Hey! We're hosting AMA sessions on our brand new subreddit this Thursday (me) and Friday (Ethan):
Kevin's AMA (Thursday 2pm to 6pm ET)
Ethan's AMA (Friday 2pm to 4pm ET)
Ask us anything about the LSAT and law school admissions in those threads. (You can ask your questions there in advance; no need to wait until the scheduled times.)
@EthanMadore
22
6 comments
@kevin any chance you have time for one more question? i missed the AMA by 10 min :/ I'd post in the other thread except that its about the LSAT not applications
@Epicness Sure!
@Kevin_Lin THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! The rest of your AMA answers were really helpful/insightful, so I really appreciate you taking the time to answer mine!
I think I need a new study technique or something, because whatever I'm doing now is not working. For context, I started seriously studying in August of last year, but my job makes it hard to stay consistent. My study schedule typically consists of two hours of studying a day (one before work and one during my lunch) and then PTs on the weekends. I got a 162 on my Aug LSAT, but I KNOW I can do better.
I consistently PT in the lower 160s and BR in the low 170s. My biggest deficits are phenom-hypoth, flaw/descriptive weakening, and causal reasoning for sure, but my WAJ doesn't seem to be helping. Whenever I get it wrong I hand-write why I chose my answer, why i didn't choose the right answer, why the right answer is right, and what I'm going to do next time. I've now started an excel tracking sheet to see what logical misstep I'm taking to see if I can spot a pattern, but sometimes when I watch the explanation I can only understand the question by content, and not logic. Countless videos have explained that I should be adhering to a strict logical step-by-step, but I'm having a really hard time doing the same process consistently across each question. They all look different to me and so I get flustered when I can't figure it out using the "methods."
I tried tutoring and didn't see much movement. Now I'm looking for anything that can help. Some facts that may help you diagnose me: (1) I'm typically down to two answers, and pick the wrong one (2) I felt confident about my last couple PTs, and ended up scoring low 160s, so my confidence in the wrong answer is actually the scary part (3) even after the explanation sometimes I genuinely think an answer could theoretically work (in, for ex, a weakening or strengthening Q), which I think is rather problematic, because obviously it cannot work at all.
I've brought myself back to the basics recently (argument structure, grammar, conditional chains, etc.) to try and re-build my foundations, but I'm feeling like I need to re-enter this study period in a different way. I've done a few of the tougher phenom, flaw, and CR problems that I've gotten incorrect in the past, and still make the exact same mistakes, so clearly there is a problem there. Maybe I need to be thinking about these types of questions entirely differently, I don't know (probably). Do you have any ideas on how I can do this? I'm not sure if there's a pattern specific to the categories of questions I mentioned above which may explain my difficulties, but I would appreciate any tips at all.
Again, thank you for taking the time to read and help me out here. I really appreciate it!!!!!!
@Epicness I took a look at your analytics, and if I was looking at the right person, it seem you improved steadily up until about early July on your practice tests? If so, stop and recognize how far you've come, since it's really good progress. Since early July, you had a string of PTs that suggest you've plateaued a bit. There's nothing particularly unusual about that for now; it's rare to have steady, consistent improvement in all PTs throughout one's entire study journey. Usually there are ups and downs, with plateaus along the way, although the overall trajectory trends up.
It sounds to me like the highest value thing you can do right now is to go back through all of your mistakes. Either create drills of questions you've gotten incorrect or just look at them using the quickview and try them again. There's a difference between understanding an explanation on review and having the thought process required to solve the question feel natural and accessible without prompting. You mention that sometimes you still think another answer could be correct; without stamping out that feeling you'll see that mistaken thinking pop up from time to time, which will contribute to other mistakes. Try to get to the bottom of any question where you're not convinced that your answer is clearly wrong. Sometimes you have to set the question aside and come back to it later to really understand it. Maybe 1 day per week should be spent solely on past mistakes that you've already reviewed before.
Ultimately it looks like you're on the right track, and the way you've been studying has led to big gains so far. Slight tweaks in the way that I describe above, and in the way that you describe in your post will help. I'd hesitate on making any drastic overhaul in how you approach questions just yet.
@Kevin_Lin This is super helpful (and super kind), thank you Kevin! I've been hoping for a more dramatic increase in my score, although the LSAT isn't really the place for that LOL. I'll take your advice set out in the above, and with some hard work I think that I can keep working upward :)
Thank you for organizing this ! I've had a bunch of random questions since forever and the only sources answering them I did not really trust