Do people who over study for the LSAT do worse in law school Forum

[Pneumonia]

Yes of course the intellect is not immutable, but the only portion of it that can be grown by LSAT prep is the portion of it that is actually necessary to do well on the LSAT. Coupled with the fact that the skills necessary to do well on the LSAT don't really translate into real life the conclusion is that studying for the LSAT makes you better at the test, and (almost) nothing else.

My thoughts are basically in accordance with your edit, which is well put. I didn't mean to make the point that intellect can't be sharpened (and I don't think anyone else would make that argument either), only that LSAT prep isn't really a tool capable of doing so.

[hopeful 0L]

here is some LSAT for you:

Someone who is 99th right off the bat has an extremely strong intellect that allows them to do well on the test.

Someone who studies form 150-170 is substituting hard work and effort for the intellectual capacity exhibited by the first person.

After the test is taken and they both get a 175 or whatever the first person still has the same intellect that allowed them to do well quickly; the second person still has the same intellect that got them a 150 right off the bat in addition to a greater understanding of the LSAT.

The second person is now an LSAT genius just like the first person. However, the first person will presumably continue to do well quickly at other things that aren't the LSAT whereas the second person will continue to expend great effort to achieve those same things.

Obviously this is broad strokes or whatever and I'm not using "Intellectual capacity" in its broadest sense. Just having taken, taught, and tutored the test for some time I know for a fact that the biggest increases come from people who "learn the test" rather than "learn to think logically" and in fact I have never seen anyone do the latter. I don't think it's impossible but I do think it is clearly ridiculous to claim that studying the LSAT is sufficient for doing so to any material degree, especially when the benchmark you're using is "as good as a natural 175" as opposed to "a marginally better logical thinker."

I don't think you'd be getting as much pushback if you were arguing for the second of those two things. Btw I started out with like a 151 or something so my stake in this game is not defending that I'm smarter than someone who has to study a lot; its the opposite. The people I know that were 17x on a first try (there are only a few of them) are so clearly smarter than me that I am compelled to reject your argument on that basis alone.

Why are we so quick to accept the idea that intellect is immutable? That's not obvious to me at all. Are you saying it's impossible for a person to develop real, transferable cognitive skills over the course of a year-long intensive LSAT prep period? I would imagine that this is entirely possible.

Remember this?

Edit: But you're right. The argument I'm making is way too strong. I guess I'm just saying that it's possible to train cognitive skills to the extent that someone who scores a 150 on the first try is not necessarily limited to a 150-sized "intellect" for the rest of her life -- and this probably extends to mean that a learned 99th percentile scorer should not expect to be carrying around some kind of crippling mental handicap in law school.

So let us say that intellectual capacity (or whatever term you like) can indeed be improved. Why is improvement confined only to those in the middle or lower rungs of performance? Why is baseline performance totally irrelevant? People cannot improve to the same degree, even from different "starting points"?

Moreover, why is it that an innate high-scorer is reduced to "all that means is he's good at the LSAT", while the individual that worked several months for a high score "fundamentally improved his intelligence" (as opposed to merely improving his LSAT-specific proficiency)?

Dude, just get over the fact that someone that casually scored a 17x is more intelligent than either of us. Is he guaranteed to have more success than we will? No, but it seems likely (which is why schools use the LSAT at all). I'm okay with it, and you should be too.

[Straw_Mandible]

Yes of course the intellect is not immutable, but the only portion of it that can be grown by LSAT prep is the portion of it that is actually necessary to do well on the LSAT. Coupled with the fact that the skills necessary to do well on the LSAT don't really translate into real life the conclusion is that studying for the LSAT makes you better at the test, and (almost) nothing else.

My thoughts are basically in accordance with your edit, which is well put. I didn't mean to make the point that intellect can't be sharpened (and I don't think anyone else would make that argument either), only that LSAT prep isn't really a tool capable of doing so.

And that's where we disagree. I'd argue that there are at least some general, transferable cognitive skills that can be developed in the process of preparing for the LSAT. (These are, of course, skills that the 'natural' 99th percentile scorers already have--among probably many others, but that's all speculation.)

From personal experience, I can say that I am generally a much stronger reader and a clearer, faster, more lucid and logical thinker than I was when I started studying for the LSAT. It feels a lot like getting into shape, and it has had at least some impact on my cognitive performance across the board. Am I as sharp, lucid, and logical as a natural 99th percentile scorer? Probably not. But the training is real, and it's meaningful.

[dwil770]

DF, if you are going to a given Law School, would you rather:

1. Have been a hard worker in undergrad

2. Not have been a hard worker really at all in undergrad

You are going to the same school regardless, so you got in with the GPA that resulted from either working hard or not working very hard. On one hand, working hard is prob critical so at least you know you can do that with situation 1. But, so much potential compared to the pool of your future classmates with the second.

[beepboopbeep]

DF, if you are going to a given Law School, would you rather:

1. Have been a hard worker in undergrad

2. Not have been a hard worker really at all in undergrad

You are going to the same school regardless, so you got in with the GPA that resulted from either working hard or not working very hard. On one hand, working hard is prob critical so at least you know you can do that with situation 1. But, so much potential compared to the pool of your future classmates with the second.

I'm definitely in the latter camp, and I wouldn't trade it for being in the former. I would guess a lot of the former would, however, trade to the latter if possible. But it's too easy to overgeneralize with that. Some of us lazy folk will get our shit together, and some of us won't. Some hard workers will keep having success and some won't. It would be cool to study this empirically by surveying people's self-assessments before entering LS and then comparing those numbers to grades, but good luck running that study.

In either case, I wouldn't trade the fun I had in undergrad for a few more tenths of a point in GPA. Also probably learned a lot more about myself by struggling along and making as many mistakes as possible for a few years. Then again, some people know that stuff beforehand.

[copingtrope]

here is some LSAT for you:

Someone who is 99th right off the bat has an extremely strong intellect that allows them to do well on the test.

Someone who studies form 150-170 is substituting hard work and effort for the intellectual capacity exhibited by the first person.

After the test is taken and they both get a 175 or whatever the first person still has the same intellect that allowed them to do well quickly; the second person still has the same intellect that got them a 150 right off the bat in addition to a greater understanding of the LSAT.

The second person is now an LSAT genius just like the first person. However, the first person will presumably continue to do well quickly at other things that aren't the LSAT whereas the second person will continue to expend great effort to achieve those same things.

Obviously this is broad strokes or whatever and I'm not using "Intellectual capacity" in its broadest sense. Just having taken, taught, and tutored the test for some time I know for a fact that the biggest increases come from people who "learn the test" rather than "learn to think logically" and in fact I have never seen anyone do the latter. I don't think it's impossible but I do think it is clearly ridiculous to claim that studying the LSAT is sufficient for doing so to any material degree, especially when the benchmark you're using is "as good as a natural 175" as opposed to "a marginally better logical thinker."

I don't think you'd be getting as much pushback if you were arguing for the second of those two things. Btw I started out with like a 151 or something so my stake in this game is not defending that I'm smarter than someone who has to study a lot; its the opposite. The people I know that were 17x on a first try (there are only a few of them) are so clearly smarter than me that I am compelled to reject your argument on that basis alone.

Why are we so quick to accept the idea that intellect is immutable? That's not obvious to me at all. Are you saying it's impossible for a person to develop real, transferable cognitive skills over the course of a year-long intensive LSAT prep period? I would imagine that this is entirely possible.

Remember this?

Edit: But you're right. The argument I'm making is way too strong. I guess I'm just saying that it's possible to train cognitive skills to the extent that someone who scores a 150 on the first try is not necessarily limited to a 150-sized "intellect" for the rest of her life -- and this probably extends to mean that a learned 99th percentile scorer should not expect to be carrying around some kind of crippling mental handicap in law school.

The article you cited suggests that this change may not be permanent, though.

“If the brain is really plastic, then anything you gain in 90 days can be lost in 90 days,” she said.

If so, then a lot of the skills you gained in your prep time could fade away when you're done prepping, whereas someone who gets a high score with little/no prep would probably keep those skills indefinitely.

In your running analogy, this would mean that the person who trained to run a sub-5:00 mile could lose that ability after the race (assuming they stop training), while the natural runner would still be fit to run quickly.

It would be interesting to retest someone who got a high LSAT score with little/no prep a few years ago and one who studied hard to get the same score the same amount of time ago. I would guess that the gunner wouldn't perform as well, indicating that he/she did not actually retain the same critical thinking skills as the other, which could cause that person to do worse in law school (all other things equal).

It's great to work hard and get a good LSAT score, but unless you have continual, intense exposure to prepping materials, then you might not keep all those skills you gained from prepping for very long.

EDIT: This does assume that skills necessary for doing well on the LSAT are also necessary for performing well in law school, which I think is true, for the most part.

[Straw_Mandible]

Bear with me; I'm going to take one more crack at the argument I'm trying to make, and then I promise to lay it to rest. Feel free to tl;dr this. I'm just posting this here because I think it's interesting.

On "Intellect":

I think people have a lot of crazy and mystical ideas about what "intellect" means. Intellect is just a general, large, and largely undefined set of specific and tangible cognitive skills. Its generality and undefined 'mystique' render it a pretty meaningless metric overall.

When I see someone who demonstrates superior intellectual abilities, I don't look on in awe and say, "Wow, that person is so much 'smarter' than I am. They must feel very lucky to be so 'gifted.'" Instead, I ask, "What are the specific things that this person can do, which I cannot do?" Then I go out and work on learning how to do those specific things--in the process, expanding the large, undefined set of skills whose sum is the measure of my "intellect."

To the LSAT naturalists: You claim that anyone who can score in the 99th percentile with no preparation must generally have a superior "intellect." They are "smart." But knowing that the intellect is just an undefined collection of specific cognitive skills, why do you assume that a person who demonstrates natural ability in the specific skills tested by the LSAT also possesses superior ability in the cognitive skills which are not tested by the LSAT? And why do you assume that a person who develops the skills necessary to perform at the highest level on the LSAT lacks cognitive abilities in areas which are not tested by the LSAT (but may be relevant to success in law school), in contrast with the 'natural' 99th percentile scorer?

The LSAT tests exactly the skills that it tests and nothing more. Some people have them without actively learning them, while other people spend time learning them, and then they have them. What that says about any of their other cognitive skills, respectively, is unclear.

[03152016]

Maybe I'm just someone with too great a sense of inadequacy, but I certainly feel that the LSAT is not a determiner of anything really and that getting a high score can't be particularly difficult, just potentially time consuming.

Uh, no. Plenty of people grind for half a year with the right materials and don't hit the 99th percentile. TLS is a reality distortion field for LSAT scores.

[AbhiJ]

Throwing in my 0.02$ here.

There are three cases:

The Natural: The Natural can go with 1 week preparation and score in 99th percentile. How will he do in Law School ? Probably not as good as he scored on the LSAT. Success in LS or any other academic endeavor is much less about your IQ and much more about EQ. By EQ I mean the ability to keep yourself motivated when you are away from family and friends and have to study something that is very boring when compared to Test Preperation. By EQ I mean maintaining sanity when everyone around you has lost his/hers. By EQ I mean protecting and maintaining your health when you are under serious stress. The High IQ dude can have high EQ but the chances are less as both are independent of one another. The intelligent guy got success effortlessly in test prep which is unlikely to happen in graduate school.

The Above Average Hard Worker: This fellow is smart but not as intelligent as the natural. He scores 155-160 when taken the exam cold but manages to score 170+ with 6 months of hard work while managing his job. He was also on the Dean's list during his bachelors. Chances are high that he will do very well in Law School (top 20%) thanks to his insane work ethic.

The Mediocre But Arrogant: This guy is smart but less than the above two. He quits his job, has little social life for 2 years and manages to crack a 174 after 3 attempts. He simply won't quit despite discouraging comments from friends and family. He will most probably be average to below average in Law School depending on how good he is in managing his time at Law School. He can be in top 25% provided he does some slightly unconventional things: such as maintaining excellent relationship with professors, forming a study group, interacting regularly with seniors, cutting his social life as he did while his LSAT preparation. Having said that he will have to work much harder than the other two types to do very well.

[Nova]

The Natural: The intelligent guy got success effortlessly in test prep which is unlikely to happen in graduate school.

The Above Average Hard Worker: Chances are high that he will do very well in Law School (top 20%) thanks to his insane work ethic.

The Mediocre But Arrogant: He can be in top 25% provided he does some slightly unconventional things: such as maintaining excellent relationship with professors, forming a study group, interacting regularly with seniors, cutting his social life as he did while his LSAT preparation. Having said that he will have to work much harder than the other two types to do very well.

(0L)

[03152016]

Throwing in my 0.02$ here.

There are three cases:

The Natural: The Natural can go with 1 week preparation and score in 99th percentile. How will he do in Law School ? Probably not as good as he scored on the LSAT. Success in LS or any other academic endeavor is much less about your IQ and much more about EQ. By EQ I mean the ability to keep yourself motivated when you are away from family and friends and have to study something that is very boring when compared to Test Preperation. By EQ I mean maintaining sanity when everyone around you has lost his/hers. By EQ I mean protecting and maintaining your health when you are under serious stress. The High IQ dude can have high EQ but the chances are less as both are independent of one another. The intelligent guy got success effortlessly in test prep which is unlikely to happen in graduate school.

The Above Average Hard Worker: This fellow is smart but not as intelligent as the natural. He scores 155-160 when taken the exam cold but manages to score 170+ with 6 months of hard work while managing his job. He was also on the Dean's list during his bachelors. Chances are high that he will do very well in Law School (top 20%) thanks to his insane work ethic.

The Mediocre But Arrogant: This guy is smart but less than the above two. He quits his job, has little social life for 2 years and manages to crack a 174 after 3 attempts. He simply won't quit despite discouraging comments from friends and family. He will most probably be average to below average in Law School depending on how good he is in managing his time at Law School. He can be in top 25% provided he does some slightly unconventional things: such as maintaining excellent relationship with professors, forming a study group, interacting regularly with seniors, cutting his social life as he did while his LSAT preparation. Having said that he will have to work much harder than the other two types to do very well.

hang on let me write this down
so how often should i interact with seniors

[banjo]

There are over 7,000 practice LSAT problems. You can seriously practice and practice until you've seen every trick LSAC could possibly throw at you. For various reasons, that kind of practice is almost impossible on a law school exam. It's possible that, despite LSAC's best efforts, your LSAT score won't actually reflect your ability to deal with complex new problems, and yet that's exactly what a law school exam will test.

[NYSprague]

The Natural: The intelligent guy got success effortlessly in test prep which is unlikely to happen in graduate school.

The Above Average Hard Worker: Chances are high that he will do very well in Law School (top 20%) thanks to his insane work ethic.

The Mediocre But Arrogant: He can be in top 25% provided he does some slightly unconventional things: such as maintaining excellent relationship with professors, forming a study group, interacting regularly with seniors, cutting his social life as he did while his LSAT preparation. Having said that he will have to work much harder than the other two types to do very well.

(0L)

AbhiJ: you know there is a mandatory curve in law school, right? You can't simply hardwork your way to good grades.

[Ded Precedent]

AbhiJ: you know there is a mandatory curve in law school, right? You can't simply hardwork your way to good grades.

This doesn't make any sense. How does the curve diminish the value of hard work.

[NYSprague]

Hard work doesn't guarantee good grades is what I was trying to say.

[Nebby]

Hard work doesn't guarantee good grades is what I was trying to say.

Yeah. This makes no sense.

[Ded Precedent]

Hard work doesn't guarantee good grades is what I was trying to say.

Of course it doesn't guarantee success but at a school packed with statistically similar people, I think it's the single most predictive behavior. The people I know at the top of my class aren't the ones who I observe to be the most naturally brilliant, they're the people who take the time to actually read every assignment and put the hours of time in to learn every nuance of the law that needs to be applied to the facts in an exam.

[rayiner]

Hard work doesn't guarantee good grades is what I was trying to say.

Of course it doesn't guarantee success but at a school packed with statistically similar people, I think it's the single most predictive behavior. The people I know at the top of my class aren't the ones who I observe to be the most naturally brilliant, they're the people who take the time to actually read every assignment and put the hours of time in to learn every nuance of the law that needs to be applied to the facts in an exam.

I think it's a predictive behavior, but I think luck is a bigger factor. Not luck in the sense of "exam grades are random" but in the sense that some people intuit how to write a law school exam earlier than others. I remember 1L's being really lost about what was important for the exam, and going off and reading all these supplements and highlighting cases in multiple colors, etc. I don't think the people who worked harder, at least beyond a certain baseline, did better than those who figured out early that the exam would be graded on a rubric and it was all about getting points from a checklist.

[Nebby]

Hard work doesn't guarantee good grades is what I was trying to say.

Of course it doesn't guarantee success but at a school packed with statistically similar people, I think it's the single most predictive behavior. The people I know at the top of my class aren't the ones who I observe to be the most naturally brilliant, they're the people who take the time to actually read every assignment and put the hours of time in to learn every nuance of the law that needs to be applied to the facts in an exam.

I think it's a predictive behavior, but I think luck is a bigger factor. Not luck in the sense of "exam grades are random" but in the sense that some people intuit how to write a law school exam earlier than others. I remember 1L's being really lost about what was important for the exam, and going off and reading all these supplements and highlighting cases in multiple colors, etc. I don't think the people who worked harder, at least beyond a certain baseline, did better than those who figured out early that the exam would be graded on a rubric and it was all about getting points from a checklist.

Agreed. Those fuckers with their multiple highlighter colors and supplements. Me, my yellow highlighter, and the casebook have cruised to successville all because I was able to intuit exam success early on and used the personality of the professors to my advantage.

[NYSprague]

Hard work doesn't guarantee good grades is what I was trying to say.

Of course it doesn't guarantee success but at a school packed with statistically similar people, I think it's the single most predictive behavior. The people I know at the top of my class aren't the ones who I observe to be the most naturally brilliant, they're the people who take the time to actually read every assignment and put the hours of time in to learn every nuance of the law that needs to be applied to the facts in an exam.

I was trying to point out that you can work hard in law school and still be median or lower. Not every 0L understands that because in undergrad studying is enough to do well.

[Nebby]

A real man makes his own luck.

[Theopliske8711]

There are over 7,000 practice LSAT problems. You can seriously practice and practice until you've seen every trick LSAC could possibly throw at you. For various reasons, that kind of practice is almost impossible on a law school exam. It's possible that, despite LSAC's best efforts, your LSAT score won't actually reflect your ability to deal with complex new problems, and yet that's exactly what a law school exam will test.

With the LSAT it's pretty much the opposite. People freak out about the very possibility of a new question type.

[unodostres]

Lol df thread yawn

[09042014]

Lol df thread yawn

(guy who really loves debating which school someone should go to)

[quijotesca1011]

Bear with me; I'm going to take one more crack at the argument I'm trying to make, and then I promise to lay it to rest. Feel free to tl;dr this. I'm just posting this here because I think it's interesting.

On "Intellect":

I think people have a lot of crazy and mystical ideas about what "intellect" means. Intellect is just a general, large, and largely undefined set of specific and tangible cognitive skills. Its generality and undefined 'mystique' render it a pretty meaningless metric overall.

When I see someone who demonstrates superior intellectual abilities, I don't look on in awe and say, "Wow, that person is so much 'smarter' than I am. They must feel very lucky to be so 'gifted.'" Instead, I ask, "What are the specific things that this person can do, which I cannot do?" Then I go out and work on learning how to do those specific things--in the process, expanding the large, undefined set of skills whose sum is the measure of my "intellect."

To the LSAT naturalists: You claim that anyone who can score in the 99th percentile with no preparation must generally have a superior "intellect." They are "smart." But knowing that the intellect is just an undefined collection of specific cognitive skills, why do you assume that a person who demonstrates natural ability in the specific skills tested by the LSAT also possesses superior ability in the cognitive skills which are not tested by the LSAT? And why do you assume that a person who develops the skills necessary to perform at the highest level on the LSAT lacks cognitive abilities in areas which are not tested by the LSAT (but may be relevant to success in law school), in contrast with the 'natural' 99th percentile scorer?

The LSAT tests exactly the skills that it tests and nothing more. Some people have them without actively learning them, while other people spend time learning them, and then they have them. What that says about any of their other cognitive skills, respectively, is unclear.

I think the problem with this reasoning is that when a person hasn't prepped, it is safer to assume that they are scoring well because of a "natural ability in the specific skills tested by the LSAT" -- i.e., if they do well in the logical reasoning, it is probably because they are good at logical reasoning; if they are good at the reading comprehension, that's probably a skill they have in day-to-day life. We aren't assuming they possess higher cognitive abilities in skills not tested by the LSAT, but rather that their score is indicative of ability in the skills that the LSAT tries to approximate.

With the person who has prepped, there is a confounding factor. We don't know if that person is doing better because they have learned the actual skill that the test is trying to approximate, or because they have learned to perform the task required by the test.
The LSAT does not directly test the skills it tests, it approximates them. A logic game is a way of approximating logical reasoning. But you can improve your ability of solving a LG in many ways/strategies that probably don't do much for your day-to-day logical reasoning skills. Sure, it might help you to think other things through more logically, but it is possible that you have developed a tool (i.e. a diagram), but have not truly expanded the actual logical reasoning capacity.