Post
by amc987 » Tue Sep 27, 2011 2:16 am
OP, I was in a very similar situation. I went to HYP undergrad, did well on my SATs (2300+), and I struggled like hell on the LSAT. I have no idea why, but it just seemed like a foreign way of thinking to me. I had never taken a formal logic class, I took 1 philosophy class in college, and I had never seen anything like the logic games section. Ever. With a lot of hard work, I ended up improving from a 155 diagnostic to a 169 on the June LSAT. Unfortunately I just missed the 170s (sea floors, I'll hate you forever), but I ended up much better than I started.
I know that this must be incredibly frustrating to you. You're undoubtedly surrounded by people who are gifted test takers, and whose brains just magically think the way the LSAT requires you to think. Some of my friends at school studied for less than a month and managed to get 178s and 179s on the test their first time around. Still, the 165 average LSAT score for Yale students should tell you that high academic achievement doesn't necessarily correlate with astronomically high LSAT scores. There are extremely smart people who have to work very hard in order to end up with scores that are mediocre in comparison to their other scholastic achievements. For example, one of my friends from school who ended up winning a Rhodes Scholarship had to bust his ass to barely break into the 170s. So, I think first and foremost, you need to divest yourself of the notion that your previous academic work makes you entitled to a high LSAT score. It doesn't. That realization helped me stop feeling so bad that the test was difficult for me to do, and randos from University of Phoenix Online could do it in their sleep. Approach the LSAT as it's own thing. It's no more a harbinger of intellectual ability than anything else.
That said, if you're scoring in the 150s consistently after several months of work, you have weaknesses you need to address. I don't know what they are, but I think your first step is to figure out what's keeping you from improving the way you want to. Is LG really hard for you? Do you run out of time on RC? Do you have trouble isolating the premises and conclusions in LR? Once you've figured out what the problem is you need to develop a strategy to solve those problems so you can start moving closer to a score you'd like to get on the test. That might mean getting different books, using a different prep class, etc. Whatever the problem is, I'm guessing you'll have to get down in the trenches. Drill yourself on your weaker areas until you hate the LSAT, law school and logical thinking in general, take a break, and continue drilling. Rinse and repeat.
Good luck! FWIW, I think you can improve a lot as long as you have a concrete plan of attack. And, hey, if I could get out of the 150s, you can too...
ETA: I just saw your problem is mostly with LR and somewhat with LG. What helped me most on LR was trying to learn the flawed methods of reasoning. If you can find the flaw in the argument, you can figure out what will strengthen it, weaken it, characterize the method of reasoning, determine the problem with the logic, parallel the logic, etc. The LSAT almost always attacks an argument at it's weak point. Conversely, it almost always tries to strengthen arguments where they're already vulnerable to attack. Identifying the premises and the conclusions was also key for me--make sure you aren't getting suckered into falling for subsidiary conclusions and other red herrings. For LG, try to figure out if there are any game types you're having an especially difficult time with, and practice those like there's no tomorrow. I didn't improve significantly on games until I started doing old sections as practice. There was something about getting into the 4 in 35 minutes or less rhythm for me. Maybe you're having a similar issue? Anyway, hope this helps a little bit.
Last edited by
amc987 on Tue Sep 27, 2011 2:31 am, edited 1 time in total.