Instructor

MichaelWright

Mike is from the Bay Area and has only recently learned to shut up about that. He studied philosophy at Yale, then went to Yale again for law school. There he discovered a deep, residing passion for not being a lawyer.

After law school, he went home and founded a tutoring company where every hour purchased was matched one-for-one with an hour given pro bono to low income students in Oakland. He did that for 10 amazing years, and he always insisted his LSAT students use 7sage – the company with the best curriculum and the best ethics (it’s not even close).

Now he’s living the dream – making content with J.Y. and Kevin, and helping to refine the curriculum he has admired from afar for over a decade.

He’s a father, a trad climber, a hockey player, and an avidly goofy goose.

Discussions

General · The Economist

MichaelWright

7 hours ago

I'm a big fan of the Economist in general and as an LSAT study tool. You're on the right track in terms of process, as well.

I'd recommend making low-res summaries / structural maps of the articles you read. Their arguments tend to be structurally complex but also very clearly expressed, so it's good practice for building large mental (and written!) models for long-form arguments.

General · New feature: mouseover tooltips for tags (and a bunch of new flaw tags)

MichaelWright

7 hours ago

@MichaelWright wow turns out they were fleshed out IMMEDIATELY! 7sage -- what a company

General · New feature: mouseover tooltips for tags (and a bunch of new flaw tags)

MichaelWright

Edited 7 hours ago

@monmon nono you're on point, these wrong answer tags are closely related, and they have tooltips too that will be fleshed out quite soon! @Kevin_Lin

General

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Edited 11 hours ago

MichaelWright

Instructor

🤯 HYPE AF

New feature: mouseover tooltips for tags (and a bunch of new flaw tags)

Anywhere you see a tag on the website, hover over it for more information! Handy dandy!

Also, we've added a ton of tags for common flaws like ad hominem arguments and false dichotomies! Dandy handy!

Shoot us any ideas you have for what information you'd like to see in these tooltips. I PROMISE THE DEVS WILL IMMEDIATELY IMPLEMENT EVERY SINGLE SUGGESTION.

(Definitions are only available for LR tags currently, but RC definitions are coming soon :P)

LSAT · Everything You Need To Know About Conditional Logic!

MichaelWright

Yesterday

Y'all I'm starting to think @Kevin_Lin might have a knack for making videos...

PrepTests ·

PT129.S3.Q8

MichaelWright

2 days ago

This fallacy is called the "slippery slope", y'all. It's a common argument form in the law. Sometimes the slippery slope is real, sometimes it's not. Here it's not.

PrepTests ·

PT10.S1.Q8

MichaelWright

2 days ago

@haena Dude this part of your comment helped me crack open my explanation -- good work.

this is still incorrect because the argument makes a conclusion about all subjects and not just the ones who survived

It's a sufficient assumption question!

General · Scared I won't improve!

MichaelWright

3 days ago

This early on, you're still getting familiar with all the various tools required to address LSAT questions in the right way. You're moving from "you don't know what you don't know" to "you know what you don't know" on the knowledge spectrum.

So your main growth edge right now is appreciating how god damn hard these questions are. In this phase of your practice, that should mean you're getting slower but more accurate.

Don't judge improvement by your performance on timed drills or sections -- judge it by accuracy. For example, if you started off with 11/26 on a timed LR section where the squares were a scattered mix of greens and reds, progress looks like getting an 11/26 with a big ol block of greens at the beginning and then a big block of reds b/c you ran out of time.

LSAT · PT Routines

MichaelWright

3 days ago

Just dropping in to offer a BIG OL +1 to the general concept of being thoughtful about your routines. They matter!

LSAT · Time management and drilling

MichaelWright

3 days ago

LSAT · Practice Tests

MichaelWright

3 days ago

It depends when your official exam is and how many chances you have left, but I generally recommend people defer timed practice until after they feel solid on theory. Theoretical mastery enables speed, but while you're building those muscles approaching questions the right way (e.g. writing out diagrams, or pausing to articulate low-res RC summaries) will feel slow in timed practice. That often gives people the misleading idea that they ought to skip out on those things for the sake of time.

Save your timed practice for when the main thing you need to practice is time management (and managing your activation in a timed setting and all the other factors that contribute to execution under pressure).

LSAT · How to push through the last two weeks- April test taker

MichaelWright

6 days ago

@MichaelWright As for what kind of LSAT practice you should do, I recommend relaxed, comfortable, untimed review of your high priority tags. Like you're in your pajamas sitting in front of a cozy fire and smoking a pipe and reading an RC passage.

You've hit your target score. You know you can do it. Content-wise you just need to stay in shape, which really doesn't take very much. Play random mini-games with LSAT content like seeing how fast you can ID question types for every question in an LR section, or reading the stimuli for the easiest questions and seeing if you can anticipate the correct answer verbatim.

LSAT · How to push through the last two weeks- April test taker

MichaelWright

6 days ago

Lessons · Fact v. Belief. v. Knowledge

MichaelWright

6 days ago

@MichaelWright Update: I found one!!!

LSAT · Infer vs Properly Infer

MichaelWright

Friday, Mar 27

@MikeP 😍😍😍😍😍 i low key love these in-the-weeds questions.

LSAT · Infer vs Properly Infer

MichaelWright

Edited Friday, Mar 27

@MikeP rofl nice. first off what in the fresh hell are you doing looking at PT2?!? i had to whip out my old pdfs. (although it turns out the question you're talking about is featured in what they now call PTF97: PTF97.S2.Q24)

Also good job forcing me to explicate the nuance I was trying to gloss over. This is indeed a case where the correct answer doesn't 100% have to be true, for the exact reason you described. There isn't a difference (that we've noticed) between "inferred" and "properly inferred", though, because we've found examples of "properly inferred" questions that act like MSS too. That's part of why we give "inference" questions (which includes both "infer" and "properly infer") a different tag.

The inference / MBT distinction isn't a mere relic of the past -- there are recent examples too, they're just super rare. the vast majority of times, "inference" questions are MBT questions. Sometimes they're technically MSS, but if your ass is smart enough to pick out those finely-distinguished outliers, you should be smart enough to get those questions right anyway using the MSS standard and process of elimination.

IT'S 6PM WHY DID YOU MAKE ME THINK SO HARRRRRDDDDDD

LSAT · Infer vs Properly Infer

MichaelWright

Thursday, Mar 26

@Kevin_Lin and I have nerded out about these tiny differences in wording a few times, but the bottom line is you should just treat them all like MBT.

PrepTests ·

PT127.S3.Q24

MichaelWright

Edited Wednesday, Mar 25

@Susie this is a great question.

First, parallel questions are inherently comparative. Every answer choice will be similar to the stimulus in some ways and different in others -- that's what analogies are.

This is in contrast to MBT questions, for example, where the standard for right/wrong can apply to answer choices individually.

As for the concept of "change", that concept is equally missing in all the answer choices. As a general rule of multiple choice testing, if you have a complaint about one answer choice that also applies to the other choices you're considering, that complaint should cancel out -- you shouldn't use it as a reason to pick one over another.

PrepTests ·

PT159.S3.Q18

MichaelWright

Tuesday, Mar 17

@Ilovethistest this is me writing from my phone, so I can’t look back at the text a million times to make sure everything’s an exact match. BUT…

There’s a difference between quantifiers (all, most, some) and what are called modal terms (certainly, probably, possibly). The stimulus’ conclusion has a strong modal term (“must”) and a weak quantifier (“some”). Those are two separate dimensions: this weak “sometimes” claim MUST CERTAINLY be true.

(E)’s conclusion is strong by both measures. The quantifier mismatch is the killer.

LSAT · Untimed Drills for Breaking into the Consistent 170s?

MichaelWright

Thursday, Mar 12

@antitrust_fan Untimed practice is for deepening your understanding; timed practice is for refining your execution in realistic conditions.

LSAT · Untimed Drills for Breaking into the Consistent 170s?

MichaelWright

Wednesday, Mar 11

Feature Request · 7sage WAJ?

MichaelWright

Wednesday, Mar 11

You can filter questions by "result" in Analytics > Questions to get a list of all your incorrect questions (see the screenshot below). Does that hit the spot, or were you asking for something different?

LSAT · Struggling with LR regression after a break and tips for closing the gap to 175?

MichaelWright

Wednesday, Mar 11

With the facts you've presented, I doubt your content knowledge has cratered in the two weeks you took away. My general advice is to focus consciously on what I call "execution" factors, and take an iterative, experimental approach toward improving in those areas. This is a common enough theme is discussion posts that I made a general video on the subject, embedded below. HMU if you have follow-up questions or if you'd like advice more narrowly tailored to your situation.

LSAT · Managing Stress

MichaelWright

Wednesday, Mar 11

LSAT · Parallel Reasoning Tips

MichaelWright

Wednesday, Mar 11

Untimed practice question-by-question practice on a big long string of parallel questions, starting with the easy ones. Before looking at the answer choices, lay out the abstract structure in your own words. Articulate precise reasons why all the answer choices you dislike don't match that structure.

Then check your answer, and read the explanations in detail. Evaluate your performance not based on whether you got the question right, but on whether the structure you articulated matches the structure given in the explanation.

It's a long process, but conscious exposure will give you familiarity. As a tutor, parallel questions are among my favorites because they're among the easiest to take students from "wtfwtfwtfwtf" a state of calm and confidence.