LSAT Q&A: Ask the Experts Forum

[MLBrandow]

I talked to several tutors who said they would be happy to answer any general or specific questions you might have about the LSAT here in this thread. The following is a list of resident LSAT gurus who have graciously agreed to answer whatever you would like to ask:

bp shinners from http://blueprintprep.com
Dave Hall, founder of http://www.velocitylsat.com
Manhattan LSAT Noah from http://www.manhattanlsat.com
NYCLSATTutor, founder of http://180degreeslsat.com
jeffort, founder of http://www.lsatdiscussion.com
LSAT Blog, founder of http://lsatblog.blogspot.com
SanDiegoJake, from http://princetonreview.com

This will be an ongoing thread. All of these individuals are offering both their comments and advice completely free, but of course if you are interested in contracting them for paid services, please do so via PM. Otherwise, please don't hesitate to ask for (and take) some free LSAT advice!

[Clearly]

The one question I think when I hear this great scorers post: Did you go to LS? Where? If no, why the fuck not?

[timmydoeslsat]

Great idea and thank you to each and every guru that has decided to do this. I have encountered every name mentioned and each one is top notch.

Question #1

I will start off with something that has continued to irk me since the first time I saw the question: PT 63-3-14.

This one is obviously down to A and B.

A) asserting that a lack of evidence against a view is proof that the view is correct.

I interpret this as saying that the lack of evidence of the courthouse being the better site is proof that the shoe factory is the better site.

And this seems to be exactly what the argument is doing.

B) Accepting a claim simply because advocates of an opposing claim have not adequately defending their view.

And this seems to be exactly what the argument is doing.

Question #2

PT 21-4-27

I was down to two, B or C.

I really dislike the wording of B by it stating overly. I agree his recommendations are general.

With C, I did feel like the author was hinting at irony while still being disappointed. The author uses the language "He did this....despite...also doing this."

I viewed it as the author finding it ironic that Tollefson describes the complex bureaucratic nature of these programs, but gives non-complex recommendations.

[LSAT Blog]

The one question I think when I hear this great scorers post: Did you go to LS? Where? If no, why the fuck not?

Great question. I never went to law school, although I did consider it at one point. That's why I picked up the LSAT in the first place. (I've found that few look at it without some intention of going to law school.) I'd previously tutored a variety of other subjects/exams. I found that I had a particular knack for standardized tests, so it just seemed natural to start tutoring the LSAT. Of course, the LSAT is much more of a niche subject than most, and I found it far more complex than any other exam or subject I'd previously tutored. As such, my tutoring practice quickly became dominated by the LSAT.

I did actually looked into applying and even took a stab at writing a personal statement about why I wanted to go to law school. However, 75% of it ended up being about why I was cynical about the power of international institutions like the UN to accomplish anything meaningful. (Once upon a time, I lobbied government delegates at UN conferences and watched them nitpick for days, weeks even, over language in documents that had no binding authority.) After it was pointed out to me by friends/family that my personal statement seemed to indicate that I didn't really want to go to law school, I realized that I didn't. I enjoyed tutoring far more than whatever I imagined life as a lawyer might be like.

After relying on little more than word of mouth for my tutoring business, I decided to join the 21st century and start a website for my tutoring business. I don't really know how to build websites, but blogs are easy to set up, so that's the route I took. Since blogs require updates, I decided to start posting free LSAT tips each week. Over the years, I've invested so much work into developing prep materials, unintentionally memorizing the page numbers of various LSAT problems, diagrams, variable names, etc., that I can't imagine leaving it all to go to law school. (I don't imagine that it'd be easy to maintain the blog and devote the necessary attention to law school at the same time.) I love working on my blog, and I continue to find that the LSAT, and everything related to it, fascinates me far too much for me to consider leaving it for casebooks and legal documents.

I mean, I'm sure all the stuff you read in law school is great, too, and I'll bet there are several areas of law that I'd enjoy practicing. Criminal law has always appealed to me - I can't get enough of TV shows and movies that feature it. (And I'm sure they're completely accurate portrayals of what it'd be like on a daily basis, right?)

But I've already got something I truly enjoy, so why leave it behind?

[LSAT Blog]

Great idea and thank you to each and every guru that has decided to do this. I have encountered every name mentioned and each one is top notch.

Question #1

I will start off with something that has continued to irk me since the first time I saw the question: PT 63-3-14.

This one is obviously down to A and B.

A) asserting that a lack of evidence against a view is proof that the view is correct.

I interpret this as saying that the lack of evidence of the courthouse being the better site is proof that the shoe factory is the better site.

And this seems to be exactly what the argument is doing.

B) Accepting a claim simply because advocates of an opposing claim have not adequately defending their view.

And this seems to be exactly what the argument is doing.

Thanks for the kind words. I appreciate them, and I'm sure the others do, too.

I'll take Question #1 (63-3-14) and leave #2 for one of the others.

#1's a difficult question. Great pick.

Why (A) is wrong:

(A) is super-tempting, but the stimulus' author says a lack of evidence *supporting* the council members' claim (that the courthouse is a better shelter site) is the reason their view is incorrect (and, as such, why the shoe factor's better).

The key here is recognizing that the argument's not about a lack of evidence *against* a view - it's about a lack of evidence supporting a view. Small difference, but a crucial one.


Why (B) is right:

The argument's guilty of a classic absence of evidence flaw. The council members' (the group discussed in the stimulus, not the author of the stimulus) failure to provide evidence doesn't mean that the author's opinion is any more correct. Their failure to provide evidence supporting their view doesn't give us any more reason to believe that the shoe factory is the better option.

[timmydoeslsat]

Thanks for the quick response.

I agree with what you said, but i do have one issue.

I believe that the lack of evidence against a view is the same thing as saying a lack of evidence supporting a view, at least in this particular stimulus. Each side in this debate believes that their choice is better. So to have a lack of evidence supporting a view is the same as a lack of evidence against theirs.

[LSAT Blog]

My pleasure.

You've identified the precise issue with why (A) is tempting. They're not *actually* the same thing. What "a lack of evidence against an opposing view" and "a lack of evidence supporting one's own view" *do* have in common is that they both function to leave an argument weaker than it otherwise would be (in this case, the group's argument in favor of the courthouse).

However, this doesn't make them identical - they just happen to share a particular consequence.

Examine the stimulus' 2nd sentence again. The author is saying that they prefer the courthouse, but they haven't given evidence in favor of it. In other words, there's a lack of evidence *supporting* it.

However, the stimulus' author *doesn't* ever suggest that their failure to attack the argument supporting the shoe factory serves as evidence that the shoe factory would be a better site.

[outlookingin]

The one question I think when I hear this great scorers post: Did you go to LS? Where? If no, why the fuck not?

Great question. I never went to law school, although I did consider it at one point. That's why I picked up the LSAT in the first place. (I've found that few look at it without some intention of going to law school.) I'd previously tutored a variety of other subjects/exams. I found that I had a particular knack for standardized tests, so it just seemed natural to start tutoring the LSAT. Of course, the LSAT is much more of a niche subject than most, and I found it far more complex than any other exam or subject I'd previously tutored. As such, my tutoring practice quickly became dominated by the LSAT.

I did actually looked into applying and even took a stab at writing a personal statement about why I wanted to go to law school. However, 75% of it ended up being about why I was cynical about the power of international institutions like the UN to accomplish anything meaningful. (Once upon a time, I lobbied government delegates at UN conferences and watched them nitpick for days, weeks even, over language in documents that had no binding authority.) After it was pointed out to me by friends/family that my personal statement seemed to indicate that I didn't really want to go to law school, I realized that I didn't. I enjoyed tutoring far more than whatever I imagined life as a lawyer might be like.

After relying on little more than word of mouth for my tutoring business, I decided to join the 21st century and start a website for my tutoring business. I don't really know how to build websites, but blogs are easy to set up, so that's the route I took. Since blogs require updates, I decided to start posting free LSAT tips each week. Over the years, I've invested so much work into developing prep materials, unintentionally memorizing the page numbers of various LSAT problems, diagrams, variable names, etc., that I can't imagine leaving it all to go to law school. (I don't imagine that it'd be easy to maintain the blog and devote the necessary attention to law school at the same time.) I love working on my blog, and I continue to find that the LSAT, and everything related to it, fascinates me far too much for me to consider leaving it for casebooks and legal documents.

I mean, I'm sure all the stuff you read in law school is great, too, and I'll bet there are several areas of law that I'd enjoy practicing. Criminal law has always appealed to me - I can't get enough of TV shows and movies that feature it. (And I'm sure they're completely accurate portrayals of what it'd be like on a daily basis, right?)

But I've already got something I truly enjoy, so why leave it behind?

This is really interesting, thank you for sharing! I've always wondered about this... please other top scorers chime in!! Why are you playing around here in the sand box with us kiddies when you're clearly HYS material!?

[Clearly]

The one question I think when I hear this great scorers post: Did you go to LS? Where? If no, why the fuck not?

Great question. I never went to law school, although I did consider it at one point. That's why I picked up the LSAT in the first place. (I've found that few look at it without some intention of going to law school.) I'd previously tutored a variety of other subjects/exams. I found that I had a particular knack for standardized tests, so it just seemed natural to start tutoring the LSAT. Of course, the LSAT is much more of a niche subject than most, and I found it far more complex than any other exam or subject I'd previously tutored. As such, my tutoring practice quickly became dominated by the LSAT.

I did actually looked into applying and even took a stab at writing a personal statement about why I wanted to go to law school. However, 75% of it ended up being about why I was cynical about the power of international institutions like the UN to accomplish anything meaningful. (Once upon a time, I lobbied government delegates at UN conferences and watched them nitpick for days, weeks even, over language in documents that had no binding authority.) After it was pointed out to me by friends/family that my personal statement seemed to indicate that I didn't really want to go to law school, I realized that I didn't. I enjoyed tutoring far more than whatever I imagined life as a lawyer might be like.

After relying on little more than word of mouth for my tutoring business, I decided to join the 21st century and start a website for my tutoring business. I don't really know how to build websites, but blogs are easy to set up, so that's the route I took. Since blogs require updates, I decided to start posting free LSAT tips each week. Over the years, I've invested so much work into developing prep materials, unintentionally memorizing the page numbers of various LSAT problems, diagrams, variable names, etc., that I can't imagine leaving it all to go to law school. (I don't imagine that it'd be easy to maintain the blog and devote the necessary attention to law school at the same time.) I love working on my blog, and I continue to find that the LSAT, and everything related to it, fascinates me far too much for me to consider leaving it for casebooks and legal documents.

I mean, I'm sure all the stuff you read in law school is great, too, and I'll bet there are several areas of law that I'd enjoy practicing. Criminal law has always appealed to me - I can't get enough of TV shows and movies that feature it. (And I'm sure they're completely accurate portrayals of what it'd be like on a daily basis, right?)

But I've already got something I truly enjoy, so why leave it behind?

This is really interesting, thank you for sharing! I've always wondered about this... please other top scorers chime in!! Why are you playing around here in the sand box with us kiddies when you're clearly HYS material!?

Thanks for the second, I've always wondered this question of any tutors or prep course instructors I've had that had absurd scores. "177 and you're teaching for Kaplan? wtf!?"

[NYCLSATTutor]

The one question I think when I hear this great scorers post: Did you go to LS? Where? If no, why the fuck not?

I did go to law school. NYU. It was a fairly terrible idea to go.

I am the perfect example of someone going to law school because they don't know what else to do. I was a philosophy major in undergraduate and I loved it. I thought about doing grad school for philosophy but doing a PhD is a LOT different than undergrad work. Undergrad work is mostly about trying to figure out the world and exploring different ideas (at least a good Philosophy undergrad is). PhD's are mostly about reading philosophers who are dead and giving your opinion of them. So, I graduated undergrad in 3 years with a Philosophy degree and an unsure path ahead of me.

Well, my parents are both lawyers (well they were back then) and offered to pay for me to take a course (Testmasters) and take the LSAT. I went to about 50% of the classes, took some tests on my own, rocked up to the test and scored a 175. So then I figured I had to go to law school.

I started teaching a few months after I took the test. I've been teaching ever since and taught all through law school. After I graduated I was faced with the choice of either becoming a lawyer (ugh) or trying to do something that I really enjoy, full time. I chose to try to teach full time.

I like teaching for a number of reasons. I think that the test is probably the best test in the US for how precisely and accurately its written. I think that the test has an incredibly interesting impact on peoples anxiety, mental state, and general well being. It is a lot of fun to try to figure out why someone is getting questions wrong and how to fix that. It involves delving a bit into their soul and trying to figure out what exactly is going on with them.

Sorry for the essay. Hope that answers your question tho.

[bp shinners]

The one question I think when I hear this great scorers post: Did you go to LS? Where? If no, why the fuck not?

I graduated from Harvard in 2009. I know you get a lot of responses from others who have gone to law school and are now teaching the LSAT who regret their decision; I'm not one of them. I absolutely loved law school, and I would go back in a second. I met people with whom I will be friends for the rest of my life, and I grew as a person much more than during any other stretch of time. I also learned a lot, from many exceptionally intelligent people. I also had some fun playing volleyball during the nicer months.

Why am I not practicing law, and how did I end up in this gig?

During my summer associate-ship, I practiced patent law at a mid-sized firm. I really enjoyed the work, and everyone that I worked with was extremely competent. However, it was in an area that I didn't want to live, and it was also a fairly conservative firm. The latter meant that they expected you to start a family in the area, make partner, and buy into the corporate culture. None of those appealed to me. The next year was 2008, and instead of being a 3L in OCI during one of the worst economic years in decades (and because I knew I'd have some health issues I'd have to deal with right after law school), I decided to spend a few years pursuing other options. This was a luxury afforded to me with my science and Harvard degrees - while I'm under no illusion that it will be easy to get back into legal practice after a few years of doing something else (if I decide to go back), I'm fairly certain I could find a patent boutique somewhere that would hire me.

During this time off (and while dealing with the medical issues), I took a job at Blueprint because it paid well, involved something that I had a demonstrated mastery of, and was part-time, allowing me to pursue the other interests (and get to doctor's appointments). While at Blueprint, however, I started taking on more responsibilities (like handling our social media/message board accounts) that I found I actually enjoyed. As we expanded, there was more work in these myriad areas for me to do, and BP kept trusting me to take on the responsibility.

[Dave Hall]

The one question I think when I hear this great scorers post: Did you go to LS? Where? If no, why the fuck not?

I'd say that if they really thought about it, there are three considerations most people (and I certainly include myself here) think they should weigh in choosing a career (as opposed to a job, which is mostly about one thing: money). Those considerations are, in alphabetical order:

1. Growth potential - the belief that your work will have an arc, not just a long flat line. You want to know you're headed somewhere.
2. Happiness - the belief that your work has meaning. When it does, you sleep good (even if not enough) and you're better to everyone in your world. You find it easier to become a citizen when your work fulfills you, and you're a better one for it.
3. Money (of course. Come on).

In other words, you want to do work that will allow you to retire someday. In this America, that's a tough proposition. You want to do work that's meaningful, so going to work isn't a chore. And for me, I wanted work that would allow my wife (who wanted to stay home full-time) to live the life she wants, too.

Velocity gives me all three of those - and in particular the second one of them - in a way that law school didn't seem to offer.

The particular history: When I took the test for the first time I figured I'd go to law school. This was for mercenary reasons - I had no particular love of the law nor calling to practice, but I'd just found out that my wife was pregnant. I needed a big kid job (before that, I'd been doing construction work in rural Appalachia, then teaching part-time for a national test-prep company. With a wife with a baby in her belly, I needed more income and security all of a sudden). Anyway, I do love to teach, and figured I'd go to law school just because I could, then teach law.

Then I started investigating law schools. Realistically, to follow the traditional path to a law professorship, I needed to go to Yale (or Harvard), which meant I'd shell out plenty of money for school to move my newly-growing family across the country for three years, then have to get a job practicing law for at least a little while before finding a position that might move us all across the country again… It wasn't an awesome-sounding life path.

Teaching, though, is pretty great.

[Dave Hall]

Question #2

PT 21-4-27

I was down to two, B or C.

I really dislike the wording of B by it stating overly. I agree his recommendations are general.

With C, I did feel like the author was hinting at irony while still being disappointed. The author uses the language "He did this....despite...also doing this."

I viewed it as the author finding it ironic that Tollefson describes the complex bureaucratic nature of these programs, but gives non-complex recommendations.

I think you might like (B) better if you read "overly" as evoking the author's attitude, not the test writers'. In other words, the author could well believe that there's nothing inherently disappointing about general recommendations; her disappointment comes from the fact that Tollefson's prescriptions are too general to be effectively practicable.

For (C), I think to be accurately characterized as "ironic," we'd want Tollefson to have given a more particularly bureaucratic solution to what may be a bureaucratic problem, rather than just a too-general one. But I think my bigger problem is with the characterization of the changes as "drastic." The recommendations the author itemizes seem incremental: we're not giving immigrants a voice; we're making that voice stronger. We're not replacing the old goals with new goals; we're just shifting the emphasis of our current agenda.

[timmydoeslsat]

Thank you lsatblog and Dave Hall. I agree with both assessments.

[shifty_eyed]

Would love some insight on two questions on the first LR section of PT43 (section 2). I missed both 16 and 18 in this section.

16 (the environmentalist)
I didn't circle this question to note uncertainty, but I narrowed it down to B and E before choosing B (the wrong choice). I'm still not sure why B is wrong.

18 (the editorial)
I had a really hard time with this one. I actually eliminated C and D (the correct answer choice), and then was stuck between A and B (and chose B). I eliminated D because of the word "solely". I thought that was too strong a word choice.

[Dave Hall]

Would love some insight on two questions on the first LR section of PT43 (section 2). I missed both 16 and 18 in this section.

16 (the environmentalist)
I didn't circle this question to note uncertainty, but I narrowed it down to B and E before choosing B (the wrong choice). I'm still not sure why B is wrong.

This one's tough. The reason I eliminated (B) was that it seemed the author had already allowed for the possibility of harm to older business - "...even if such protection harms..." I think what we really need to know is not that the economies don't depend on those industries, but instead that any dependence they have could be overcome through new business. To put it in other words: we don't have to know that old business isn't important - we just have to know that new business can in fact compensate for the expected possible loss of old business.

18 (the editorial)
I had a really hard time with this one. I actually eliminated C and D (the correct answer choice), and then was stuck between A and B (and chose B). I eliminated D because of the word "solely". I thought that was too strong a word choice.

If we knew that there were only two kinds of information in the world - education and propaganda - then (B) (or (A), for that matter) would be correct. However, consider the fact that ordinary housecats and battery-operated sexual devices are never the same thing, and you'll quickly see that fact alone doesn't mean that those are the only two kinds of thing in Madeleine Albright's boudoir.

So, (B) does prove that health ed isn't education, but in itself, that doesn't guarantee that it is propaganda.

In the third sentence, the passage defines propaganda for us, and (D) tells us that health ed conforms to that definition. This means that it must be propaganda. To quote Mme. Albright, "Et voilà."

[shifty_eyed]

Thanks, Dave! Both of those explanations make sense to me.

[timmydoeslsat]

37-2-12:

This stimulus requires the test taker to make the leap from ~bad to good.

When you make this question stem a proper inference...it makes this a little more troubling to me. Most strongly supported question stem...and I would have no beef.

And it is clear that the test writers are wanting you to make this long conditional chain.

However, it still stands that just because something is not bad does not mean that the thing is good.

My point? I would like for the question stem to be different. Just my opinion. Is this view agreed upon by the experts?

[Manhattan LSAT Noah]

37-2-12:

This stimulus requires the test taker to make the leap from ~bad to good.

When you make this question stem a proper inference...it makes this a little more troubling to me. Most strongly supported question stem...and I would have no beef.

And it is clear that the test writers are wanting you to make this long conditional chain.

However, it still stands that just because something is not bad does not mean that the thing is good.

My point? I would like for the question stem to be different. Just my opinion. Is this view agreed upon by the experts?

Good close reading! It's always fun to see if we can find a flaw in the LSAT. Seems like that - bad = good jump is expected here. I wouldn't lose too much sleep about it as the trap you're referring to (e.g. not sad doesn't mean happy) is usually more obvious. Instead, I'd revel in your secure position among the LSATerati who question questions like this!

[Dave Hall]

37-2-12:

This stimulus requires the test taker to make the leap from ~bad to good.

When you make this question stem a proper inference...it makes this a little more troubling to me. Most strongly supported question stem...and I would have no beef.

And it is clear that the test writers are wanting you to make this long conditional chain.

However, it still stands that just because something is not bad does not mean that the thing is good.

My point? I would like for the question stem to be different. Just my opinion. Is this view agreed upon by the experts?

I certainly take your point (and I'm in total agreement in the broad sense), but I think the question of whether "not bad" equals "good" does depend on which definition of "good" you're working from. In this particular case, it seems fair to me that food (and soil) is either "good" or else "bad", in the sense that "good" food could simply be food (soil) that has not been badly cultivated. I looked it up (because, being awesome, dictionaries are how I roll), and found two definitions of "good" that were variations on "not bad".

So, I do see the potential for ambiguity and how it could be troubling, but what probably seals it in my mind is that in order to challenge this, we'd have to argue that there definitely is such a thing as a mediocre vegetable, and that seems like a tough sell - it seems to me that a stalk of broccoli is either good or else it is not.

And if that's the case, then we're all good.

(Get it?)

[outlookingin]

This thread is going to be awesome.

[man_utd_4l]

This thread is going to be awesome.

+1

[Br3v]

This thread is going to be awesome.

+1

(front page) tag

[dowu]

This thread is going to be awesome.

+1

(front page) tag

[outlookingin]

OK I've got kind of a squishy question, but I think it would be cool to see all of the different responses. Say it's the day before you're taking a test that you need to score a 180 on (I know you guys have taken all of the PTs but surely you still have these days): what's your warm-up routine? How will you get yourself in the zone? Get detailed if possible--as in if you have a playlist that you listen to or whatever post those songs hahaha