#lsat tips

You have 35 minutes and a crap load of questions. So, what are you gonna do?

It’s tempting to just say, “Okay, how many questions can I possibly get through before time is up?”

It’s not a stupid idea by any means: you’re thinkin’, I can’t possibly get these right if I don’t attempt the question.

But here’s the problem - you stretch yourself so thin that you don’t get the questions you probably could have.

You need to slow down and remember that every question gives you enough information to find the correct answer. If you’re only answering 18-20 questions per section but you’re answering them correctly, you’re looking at a score in the mid-160s. 

So here’s what you do: completely ignore the timer. I mean it - don’t speed up or slow down, just go at a pace where you know you’re answering each question you attempt correctly. When you get to the five minute warning, bubble in all the remaining answer choices the same letter (that’s just to save time - it doesn’t matter at all what letter you pick). After that, go back where you left off and answer a couple more questions if you can. 

Remember, the questions in each section tend to get harder as you go. But you get the exact same amount of credit (one point) for each question, whether it’s number one or number 25. You’ll do better overall if you extend the effort on earlier, easier questions that you know you’ll get right, and then any of the last handful of questions are just icing on the cake.

You have to approach the test this way because you’ll never make progress if you’re not striving for comprehension above all else. The speed will come as you continue practicing and studying, don’t worry. Isn’t that how everything goes? 

Remember the last skill you learned (and remember, the LSAT is a skills test). Maybe it was cooking or knitting or whatever. You were slow at first, right? But if you focus on doing it right, you will eventually get faster just by practice.

If you’re shooting for a score in the 170s, this still applies, but you’ll have to practice to the point where you’re consistently getting to at least the last two or three questions. Don’t forget, though, that you can miss up to 14 questions and still score a 170 on many tests! That means you could randomly guess on the last 3-4 questions on every section and still score in that upper echelon. 

Many a jaded LSAT student has rolled his/her eyes and said, “I don’t need to study for the Reading Comprehension section – I already know how to read!”

The fact that you are reading this blog post means you are probably correct about the second part of that statement. But the first part – no way. Sure, you’ve probably been reading more or less since the days when “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” was the pinnacle of entertainment options, but the skills required to do well on the Reading Comprehension section are a very different beast. Here are my top tips for improving your Reading Comprehension score.

#1: Read for structure

It’s easy to get bogged down in the details on the Reading Comprehension section, especially on some of the denser passages. Here’s the thing: You’re never going to be able to remember every little thing you read in the passage, and you’re not expected to do so. Focusing on the passage’s structure rather than its content gives you a better overall understanding of the passage, and you’ll still be able to refer back to the details as necessary because you’ll have a general sense of where things are in the passage.

To force yourself to read actively and think about how the passage is structured, take a second after reading each paragraph to think about what that paragraph is doing. Your summary should be as brief as possible – perhaps the paragraph is introducing a new viewpoint, or providing an example in support of the main point, or providing background information.

By the time you’re done reading the passage, you should be able to identify what each paragraph is doing and how the paragraphs are related. For instance, here is what my summary of a (hypothetical, but fairly typical) passage might sound like: The first paragraph provides background information. The second paragraph presents the scientists’ viewpoint. The third paragraph outlines criticism of the scientists’ viewpoint. The final paragraph provides the author’s main point.

Give it a try – you might be surprised by how much more sense each passage makes when you break it down in this way.

#2: Take notes, but not too many

Annotating passages is an art, and it takes a while to get the hang of it. Many students are reluctant to take notes, or they write down far too much, or they just underline things that seem important without thinking about why they sound important. (There are two big problems with just underlining parts of the passage willy-nilly: Firstly, because you’re not forcing yourself to think about why that part of the passage seems important, it’s not actually improving your understanding of the passage. Secondly, it doesn’t help refresh your memory when you glance back at the passage – you end up with a bunch of random underlined phrases and sentences, rather than notes that help you remember where in the passage things occur.)

Note-taking has a sweet spot: Your notes should help you quickly find relevant sections of the passage, but you shouldn’t just end up re-writing the whole thing. Here are the things I suggest writing down:

1) Structural notes – After you think about the function of each paragraph (see tip #1), jot down a few words – “background info” or “scientists’ viewpoint.” If you see an example, throw an “ex.” next to it. If the author describes criticism of another viewpoint, write “critics.” This type of note helps you stay focused on the structure of the passage rather than the content, and it helps you easily refer back to the passage as necessary.

2) Author attitude – If you see a word that indicates how the author feels about something, underline that word and write “AA” next to it for “author attitude.” Whenever the author expresses an opinion, you’ll almost definitely get at least one question about it, so it’s important to make note of the author’s attitude wherever it appears.

3) Underline the main conclusion, if it’s explicitly stated – Not all passages neatly summarize the main point for you – sometimes you’ll have to fill in that blank yourself – but if the author gives you her main conclusion, you best make note of it.

The Blueprint LSAT Prep course provides tips on some additional things that are worth making note of in a passage, but at a minimum, you should be jotting down the above.

Implementing these two tips might slow you down at first, but don’t be discouraged – as you practice more and get more proficient, I can promise you that you will understand passages better, get through them more quickly, and get more questions right.

Welcome back to the grind, LSAT-takers! The holidays are over, and it’s time to put your game face on because the February LSAT sure ain’t gonna take itself.

On that note, I had the misfortune a few days back of hearing the smarmiest of exchanges on the radio.

Warming up her guest, the host politely inquired, “So, have you laid out your resolutions yet?”

After an ingratiating throat-clearing, the guest replied, “Well I make resolutions all year long, rather than waiting for an arbitrary date. So, no, I’ve not made any New Year’s resolutions.”

Now I don’t usually bother with New Year’s resolutions myself, but this year I’m taking a stand against obnoxiousness. And I’m abusing my position of power to enlist young LSAT scholars’ efforts as well. So here follows our New Year’s resolutions (a bit late, perhaps, but still timely enough), to which we resolutely commit, for the February LSAT:

1. No Zero Days. Even at your busiest, try not to let a day go by without doing something productive. If that’s just one logic game, so be it — but improve every single day.

2. Take Untimed Practice Exams. This will help individuate between what you struggle with under time constraints and what you fundamentally don’t understand fully.

3. Get Perfect on Conditional Logic. Can’t ace the test without it; consider it the basil to your LSAT pesto.

4. Be Selfish With Time. Everybody wants a piece of your time, from friends, to significant other, to family. Well, they just got all they’re going to get over the recent holidays until the exam is over. Let these people who are pulling you every which way know that the LSAT is your constant and only companion for the next month.

5. Be Kind to Yourself. Eat healthy. Get plenty of sleep. Exercise. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. You have to be in tip-top shape for exam day, and these are things you can’t ignore.

And, most importantly, don’t be an ass on public radio. Best of luck to you in 2016 and beyond!

This post originally ran on January 15, 2013 – but as it turns out, LSAC is still up to the same tricks. Avoid wording-related confusion on the LSAT by brushing up on these commonly-confused phrases.

The skills that the LSAT tests are complicated and difficult to learn. Whether it’s diagramming conditional statements, assembling the setup to a game, or knowing what to pay attention to in reading comp, this stuff ain’t easy. But what can make things even harder is when the LSAT buries these already-confusing concepts in perplexing linguistic phrasings.

Luckily, we’re here to help.

When you read something on the LSAT that you don’t understand, the worst thing you can possibly do is just move on, hoping the exam won’t ask about it; it will. Often times, understanding a confusing phrase just involves rereading it a few times and rolling it around in your head. But there are a few phrases that the LSAT uses again and again that students regularly get tripped up on. I’ve compiled a few for you here:

Tricky LSAT Phrases I: Latter and former

I know, I know, you already know these. But sometimes, in the heat of the moment, it can be easy to forget exactly which is which. Or perhaps it’s just that the public education system failed you. At any rate, the LSAT uses these phrases all the time, so they’re worth reviewing. “Former” refers to the first of two things, “latter” refers to the second. So if I said, “Both broccoli and steak are available; the former is healthier, but the latter is tastier,” then I’m saying that broccoli is what’s healthy, and steak is what’s tasty. Got it? Good.

Tricky LSAT Phrases II: If and only if

This phrasing isn’t all over the LSAT, but it does show up fairly regularly. What’s tricky about it is that it indicates both sufficiency and necessity. So if I said, “You work at Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory if and only if you’re an Oompa Loompa,” I’m actually saying two things – first, that if you’re an Oompa Loompa, then you work at the chocolate factory; but also only if you’re an Oompa Loompa do you work there. So that would allow you to diagram two separate conditional statements:

OL → CF CF → OL

As a side note, “if and only if” is the same thing as “if but only if.”

Tricky LSAT Phrases III: X, or else Y

On the LSAT, all “or” statements are inclusive, unless they say otherwise. But for whatever reason, when we see things phrased in this way, our brains have a tendency to make them exclusive. But they’re not. For example, if I said, “You can go to law school, or else you can go to medical school,” I’m actually giving you three options – you can go to law school, you can go to medical school, or you can go to both. This is a problem that shows up in LSAT logic games a lot, but all you have to remember is that unless it says otherwise, “or” statements are always inclusive, and you could always have both.

You’ll find more confusing phrases as you study for the LSAT, but as long as you stay diligent in taking the time to understand them, and make sure to not skim past strange phrasings, you’ll be good to go.

Whenever I’m doing a PT section or a whole PT, I feel like I could do better if I was concentrating more. Though I find I am able to focus more after I get so far into a section, I wish I had that level of focus in the beginning. So here’s an article about concentration techniques:

7 Easy, No-nonsense Concentration Exercises

Left to its own whims, the mind is akin to a wild animal—given to succumb to its natural urges for exploration. It tends to jump from one thought to another, and will often resist your attempts at making it “behave” in one corner. And in this day and age of the internet and video games, the effects of various stimuli on our mental state can even be worse—that’s why people these days have so brief attention spans. You can overcome this sad state of affairs by performing these simple yet highly effective concentration exercises at least once a day.

1. Count backwards

Find a comfortable spot where no one can disturb you and start mentally counting from 100 to 1. Feel free to increase that number—500, 1000—depending on what you feel you’re capable of doing.

2. Count backwards: with variations

This is similar to the first one, but in this case, you can vary the count by skipping numbers. For instance, you can skip by threes (100, 97, 94 and so on) or by fives (100, 95, 90 and so on). The additional mental load of calculating the numbers as you skip can further increase the intensity of the concentration required to keep the numbers right.

3. Count words

As far as effective concentration exercises go, this particular mental activity is highly effective in sharpening your mental focus. Get any book—a novel or a school textbook—and try counting the words in any single paragraph. When you get better, start upping the ante: count the words on an entire page, then two pages, then five pages, then finally, count the words in an entire chapter. Take note that you must do the counting entirely mentally and using only your eyes—do not use your finger in pointing at each word.

4. Observe

Get any physical object—a fruit, a small furniture, a toy—and examine it closely and carefully. Take note of its characteristics and features while keeping your mind from straying away and starting to entertain other thoughts—keep your complete attention on the thing you currently have in your hands. Take note of its color, shape, texture, even the smell.

5. Focus on a single word

Find a nice quiet spot where you can stay for at least five minutes without anyone interrupting you. As in the previous concentration exercises, this also requires you to laser-point your thoughts on a single target—this time, a single word of your choice. It doesn’t matter what word as long as it’s inspiring. “Love,” “courage” “happiness,” or “success” are good examples. Repeat the word mentally in your mind for five minutes. When you feel your concentration is improving, you can increase the duration to 10 minutes.

6. Observe without thinking

This exercise is similar to (4), but this time, you will observe any chosen object (fruit, furniture, kitchen utensil) without any mental verbalization. That is, make the act of observing completely blank as much as possible. Basically, for five or so minutes, you should look at your chosen object from all sides and angles without thinking anything about it.

7. Observe and conjure

This is the logical next step to steps 4 and 6: this time, after observing your chosen object for a few minutes, close your eyes and mentally picture the object as you’ve seen it. Visualize it by “examining” the object mentally: turn it around in your mind and take note of its features and physical characteristics while shutting out any irrelevant or stray thought.

Improving your concentration and sharpening your mental focus through the aforementioned concentration exercises can bring about countless benefits to your life, career and health. Better concentration, for instance, can significantly improve the power of your meditation sessions. When you meditate to eliminate stress from your life, attract success or simply achieve better health, your enhanced power of concentration will not only make your meditations much more focused, but also easier to perform as well.

Source: http://operationmeditation.com/discover/7-easy-no-nonsense-concentration-exercises/

Very helpful!