Marcus91

Joined: Oct 2025
Subscription: Free

non-traditional applicant trying to get a 180.

Admissions profile

LSAT

169

CAS GPA

3.32

1L START YEAR

2027

Applications

UCLA

Rejected

Discussions

LSAT · Anyone else gotten past the 162 plateau? Stuck here for weeks. I want a 166 for the June exam

Marcus91

Tuesday, May 5

Filter your wrong questions on conditional and causal reasoning. If you have multiple misses for these logic types, I'd say study their 7Sage curriculums. Mastering them took my score up 5-6 points

3

LSAT · Having Difficulty with Causal reasoning

Marcus91

Tuesday, May 5

7Sage has a really good causal reasoning curriculum. You should check it out under the Study tab, then go to Foundations & you'll find it there. Causal reasoning is saying that 1 thing causes, leads to or is caused by, is an effect of, is a consequence of some other thing. Don't confuse it with conditional logic which is if/then, sufficiency/necessity because there are different rules. I'd say if you're asking this question, def take the 7Sage module on causal reasoning. It's all over the test & you have to learn it

1

LSAT · 175+ scorers: How did you stabilize your score & execution?

Marcus91

Sunday, May 3

@Marcus91 oh I forgot, another thing that helped me is using chatgpt or any ai bot to do deeper analysis on my sections/tests than 7sage provides. for instance, I export my test/section results as a pdf, upload to chatgpt, and have it analyze by question type which questions I spend the most time on, sinking my time for other questions in the section. even if I ultimately get these right, I took the longer time to mean I struggle with these, and spent more time practicing/doing stairstepper drills on these to get faster. weaken and strengthen were hard for me to grasp, and I'd end up getting them right, but I was spending an average of 2 minutes on every weaken/strengthen question and that's way too long as each lr section can have like 5-6 of these.

feel free to DM me, I'm happy to help. I've been doing some free tutoring in my free time to gain lsat tutoring experience so I can charge for tutoring in law school and make some extra money.

3

LSAT · 175+ scorers: How did you stabilize your score & execution?

Marcus91

Sunday, May 3

@TiaraFulcher I didn't start doing a wrong answer journal until the last month or so, and I wish I'd done it sooner so definitely recommend. once you start scoring high 160s/170s, you're going to be missing a lot fewer questions, so I started including any flagged questions, even if I ultimately get them right, in my almost-wrong answer journal so I can keep a record of why I was unsure, what reasoning made me unsure, and how I can prevent in the future, same as a wrong answer journal.

stair stepper drills are where you drill a specific question type, let's say weaken, over and over again at each difficulty level until you get all the questions right at that difficulty level. then once you get 5 easy weaken questions right, do 5 more at the next difficulty level until you get those all correct, and then repeat increasing the difficulty each time.

I wouldn't recommend doing this for every question type & by the way this seems best for LR, not RC. I'd recommend looking at your trends across tests/sections and seeing which question types you're consistently missing. those are the types to stair stepper drill. if you have other question types like main conclusion for example that you never miss, no point is stair stepping those.

3

LSAT · 175+ scorers: How did you stabilize your score & execution?

Marcus91

Sunday, May 3

@Kade_Katrak thanks man for the advice. I'll def slow it down on the PT's, and I really like your points 2 & 3.

2

LSAT · 175+ scorers: How did you stabilize your score & execution?

Marcus91

Sunday, May 3

@TiaraFulcher mastering RC really took my score over the edge. I was always missing like -6 to -10 on RC, so finally I stopped taking PT's and lr sections and just took like 20 rc sections in a row until I got better. I learned to read for the author's main point per paragraph, outside opinion, and the author's opinion since most questions are centered around these. I use a highlighting system, each color represents one of these. Getting RC inferences down was a little harder, so typically I POE these and verify in the text my correct answer. treat them like a MSS on LR. I read each passage for about 3.5 to 4 minutes to make sure I really understand it that way I just breeze through the questions.

my LR was decent from the start, missing like -3 to -5. now I'm down to -1 average per lr section. I think that's mostly due to doing stair stepper drills per question type, to ensure my strategy is solid for each. never misidentify a conclusion. and I learned to start pre-phrasing the answer before I even look at the answer choices. I read the stem first, then the stimulus so I know what to be looking for in the argument. and timing was the last big hurdle. you have to be fast while accurate, and I think that comes from just taking a lot of questions and getting better on each question type, drilling the ones you struggle with most. if I answer the first 15 questions in about 17-18 minutes, I know I'm in good shape. also mastering causal & conditional reasoning along with the set logic took my LR score over the edge. you have to learn to recognize it the minute you see it even if they don't use the trigger words you're accustomed to.

after 1 month, low 160s. after 2 months, mid 160s. 3 months, still mid 160s. 4 months high 160s and low 170s. months 5 & 6, 175 average. also I'd say until you are getting high 160s and low 170s don't take PT's too often. there's no point. take sections & drills most often

2

LSAT · 175+ scorers: How did you stabilize your score & execution?

Marcus91

Sunday, May 3

@LukaDoncicForMVP appreciate it, I'm def going to slow it down and see if that helps stabilize things

1

•

Edited Tuesday, Apr 28

Marcus91

😖 Frustrated

175+ scorers: How did you stabilize your score & execution?

Anyone else, once you consistently started scoring in 170s, have large swings & volatility?

After 6 months of grueling study I went from a 150 diagnostic to a 176 average in the past month across 15 tests. Very proud of myself so I don't intend to sound like I'm complaining. But I want to go to UCLA with a decent scholarship and my GPA in undergrad was low so it's a must I compensate for that with an amazing LSAT score of 175+.

But my scores are all over the place - in the past 6 days: 179 > 174 > 172 > 179 > 172 > 175. And my BR is always 178 or 180 so I'm convinced something's wrong with my test strategy or it's execution related.

I know factors like sleep, work distractions, eating play a part - but what other strategies, execution-wise, did you implement to score consistently 175+ without dips?

Any advice would be appreciated!

13

LSAT · Closing the AT-BR gap

Marcus91

Tuesday, Apr 28

like bigfatpanda said, you almost have to know the answer before you look at the AC's. I was stuck in mid to high 160s until I got good at this. I practiced untimed first, then gradually reduced the time in the drills to force myself to go faster. of course, the more questions you do the better you'll get because there's only so many variants possible.

I do 1 of 2 things, sometimes both, before I look at the ac's. 1) make an actual prediction of an answer (aka prephrase), and 2) what I need the answer to do. it sounds like it takes a long time but it's 3-5 seconds once you get good at it

on a flaw question for example - stimulus: all boys are tall. therefore you're not tall unless you're a boy

prediction: assumes that because all boys are tall no other people are tall

what it must do: address the mixup between sufficiency & necessity

on a weaken question - stimulus: Alzheimer's patients have higher levels of enzyme ABC than the average person. Therefore increased enzyme levels of abc invariably leads to alzheimers

prediction: alzheimers causes excess production of the enzyme

what it must do: (since this is causal)

show that the alleged effect is actually the cause (alzheimers -> enzyme)

show that some 3rd factor in fact causes them both (all the patients in question all their lives ate 10 bananas a day and bananas are known to cause alzheimers and increased enzyme production)

show that the effect doesn't always occur when the cause is present (there are 100k people with high levels of the enzyme who never develop alzheimers)

1

PrepTests ·

PT134.S1.Q6

Marcus91

Monday, Apr 27

I used to go 10 for 10 on RRE questions and now they're my worst for some reason. Am I making too many logical leaps here? Appreciate any help in advance.

I was torn between B, D and E. My thinking below:

B - If the intensity is greater (as in larger or stronger winds), then they're more likely to be noticed and therefore reported and recorded

D - if they're doing more property damage (tearing up more of 1 house or tearing up more houses in general), they're more likely to be noticed & reported/recorded

E - if more people are on the prowl for tornadoes, they're more likely to be noticed and reported/recorded

0

LSAT · 160s Plateau

Marcus91

Sunday, Apr 26

do you have a timing issue? like are you rushing the end of sections or not finishing with any time left to go back & check any questions you flagged? that kept me stuck in the 160s.

1

LSAT · How to break through 170

Marcus91

Sunday, Apr 26

@businessgoose I suck at the analogies too so sorry no advice for you there - it'd be the blind leading the blind lol. luckily they don't appear too often in a section, maybe only once. if by implicit assumptions you mean inferences or what the author/3rd party would agree with, tbh I kind of take a POE method on these now & also treat them like mss on LR. I avoid anything too strongly worded that takes their viewpoint too far or is just flat out wrong, and when I get down to the final answer I haven't crossed off, on inferences I always go back to the text to double-check. it's a time sink but just for my sanity I have to do it. I spend about 4 minutes intentionally reading the passage so I walk away with a good understanding of everyone's opinions but also in this 4 minutes I am mentally cataloguing where every subject/thought is expressed. this way when I do my inference passage-checks, I don't have to go searching - I know exactly where to look. it's imperfect, but that's what I do

2

LSAT · Is this possible?

Marcus91

Saturday, Apr 25

I increased 6 points from January to February LSAT, so I def think it's possible. But you need to really target the areas that are constantly giving you trouble. 7sage analytics are good for this "priorities by tag." drill those & stop taking pt's until you get consistently better at those question types.

another thing for me was fixing my timing as I was always running out and rushing the final questions. I used chatgpt to help me identify the question types I ultimately get right but consistently spend more time on. I export the test results as a pdf and upload - for instance it told me I was spending 2 minutes roughly per weaken and strengthen question which is way too long and was causing me to rush through other questions at the end of the section that I know well, but would miss simply due to limited time at the end. so I just drilled those strengthen and weaken until I got better & faster.

2

LSAT · RC Struggles

Marcus91

Saturday, Apr 25

I used to be really bad at RC like -6 to -10 every time and now I'm at -2 average. what helped me was 1) if you dont understand paragraph 1, you won't understand the rest of the passage. if I finish reading p1 & am confused, I read it again. always. 2) you have to be reading closely for 3 things a) the main point of the paragraph. what is the key takeaway the author wants you to have per paragraph b) the author's opinion: about a viewpoint, theory, proposal, critic's statements, etc. c) outside 3rd party's statements and their opinions

I use a highlighting system for this: main point(s) of each paragraph are underlined, author's opinions/beliefs in pink, and outside parties are yellow. it's not so much for referring back to the passage when answering the questions although the highlights are useful if I need to. instead the highlighting reminds me to actively look for each of these 3 things as I'm reading and helps to cement them in my mind. hopefully it helps

3

LSAT · How to break through 170

Marcus91

Edited Saturday, Apr 25

@JordanElliott how's your conditional diagramming? until I got really got that and understood 100% sufficiency vs. necessity I struggled there too. also weaken was the hardest LR type for me. I read these really, really skeptically & come up with a way to weaken it before I get to the answer choices, or else they ruin me. Try to think of scenarios in which the premises don't always have to lead to the conclusion after reading the stimulus. That's what I take with me into the answer choices, and now it serves me well.

1

LSAT · How to break through 170

Marcus91

Tuesday, Apr 21

RC was/is my worst, most volatile section. It used to be anywhere from -6 to -10, then between -3 to -6, and now consistently 0 to -3. Still not happy with the volatility between 0 & -3, but I consistently started scoring in the 170s once I focused on RC specifically.

I stopping taking practice tests and LR sections for a while & took like 20 RC sections in a row until I got it down to my current range. Of course review every answer you get wrong & create a wrong answer journal, but during the RC sections I would flag every single question I wasn't absolutely 100% sure about (or arrived at thru POE) & reviewed those post test too, and added those to my almost-wrong answer journal and identified some trends. For every wrong or flagged question I always watch the explanation video to make sure my reasoning matched the instructors' and read the help/description on each answer choice to make sure I excluded/selected it for the right reason.

Once I got RC within a consistent decent range, I tightened up LR to where I now miss no more than 3 on a bad day across the entire test. Haven't scored below a 170 in a month - so TLDR, pause on the PT's and focus on fixing most volatile section.

3

LSAT · 170+ scorers—recommended prep schedules for the month leading up to test?

Marcus91

Saturday, Mar 14

Not a ton of advice on a specific schedule, but what's helped me is just taking a ton of practice tests. Starting with the oldest first so that I take the newer tests closer to the test date. I think it's helped me learn to deal with the fatigue of the exam, and encounter a lot of formats so I am familiar with every variation of question/question type. Don't burn yourself out tho.

3

PrepTests ·

PT115.S4.Q16

Marcus91

Monday, Feb 16

@Orangesunshine this post has singlehandedly turned my MSS questions around - thank you. so simple, yet never thought of it like this

1