- Joined
- May 2026
- Subscription
- Free
Admissions profile
Discussions
@reneevul In my mind, there is no "magic factor" that distinguishes someone testing in the high 160s from someone who breaks into the 170s. It feels like it's two separate score categories, but in truth, I'm pretty sure it is just the matter of a few more/less correct answers per section. I felt like my main issue breaking into higher scores was confidence, and by extension, time management.
With that in mind, I have 2 pieces of advice. The first would be to do everything you can to recognize question types and have a feel for how they work/what the lsat would be looking for depending on the question before you even read the stimulus. Working out a strategy that you know and can easily implement for each question type can help you tackle them quicker, as well as feel more sure of your answer choices. For example, I found that for main conclusion questions, I would try and highlight the line or words that I thought were the main conclusion before even reading answers, while for sufficient assumption questions, I knew I would need to evaluate each answer choice and see if it made the conclusion happen.
The other piece of advice I used (sparingly) was to sometimes set my practice drills (notably NOT sections/full PTs) to go faster than the actual lsat did, and practice difficult questions under time pressure while trying to resist the urge to rush. Then, when I was doing sections and practice tests, I knew I was capable of moving faster than I needed to, and I would usually end up with extra time to review my answers. If you start using this one, chances are that you will get more questions wrong at first, so start off only taking a bit off the "standard" timing, doing this with shorter drills (5-10 questions tops) and make sure you thoroughly blind review your work without the time pressure.
I do not know if anybody will read this, or if it will help anyone at all, but it helped me so I thought it would be good to leave here. These are a few things that I think helped me in my lsat journey, studying up to a 175 with 7Sage as my platform. Feel free to take everything with a grain of salt, as I have a few logic courses (taken during undergrad) to give me a bit of a background on how certain entailments work, and bc of that I started with a pretty high diagnostic.
1) Use the break to refuel!
Your brain actually does run on sugar, and the lsat uses an incredible amount of mental energy! During PTs and during the exam, bring something to eat (big fan of granola bars myself) that has a good amount of sugar in it. It sounds really simple and even a bit stupid, but I swear it took my PT from a 171 to a 177. It's also worth it to eat the same thing each time, to put yourself in the proper headspace/simulate test day. They let you bring in food, it's worth it to use it.
2) Have a visual shorthand/style for diagrams
One of the things that I learned in logic courses was to diagram conditional reasoning using concentric circles. The outermost circle is the necessary condition (the "then" statement) and each subsequent inner circle is the sufficient condition (the "if" statement) to put one in that outer circle.
For example, if the statement were to say "all firemen wear suspenders" (which could also be worded like "if one is a fireman, one wears suspenders" or "one is a fireman only if one wears suspenders" or "one cannot be a fireman unless one is wearing suspenders") then I would diagram that statement as a small circle labelled "firemen" within a bigger circle labelled "wears suspenders." This really helps me to visualize the fact that ALL firemen (sufficient condition) are within the suspenders (necessary) category, but not everyone who wears suspenders may be a fireman. You can do this with multiple circles inside each other, and it also helps to recognize contrapositives, bc now one can physically SEE that if one is outside of the bigger circle, then one simply cannot be inside any smaller circles inside it. I wish I could upload a photo to show, but using just brackets, it would look something like this:
[ (fireman) wears suspenders]
or for the more complex example of "all dogs are good. all good things go to heaven" it would look something like: { [ (dogs) good] going to heaven}
and now we can physically see that if something is not going to heaven, it is not good and it certainly isn't a dog, but there may be things in heaven that aren't good or aren't dogs.
3) Take Your PTs Under "Test Day Conditions"
I think this one may be a bit obvious, but truly, try and start your practice test around the time you would on a test day. If you can, do it on a Saturday or a day off, wake up like you would be heading to the test, eat the type of thing you would that day, sit at a desk with only pencils/scrap paper, etc. I am an anxious person, and when I feel like I have done things before, it can really make them feel more approachable/normal.
Um yeah that's some of my tips/ I truly wish you all the best of luck and hope all of your score dreams become a reality!!!
@AmyDoval I've run into the same problem, and for me, it has helped to try and differentiate between the language "if and only if" and just "only if." Annoyingly, "only if" is the same part as "then" in a one way conditional. So, "if A, then B" and "A only if B" are equivalent statements.
A good example might be:
if [one is in Texas] then [one is in the United States]
which would be functionally equivalent to:
[one is in Texas] only if [one is in the United States]
the above examples would not be equivalent to the statement
[one is in Texas] if and only if [one is in the United States]
Because biconditional statements, (<->) are always fully reversible while maintaining their meanings, to reverse this would be to say:
[one is in the United States] if and only if [one is in Texas]
which simply isn't true.
In applying this logic to question 2, we can see that the premise we are targeting says something along the lines of:
major changes --> complex reasoning
so when we take the contrapositive, we need an assumption that fits the structure:
complex reasoning --> major changes
Answer A (because it uses the language "only if") is still structured to say "major changes --> complex reasoning" but this functionally says "all animals that can make major changes are capable of complex reasoning" leaving room for other animals that are not capable of making major changes to still be capable of complex reasoning. The statement can only be negated if an animal is capable of making changes but NOT capable of complex thought, and because the author states the premise that reptiles are not capable of making changes, the statement ends up being irrelevant.
@ZG hmmm, I'd say my experience of the actual test was that it was in many ways on par with the difficulty of my practices, but I found that test day nerves and anxieties got in the way of me performing as well as I had by about 1-5 points. I scored a perfect 180 on a practice, as well as 177 two other times, but I went into the test fully expecting to drop a bit in terms of score, and I wasn't disappointed at all.