For anyone who is trying to get to where I am, I'm happy to provide any insights. For anyone far beyond where I am, I'm reaching out for help.
I've been tackling the LSAT for a few months now and am somewhat stuck. I started the test doing very badly: -6 on LR, -5 on RC, and missing one game on LG. Now, I'm at -2 or -4 on LR, -3 on RC, and -1 on LG (usually due to stupid reading mistakes). My question is: how to move from a ~170 to a 180 score?
In my case, I know I haven't maxed out yet, since I can occasionally score a 180 during BR. But I always seem to miss a couple during first attempts no matter what. Right now, I'm not confident at all about scoring a 175+ on test day (which is my goal, given my unfortunately terrible college GPA).
I welcome anyone with any insights about how you raised your scores (even by a bit), and happy to provide insights from my end if anyone would like them. Thanks!
41 comments
My question is: how to move from a ~170 to a 180 score?
You don't.
Or rather, you just get lucky.
I typically tell folks that you can possibly prep up to the 175 range. Anything above that is luck.
Furthermore, literally no one needs to get a score that high.
Expectation management for the win!
Furthermore, I got into a T14 school with a half-tuition scholarship with a 2.74.
So like, chill :D
What does luck have to do with anything?
Did you misread something? Well, you shouldn't have. Misinterpreted an answer choice? Shouldn't have. Misapplied a concept? Shouldn't have. Failed to understand the flaw? Shouldn't have. Not enough time to check for all of those things and still finish the section? Sounds like a skills deficit to me. Got tested on something you're weak on? Looks like you have something to work on. New logic game seems objectively unfair? Well, how come others were able to ace it then?
The bottom line is you're answering questions wrong when all of the information necessary to get the correct answer is laid out in front of you, and you have the benefit of a multiple choice setup that is suuuuuuper precise just in case you can't articulate it on your own (people would do a LOT worse on the LSAT if it were short answer). I don't understand what's "lucky" about the ability to avoid making mistakes in a perfect-information scenario.
To me, that's the attitude adjustment that @quinnxzhang542 is referring to. People think of 'unavoidable' mistakes and accept them, where in reality there's nothing unavoidable about them. Achieving perfection requires you to accept nothing but perfection. Is it hard to be that perfect? Yeah. Does the skill curve steepen substantially? Absolutely. Does the effort-to-improvement ratio get increasingly out of whack as you go along? You bet. Is the distinction between 99.9th and 99.7th percentile irrelevant to 99% of practical situations? Yup. Feel free to say any of those things. Just don't blame luck, unless you're willing to defend the notion that anyone who can get consistent 180s is just getting lucky every single time.
You get lucky.
I would probably focus on tightening up the LR. Your LG and RC are already close to perfect, and I agree with Nicole - for the vast majority of people the difference between a -1/-2 and a -0 on LR (combined) and RC is going to come down to luck. There can always be something that just sits wrong with you, a word or a phrase that you misinterpret under pressure and so on.
But you're missing up to 8 questions on LR combined, and that's not just bad luck. Furthermore, you say that you occasionally reach 180 in BR - If you really want that 175, you should be aiming for 180 BR's. I understand that there are things you'll miss even without time pressure, just from being human, (I read "extant" as "extinct" over and over again once. Extra time didn't help) but you can miss 2 questions and still get a 180.
You probably have a solid understanding of the fundamentals, so I wouldn't rush back to the curriculum, unless you miss a certain question type over and over. I would wager that you haven't yet mastered recognizing what makes an attractive trap answer wrong. Practice and BR help tremendously with this (I didn't do anything special other than really carefully reviewing the missed questions to slowly get my LR scores higher). The key is letting go of your ego and the tendency to think "I understand why A is right, but I still think B can be right too". It's not. Don't waste time thinking of why it could be. It's your job to work on that question until you could convince anyone that B is definitely, hopelessly wrong and why. Often it's just a word, but that word is not there by chance. Practice will help you recognize those subtle clues that make a wrong answer wrong, and that will in turn help you get more of the LR questions right.
You might not be able to get a 180, but with your LG and RC scores you should be able to get to a 175 (a little luck on test day wouldn't hurt)
Yep.
It is uncomfortable, isn't it—that such things may just actually be beyond our control.
It means you have a higher LSAT score ;)
@tanes25413 I appreciate the feedback. Yeah, I'm starting to notice that Flaw and Necessary Assumption are the keys to the LR section, at least for me. I've never been a fan of drilling types, but at least on these two I can see how beneficial it could be
@serveded749 I stopped reading all the comments halfway down, so I apologize if someone already mentioned The LSAT Trainer. It's about $45, I think. See if it's available in a bookstore around you so that you can check it out before purchasing if you're hesitant. It really helped me grasp the flaws better. Not that 7 Sage was lacking, sometimes you just need a different perspective. Things started to fall into place for LR for me after going over the flaw section a few times. When I say a few I mean more than 3 or 4. Repetition is key for me. It seems like each time I read it something else jumped out at me. That could be due to having a better understanding overall, who knows?? I would buy the book just for the flaw section, but the RC sections are golden as well. Also, you might want to purchase the starter pkg and check out Nicole's webinar on RC. I'm not sure if it's offered anywhere else. The LG sections are definitely throwaways, but I prefer 7 Sage. Repetition is key for the LG. You're missing about 6? Just repeat the games and watch the videos until you can finish the game in the suggested time provided. The LG explanations are free. If you're hesitant about purchasing the pkg, the LG explanations will give you an example of the course overall. Also, I think there's still the 14 day guarantee period. If it's not for you, you get your money back. Hope this tidbit helps.
I totally agree @quinnxzhang542 . I don't think the ideas have to be mutually exclusive though. I aim for a 180 every test. I beat myself up pretty bad if I BR at -180. Acknowledging that error can be a factor is not the same thing as not caring about it or as being insufficiently motivated.
This is probably right, but the idea behind changing your mentality is so that you don't get complacent with your score. It gets very difficult to consistently score above the mid 170s, so it's easy to chalk the tip-top scores up to luck or whatever. And if you think that scoring 175+ was a matter of luck, what motivation do you have to push yourself above that boundary?
But there's always room for improvement and if you're aiming to be above, say, the 75% at YLS, then you should be PTing with the intent of getting every question right, instead of being satisfied with a 174 or 175 or whatever. The curve for the tip-top score range is so unforgiving that you can't allow yourself that luxury. I went into my test day with a every intention of getting a 180 -- I didn't get a 180 in the end, but I truly believe that I scored what I did because I was practicing and going into the test seriously trying to get every question right. I suspect this is true for many (most?) of the tip-top scorers; it's certainly true among my friend group, at least.
I'm not saying this should be everyone's mentality, nor am I saying anyone needs a 180 (I don't think anyone actually does). And I fully acknowledge that the risk of burnout and stress are very real concerns. But if you're aiming for that top echelon, I feel like you do have to be sufficiently motivated and driven, to the extent that you should be aiming for 180s on your PTs.
Ultimately, in complete opposition to some of the other comments above, I think this is much harder to accept than chalking the top scores up to luck. When you chalk that up to luck, that absolves you of responsibility. But if you accept that it wasn't luck that you didn't reach your target score, then you have to accept that it was you, and that there's something you could have done.
Here's more inspiration! For advice (rather than opinions, including my own) about scoring 180 I recommend listening to actual 180 scorers. Here's an excerpt: "I was unlucky” is not the right answer, because it excuses you from taking any corrective action."
http://www.top-law-schools.com/how-i-scored-a-180-article1.html
TLS has advice from other top scorers, many with initial diagnostic scores in the 140s-160s range. Trends in common I noticed: disciplined preparation, obsessive attention to detail, and intolerance of repeated mistakes. All good traits I would want in MY counsel.
Maybe "luck" isn't exactly the right word for what we're talking about. Luck isn't actually a real thing, so technically, it's never the right word for anything. What I mean when I say luck here is that no one, not even consistent 180 scorers, can prepare themselves to a level which will remove human error from the equation. It can only be minimized. It can be greatly minimized, but it can never be eliminated. In most situations, I think avoidable human error can reasonably account for the difference in a 180 and like a 178.
That unequivocally matters—and it matters A LOT. That's where a one point difference can mean an admit vs a WL. But, one must consider the actual LSAT medians for top schools; LSAT 75th for Chicago is 172.
That's an interesting question @nicole , it's not something I've thought about. Of course, ideally you'd read the stimulus quickly, fully grasp it, and then burn through the answer choices similarly. Short of that, it's going to depend on the question type. Obviously on a parallel question, you're probably going to need a lot more time on the answer choices. But for an ID the conclusion, you would probably not spend much time in the answers.
Yes, but that's what you should be doing no matter what your score is. I don't think you should be doing anything differently if you were trying to reach 180 than you should if you were trying to reach 160. I think the difference is time, practice, and a bit of innate talent.
I can only speak for myself, but I never had any insights or epiphanies or anything. I just improved gradually over time. There are definitely things LSAC writers like to do to trip high-scorers up (e.g. subtly shifting the topic of discussion from bears in a preserve to bears in a valley or something), but I don't think it's possible to drill for these things in particular, since the hardest questions can be hard for a wide range of reasons, and the LSAC writers won't be following any obvious patterns. Rather, I think you just have to really perfect the relevant skills, such as close reading, conditional logic, and causal reasoning. As I said above, I realize this isn't a helpful answer, but if there were a foolproof method that anyone could follow to score a 180, then a 180 wouldn't be very meaningful.
Something that I did, which I'm nor sure if you're doing, is I would drill the hardest LR questions and hardest RC passages on top of my PTs. You can filter by difficulty in the question bank section here and do a certain number of them each day. Doing this might help you pick up on the sneaky LSAT tricks faster, but it's not a guarantee, and it may not be an option if you plan on taking every PT.
Are any of the LSN folks you're referencing splitters, like OP?
One must consider both numbers. And LSN is really an awful reference—being less than 3% of the data pool.
I stand by my comments. OP has made no statements about focus on scholarships, nor should splitters count on much (if any) money from top schools, even with high LSATs.
Furthermore, the pressure it puts on one to "need" a 175+ is, well, good luck with that. I wouldn't wish it on anyone unless they had a 165+ diagnostic.
@nicole I have to disagree with you here. If you go on Lawschoolnumbers and just browse relevant forums, you'll see that you do need to be in a certain echelon (174+) to get at least a half-ride from Columbia and Chicago, to use a couple top-tier examples, and usually a little higher (176+) to have a good shot at a full ride.
Obviously the LSAT isn't the only factor, but it's the most significant one and I think we're kidding ourselves if we're saying that there's no benefit to getting a 178 as opposed to a 173. They're very different scores, and likely worth very different amounts of scholly coin. Do you have to get a 180 to get into HYS/get a Hamilton scholarship from Columbia? Of course not. But ceteris paribus is it better (regardless of GPA) to get a 178 than a 173? Quantifiably yes.
Thanks! Yeh my GPA is higher than 3, but still lower than the top school's median, so still a chance!
@jhaldy10325 - this is exactly what I was looking for. I think you hit the nail on the head. I'm gradually coming to the conclusion that I still don't know why a trap answer is wrong when I first look at it (so missing the question on the first run).
A thousand thanks for the advice! There are some hope for me yet - I've only done less than 10 PTs (except for the 7Sage curriculum), so still a ways to go, but there's room to improve.
Yeah you seriously don't need above a 175. If your GPA is shot (below 3, for sure) then HYS and Chicago/Berkeley are already out.
@ioana200.Dantes I know this is your discussion topic but do you have advice about "change of mentality" or any approach you personally took to get up to a 170? I've been at this for well over a year (almost two) and I seem to be perpetually stuck at the high 150s low 160s despite having gone through the Ultimate course and BR. Any insights?
Depending on how you're practicing, you might not have to change anything. I mean, you'll still need to PT and drill and BR and all that stuff.
I think changing your mentality can help. When I was in the low-170s range, my mentality was something like "yeah, -1 or -2 in a section would be acceptable," but when I was in the 180 range, my mentality going into each section was "I'm definitely going to get -0 on this section." That is to say, you should be PTing with the full intent of getting every single question right. This will in turn determine how you PT, BR, drill, etc.
@quinnxzhang542, @wraith985-4026
Great comments. I absolutely agree. I think Jonathan nailed it with the "all the information is in front of you." If you get it wrong, it's really because you still got to sharpen your skills. Having that realization ultimately constitutes a "mentality change."
@jhaldy10325, I saw those! Very helpful.
I do think that there is something else to preparation besides practice, discipline, drive, and mentality. I'm still on my single digit PT (not PT #1-9, but my 8th or 9th PT), but even though I think I understood all my mistakes from the previous sections, I still make mistakes.
I'm hoping that, as I practice more and see more variations of the same problems, that the mistakes would go away. Anyways, we'll see what happens!
Thanks for the advice - definitely helped me a lot and hopefully for others as well.
Didn't the founder of testmasters get something like 14 or 15 perfect scores? I'm not so sure if one can chalk up his scores to be that of mere luck.
Holy crap, that was super inspirational.
OP, I'm literally in the same boat as you; let's do this