Hey Team,
I just wanted to share that after receiving and opening the February LSAT Score today morning, the relief and joy of seeing the hard work and struggles pay off felt like nothing I have ever felt before. I know the next few words have been shared by countless people before me and it might sound useless and unmotivating but truly, "IF I COULD SCORE A 162, ANYONE CAN SCORE 165+!!!" this test is beatable.
A 162 may seem like a measly score to others on this platform who have reached the 170s and even a perfect 180 but this was my last attempt at the LSAT and I wasn't planning on taking it again after that 5th attempt, signalling at myself to move on with life. But seeing this score as a Canadian Applicant looking to get into Canadian Schools, definitely has changed/altered my life's trajectory.
When I began the LSAT journey in November 2020, I used Khan Academy and on the very first diagnostic test I ever did received a 135... Instantly demotivating, heart crushing, and morale destroying.. but at the same time I was easy on myself knowing the journey will be long - accepting that it is only going to get better from here. Then I landed on 7Sage on December of 2020 through a friend and my life around studying for the LSAT Changed.. I never thought I will be writing my own discussion post featuring my score and trying to muster up hope, faith, and motivation in others to reach for the stars when studying for this god forsaken test. Side Note: I thought the reviews people posted were fake loll... but clearly they are not..
The reason I want to emphasize perseverance is because of my experience... LSAT Attempt #1 November 2020, a couple weeks after joining Khan Academy I wanted to sit for a test to see and witness the experience of writing the actual test. Somehow from my diagnostic of 135, I managed to score a 146 on the November 2020 LSAT. And because I was eager to get into Law School in 2021, I did a preptest everyday from December 2020 to January 2021 in preparation for Attempt #2 (January 2021 sitting) without using and going through the 7Sage course and taking my time with it.. Guess what we scored on our second attempt after a month and a half of jamming PTs everyday before the test.... A WHOPPING 146.. THAT'S RIGHT.. We scored the SAME SCORE as our Blind attempt in November.. This was truly soul crushing.. Ended up taking a break for 2 weeks to recoup and to have an honest conversation with myself - of whether we want to continue doing this and take the risk.. because that is what it is, a risk.. A risk full of hopes to score well and even if we score well to be able to get in. We decided to go all in.
Knowing that my chances of getting into a school with those horrendous scores were all but gone for the 2021 year.. I moved from doing a PT everyday to ONE PT a WEEK In preparation for the August 2021 Attempt #3 LSAT - truly cementing the practice of Blind Review which works wonders!
I started to really take J.Y's advice with LG to constantly do it over and over and over again until it becomes ingrained in our memory.. with that we started going from -6/-5 to -2/0.. EVEN ON THOSE GOD AWFUL SUBSTITUTE Q's... when you implement the repeating the LG section over and over method - your intuition really starts to roll and those sub q's start to become clearer and easier.. LR was getting supremely better and I kind of Understood what people were saying when they would say "it felt right.." on tougher questions.. prior to that I HATED HEARING THAT.. but there's no better way to describe that experience.. Fast forward 7 months to August and we score a 158. I was gassed! But felt we could do better but decided to take a month break to travel across Canada to get away from the test.
I came back in October with a mentality to boost my score and to hopefully squeeze into the 160s.. I registered for the January 2022 exam.. still implementing the ONE PT a WEEK regimen. January rolls around and we score a 155😂... After that I was like eff it.. I'll hope for the best to get into a school a with the 158, if it doesn't work out whatever we tried our best and we move on.. Knowing I had one more sitting available I was like meeeeh might as well, we had already threw all this money into this process whats another $300 CAD going to do.. LOOOL Horrible justification but glad I did it.
We scored a 162 on our Feb 2022 sitting which was my FIFTH attempt. I really went into the exam with no hopes, and a defeated mentality - I want to say it helped because I didn't allow my mind to give the test all this unnecessary weight - to classify it as an exam that's going to determine my life (If I dont do well I failed in life.... NO) - life is more than this test, literally the LSAT is a smidgen compared to all the great things you all will achieve in your life.
So we went from:
November 1st Khan Academy Diagnostic: 135
November 2020 LSAT Attempt #1: 146
January 2021 LSAT Attempt #2: 146... ⚰️
August 2021 LSAT Attempt #3: 158
January 2022 LSAT Attempt #4: 155..
February 2022 LSAT Attempt $5: 162!!!!
I write all this to say, YOU CAN DO IT.. YOU CAN! There's nothing in this world you can't do
Please have faith in yourself and if youre religious/spiritual in god as well.. Because as Drake said.. it's god's plan. There are going to be days where we feel stagnant but during those days we should strive to tell our minds we can do it!
I haven't gotten into any schools yet but honestly at this point to even score a 162 is more than enough as a reward to know I can walk away from the LSAT happy and content with the effort we put in. HOOO-RAHH.
Thank you all for reading if you did and please don't hesitate to ask questions or leave a comment - I can attempt to aid wherever I can.. LOL I don't how much advice someone would want from someone who scored a 162 but hey lol the lines are open (:
36 comments
Thats awesome Congratulations!!! youre hard work 100% paid off!!!!
@rickardostaton747 Thank you for your kind words and I'm praying that you achieve great things!!
Firstly, let's get the "dream score" out of your vocabulary lol - if we say dream score then it'll stay in your dreams, rather lets both say "that's the score I am going to get or the score I am aiming for and will achieve" let's speak that into existence. The reason I say that is because as I was finishing my fifth attempt at the LSAT I was keeping a mental note of where I could have gotten a question wrong and what my overall score for each section could be. At the end of the test I wrote down 163 on my scrap paper as the score I should get regardless of how unsure or confident I was and through some grace we landed on a 162.
By no means am I implying that caused anything lol (LSAT Trauma corr/causation) but just to encourage yourself to have faith in yourself! You be your #1 supporter.
That being said, sorry for the drivel, I realized I wasn't Clear in my post lol whoopsie!
After receiving the Jan 2021 LSAT score, I started from the beginning, implementing the entire syllabus, really trying to understand what the heck it is that J.Y was trying to say when attempting to explain the process of answering questions. I didn't touch a PT until I got through 90% of the course. I say 90% because I skipped some drills more specifically the Para reas, para flaw reas, etc.
One thing I wish I paid attention to earlier, and in my opinion the most important thing to knock down and understand, is sentence parsing.
For example, "Many boats that have red railings with the letters S.S. Zeus painted on them are more likely to capsize than are most boats that feature black railings with no letters on them"
So during BR I would literally talk to myself as such:
"Okay, so boats - are we talking about all the boats in the world? NO, we are talking about 'Many=some' boats."
"Okay moving on, what kind of many boats, well it looks like many boats 'that' (descriptive) red railings. okaay what about those red railings, they have S.S. Zeus written on them"
"Okay what about these specific subset of boats?"
they "are more likely to capsize than" STOP, Than = comparative and we have a winner in the comparison (More likely) who's more likely?
So on and so fourth. THIS IS THE HOLY GRAIL OF SECRETS to conquering the LSAT IMO. Once I truly started to implement this is when my scores and speed at understanding question stimulus sky rocketed - Not only for LR but for RC (my weakest section). It helped spot gaps in words being used (many to most), or identify jumps (assumptions) from premises to conclusion. Hopefully that helps.
But yes really focus on the syllabus/course. they really help lay the foundation - especially sections on
Phen/Hypo: know how to weaken/strengthen - create predictions
Correlation/Causations: know how to strengthen/weaken - pay attention to control groups.
and analogies: be comfortable in strengthening and weakening analogies.
PSA Q's - look for a conclusion that either affirms the conclusion or negates the premises.
- Be quick to eliminate, ACs that affirm the premise in the conclusion or affirms the opposite of the conclusion.
Prescriptive vs descriptive
etc. I can send you the cheat sheet I created to help me - I would read that once a week to keep me honest with the entire process. Let me know, although, fair warning I don't know how legible it may be lol
Thanks for sharing your success story. And don't talk down your 162 score, which is 27 points higher than your starting point! That's NOTHING to be ashamed about. I wish you the best as you go forward and thanks for the encouragement.
Felt so happy to read your story! Good luck!
That's amazing!! You should be so proud of yourself and how hard you worked! Your story is SO inspiring, thank you for sharing!!
I see that you're studying for the June Sitting. YOU GOT THIS IN THE BAG!!!
Congratulations and thank you for sharing your LSAT journey. I take my first test on Friday, and I know that this is just the begining of my LSAT journey.
Your story is inspiring in that it reaffirms this test is hard, but it can be beaten with constant persistence and hardwork.
Congrats again!!
Appreciate the share of your journey here. I am 40 hours in on 7 Sage. Does that mean 860 hours to go to get to 900 hours? I am okay with that. What were your total hours of study time? Now doing MSS Q Sets. Soon, formal logic. I have set aside 4-6 am for study, then an afternoon study session. That is about 3 hours a day. What were your daily hourly session time frames?
Hey your story is inspiring many people including me! You've got my dream score. I have a question. So did you follow the syllabus or you just jumped into the PTs? Or did you do two tracks which means following the syllabus and doing the PTs at the same time? I am currently following the syllabus but I was wonder if I have to take the PTs anyway. I hope god made my plan, too. Again, congratulations!!
Reading stories like this always makes my day. Thank you for sharing and showing that studying persistently does pay off on this exam.
Godspeed, thanks for sharing your story!
@brreiva458 Hi (:
Hmm that's an interesting position 🤔 Take what I say with a grain a salt lol
Personally, I never meshed with Khan Academy - I only used them for two weeks and never looked that way afterwards.
I used the power score books from 2017 - read cover to cover which I found helpful as well.
and 85% of my studying/learning came from 7Sage. So I would say if Khan Academy is working for you, might as well keep that in the rotation to further cement the concepts and ideas. But personally I would recommend really harnessing what J.Y has to offer (THE MAN IS A GOD) and go in the order the CC is offered, don't worry about mixing (my opinion).
The reason I say that is, I found myself at times returning the CC even when I did PTs to further understand and to see if I missed something. Helped a lot whenever I did return to the CC when I was PTing. From what I remember - phen/hypo, weakening, and formal logic (knowing when things trigger, or become irrelevant) (--- this last one was good for LG and for PSA, SA, Para Reas, and sometimes NA questions.(/p)
This was really inspiring to myself, as someone who scored a 133 on their first diagnostic and first LSAT test. A 162 is a score I am really shooting for although a 148 is the score I need to get into the law school I want. But your story really rejuvenated my motivation to keep going for my test in June. As someone who is doing the main core curriculum and Khan Academy.
Would you recommend in the core curriculum, say like I am still doing Logical Reasoning section of it, it is my last week of it and then I start to go into Logic Games. On Khan Academy should I just focus on Logical Reasoning since that is what I am doing right now. Or still mix it up and do logical games and reading comprehension?
Thank you so much!
Good for you Naruto!!!! Your perseverance is very inspiring, thank you for sharing. Congratulations on achieving a 162 and i wish you the best in the next steps of your journey in becoming an attorney.
@kartikadlakha7623 living up to your name. Let's do this =)
@krystin5 Thank youuu!!! Looking forward to hear or read a post from you soon as well ☺️🙏🏼
Congratulations!!! I can totally feel you! I started at a very low score. But now I believe I have already made some progress. I will keep climbing the mountain because I want more. And RC is my worst section. I can barely finish it. Do you have any special tips for me? I think the best way is to ask the survivor how they make it. Thank you in advance!
Congratulations! your story is inspiring and I hope you the best.
Hi, I am so proud of you. I always happen to see your comments under many LR questions. I remember you and I'm not surprised you killed the test!
@tatianasallins488 You got this!! I am definitely cheering you on (:
@krystin5 Yes sirrr!! you got it 🙏🏼 Who's to say you won't score amazingly on the upcoming test?? NO ONE!!
Aim for the stars
Thank you for reading and your kind words (: && I wish you the best of luck - dominate
congratulations!!!! so inspiring :heart:
Congrats!!! I hope nothing but the BEST FOR YOU!!! :) So happy that you shared this with us all!
Congrats Naruto
@asanyadavenehenry472 Thank you for your well wishes!! Praying you and everyone else dominate this test