Quick Tip
Don’t overthink splitting game boards on LG.
Sometimes, students feel that the decision of whether to split up an LG game board into 2, 3, or more sub-boards will be the main determining factor of their success on Logic Games. This isn’t true!
With many games, it’s tough to find “one size fits all” guidance for when you should split a game board or not. What’s more important is that you become an expert in all of the different types of LG rules, and can diagram them quickly and in a way you understand. Once you become fluent in LG rules and have foolproofed a fair amount of games, the decision to split will become more intuitive, and the stakes will feel lower.
Discussion
Three Lies about the LSAT
There is a lot of conventional wisdom out there about the LSAT—some of it good, some of it not so good. With this newsletter, I want to talk about some of the not so good. Here are three lies about the LSAT!
1. Your diagnostic score creates an upper limit on your official score.
This is a big lie! I remember early on in my LSAT journey, a family friend in law school told me that it was really difficult to increase your score more than 10 points from the original diagnostic. With a diagnostic score around 150, I had doubts I could reach 160. Your diagnostic score tells you little more than your starting point. If you’re like me, and you don’t have a background in formal logic, you might’ve been unpleasantly surprised by your diagnostic. Don’t let that limit you! Our tutoring team is full of people who have raised their scores by 15, 20, and even 30+ points from start to finish.
2. A few months of studying is long enough to get a high score.
I’m not sure why so many people believe this. It seems like across the board, students vastly underestimate the time required for getting a high score. Many of our tutors wound up studying for 6 months or more. In the core curriculum, J.Y. recommends a year. It’s definitely true that for some people out there, 3-4 months is enough—but those people are the exception, not the norm. For the rest of us, at least 6 months is a safe assumption. If you’re shooting for a really high score, you’ll likely need longer.
3. The LSAT tests your intelligence.
The LSAT doesn’t test your intelligence. The only thing your LSAT score tells you is how well you’ve mastered the LSAT material! I’ve known many students who place an inordinate amount of pressure on themselves to get a top score. If they don’t reach their expectations, they’re left questioning their intelligence—and their confidence drops. Keep this in mind: the LSAT is not an indicator of intelligence or lack thereof. Sure, maybe there’s a correlation. But correlation isn’t causation! The thing to remember about this test is that it’s learnable.
In conclusion, be careful who you listen to when it comes to the LSAT. What do you think is the biggest misconception about this test? If you’d like, leave a comment below and let us know!