "out of scope," but actually tell you why the wrong answers are wrong, why the right answers are right, and the easiest way to get the correct answer.

3. Logical Reasoning Cheat Sheet
Based on what I'd typically do in college: read what the professor emphasized and condense it all onto a single piece of paper. It gave me a quick reference, making things a lot less threatening and a lot more manageable.




0 comments

How Jared increased his LSAT score by 20+ points

This story comes from Jared, who managed to improve his score over 20 points!

But, at first, Jared fell into a trap I suspect many of you have - bad study materials.
Here’s what he had to say about the prep book he picked up:

“Kaplan bolstered my confidence to such an insane degree that I couldn’t help but feel like the difficulty of the LSAT was overly exaggerated. For assumption questions, “you simply have to find the missing link,” logic games are merely “a matter of following rules,” using grids with Xs and checkmarks is “the best way to diagram a matching game,” reading comprehension is easy “because the answers are all in the passage.”

Words like simple, simply, easy, and the like permeated the prep book, and I felt my confidence inflate every time I read them. I never took a cold test because I wasn’t interested in a score that reflected total unfamiliarity with the LSAT. I finished working through my Kaplan book at the end of June, picked up the most recent prep-test I could find early July, set aside a Saturday morning and prepared to annihilate the LSAT.   


I scored a 152”

Ouch. Not only that, but Jared admits he cheated quite a bit on that practice exam by giving himself more time and even peeking at answers when he had it narrowed down to two choices. So he figures his actual score was probably closer to 140.


The good news is Jared found my site (and all the free resources it contains), and began diligently studying.


When all was said and done, Dan scored a 164 on this LSAT!

He’s got a lot of good advice in his LSAT Diary, so you should definitely go check it out when you get time.


If you get a lot of the LSAT Diaries, there’s a lot more where these came from. In fact, I have a whole page dedicated to LSAT Diary success stories.


As always, you can be featured yourself in the LSAT Diaries whether you’ve taken the test or not! Just shoot me an email to share yours.

All this hard work will pay off, I promise!

Your LSAT Cheerleader,
Steve


Recommended Resources:

1. LSAT Courses
The best of my LSAT material with exclusive access to attend my Live Online LSAT Master Classes + Q&As, and on-demand video lessons you can watch anytime. Plus, LSAT study plans to keep you on track. Save hundreds of dollars with an LSAT course package.

2. LSAT Day-By-Day Study Plans
Preparing for the LSAT is confusing. There are dozens of prep books and practice tests out there, and 1,000+ articles on my website alone. When, and how, should you use them all? These super-specific study plans give you a clear plan of attack.

3. LSAT Checklists
All the little items and details students don't usually think of. They hold you accountable and help you make sure you're not missing anything.




0 comments

#FakeNews in LSAT Reading Comp

If you’re studying for LSAT Reading Comp, it might not be best to practice with news stories. This is because they generally fit into one of two categories:

Hard news stories
1. Hard news stories tend to include the key details first, then zoom out to give the context

Ex. The president signed a bill into law yesterday to _______. The article then continues by giving other parties' reactions, then some reflections on why or why not this new law might be important and/or good.

Human interest stories
2. Human or public interest stories with more of a local spin usually start with a short anecdote, then zoom out for larger story.

Ex. "Yesterday, a giant squid attacked Joe as he relaxed in his in-ground swimming pool the other day. Sadly, this attack is only latest in a long string of giant squid attacks. No one knows how the giant squids are getting into these pools. Local law enforcement officials say they are doing everything in their power to prevent future attacks. The mayor recommends that citizens carefully check their swimming pools before entering. The evil scientist at the local marine biology research laboratory was not available for comment."


Okay, maybe a giant squid attack is more along the lines of hard news, but it just sounded like fun. You know what I mean.

People have short attention spans, so newspapers want to get most important info to readers first. This goes for The Economist, NYTimes, etc.


Newspapers generally choose one of the two models I mentioned for one main reason: they know that most people probably won't read the entire article, but they want to keep the public informed, or at the very least, give people the impression that they're learning something important.

LSAT Reading Comp passages are NOT structured this way. By design, they aren’t from the “real world”.


LSAT Reading Comp passages are written by LSAC and take regular reading material and rework it to make it as boring as possible.

The best advice I can give when preparing for Reading Comprehension passages is to read a lot of Reading Comprehension passages. 


Sounds simple, but there just aren’t any short cuts here. If you read my article on this, you’d know how to focus and make it easier. If you didn’t catch that one, or just need a reminder, you can find that article right here.

Catch you next time!
Steve


Recommended Resources:
1. LSAT Courses
The best of my LSAT material with exclusive access to attend my Live Online LSAT Master Classes + Q&As, and on-demand video lessons you can watch anytime. Plus, LSAT study plans to keep you on track. Save hundreds of dollars with an LSAT course package.

2. Logical Reasoning Explanations
The explanations that should have come with the LSAT. These don't just fall back on "out of scope," but actually tell you why the wrong answers are wrong, why the right answers are right, and the easiest way to get the correct answer.

3. Logical Reasoning Cheat Sheet
Based on what I'd typically do in college: read what the professor emphasized and condense it all onto a single piece of paper. It gave me a quick reference, making things a lot less threatening and a lot more manageable.




0 comments

LSAT-Flex vs Regular LSAT | Biggest Differences

For many, it's a more pleasant experience to be doing it at home and to be doing only 3 sections rather than 5.

But some will be disappointed if they're relatively stronger in Logical Reasoning, given that logical reason has gone from being 1/2 of the scored questions to only being 1/3 of the exam instead.

Logic Games is approximately 1/4 of the exam for the in-person administration, is now approximately 1/3 on LSAT-Flex. (In practice, it's slightly less than because it's typically 23 questions, on average.)

Reading Comprehension is typically around 27 questions, so slightly more than one-third of the LSAT-Flex.

Logical Reasoning is about 1/3 -- 25 questions.

The overall LSAT-Flex will be approximately 75 questions. They say "approximately" to give themselves some wiggle room, and my interpretation of that is the approximately even number of questions per section allows for them to go with the traditional number of questions per section =(which varies slightly from exam to exam).

For more, check out the LSAT-Flex FAQ and LSAT Unplugged LSAT-Flex playlist.

0 comments

LSAT Unplugged Public Interest Scholarship

I already offer scholarships and work with pipeline programs & pre-law societies, but I want to do more.

I want to 10X my efforts by offering 10 students the opportunity to win free access to my top-level LSAT prep course.

That's right - there will be *10* winners of the LSAT Unplugged Public Interest Scholarship.

These 10 students will win 3 months of access to my Supreme LSAT course.

I'm not going to make you complete a lengthy formal application or write contrived essays the way people who give away scholarships normally do, and I don't want to read those, either.

I want applications that are real and raw and speak from the heart. I want to hear who you truly are without editing. I like to get to know each of my students on a personal level.


How to apply:

Send me a short video (max 5 minutes) sharing your reasons for wanting to go to law school and practice law in the public interest. Share anything relevant about your background.

You can send the video via DM or upload it to DropBox or Google Drive and share the link. I'll publish the best submissions on the LSAT Unplugged YouTube channel and podcast.

The deadline to apply is Friday, August 28, at 11:59PM Pacific.

0 comments

How Dan got a 25+ point LSAT score increase

Today, I’m sharing one of my favorite LSAT stories.

Dan isn’t shy about letting people know how he whiffed on practicing for his first LSAT. He’s brutally honest - reading through his story, it’s clear he was procrastinating and putting his social life ahead of his studying. And he isn’t alone in this!

Second, Dan started out with a 141 and ended up with a 168. That’s huge!! It’s just a great testament to what you are capable of if you really put your mind to it.


“I found that on my second attempt using a day-by-day LSAT study schedule was the most important thing. For the previous exam I had simply given myself tasks that were to be completed by the end of the week. With procrastination kicking in here and there, this method often left me behind on my work.


I went back to previous exams and questions and thought very carefully about what sections I needed to improve on and where I could make the biggest gains. First, it became very obvious that I needed to spend time practicing reading comprehension questions. Scoring -9 to -7 on this section just simply wasn’t going to cut it, and I also believed that it was a section that, with time, could become a personal best. I began by reading Steve’s tips on the section and then disciplining myself to writing two timed reading comprehension sections a day beginning with prep test 7 and ending with 46.

As I became more comfortable with the reading comprehension section I found two of Steve’s recommendations to be the most helpful: (1) focus on structure, and (2) be able to support every answer with information from the passage. Repeated practice also allowed me to foresee what areas of the passage would be questioned and thus, my markings became less-often and more precise. In a few weeks I was between -3 to -5 per RC section—a great improvement.”



That’s just a small section of Dan’s LSAT Diary, which is absolutely full of good advice. Also, he’s great at communicating his thought process at every step, so you can follow along with him as he made that monumental leap from first test to final score.



If you’ve got some time, I highly recommend it.

Sincerely,

LSAT Steve




P.S. Whether you’ve taken the LSAT yet or not, I want to hear your stories! Just reach out - I read every message myself.





0 comments

Black Lives Matter Criticism

Hey gang,

So I sent an email to my entire list today - some of you may have gotten it - it's a combination of posts I made over the past few days.

Most of the reactions were positive, but I did get a few negative replies I'll share here, along with my responses.

As you read them, I'm curious to get your thoughts on how you might have responded - I anticipate receiving more...

First, the email:

Reflections on Injustice

Like many of you, I've watched the video of George Floyd's death in horror and anger.

And here in Brooklyn, I've personally witnessed that anger pour onto the streets.

I've debated about whether I should speak about this, but I feel I have to.

We need to do something about the fact that not everyone has access to the same opportunities others take for granted.

While there are systemic injustices that prevent equal access to educational opportunities (like test preparation), there are also more basic ones that have had tangible and fatal consequences for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others.

I believe #BlackLivesMatter.

And I believe correcting these injustices requires each and every one of us to take a stand -- to fight by speaking and acting to stop hate wherever we encounter it.

The legal profession is a political one.

And what you do with your law degree -- with your career -- with your LIFE -- is up to you.

You have the opportunity to create real structural change -- including accountability for police brutality and voting racists out of office.

You have a voice -- but you don't *just* vote at the ballot box. You also vote with your wallet, with what you post and share publicly, and how you choose to use your JD.

But please don't give up your vote by being silent or allowing yourself to be absorbed into the system.

-Steve

***

"I believe all lives matter!!!"

My response: "Of course I agree all lives matter, my friend! But there is clearly something uniquely wrong happening to our Black brothers and sisters that requires our targeted support, and that's what I focused on in this email."



"Yea, such injustices, with the same grade, Asians don't have the same chance go to a certain school compare with Blacks. the problems are not only racism, the real problem is also whether one is able to take charge of his or her life, and truly working hard on ones' dream. the real problem is, we should take at least 50% of fault on ourselves, not 100% on others. the world can't be 100% equal, but your life is in your hand."

My response: "Thanks for your reply -- but I feel like there's some kind of confusion and we're not even having the same conversation.

You're right that there are a lot of problems. But the question of affirmative action is a totally separate discussion. Right now we're talking about the issue of police brutality -- which literally has life-or-death consequences for the Black community.

It is a problem that not everyone has the same ability to take charge of their life because not everyone is born with the same opportunities - some are born with significant disadvantages, and we have to pull each other up to help everyone reach their fullest potential. But we can't blame people for their starting point."




"You have the platform to make Law School Admissions fair, use it. You know the many flaws in the process. The word holistic should not be a word used to give a prospective disadvantaged student hope. This is not right and quiet frankly outside of the lack of financial resources in the Black community the biggest issues are the six numbers(LSAT, GPA) and the lack of knowledge pertaining to the admissions process. Use your platform if you really care about equal access to a legal education."

My response: "Thanks for writing - I agree that the frequent use of "holistic" gives false hope in law school admissions.

And I actually feel like I'm a broken record when I say LSAT > GPA  > Everything Else (even if it shouldn't be that way)

I feel that I do use my platform to communicate this wherever possible - if you watch my classes on YouTube, or listen to my podcasts, I say it over and over -- that the LSAT is the #1 factor in admissions.

However, I'm always open to other ideas for getting the message out."

***

The decision to "go political" can sometimes seem tricky because of the fear that some will not understand and those who speak will lose business.

And I have gotten more criticism and unsubscribes from my list since I made this post last night.

But that's ok.

Some things are worth receiving a bit of criticism and lost business.

I've also gotten an overwhelming amount of support. But there is still a LOT of hate out there. And it needs to stop. To achieve that, we need to continue speaking and act on it. (I'll soon be sharing more on my own next steps -- and I encourage others to speak and act as well.)

And while I've said "law is political" in a recent post, I want to go beyond that right now.

This is REAL LIFE for many people. This is survival.

And although I am not the target this time, it's just plain right to speak up for others, and I would want others to speak up for me.

Everyone deserves equal treatment under the law -- no exceptions.

I will leave off here and share a poem by the German priest and Nazi opponent Martin Niemöller:

"First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me."

0 comments