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How I scored a 180
intellectualplastic
Alum Member
I scored a 180 on the July 2020 LSAT (it was my first time taking it) and I’m writing to share what I did. I was very encouraged by the 180 experiences that I had read online, and I wanted to write something similar before the memory faded away. If you’re reading this, hi! I’m so glad you’re here! I hope this helps.
Some background: I decided to go to law school during the summer before my junior year, and I wanted to go to a top school. As a double stem and philosophy major I had a GPA below every T-14 median, so I knew that I had to hit the LSAT out of the park.
I started studying in mid-December during winter break my junior year with a 164 diagnostic. I finished the core curriculum at the end of January and scored a 170 on my first post-curriculum PT. By mid-February, I started taking a full, timed practice test about every other week. I treated every practice test as a dress rehearsal—timed conditions, 15-minute break, printer paper and my favorite pens, a bottle of water. (I was prepared to switch over to pencil at some point, but I lucked out when the flex was announced. I got to use my pens the whole time!) I also practiced the first 30 tests I took with 33 instead of 35 minute sections, which helped me learn to pace myself. If I had a headache, wasn’t feeling my best, or really tired, I wouldn’t test. It was very important to me to try and simulate the headspace that I was going to be in during the test itself—practicing bad form, I thought, wasn't a good use of my time.
From February to about June I progressively went through the problems sets as I got better at them. I did most easy sets in Feb and saved the medium and hard sets for later in the spring. I gave myself 100% extra time during the difficult sets (I knew that I would have that kind of time for hard problems during the test) to really hone my intuition on rare problems.
In all, I took 49 practice tests. From late Feb-May, I took one about every other week (for maybe 20 tests). From mid-May (when the semester ended) to July 12th (my test date), I took another 29 (!) tests, about 3-5 each week. I do wish that I had done those first 30 practice tests earlier rather than back-ending my studying as much as I did, but it was workable. For me, taking tests was absolutely the best way to improve. I had a major breakthrough after taking 30 tests mostly because of improvement on LR. By 30 PTs, I began nailing obscure but recognizable question varieties (like certain types of flaws, subtleties in the causation questions, stuff like this). In the first 30 PTs I was usually scoring between 170-174. I staggered the tests so I was doing a mix of old and new, taking PT 41, 51, 61, 71, 81, and then 42, 52, 62, 72, 82, all the way through 49, 59, 69, 79, 89.
When I kicked my studying into high gear in late May, I was aiming for a 10-PT average of 177 (which was my avg BR score). I was taking summer classes and I studied for 1-6 hours a day depending on what I felt I could do productively. I got a 177 average by mid-June and was consistently scoring scoring 173-179. I scored my first 180 in July, ten days before I was slated to test, and my second 180 a few days after that.
Even though I was doing so many tests, I never came close to burnout. I think this was because I never forced myself to study—if I needed a day off, I would take one. Besides that, I felt really absorbed in my studying, like I was learning something new or doing something productive the whole time. I really cannot thank 7Sage enough for this. The videos (which I always watched on double speed), the gamified analytics bar, and the really lovely testing and BR interface made it so freaking easy to study, and I felt like I was always making the most of my time.
I think the thing that really got me through the blind reviewing was the sense that all of the questions are doable, and all of the answers are clear. I absolutely refused to write off difficult questions as oddballs or one-offs, and I spent time in BR internalizing all of the answers so that they seemed completely, patently obvious to me. (Sometimes this meant spending 15 minutes on an LR question. Rarely, it meant spending an hour on an RC question.) If I wasn’t satisfied with the explanations already in the comments, sometimes I would add my own.
Speaking of blind reviewing, here are some things I did by section:
LG: I would do all the games again in BR. At first this meant figuring games out for the first time and correcting lots of mistakes or (for the tricky ones) finding a better way to organize things. When I got better at games this meant redoing the games quickly to sanity-check my answers, and redoing the hard ones until they felt easy (maybe 2-3 times).
LR: Taking 30+ tests really, really helped me improve on this section. At one point it was my best, and I consistently missed zero or one. After 30 practice tests I would thoroughly blind review only the questions I starred or missed since I felt comfortable about all the others. (Again, staying motivated meant using my time really productively! I didn’t BR questions that I was confident in.)
RC: This was an absolute beast for me, and it took me a long time to improve. Even up until my test date I was missing 1-4 questions on this section. What helped me improve from 3-7 missed to 1-4 missed was to force myself to spend 2.5-4 minutes on the passage (longer than felt natural) really absorbing all of the structure, and then answering the questions somewhat quickly. The main reason this helped was that I could remember where to look for details when questions asked for them rather than guessing or rereading whole paragraphs. (Speeding through was very difficult because I would often feel super unconfident on many of my answers, but it was still the best strategy.) In BR, I spent a lot of time internalizing the differences between the best AC and worse ACs on the confusing curve-breaker questions, and this helped me miss fewer of them.
About a month before the test I changed my schedule to include a morning routine. I got used to doing an exercise routine, eating lunch, and then sitting down to do a test, taking it at about the same time during the day that my actual test was scheduled for. (The workout was a lifesaver on test day since I was so full of white hot terror that I needed something to distract me!)
On test day, I get a decent sleep and wake up full of jitters. I do an extra-long exercise routine to help keep myself busy, eat a pasta lunch, and sit down for the flex test. Despite feeling prepared I am visibly shaking and can’t think lucidly because I am so nervous. Thankfully my first section is logic games. I crank through the first three games, and I calm down gradually as I take the test. The last game is wickedly difficult and my nerves didn’t leave me with a lot of extra time. I leave the section highly unconfident on one question and shaky on maybe three. (I still think that I did miss that one question, but everyone’s allowed one miss).
The next section is LR, and it’s a relatively easy section. I get through it with a bit of time to spare, and very quickly double-check all of my starred questions (the one question I am least confident about is a strangely worded number 7, oddly enough—I must have spent three minutes on it).
The final section is RC, and I only just finish the section (I almost always take up the full time on RC, and I practiced with the expectation that I wouldn't have time to double-check anything) but I feel pretty good about it.
And so I got a 180. It took a lot of studying and a lot of luck—things likely would have turned out differently if I had gotten a RC right off the bat or if I had really fudged that last logic game. But my preparation helped me muscle-memory my way through the test even with such terrible nerves—I could really fall back on hardened pattern-recognition. (The LSAT is a very learnable test!) I didn’t set out to get a 180, and I always knew that it was unlikely. My aim was to study enough to consistently hit a challenging but achievable “goal range,” which in my case was 175-180. I could have just as easily gotten any of those scores or lower.
On another note, my lovely partner was studying for the LSAT at the same time that I was. Early on we made the decision not to share any of our practice test scores besides vague reports, like “I got a new high score!” or “I scored in my goal range!” This turned out to be a really great decision! It freed us from comparing ourselves, and it allowed us to be really supportive. (We celebrated the heck out of our scores together when it was all over, though! They ended up with a 177!)
Comments
Wow, congrats!
Congratulations, well deserved! Thanks for sharing
Thank you for this. I also have a lower GPA and therefore feel the same pressure to perform 175+ (preferably 180) to get to T14. I am very early in the process, but sometimes have trouble having enough time for the most difficult LR questions at the end of the section. I normally arive at questions 20-21 with 5-6 minutes left which for the most difficult questions is usually not enough to feel 100% confident in all my answers. For the easier LR questions, do you read every answer choice despite knowing almost certainly that when you read C, for example, that it's correct, or do you immediately move on? I feel like this could help me tack on at least 45 seconds to a minute per section which would help a ton and calm me so that I can take my time to think through the hardest questions at the end.
@jpelberfeld GPA solidarity! As for LR, I did eventually get to the point where I didn't read all of the answers if I was really confident in an answer choice (except for questions that felt like curve breakers). It also helped me to try to get through the first 10-12 questions in 10 minutes so that I had lots of time for q's 17-25. I starred any questions that I didn't know the answer to on the first read and then came back to them with the minutes I had at the end. Good luck with your studies!
This is amazing, Congratulations!! Very happy for you,and grateful you're sharing your journey. I have been taking a PT every 2 weeks since I started studying (~6 months, but 1.5 months with 7sage). I've gone up around 11-15 points, but I still have a decent way to go. Did it make a difference for you to take PTs after you completely finished your studying? Or did you sprinkle in a few PTs while you were still studying the core curriculum? I am hoping to sit for the Feb 2021 test, but in case I don't feel fully prepared and want to push my date I don't want to run out of tests, so I'm not sure if it makes sense to take a PT every other week while I'm still learning the material. Also, after you finished the core curriculum and you were taking a PT every other week - were you drilling in between? Once again, congratulations!!
a 164 diagnostic is nuts lol
^^ ditto on the 164 diagnostic lol
Congrats tho.
Congrats!! Super encouraging to read success stories and agreed, exercising definitely helps with the anxiety and nerves
This. I'd be interested to know if you feel anything predisposed you to that high a diagnostic. Awesome achievement nonetheless.
I realize that I'm an outlier here! Being a philosophy major and reading a lot, I think, was an incredible help. I already had a good handle on advanced sentence structures, and I was used to reading challenging philosophy papers with literal and precise claims. In some sense, I really started studying for the LSAT when I started reading philosophy.
WOW Congrats! I love hearing this so much. I am so happy to see how your hard work has paid off. I only can work hard to follow in your steps as well! Also thank you so much for sharing your routine and steps!! I know I will for sure be using your methods! Congratulations and thank you once again!
@aditivsinha14
I did the core curriculum all at once, but this wasn't a very deliberate decision! I started studying when 7Sage was still on their four-tier payment system, and so for the first month of studying I only had access to the core curriculum along with a handful of problem sets and 10 tests. Once I finished the core curriculum in Feb I upgraded to the full Ultimate+, which included everything. And yes—I spent a lot of time drilling LG and hard problem sets in between tests! Good luck in February:)
This supports my hypothesis that philosophy majors have a huge initial advantage on the LSAT.
If you can make sense of Heidegger, Kant, Hegel, and all those other guys then the obtuse wording and LSAT should come naturally for you, hahaha. Trying reading Heidegger makes my head hurt. I get like 20% of what he's saying tops even when I'm fully focusing. That's great training for the LSAT. I also wonder if math majors test higher than English majors (at least initially) since that discipline also takes more intellectual rigour than English/Poli-sci. The only thing is that maybe they're not as used to dealing with language as English majors.
I also know someone who's a double-stem/philo major (Bio). I'm sure curious how they would score on it. Like, shouldn't it be general knowledge which majors give you an advantage on the LSAT? I'm suprised we don't have stats!
Kind of makes me wish I studied more philo rather than English. Reading Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow probably bumped my diagnostic up like 5 points.
I scored a 151 on my diagnostic which I was deeply disappointed in (inflated ego). Tried to rationalize it to myself by saying that I was barely paying attention and didn't have any idea what I was in for since I decided I was interested in law like the day prior. That's what the test tests you for tho, so it was an accurate score. That humbled me. It felt like I got rejected by a lover, hahaha.
Anyways, I'm rambling. To finish things up, your GPA should not be counted against you since you were a stem/philo double major! Two extremely demanding majors! Hopefully the schools you're interested in take notice and give you a handsome scholarship! Good luck with apps and congrats on the 180!
Gotta admit that I've never read Heidegger, Kant, or Hegel—I'd probably be right there with you in understanding 20% of their writing. I would have to force myself to get through their work, so I haven't read them yet. I'm a fan of just reading what you want! (I am interested in philosophers who write about these three—like Parfit and Korsgaard!)
I think that modern philosophy might be better for LSAT prep than older stuff, since modern analytic philosophers tend to use a recognizable premise-conclusion structure. In this vein, I loved reading Parfit's Reasons and Persons, which was so delightful and challenging. And all of Robin Dembroff's work. And Nick Beckstead's dissertation. While I agree that philosophy is really good for LSAT prep, I also think it's just a fantastic major!
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, and gl on all the things! A 151 is a great place to begin studying, and I wouldn't be surprised if you were headed for a big score jump.
amazing! congrats and thank you for sharing
Congrats! It's always great to hear success stories!
On your practice tests, were you simulating Flex or taking both sections of LR?
I simulated flex! I would do the three sections in one sitting and then take a break and do the other LR section later that day.
A 180 and a 177? Talk about a power couple!
Perfect! Long live the spirit of the youth! And philosophy and physical exercise
Congrats, such a great story and achievement! Did you use 7Sage for LR and RC? I really like this platform for LG, but I've been relying on Powerscore for LR and Mike Kim for RC. Would be super grateful if you could share your strategies for LR and RC.
Also, on RC: how did you manage to speed through questions in less time since you focused on the passage? Is it because you had a better grasp of the structure and where different arguments/parts were from giving passages more time?
@intellectualplastic congrats on your hard-earned score!! Seconding the comment that you two are a power couple.
Thanks for taking the time to share this super detailed writeup. One part that stuck out to me is your tip to stay motivated and star/BR only the questions that gave you trouble. For me, I notice I just tend to star... legit half the LR sections haha. I really try to follow the 100% confidence rule when starring. Granted not everything from the timed run is actually wrong, but I get SO exhausted BR-ing that I'm honestly starting to wonder how much I get out of it. If you went through this lack of confidence, how did you manage it and still study productively?
I'm also curious to know how much time in general you spent on BR vs in-depth review afterwards with correct explanation (+1 on @bella900's question on sources you prefer!). Thanks in advance if you have time to answer my questions!
Stats, economics, anything covering scientific method and research methodology is definitely helpful, but you don't need more than a semester's worth for the LSAT IMO. I think philosophy is where it's at. Been reading some informal logic textbooks and they're basically more advanced LSAT courses. I'd kill to have done these in UG. I've also heard anecdotally that computer science peeps do well in LG... not familiar enough to know why though I could make some guesses.
Computer Science are required to study informal and also more advanced logic classes which you've mentioned.
I've just recently began prepping for the LSAT, and I've been focusing on LR the past couple of days. I've come to the realization that LR tests for a unique skillset which the only other place where I could see it also being utilizied is for logic classes. It's essentially intro logic with a big emphasis on English. It only tests you on the first chapter or two of logic. If someone wrote a book/course on logic -----> language, the exam would be the LR section.
I've never used these skills very much being an English major myself, so the transition has been really painful. The past couple of days the stimulus has barely made any sense to me. I've just recently realized that it's likely because I'm no longer examining the passages for what they're saying, but instead for the logic being used within it.
The real point that I'm getting at is that it's vital to understand that LR is testing for LOGICAL REASONING. When you enter the section you need to turn off your usual reading skills/habits and start using very different ones. You need to think of this switch of habits/skills as an on/off switch. So vital and real as to be binary. You CANNOT process the info in LR like you do when reading anyting else.
You can understand the overlap between subjects by using the analogy of different excersized at the gym: English uses skills 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Philo maybe 1, 2, 7, 8, 9. Comp Sci 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. The LSAT would be something like 1, 7, 8, 9, 10 imo. Pulls ups and push ups both use some of the same muscles. Running and squats both use some of the same muscles. If whatever you normally do uses the same muscles which this new excersize requires, you'll be at a big advantage.
I just realized all this and got pretty excited, so I had to share it somewhere and happened to share it here, lol.
As a beginner, this would have been extremely helpful to know—this would have given me an unambiguous answer as to why I'm not performing well, as opposed to me thinking it's anything from natural apptitude to whatever other reason I've thought of.
Congratulations!
Thanks Bella:)
I used 7Sage for everything! 7Sage came highly recommended to me by several friends who used it to get 170+ scores, so I didn't bother looking elsewhere. For LR and RC, I felt like the core curriculum was more than enough to get me started off strong! What helped me improve from there was taking a lot of tests and learning from the questions themselves.
When I read passages too quickly I often got stuck because I was confused about ideas in the passage itself, not because the answer choices were that difficult. Having a solid understanding of the passage going in reduced the time I spent in confusion! It made me more confident about my answer choices and reduced the amount of time that I was rereading the passage or rereading answer choices in indecision. Ideally, I wouldn't go back to the passage at all.
Thanks swanganie! I also star a ton, so I get it! I used stars to mark every question that I wanted to go back to if I had time, and I regularly starred over 10 questions on a section. Often I would double check an answer and un-star the question, leaving me with a handful of stars by the end.
I remember being exhausted by BR too! It's tough. In my first 30 tests I didn't get a single 180 BR. My strategy was to blind review things enough to create a "no excuses" mindset. If I missed a question after blind review, I wanted to feel like it was 100% my fault and that I had something to learn. I didn't want to feel like I missed a question in BR out of laziness or carelessness. My goal was to feel like I really endorsed all of the answers I chose, and really own up to it if I chose wrong. This didn't always mean that I had 100% confidence in all of my answers, but it was a very thorough review.
I felt like I learned the most in post-BR reviewing. I probably spent 2-3x as long reviewing as I did blind reviewing–if I spent 3 minutes on a missed LR question in BR, I might spend 10 minutes watching the video, understanding where I went wrong, diagramming it, and internalizing the right answer. If I was less than 100% confident in a question but didn't star it or BR it, I would watch the video for it to make it super clear. (At the beginning of my studies this meant reviewing almost everything! At the end it meant reviewing maybe half of the test.)
Another thing I would do is open the videos for questions I missed without looking at the answers! Then I would try to anticipate the answer and explanation before watching the video.
@intellectualplastic Wow! Congrats on your 180 that is so impressive and after reading your post very well deserved! I have a question for you, when you review do you write down explanations for every AC? I've been doing that and even for the questions I get right, I print out the exams, then write down underneath each question why 4/5 AC's were wrong and why the correct AC was correct. The downside to this obviously is that it takes SO LONG to go over a single test. I find it takes be between 2-3 days to go over one PT. Thank you in advance for any advice you have for me! Cheers!!
Thanks gittinazem! On difficult questions I sometimes used the notes feature or comments to type out an explanation, but most of the time I just thought through the question (why the right AC is right, why the wrong ACs are wrong) without writing anything down. The important thing for me was to feel like I really understood the question and ACs, and I could usually do that by thinking or following the video. I would do whatever medium works best for you! I'm sure everyone is different on this. Cheers:)