#lsat practice

Most LSAT students have a love/hate relationship with the analytical reasoning section (aka logic games). When things click, analytical reasoning can be surprisingly enjoyable. When they don’t, it can be immensely frustrating. Some students come to love games so much that they’ll sacrifice study time from other fun sections, like reading comp.

Analytical reasoning most often becomes a frustrating affair when students neglect to take time upfront to get a grasp of the game and the rules. Rushing the setup to get to the questions quicker is a surefire way to actually lose time because you’ll constantly be checking your answer.

Below are two hard homebrewed games, tailored especially to help your analytical reasoning practice.

Let me know how you did in the comments. Don’t cheat!

People Eating Tasty Animals (PETA) is trying to classify animals as Cute or Delicious to help plan their next luncheon and ad campaign. Of eight animals – Cats, Dogs, Elephants, Mice, Pigs, Rabbits, Snakes, and Tarantulas – exactly six will be classified as Cute or Delicious, or both. A max of four animals may be within each classification. The classifications must conform to the following rules:

If Cats are classified Cute, then Cats are also delicious

Cats and Dogs cannot be assigned the same classification, nor can Snakes and Tarantulas

If the Mouse is included in a classification, then the Cat is included as well

If a classification does not include a dog, it must include a rabbit

  Any classification that includes Elephants must include Pigs

1. Which animal cannot be classified as both Cute and Delicious? 2. If Tarantulas and Mice are classified, then what Animal must be Delicious? 3. If an equal number of animals are Cute as are Delicious, and if Dogs are delicious, what animal must also be Delicious? 4. If any classification that includes Rabbits also included Dogs which two animals must be classified but cannot be classified together?

A group of Blueprint students are trying to figure out the ideal order in which to take a practice LSAT. They have 2 analytical reasoning sections, 1 reading comp section, 2 logical reasoning sections, and a writing sample. The experimental section, which may not be later than 3rd, is one of the analytical reasoning sections. The arrangement of the sections must conform to the following restrictions:

At least one Logical Reasoning Section must come before the first Analytic Reasoning section

The writing sample cannot precede any section

If the Reading Comp Section comes before any Logical Reasoning Section, the two Analytical Reasoning sections cannot be immediately following one another, otherwise, they must be consecutive

  The two Logical Reasoning Sections cannot be consecutive, when either is consecutive with an Analytical Reasoning section

1. If Reading Comp is fourth, which section must be 5th? 2. If one Analytical Reasoning section is immediately between both Logical Reasoning sections, who must be first? 3. If the first section is Logical Reasoning and the third is Analytical Reasoning, which section must go fourth? 4. If the experimental section is consecutive with the Reading comp section, which section cannot be fourth?

Answers: PETA: 1. Mice, 2. Rabbits, 3. Pigs, 4. E and R LSAT: 1. Logical Reasoning, 2. Reading Comp, 3. Logical Reasoning, 4. Reading comp

This is what it’s like to be an LSAT student:

When I figured out how to diagram “unless”

How I feel when someone gets a 160 on their first LSAT practice exam

How to handle a distracting proctor during the LSAT

Two sentences into my first reading comp section

When you’ve just been told on LSAT test day that your photo ID won’t work

The first time I associated an LSAT fallacy with my roommate’s logic

What I’m going to do if I’m ever at the same party as someone from LSAC

Because the LSAT prep GIFs were such a hit last week…

What sanity looks like to LSAT prep students:

An ineffective way for LSAT prep students to get rid of a grumbling stomach:

Read More

The only things in life that are certain are death and taxes… and the June LSAT… and the inevitable downfall of Lindsey Lohan’s career. As you well know, or should well know by this point, the LSAT is less than two weeks away. By now you should be figuring out exactly what areas you need to crunch down on before LSAT test day. This is the time to be honing on the skills that you’ve been putting off mastering. I’ll be spending my weekend on a date with diagramming. But it won’t be a date that you want to go on. It’ll be one of those dates where a friend you don’t know very well sets you up with a guy who chews with his mouth open and constantly talks about his mom. It will be ugly.

We’re so close to LSAT test day that it’s a good idea to spend some time thinking about what you’d like to do once the LSAT comes and goes. Spend a good 5 minutes daydreaming about after your next LSAT practice exam. I’m dreaming about telling my friends, “Yes, I will go out tonight. No, I will not choose reading comp over you”. Soon enough you’ll be able to return to the land of the living and stop being an LSAT zombie.

As most of you have heard by now, the zombie outbreak may have started over the weekend in Florida. Okay, really it was a dude thought to be tripping out on bath salts (the lovely drug that combines the worst elements of PCP, cocaine, LSD, and meth) but a potential zombie apocalypse sounds way cooler.

Granted, I’m not spending my 5 minutes of daydreaming pondering potentially imminent zombie doom but it is good to be on your toes. We’ve all seen 28 Days Later. I once attended a seminar by Max Brooks, author of the Zombie Survival Guide, and let me tell you, it was enlightening. The book is chock full of helpful hints for what to do in case of an invasion. Did you know that a machete is the most useful weapon against zombies? Well, now you do.

For the two weeks remaining before the LSAT do yourself a favor and become a zombie of a different variety – become an LSAT zombie! Spend all the time you can muster thinking about the LSAT, even moan and groan about it in a zombie-esque manner if you think that’ll help. Run through the process for approaching Disagree and Parallel questions while making dinner and maybe post stickies on how to diagram Unless and Without conditionals on your computer, or write it out on your hand, or just be a badass and get it tattooed on your forearm. Continue to focus on the LSAT whenever possible; diligence is the name of the game at this point, and the students who are able to keep their eye on the prize are the ones who will come out on top. Much like the undead are concerned solely with consuming human flesh, you too should be concerned only with the LSAT.

Keep up the studies on the last home stretch before LSAT test day. It’ll be here and done before we know it. I know my weekend will be spent hunched over practice exams and lesson books. Also, do not bring a machete into the LSAT testing room, as it will not fit in your clear plastic bag and there’s a slight chance the proctors won’t let you sit for the exam.

In my past life I did a fair amount of judo, which is a kind of wrestling sport. It is not a “martial art”. Martial means something like “appropriate for war;” judo was created as a sport from the start, but that’s a long story. Now that I work as an LSAT prep instructor I’ve realized that LSAT prep and training for judo have a ton in common.

How Judo is Like LSAT Prep I: Bad Habits are Difficult to Undo

Many people who do judo started out by learning a lot of things incorrectly. They then spend years trying to undo their awful habits, while someone who never developed these bad habits can surpass them very quickly.

The same thing happens with the LSAT. For example, if you’ve been reading the stimulus first on Logical Reasoning questions, as, unfortunately, one of the leading LSAT prep self-study books recommends that you do, then you’re going to have a very hard time switching to the clearly better strategy of reading the prompt first. On the other hand, if you start by developing the correct habits right away, you will have a much easier time with the LSAT — or judo. So, get your LSAT coaching from the right place, and you won’t have to worry about bad habits.

How Judo is Like LSAT Prep II: Talent is Mostly a Myth

Jeremy, one of my friends and former teammates, is a judo genius. When Jeremy would compete people would say things like, “Oh you just can’t teach that”, and, “That Jeremy, he’s sure got lots of natural talent.” These people, for some reason, choose to ignore the fact that Jeremy trained under a World and Olympic medalist since he was 7, with other world-class athletes coming in and out of the club all the time.

The same is true for the LSAT. I have another friend, let’s call him Homer. Homer never studied for the LSAT specifically, but he scored extremely well. People think he’s just naturally a genius. But I know better. Homer majored in philosophy, which is like majoring in the Logical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension sections of the LSAT. He’s also been on various debate teams for ages, and his parents ruined his childhood by making him solve logic games since he could read.

The point is, often the skill people attribute to “natural talent” is really the product of a lot of perfect practice. If you’re not happy with your LSAT score, there’s plenty you can do about it.

How Judo is Like LSAT Prep III: Setbacks Happen, But Only the Main Event Counts

Judo players (yes, they’re called players) will compete in 50 to 100 matches a year. Everyone loses during the year. Everyone has an awful practice or two. Everyone get’s their posterior handed to them at one time or another. But, almost none of these setbacks really matter. There are a lot of tournaments, training camps, and other practices during the year, but your performance only matters at one big event per year.

The same goes for the LSAT. Don’t let a few bad practice LSAT scores get you down. Practice LSAT scores don’t really matter; it’s all about the official LSAT. I think that the best LSAT students have something in common with the best judo players — they don’t let their setbacks get them down. They show up to the next practice and they keep working hard no matter how badly they were beaten the day before.

How Judo is Like LSAT Prep IV: Thorough Preparation is the Greatest Comfort

Competition can make you extremely nervous, and nerves can make you physically ill. They can make you doubt yourself and, in short, ruin your big event. But one of the most comforting thoughts you can have in the hours before your competition is, “I’ve done everything I could to prepare for this.” If you can say this to yourself, and of course, if it’s true, the anxiety will just leave your body, and you’ll be ready to do your best.

So, good luck to everyone studying for the October LSAT!

And if you happen to be one of my students, I want you to know that I’ve already heard all the “judo chop” jokes.

As an LSAT instructor, I’ve come across students with a wide variety of interests and backgrounds. I’ve taught college football players, chemistry PhDs, and trapeze artists. One way I try to personalize the experience for them is to relate the LSAT to something from their own lives. Given the diversity of my students, this has sometimes proven challenging (except with the trapeze artist, obviously).

Today, though, I thought I’d compare the LSAT to something from my own life that I know and love well: the piano.

I have played the piano for 22 years, which is almost as long as the modern LSAT’s existence. Put another way: my piano playing is older than Miley Cyrus (which might explain why I prefer my music to hers).

The following are a few parallels that can be drawn between learning the piano and mastering the LSAT:

How Learning the Piano is Like Learning the LSAT I: You’re going to be pretty bad starting out, but don’t give up

Let’s face it: you can’t just sit down at the piano and bang out some Beethoven on day one. In fact, you may struggle with “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” But that’s okay. And the LSAT is much the same way. That first cold practice test is brutally humbling for everyone. The important thing is to not write yourself off too early. I’ve seen a lot of people bomb their first practice test and say, “Well, I’ve never been good at standardized tests, so let’s just get a respectable score at this point.” Similarly with the piano, a lot of people take lessons briefly as children, but quit because they claim that they’re “not musical.” In both cases, with LSAT mastery and learning the piano, these people have already given up because they mistake these things as involving some kind of innate “talent.”

How Learning the Piano is Like Learning the LSAT II: It’s a skill, not a talent

A lot of people mistake the LSAT for some kind of intelligence or aptitude test. But that’s not the case. Some of the most intelligent, talented people I know – people who have aced standardized tests their entire lives – have been brought to their knees by that first practice exam. In a similar vein, my buddy Joe (who I jam with on the reg) has guitar chops that would make John Mayer blush and stage time in one of the oldest blues clubs in Chicago. But place him in front of the piano, and the result is almost comical. These examples reinforce the fact that conquering the LSAT and playing the piano aren’t a matter of talent. They are skills to be developed. And the only way to develop a skill is through diligent, dedicated practice.

How Learning the Piano is Like Learning the LSAT III: Practice the right way

With practicing the piano, consistency is certainly key. But there’s more to it than that. Piano music has a logic and terminology of its own. It’s worthwhile to take the time to learn things like key and time signatures, accidentals, dynamics, and tempo shifts. Sure, you could just bang on the keys every day and eventually learn “by ear” without ever learning to read music, but this is suboptimal. Progress is slower going, and without an understanding of music theory, it’s harder to diagnose your own mistakes: “that doesn’t sound right,” for example, is not as useful as “that should be a major 7th instead of a minor 7th.” The LSAT, too, has an internal logic worth learning – of conditional statements, subsidiary conclusions, modality and quantification. And sure, you could ignore all of these things, just take a bunch of timed practice tests, and your LSAT score would probably go up (a bit). But again, without this knowledge, it’s so much harder accurately diagnose your own mistakes: “I need to brush up on LR” is not nearly as useful as “I need to review strengthen questions with causal conclusions.” Also, let me say for the record that “Just take a bunch of practice LSAT tests” is probably the most common, but absolute worst LSAT advice ever. You wouldn’t learn a song on the piano by playing full speed, hands together right away, so don’t start out your LSAT prep with timed sections. You have to learn to walk before you can run.

How Learning the Piano is Like Learning the LSAT IV: Hire a pro

I started out taking piano lessons with a nice older lady who lived down the street. She was a sweet woman, but in retrospect she probably wasn’t the best piano teacher. After she retired, I bounced around a couple of different teachers before my parents set me up with the organist at a local Catholic church. Within three months, my skill level doubled. Piano lessons are expensive, and my parents weren’t made of money, but they gladly continued paying for them because they saw how much I was improving. LSAT prep is a similar investment. If you can manage to afford it, find a class with an instructor who has an LSAT score in the 170s, who knows the test backwards and forwards, and you will accelerate your progress.

How Learning the Piano is Like Learning the LSAT V: Make it fun

In high school, I reached a point where I got frustrated with piano lessons. Sports and homework ate up my practice time, while the classical pieces I was supposed to be learning became increasingly technical and difficult. It was no longer fun. So I shifted my focus. I wrote my own music. I bought some jazz piano books. I started picking up popular tunes by ear, stuff from Ben Folds and Coldplay and Vanessa Carlton (don’t judge, “A Thousand Miles” was a hit with the ladies in ’03). By playing the music I wanted to play, I made the piano fun again. By making it fun, I stayed engaged with it. And by staying engaged, I continued to get better. Now, there’s nothing innately “fun” about the LSAT. But that’s why we Blueprint instructors put ourselves to the task of making it fun. Our theory is that by keeping the jokes rolling, you’re going to be more engaged. When you’re more engaged, you learn better. And by learning better, of course, you score higher.

When I was an undergraduate, I decided it would be a good idea to see how quickly I could eat one of Taco Bell’s 12-taco boxes (one of my friends had finished a box in under 10 minutes, and I am never one to back down from a challenge). About halfway through, I regretted my decision. I wasn’t going quickly enough and I was starting to feel sick — simply put, I wasn’t getting the results I wanted.

If you’re in a similar position with your June LSAT prep — you are taking too long and missing questions you feel like you shouldn’t be — don’t give up. The June LSAT is over a month away and there is plenty of time to see drastic improvements; here are a few tips to help make the most of your study time and start seeing the results you want.

Don’t Say “Mayday!” to Your June LSAT Prep I: One Step at a Time

When going through LSAT practice questions, it is tempting to approach the questions as a group and gauge your performance based on your overall results for the entire section. Resist that temptation!

The best way to study right now is to approach each question individually. For each question, read slowly and attentively, use the methods you’ve learned, and anticipate before moving into the answer choices. Once you move into the answer choices, make sure you can identify why each incorrect answer choice is incorrect and why the correct answer choice is correct. If you are unable to do so, or if you get the question wrong, review the question type and the methods. If you follow this approach, you’ll be less tied to your performance (which will reduce discouragement) and more attentive to what really matters — comprehension and repetition of the methods.

Don’t Say “Mayday!” to Your June LSAT Prep II: Timing Isn’t Everything

Put the stopwatch down and step away from it. At this point, you don’t need to feel dismayed by how long questions are taking. Worrying about timing will make you panicked and stressed about each question. In turn, the panic and stress will make you cut corners and read too quickly, which will cause comprehension errors and probably lead to incorrect answer choices. There is plenty of time to get up to speed later, but the best thing to focus on right now is thoroughly understanding and engaging with the methods.

Don’t Say “Mayday!” to Your June LSAT Prep III: Take a Break

The LSAT is an incredibly important test. It is a major factor in admissions and awards. As a result, there is a natural tendency among students to spend every waking moment worrying about how they’ll perform come LSAT test day. Allowing yourself to become absorbed with thinking about the LSAT and with studying for the LSAT is going to burn you out and make you rue the day you ever decided to pursue a legal education.

Allow yourself to take a night off (or even a day off following a particularly grueling study grind). Do something you enjoy and let your batteries recharge. Not only will this help you avoid getting discouraged and allow you to keep things in perspective, but it will also provide you with a clearer mind and a more focused approach for your subsequent study sessions.

I am proud disgusted to say that, by following these steps, I finished the whole taco box. Fortunately, if you follow my advice, the reward for your effort won’t be the inevitable aftereffects of a large Taco Bell meal (which I won’t expound upon), but it will rather be better performance on practice questions and LSAT score improvements on practice tests.

Everyone experiences struggles on the road to LSAT success, but these struggles can be overcome!