Fail-Safe

Burden.of.Floof

Hey everyone!

I had some thoughts tonight on the exam, and I thought it might be useful to put them out there into the LSAT community at large. Hopefully there's someone who finds this helpful

So, something that's been stewing in the back of my mind for the past week or so, is this idea of the bell curve. How can we use that to our advantage when we approach the test? Obviously, we all know that there are easier questions and harder questions... and we all reach a point where we feel like we should be getting the easy questions correct, after all, they're the easiest questions we see, and we want to have some idea that our studying is paying off, right? But, up until recently I had a mental block with these questions. So concerned I was about my pride (haha), not wanting to miss an "easy" question, that I was sinking way too much time into them, trying to make sure I got them right.

But, here's what I realized: The writers want to maintain their curve, and we all know this... but for me personally, I wasn't putting enough time into thinking about what this really meant. The LSAT is so good at manipulating us into choosing the wrong answer, we forget that on certain questions, they're manipulating us into choosing the right answer. At times, the LSAT seems like this force of nature... it's a test with amazing psychometrics. It knows us better than we know ourselves. But, instead of always seeing it as a bad thing, we can reframe it in a positive way, and it could help us to move faster during the questions that we know we probably got right but... we just wanted to "be extra sure" about. I think there are two major (and probably obvious reasons) for adopting this mentality.

First, it saves time. If we can get these questions lightning fast, it will save us so much precious time that we need for the 8 or so really, really tough questions. This is also a really important fail-safe on this test. Something that I have come to realize, (because I've had some very wise people tell me) is that mistakes will be made... I will misread, it's just going to happen. The more time you have to play with, the better chance you have of correcting these errors. Second, it saves brain power... so much brain power for when you're exhausted and you're worried about time and everything else that comes with this exam.

So, let the LSAT steer you where it wants you to go, that way you'll be ready to take over the reigns when it's time to shine!

p.s., check out the LSAT Lab video where they talk about moving through the first 10 questions on instinct. I think it definitely shaped helped my view on this.