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The Most Important LSAT Prep Decision You Will Make
Jonathan Wang
Yearly Sage ⭐
Today, we have our first discussion about attitude. This is a rather sensitive topic, because nobody likes to be told that their attitude sucks, but the fact is that sometimes peoples’ attitudes suck and sometimes they don’t even realize it. I also tend to be very blunt when I talk about this stuff (could you tell from the prior sentence?). Nevertheless, I think that it’s an important topic worth discussing.
This first topic is a UNIVERSAL problem that happens up and down the scoring scale, so everyone stands to gain something here. My goal here is to get everyone to think about the mental barriers that may be impeding their progress, so try to remember that if something strikes a nerve. That being said, if I have to be the bad guy and ruffle some feathers to help people, then that is a price I’ll gladly pay.
Ready? Let’s go.
===========================
The #1 most important decision you make regarding your LSAT prep is not about what materials you use, or how much time you spend each day studying, or what your overall timeline will be. Nothing like that. Rather, the most important decision you can make is the decision to set aside your ego and embrace the likelihood that you are actually very bad at logical reasoning and reading comprehension.
That last line feels sort of like I’m insulting everyone who reads this, so perhaps I’d better explain where I’m coming from.
Let’s start by considering exactly why it’s so demoralizing when you don’t do well on your diagnostic. It can’t just be because you don’t have the skills – after all, you probably wouldn’t feel bad if someone pointed out that you didn’t know how to juggle chainsaws. It can’t just be the academic component either – you probably also wouldn’t feel too bad if you couldn’t solve a differential equation or write an academic analysis of Shakespeare’s work.
And yet, just about every single person thinks that they should be scoring better than they are.
Why?
My theory is that it’s because the LSAT is ‘just’ logic and English, and everyone thinks they’re experts at those things.
This is not a universal thing. You can tell the average person that they suck at calculus or chemistry and they’ll probably laugh and maybe even agree with you. But try telling someone they suck at reading comprehension or logical reasoning, and the reaction is wildly different and much more defensive. Math and science can be, and often are, rationalized away as over-technical mumbo-jumbo that is irrelevant to most peoples’ everyday lives, so it’s easy for people to separate their inability to do math/science from their ‘actual’ intelligence level. But reading comprehension and logic? Challenging those things feels to the other person like you’re directly challenging their intelligence, because pretty much everything we do on a day-to-day basis relies on one or both of those skills.
Fact is, everyone thinks their viewpoint makes sense and is arrived at rationally, because nobody considers themselves to be irrational or their reasoning poorly-considered. When’s the last time you heard someone say “My logical reasoning skills are terrible and it’s a big problem for anyone who has to work with me”? Now when’s the last time you heard someone excoriating someone ELSE for making no sense? In most cases, calling someone out for being illogical or being a poor reader is just one step away from straight up calling them stupid, so it’s really not hard to see why most people take so much personal offense to being challenged in this arena.
And yet, the proof is in the pudding. The LSAT is nothing but a mix of logic and reading comprehension. Not doing well on the LSAT demonstrates that one or both of those skill sets isn’t up to par, at least in the specific (and highly relevant!) context of understanding and responding to written argumentation. It’s understandable why people would be defensive about their skills, but that doesn’t make it justified.
Let’s be clear here. The LSAT is not the sum and substance of your worth as a candidate, or as a human being generally. The LSAT cannot tell me that you spend your weekends volunteering at the local homeless shelter, or that you have excellent leadership skills, or that you’re an incredible musician in your free time. But here’s the thing – it’s not designed to do any of those things. Despite its limitations, the test really does do a good job of testing a specific set of logical reasoning skills; just ask anyone who’s made a big score improvement how obvious the mistakes they were making before are to them in retrospect. The fact that there are other considerations relevant to whether a candidate will make for a good law student or lawyer doesn’t change that. Overemphasized as the LSAT may be in the admissions process, it is still a hugely relevant piece of information.
That being the case, it is imperative that our reflexive defense mechanisms don’t limit our learning potential. The most important thing to get out of your head is the notion that you ‘deserve’ a better score, because even if it were true (which it probably isn’t), it doesn’t help anything. Your score is largely the result of your skills, and if you’re dissatisfied with your score then there are clearly some things you need to work on. The test isn’t changing, and if your skills don’t improve then your score isn’t going to change either. This would be true even if the LSAT was based on truly arbitrary principles, but it’s especially true when the LSAT is based on actual logical precepts. You can either get defensive about not knowing how to do it, or you can do something about it. Only one of those things is going to make a difference in your chances of going to law school.
Your ego will take a huge hit in the short term as you make mistake after mistake, but that’s honestly how it should be. Every mistake you make is 100% on you, because sugarcoating your competence level only hurts yourself. You need to be your own biggest critic, and that means not being too prideful to admit when you’re bad at something. We’ll deal with the motivation issues this brings up another time.
Bottom line: the faster you let go of your pride, the faster you can get to the business of actually improving yourself, and the higher your score will rise as a result.
This first topic is a UNIVERSAL problem that happens up and down the scoring scale, so everyone stands to gain something here. My goal here is to get everyone to think about the mental barriers that may be impeding their progress, so try to remember that if something strikes a nerve. That being said, if I have to be the bad guy and ruffle some feathers to help people, then that is a price I’ll gladly pay.
Ready? Let’s go.
===========================
The #1 most important decision you make regarding your LSAT prep is not about what materials you use, or how much time you spend each day studying, or what your overall timeline will be. Nothing like that. Rather, the most important decision you can make is the decision to set aside your ego and embrace the likelihood that you are actually very bad at logical reasoning and reading comprehension.
That last line feels sort of like I’m insulting everyone who reads this, so perhaps I’d better explain where I’m coming from.
Let’s start by considering exactly why it’s so demoralizing when you don’t do well on your diagnostic. It can’t just be because you don’t have the skills – after all, you probably wouldn’t feel bad if someone pointed out that you didn’t know how to juggle chainsaws. It can’t just be the academic component either – you probably also wouldn’t feel too bad if you couldn’t solve a differential equation or write an academic analysis of Shakespeare’s work.
And yet, just about every single person thinks that they should be scoring better than they are.
Why?
My theory is that it’s because the LSAT is ‘just’ logic and English, and everyone thinks they’re experts at those things.
This is not a universal thing. You can tell the average person that they suck at calculus or chemistry and they’ll probably laugh and maybe even agree with you. But try telling someone they suck at reading comprehension or logical reasoning, and the reaction is wildly different and much more defensive. Math and science can be, and often are, rationalized away as over-technical mumbo-jumbo that is irrelevant to most peoples’ everyday lives, so it’s easy for people to separate their inability to do math/science from their ‘actual’ intelligence level. But reading comprehension and logic? Challenging those things feels to the other person like you’re directly challenging their intelligence, because pretty much everything we do on a day-to-day basis relies on one or both of those skills.
Fact is, everyone thinks their viewpoint makes sense and is arrived at rationally, because nobody considers themselves to be irrational or their reasoning poorly-considered. When’s the last time you heard someone say “My logical reasoning skills are terrible and it’s a big problem for anyone who has to work with me”? Now when’s the last time you heard someone excoriating someone ELSE for making no sense? In most cases, calling someone out for being illogical or being a poor reader is just one step away from straight up calling them stupid, so it’s really not hard to see why most people take so much personal offense to being challenged in this arena.
And yet, the proof is in the pudding. The LSAT is nothing but a mix of logic and reading comprehension. Not doing well on the LSAT demonstrates that one or both of those skill sets isn’t up to par, at least in the specific (and highly relevant!) context of understanding and responding to written argumentation. It’s understandable why people would be defensive about their skills, but that doesn’t make it justified.
Let’s be clear here. The LSAT is not the sum and substance of your worth as a candidate, or as a human being generally. The LSAT cannot tell me that you spend your weekends volunteering at the local homeless shelter, or that you have excellent leadership skills, or that you’re an incredible musician in your free time. But here’s the thing – it’s not designed to do any of those things. Despite its limitations, the test really does do a good job of testing a specific set of logical reasoning skills; just ask anyone who’s made a big score improvement how obvious the mistakes they were making before are to them in retrospect. The fact that there are other considerations relevant to whether a candidate will make for a good law student or lawyer doesn’t change that. Overemphasized as the LSAT may be in the admissions process, it is still a hugely relevant piece of information.
That being the case, it is imperative that our reflexive defense mechanisms don’t limit our learning potential. The most important thing to get out of your head is the notion that you ‘deserve’ a better score, because even if it were true (which it probably isn’t), it doesn’t help anything. Your score is largely the result of your skills, and if you’re dissatisfied with your score then there are clearly some things you need to work on. The test isn’t changing, and if your skills don’t improve then your score isn’t going to change either. This would be true even if the LSAT was based on truly arbitrary principles, but it’s especially true when the LSAT is based on actual logical precepts. You can either get defensive about not knowing how to do it, or you can do something about it. Only one of those things is going to make a difference in your chances of going to law school.
Your ego will take a huge hit in the short term as you make mistake after mistake, but that’s honestly how it should be. Every mistake you make is 100% on you, because sugarcoating your competence level only hurts yourself. You need to be your own biggest critic, and that means not being too prideful to admit when you’re bad at something. We’ll deal with the motivation issues this brings up another time.
Bottom line: the faster you let go of your pride, the faster you can get to the business of actually improving yourself, and the higher your score will rise as a result.
Comments
That is my agreement with this post, u have to realize that maybe you do suck at it and you only can get better through immense prep and repetition.
I'd like to think I have the same inherent potential before I prepped for the LSAT as I do now. But prepping for the LSAT has sharpened my thinking. To me, that's what it comes down to. I believe this is less about inherent ability and more about valuable skills that can be sharpened and acquired. To me, accepting that is part of what allows for the attitude we need for LSAT prep.
My outlook has always been that people don't have inherent 'ceilings' - rather, it's how much time it takes to break through. Given 10 years, anyone can reshape their thought process. The difficulty is that most of us don't have 10 years to wait. That's where the balancing act comes in, and that's the subject of an entirely different conversation.
Especially for people who went to HYPS or other excessively selective/rigorous undergrad, we're not used to scoring outside of the 99th percentile on ... anything, ever. "I went to X, I should get a 181." That kind of thing.
The struggle is real and it's one of pride. Pride is the great enemy of the human soul—where we say "I know better than reality indicates so I'm just going to ignore reality or warp it to myself" or "Something must be wrong with you [or the test], clearly nothing is wrong with me" or "Obviously I deserve X, because yes I'm awesome and how could I not deserve it because I am so awesome??"
Also, pride is perhaps THE barrier to mastery of reasoning ability. If you start with the assumption that you're right, or you deserve this, or it's self-evident because you happen to think it—well, we know what assumptions do. They fundamentally undermine the validity of any argument, even if only slightly. Pride is a maelstrom of assumptions to which we cling as if for dear life.
But the reality is just as you've shared—it's truly rare for anyone to have a truly honed reasoning ability. I knew just a few of these people in college and let me tell you, they were the smartest people I knew in a sea of 99th percentile people. I thought they were just somehow smarter than me—but in reality, they had just done hard work I had neglected.
I was just wondering, which way is the best way to study- Should I finish the 7Sage course then start doing practice test? Or should I do practice tests while going through the 7Sage course?
Thanks in advance!
Bump Such a great advice!! The Jewel for the ultimate LSAT study mindset☆
Bumping because this is such an amazing post!!!
I think this should be a prerequiste read in the course, especially in the introduction. And anytime people feel frustated after a bad question, section, PT.
I thought this looked familiar. Powerful and so underrated. Thanks for bump. This is why 7 Sage surpasses all the rest. Shout out to Nicole as great example of this. After listening to her webinar of LSAT progress, she really brought this principle to life. This is what will distinguish the good lawyers from the bad ones who aren't in it for the right reasons.
This might be my favorite post of all time. It speaks to everything that makes the LSAT both so frustrating and rewarding.
Well said! Great post! Thank you!
Spot on.
One underrated thing I hear in people's response to studying for the LSAT is the challenge it was in evaluating their own habits, whether it be studying, evaluation, reviewing, or testing strategies.
There's a certain freedom in being able to look at yourself in this way, however hard it initially may be. In the end, there's no escaping that you'll have to develop better habits moving forward, in both learning strategies and self-assessment. Don't be so hard on yourself!
Amazing post. Thank you. I needed it. 😅
Thank you for sharing your insights. Does anyone can give suggestion to English as the second language students? Any approach to learn LSAT vocabularies? To increase reading speed? Studying for this test really demoralized me. I was an A student in college and like learning. But this test is nothing like what I did in school. I will appreciate your suggestions. Thank you.
Unfortunately, I had to learn this the hard way.
Good post. Thanks.
It's so strange to me that everyone seems to breeze over LG... even this post says, "accept that you're just not that good at LR and RC." Is it just assumed that LG is easy for the vast majority of people?!
I've been studying LG for 3 months solid and I'm going -10 still. Any time something I haven't seen before pops up (which feels like every time), I get stuck and feel I can barely complete the game. I'm still out here drilling and fool proofing LG.... ad nauseam.
Meanwhile I go -1 to -3 on RC generally, maybe -3 to -5 on LR...and without really having had to do too much. In fact, I score worse when I try to implement things I've learned on 7Sage in those sections... so I've just decided to go on intuition mostly. Why am I so backwards from everyone else?!
Are you a philosophy or English major? Have you struggled in math or stem classes? Just a thought since I know people who are great at RC or LR to start with have a background in those first areas. I don't know if you are backwards from "everyone", rather the people who speak up most about struggling with a section happen to be people who are okay with logic games. Additionally I agree with what you're saying in that it is often assumed that LG is perfect or near perfect in many posts, which might be why people do not say that they struggle with it, since they think they are unusual. Just an anecdote, but I feel like it might be helpful for you. I am in an LSAT class with 9 other people, and only 3 of the 10 of us have ever gotten -0 on LG or even close. So that's 70% of this group where LG is still a major challenge for them. You are definitely not alone!
@mere_mortal I feel this pain. I keep seeing LG talked about as 'the part anyone can work hard at and then they're good at it' while LR and RC are considered the real trials and tribulations.
This weird split of dying to LG but breezing through the other sections has been my experience for the last six months. At the three month mark I only got up to ~ -8. Now at the sixth month mark I'm at ~ -1 so it does happen! Today I've only missed 5 questions out of 32 games.
Doing 32 games a day... it is not fun.
haha yes, you got me there-- I was a Classics major (which is essentially like being an English major, just different languages) with a concentration in ancient philosophy.
Thank you for your anecdote, it does make me feel a little bit better. I guess I thought that 3 months of solid studying just LG 5 days a week would put me further than I am... but I'm not giving up!
Thank god there's another one out there-- I don't feel so strange! I don't know if we should count ourselves lucky that LG is our weakness or not. It's heartening to hear that you've gotten it down to -1!! Great job!
It's like I said in the post - nobody will blame you for being bad at calculus, but if I say someone is "illogical" I might as well be calling them a moron as far as most people are concerned.
I'm not implying LG is easy; in fact, I happen to agree that the "LG is easy to perfect and anyone can do it" song and dance is super dumb (easiEST is not the same thing as easY, easiest GENERALLY vs easiest FOR EVERYONE are also different, and all LSAT takers should be able to tell the difference).
In the context of the post, I singled out RC and LR because in all my time with this test, I've never run into anyone who thinks they're good at games unless they're actually really good at games. LG has a way of beating the hubris out of you in a brutally efficient and extremely embarrassing manner, and there is basically no ambiguity - when you don't know what you're doing (which is most of the time when you're just starting out), you know it and it suuuuucks. It's like LSAT Anonymous - step 1 is acceptance, and pretty much everyone accepts they need to build their skills in LG.
The same cannot be said for LR or RC. Most people are just as technically bad at LR and RC as they are at games to start, but they don't realize it because they can just kinda fudge it with some creative interpretation, word matching, and general language skills. So, I hear stuff like "I'm not worried about RC, I've always been a good reader" all the time, most of the time followed by mysterious sentence parsing and unprincipled mental gymnastics left and right. And then you hear the common refrain: "I understand what's happening but I can't seem to ________". Hint: you don't understand what's happening. LR and RC are the two sections where this juxtaposition stands out, hence the inspiration for this post.
Hope this clarifies things a bit!
@mere_mortal @Tennysoj @CripTheLaw
Lol I double majored in philosophy and english and LG is also my only glaring weakness after a year of prep.