A long, strange LSAT journey Forum

[fredfred]

This is my experience with the LSAT and it should be read by anyone who is looking for LSAT motivation.

In college, I started thinking about the LSAT and law school. I went to a free kaplan session where there is a proctor (tutor) and he gives a full exam. I had not prepared at all and left with a 143. My head was spinning and I went to talk to an advisor of mine. He said if someone wants to go to law school, they should have started studying in high school. That was his serious advice. It takes 3-4 years to master the LSAT at a minimum (he went to HYS law and Princeton PHD so the dude is extremely smart himself). That did not help my confidence.

Fast forward a year. Just graduated college, I was headed to graduate school. It is June 1st, 2014. It was the first time I seriously tried to study, aiming for the September exam. I was doing okay, never really breaking 160. Games was my worst section, going -15/-20 at a time. Having access to some family support, I reached out to a tutor to teach me games. Worth every penny and started going -10, then -5, then -1. Progress! Unfortunately reasoning wasn't progressing as I would have liked, but I was getting tutored on Skype as my graduate school was far away. I was doing what my tutor told me all the way up through the September exam and was pting mid 160s. Eventually September came and I received a high 150's score. I was devastated. 4 months of work, lots of money, and still not even breaking 160. I was distraught, a failure, a waste. This was all in the mist of graduate school and it was just awful.

I take a month off of studying and decided to try again in December. I dumped my tutor (but LG was a massive improvement getting to -0) and decided instead of trying to learn everything just focus on LR. I had games down and just needed LR help. I buckled down for a few months and studied hard. December came, did great on games and not as great on LR, but a significant improvement. I had been pting from 164-174 on any given test. Come December, I went -6 on RC. Received a mid 160s score. Was devastated again, how could I possibly get into a t14? My dreams were over.

I applied everywhere and had a good cycle. Got serious scholarship money from top 20 schools and wl at a few t14. I decided on one top 20 with a nice scholarship and my parents were proud, I was proud, it actually was all okay. But something was bugging me, it was the LSAT. I felt like twice it had won, twice it beat me yet I wanted to try again. My parents said no, why even go through this again?

So I signed up for June. I threw out everything I knew about the LSAT and started at PT 1. I took EVERY SINGLE LSAT from 1-76 (or whatever it is) and then redid 60-76 again. I wasn't trying to beat the test or learn the test, rather I was just going through it systematically. If I got a RC question wrong, I spent 15 minutes breaking down every answer choice and trying to figure out where I went wrong and which one is more right. I did this for 4 months, on top of grad school.

It now brings me to this moment. I received a mid 170s score in the 99th percentile in June. Within 12 hours of the score, I had received a call from a t14 I was rejected from offering me unsolicited admission along with 2 others just outside the t14. It looks like I will be sitting out a year and reapplying.

What this is all about ultimately is I had around a 30 point increase from first pt to June 2015. It was a full year of studying with small breaks in between. You don't need a tutor. What he taught me I found the same on youtube for free. What matters is you determination to really work at it. Actually take every single PT ever given over and over. By my actual count, I have taken over 150 full pts this past year (obviously repeating each one at some point). My professor was wrong, you don't need 4 years of study. You need 1 and the determination to do it.

tl;dr I started from the bottom (143) and now I am here (mid 170s). Good luck, you can do it.

[ltowns1]

Congratulations!!! That's inspiring!

[Mack.Hambleton]

Nice job. My third take was by far my highest as well

[thunderbug]

Realizing how nerdy we all are when this is the best rags to riches story I've related to in quite a while. Better than seeing a massive weight loss transformation before and after pic or reading a story about homeless to desk job. hahahaha. We're dorks.

[GospelLeague]

My primary fear for LSAT comes from all kinds of people telling me it measures intelligence, and there are quite a lot of people who study very hard and still can't break 165 merely because of intelligence. Unfortunately I failed tons of math test in elementary school, it is obviously I'm not intelligent.

But after reading your thread, I'm totally inspired. It convinces me that effort really pays off and I don't need to give a shit at those people who gave me misleading advice.

[fredfred]

I'm glad it is inspiring you guys! I feel like tls can be an echo chamber a ton and advice from other people is hard to determine what is good advice or bad. This test does not test intelligence. If it did, how come I did so poorly for a long time? It was because I wasn't working as hard as I could have.

Change your thinking, throw out expectations. Work your ass off and you can achieve success on this test. Don't stress about what score I need or what people tell me. Who cares! They aren't there on Friday night when you want to go out with your friends but rather you need to take a pt. The people that will be successful on this exam are the ones that make it happen. Do it!

[chicharon]

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[PodPeople]

This is great! I have a similiar story, but stuck in the 160's. This will motivate me to keep pushing

[jeech]

Congrats and thanks for sharing....this is so inspiring!

[appind]

very inspiring

[Emilia_law]

He said if someone wants to go to law school, they should have started studying in high school.

I swear, advisers always say especially extreme/cruel things in order to 'motivate' students. congrats though.

[KevCon]

fredfred, What you discovered and identified validates my own theory on test prep and especially my own experience scoring in the 98th percentile the first and only time I sat for the official test. The method is simple and not at all what test prep courses stress (they want your $): Take actual tests under official conditions, without the smallest deviation, over and over and over. It is always the same test, but it takes a tremendous commitment and discipline to single-handedly crack the code that unlocks the basis of each and every question as well as the correct answers.

It DOES take intelligence, intellect and aptitude. You cannot score well without it and you cannot learn any of that. What makes the critical difference is not really 'learning the Test', but taking actual tests over and over and over - you will thereby 'crack the code' and learn the language of the test, as well as the very basis of most all of the questions.

I sat and took test after test under exactly the same conditions as they would be for the official sitting - without one jot of deviation; absolutely no deviation whatsoever, no matter what. After doing this with as much discipline as you can muster, you soon find that you recognize almost immediately the many questions in their 'new, restated form'. They are all the same questions and once you crack the code, you recognize them as second nature and it's literally as though you can read a language others find difficult or time-consuming or even impossible.