TLDR: went from scoring -12 in LR sections to -3 in less than two months, stopped overcomplicating everything and feel like I solved most of my challenges overnight; ignore the question types; read the stim first; think of each LR question as problem solving; have Sage analyze each drill/section you do; and confidently think of the LSAT as a problem/puzzle to solve instead of a big bully to fight.
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In August, I took a diagnostic and scored 148. I was (of course) disappointed. For the record, I had not had any formal introduction in LR before this. Regardless, I still thought I was "smart enough" to score better. I said to myself, "Is law school really feasible if my baseline is 148? Am I not a fit?"
After the diagnostic on LawHub, I bought several study books: The Loophole, PowerScore Bibles and workbooks, and more. I worked through the entirety of The Loophole and felt I was in a good place.
But when I did the LR sections at the end .... I scored 16/26 and 22/26. I was once again disappointed. How am I not getting this?
I finally bit the bullet and bought 7Sage thinking, "Ok this is what will fix me."
Drill after drill, section after section, I felt like I was actually getting worse. 30% accuracy. Prep test: 152. Woof.
I'm hoping for a 162-165.
But then I watched a video last weekend that literally changed my LSAT Life (lol).
A guy on a random Youtube video I stumbled upon said something along the lines of: Stop overcomplicating LR. Stop thinking about the question type. Instead, break the question. Think of the LSAT as a giant puzzle you need to solve, not something you need to be afraid of.
As soon as I did that, I did a mini drill.
5/5.
Another drill of only "hard" questions.
4/5.
5/5.
PT. 118, LR Section1 (which Jon Denning recommended said was difficult)
-3; 169 equivalent.
Holy shit? While The Loophole and all of the 7Sage lessons remain extremely valuable and helped with the foundations, it just didn't work for my brain.
I went from:
Reading the question then the stimulus. "Ok what kind of question type is this? Ok it's an X type ... ok now what kind of answer does that need? Ok um, um, ugh.."
to
Reading the stimulus/ "Lol, wrong. Dumb. They didn't consider this," and predicting the answer choice before I read the question. I literally do not even think about what type of question it is because I don't care. I'm not here to diagnose the question, I'm here to solve it.
Think less of what kind of answer each question type needs. Read each choice and think, "does this make it any more true/false or fix/break the conclusion?"
While this isn't a cure-all because I'm still not super confident in my ability to do these under strict time, I am confident in approaching every single question and thinking every stimulus is dumb and wrong :)
The LSAT isn't a giant bully. It's a broken machine with broken parts (stimuli) that are built to trick you. Refuse to be tricked! Assume each question/stimulus/answer choice will be DUMB and WRONG.
This attitude has also made me feel much more confident regarding the LSAT as a whole.
So:
Read each stimulus slowly and actually UNDERSTAND it.
If you don't understand, reread it.
Translate each stimulus (highly recommend you look into this if you don't know what I mean).
Spend more time reading the stim than the answers because by understanding the stim, the right question becomes more obvious.
Lastly, have Sage analyze each drill/section you do. While I try to reject AI in my life, I have grown quite fond of my little 7Sage LSAT robot lol. Sage has been a great sounding board when I ask, "wait, why is that not the right answer? Here is why I picked it," and resolving my thinking (and telling me to calm down, I am not dumb haha).
Now, will I take my test in November and throw up at the test site from anxiety? Probs.
Until then, I feel much more confident in my abilities, less intimidated by the LSAT, and encouraged by the fact that I learned what I needed to learn in the way that suited me best.
Best of luck to you all, and thanks to 7Sage for your A+ answer explanations (and especially for Sage).
Last tip: Try to avoid the LSAT reddit forum. Every single person and their cousin on that forum scored 175+ and they all only studied for two weeks. Don't let it persuade you to abandon your goals or doubt yourself.
19 comments
Heavy on that last tip haha. I just went on, saw people talking about how awful the October test is, and decided to just block Reddit between now and Friday. What I don't know can't hurt me
Real asf lol. I do like Jon Denning on Reddit though who used to work for PowerScore but will now be working for 7Sage. I highly recommend watching his 3.5 hr long podcast/video thing he streamed the other night and posted to Reddit. He had a lot of valuable tips that will be helpful for October test takers (i.e. passages that haven't been reused yet, LR and RC sections to take that are most similar to the most recent tests, latest frequency of question types, etc etc). He's also pretty funny so it's worth the listen. I listened to it in the background around the house and during my drive to work, then would write down what I found most valuable (I took LR Sec1 from PT 118 based on his recommendation).
👁️ ooooo la la i didn’t know Jon D. left powerscore that’s huge that’s a new development and that’s kind of spicy lol did 7sage poach? Their quest to be the ultimate LSAT prep solution continues! The Crystal Ball and 7Sage united will be so excellent
No idea! I hadn't heard of him before I randomly found his Reddit post with the streaming link where he dropped all the hot tea in 3.5 hrs lol. It seems like the 7sage thing is veryyyy new/in the works. Regardless, his predictions and insights were awesome and it's worth the time to listen to!
Congrats on the improvement!
These are definitely the most important parts of solving questions effectively:
If I may, could I ask whether you thought something in 7Sage suggested you shouldn't do these things or that they're not important? If so it's definitely something we'd want to change, because these are foundational to how we try to approach questions.
It's not that 7Sage doesn't say to do these things, but his communication/presentation of it (a simple 3-step method) just clicked for me personally. His name is Diego Sarmiento on Youtube - scored a 180 in 2025 and is 1L at Harvard. His videos aren't highly produced, very scripted, or very ... detailed really. So IMO, the biggest take away was to stop trying to diagnose each question type because that was my issue. I was constantly thinking about the massive chart from The Loophole book and the lessons on each of the question types from 7Sage, and realized that when I forget about all the things I'm "supposed to" remember, I do much better. A four-minute Diego video solved what hours of reading Loophole and going through drills couldn't get through to me. You don't have to be able to name every single fallacy; instead, reduce it to just trying to solve a problem. A litany of lessons is intimidating, and knowing that you don't have to know all of it to begin to understand it, is encouraging. Not to say that understanding the foundations isn't important (and is perhaps why it only took a short video for it all to click), but condensing all of it into something simple, digestible, and memorable, was very impactful for my learning style. So no, it's not a content issue on 7Sage's end but rather the communication of it for my ADHD brain that wants the TDLR versions :) All of these tips are in 7Sage, but woven in different places. Perhaps this is why I find the AI Sage so helpful. For an added note -- his RC tips that I shared with another commenter below have overlap with 7Sage, but I found his Step 1 to be unique and most helpful.
whats the name of the video!
Diego Sarmiento on Youtube! He scored a 180 in 2025 and is a 1L at Harvard.
thank you and congrats !!
wait, is this from Diego??!! I literally went from -5 to -3 in LR and from -7 to -3 in RC thanks to his simple advice in no joke, 3 days.
I agree, 7SAGE does tend to focus a lot on identifying the question and try to go from there, but it's way more intuitive to do Diego's style.
It's raw, it's real. No diagramming necessary. Diagramming is what was sinking my time.
YES! And exactly. He's straight to the point. I was overthinking each question and trying to diagnose it in regards to the stim instead of just finding the issue. Strengthen/Conditional Reasoning/Resolve/Blah blah blah blah, just forget it and figure out why it's wrong or what choice makes it more wrong/right and that's literally the whole point lol. I still find 7Sage extremely valuable, but I can better understand their breakdowns because of Diego.
This is so funny because a few weeks ago I watched that same video and came away thinking he was just living on a different plane of existence than me. After a lot of blind review though I totally got what he meant. However, though I think the core of his message is dead-on, I do think diagramming is really helpful for more convoluted conditionals and answer choices with contrapositives. I only diagrammed selectively on the October exam, and it made questions that would originally take 2 minutes take like 30 seconds.
Thanks for the tip! Taking both Oct and Nov LSAT and these tips were useful! Do you have any advice for RC?
I used the guy's advice for RC, too! His name is Diego Sarmiento on Youtube. My RC improved after I followed his 3-step method: after every sentence, ask yourself if the author is stating a fact or sharing their opinion, high level recap of passage, and then predict. His other piece of advice is the same advice that 7Sage preaches which - after actually following lol - works: read sloowwwww. I was reading the passages in like 2-2:30. I'm now a little over 4mins and my RC has significantly improved. I also liked something I watched on the 7Sage Youtube that said, "is this answer choice just sharing a supported point or the actual purpose?" for main point questions and I found that really helpful!
@aylabauer ^ the RC comment I referenced @Kevin_Lin
Thank you so much! Good luck with your LSAT journey and I hope both of us get into our dream law school!
did AI write this, be honest
I'm flattered. But nope, straight from the dome. I'm a former speechwriter and work in PR. And as I mentioned above, I try to reject AI in most all aspects (especially writing), but I admit to loving and using Sage.
@aylabauer thank you for all of this amazing advice. side note: I am so grateful for SAGE AI as well. It has been the best personal tutor a girl could ask for !!