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ITTutoring
Independent Tutor
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Oct 2025
Admissions · Just had the most discouraging consultation
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ITTutoring
Tuesday, Nov 18

My personal lawyer likes to say, 'You take the best move on the board. It doesn't matter if you'd prefer another move. If it's off the board, it's off the board.'

It seems, from this consultant's advice, 'apply early and get accepted' is off the board for you. So it's time to look at what the best move left might be. 'Apply late with a better score' is probably the best move left on the board. Don't worry that this move isn't as good as 'apply early'. 'Apply early' is off the board--if this consultant is right.

I put 'if this consultant is right' there for a reason. You might be getting bad advice. But it's not impossible that your consultant is right. A low enough score does mean straight to the reject pile, no matter what schools may say.

If the consultant is telling you that when you have a 4.0, and the consultant is worth consulting, that means that LSAT score must be pretty bad. If it's that bad, surely, you can improve it with time. The consultant might not be an expert on how long it takes to improve a score from pretty bad to OK enough. It might not be a year. But they're probably correct that you do need to improve. (Unless you just found a terrible consultant.)

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LSAT · PT5.S1.Q7 - Two paleontologists, Dr. Tyson and Dr. Rees, disagree
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ITTutoring
Friday, Nov 14

They both agree that the evidence is significant. They disagree about the significance of various aspects of the evidence. Dr. T thinks that the human characteristics (an aspect of the evidence) indicates the footprints were left by a hominid (that's what he thinks the significance of the evidence is--it proves hominids). Dr. R thinks that the cross-stepping pattern (another aspect of the evidence) indicates that the footprints weren't left by a hominid (a different interpretation as to the significance of the evidence).

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LSAT · Help, is it an argument or not?
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ITTutoring
Wednesday, Nov 12

The question is not "is this an argument?" but rather, "is the question asking me to treat this like an argument?" Inference questions, Paradox/Explain/RRE questions, Point of Disagreement/Agreement questions--these questions may have arguments in them, but the test maker is instructing you to simply consider everything they say as true and then do a task based on that truth.

For the most part, the question stem will say "argument" if they want you think about it as an argument, to break it down into Conclusion and Evidence, look for Assumptions, etc.

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LSAT · Main point: RC
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ITTutoring
Wednesday, Nov 12

Sometimes it helps if you rephrase the question a bit. Instead of saying "what's the main point," say "the entire reason the author wrote this passage was to convince me that..." I find that helps distinguish between answers that are true--something the author did say--but not the main point.

Another way to think about it is that the right answer needs to be broad enough to cover for all the content in the passage, even though it doesn't have to name check every concept from the passage. A lot of times people bite on the wrong answer because there's a word that they want to see in the answer because that word was used a lot in the passage, or it's the most natural word to describe the passage, and they avoid the right answer because it doesn't have that word they want to see.

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LSAT · How do you put "few" in a conditional chart?
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ITTutoring
Wednesday, Nov 12

Few and many are words that, formally, mean about the same thing: "an unspecified number". For the most part, choosing one over the other is an emotional choice, not a logical one. I ate at Outback a few times last week. You know I ate there some, but do I consider eating there twice to be "a few times" or do I consider eating there 12 times to be "a few times"? You don't know how small or big a few is, you just know it's not zero. If I switched and said "I ate at Outback many times last week," does that mean more than two? More than six? More than sixteen? You don't know. But you do know I was lying to you if it turns out I didn't eat at Outback at all last week.

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Hi there,

My name is Carl, and I've been tutoring the LSAT since the early 2000s, online and in person. These days I mostly work online over Zoom.

I would never tell someone that it's impossible to self-study for the test or that a tutor is absolutely required, by any means. I would say, however, that having the right guidance at the right moment in your studies can both save you a lot of frustration and streamline the process of improving your score. I can guide you from the beginning of your studies or step in as a troubleshooter when you hit a sticking point. I can take a look at the work you've done recently and try to diagnose what's holding you back and provide you with a recommendation of the best next steps to take in the short term and in the long term.

Two people scoring in the 170s might tackle the test in completely different ways. My job as a tutor is not to turn you into a carbon copy of me, but to help you find the combination of techniques and methods that will get you the score you want. Sure, there are certainly some required skills on the test--some questions are impossible, for example, if you don't know what a contrapositive is. But there's also a lot of leeway. There's no one-size-fits-all approach, and I tailor my lessons to you and your needs.

I specialize in helping people move the needle who've been stuck on a plateau for a long time. I also offer a free one-hour evaluation session to all potential clients, an hour for us to meet, discuss your troubles, have me demonstrate my tutoring style, and have you ask any questions you have. So, please, reach out if you'd like to schedule an evaluation with me to see if I can help you.

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