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How learnable is the LSAT exactly? Can virtually anyone get a 170+?

It is certainly learnable. But learning and mastering are quite different things.

Not everyone is going to have the reading speed and test taking chops to get a 170 just by studying a ton. But for many, it is certainly doable.

Of all the major entrance exams (SAT, GMAT, GRE, MCAT) the LSAT is the least learnable. You can't "study" for the LSAT the conventional way. You just have to keep doing practice tests and improve from there.

That being said, the human brain is an amazing piece of hardware. Given enough time I think pretty much anyone can get a 170+. How much time it takes is dependent on the person. Also, there are only so many practice tests, and once you start re-using you can't be confident if your answer is properly derived or just remembered. I still have nightmares of mauve dinosaurs.

dnptan wrote:Of all the major entrance exams (SAT, GMAT, GRE, MCAT) the LSAT is the least learnable. You can't "study" for the LSAT the conventional way. You just have to keep doing practice tests and improve from there.

That being said, the human brain is an amazing piece of hardware. Given enough time I think pretty much anyone can get a 170+. How much time it takes is dependent on the person. Also, there are only so many practice tests, and once you start re-using you can't be confident if your answer is properly derived or just remembered. I still have nightmares of mauve dinosaurs.

If there are only so many practice tests, isn't it impossible for pretty much anyone to get a 170+? It might take a lot of people more time and practice tests than are available.

Remember, 170 is the 98th percentile. That's a very high bar. Think of a class in college- no matter how hard you studied, you might only have been able to pull off an A-, not an A+. There's definitely a limit, and yes you can get better, but not everyone can reach the pinnacle of LSAT mastery.

Post removed.

UpandDown97 wrote:

dnptan wrote:Of all the major entrance exams (SAT, GMAT, GRE, MCAT) the LSAT is the least learnable. You can't "study" for the LSAT the conventional way. You just have to keep doing practice tests and improve from there.

That being said, the human brain is an amazing piece of hardware. Given enough time I think pretty much anyone can get a 170+. How much time it takes is dependent on the person. Also, there are only so many practice tests, and once you start re-using you can't be confident if your answer is properly derived or just remembered. I still have nightmares of mauve dinosaurs.

If there are only so many practice tests, isn't it impossible for pretty much anyone to get a 170+? It might take a lot of people more time and practice tests than are available.

Remember, 170 is the 98th percentile. That's a very high bar. Think of a class in college- no matter how hard you studied, you might only have been able to pull off an A-, not an A+. There's definitely a limit, and yes you can get better, but not everyone can reach the pinnacle of LSAT mastery.

Can is different from will. It's much harder with that attitude, let me tell you! I have faith in the potential of people but that doesn't mean that everyone will reach that potential. Maybe I'm just an optimist?

dnptan wrote:

UpandDown97 wrote:

dnptan wrote:Of all the major entrance exams (SAT, GMAT, GRE, MCAT) the LSAT is the least learnable. You can't "study" for the LSAT the conventional way. You just have to keep doing practice tests and improve from there.

That being said, the human brain is an amazing piece of hardware. Given enough time I think pretty much anyone can get a 170+. How much time it takes is dependent on the person. Also, there are only so many practice tests, and once you start re-using you can't be confident if your answer is properly derived or just remembered. I still have nightmares of mauve dinosaurs.

If there are only so many practice tests, isn't it impossible for pretty much anyone to get a 170+? It might take a lot of people more time and practice tests than are available.

Remember, 170 is the 98th percentile. That's a very high bar. Think of a class in college- no matter how hard you studied, you might only have been able to pull off an A-, not an A+. There's definitely a limit, and yes you can get better, but not everyone can reach the pinnacle of LSAT mastery.

Can is different from will. It's much harder with that attitude, let me tell you! I have faith in the potential of people but that doesn't mean that everyone will reach that potential. Maybe I'm just an optimist?

I'm not taking the LSAT...been there, done that. Twice.

Optimism is good, but it can be blinding and damaging too. As I've written before, sometimes people take a lot of time off trying to etch out one or two more LSAT points when they've already maxed out what is possible and are just deluding themselves. It becomes not worth it to take time off, even if those one or two more LSAT points get you a bit more money since the value of the money might not outweight the downsides of taking more time off.

Knowing yourself-including your limits- can prevent one from buying into this "if you try, try, try, you'll get a 170" when that's not true for about 95 percent of the population. One can still work hard to max out points without believing that not getting a 170 somehow makes them deficient or stupid.

dnptan wrote:Of all the major entrance exams (SAT, GMAT, GRE, MCAT) the LSAT is the least learnable. You can't "study" for the LSAT the conventional way. You just have to keep doing practice tests and improve from there.

That being said, the human brain is an amazing piece of hardware. Given enough time I think pretty much anyone can get a 170+. How much time it takes is dependent on the person. Also, there are only so many practice tests, and once you start re-using you can't be confident if your answer is properly derived or just remembered. I still have nightmares of mauve dinosaurs.

The LSAT is very learnable, and everyone is capable of bettering their score over time. However, most people are not capable of getting a 170 no matter how much they study. A huge percentage of test takers just can't read and process quickly enough to finish the sections in time.

everton125 wrote:

dnptan wrote:Of all the major entrance exams (SAT, GMAT, GRE, MCAT) the LSAT is the least learnable. You can't "study" for the LSAT the conventional way. You just have to keep doing practice tests and improve from there.

That being said, the human brain is an amazing piece of hardware. Given enough time I think pretty much anyone can get a 170+. How much time it takes is dependent on the person. Also, there are only so many practice tests, and once you start re-using you can't be confident if your answer is properly derived or just remembered. I still have nightmares of mauve dinosaurs.

The LSAT is very learnable, and everyone is capable of bettering their score over time. However, most people are not capable of getting a 170 no matter how much they study. A huge percentage of test takers just can't read and process quickly enough to finish the sections in time.

What does "very learnable" even mean? I don't think it means that you can get better at it; that's far too general.

I think the LSAT is very learnable, but there are some limitations when you are talking about hitting above the 98th percentile. By default, only ~2% of the population is going to get there.

In terms of learning how to reason in the way the LSAT requires, a lot of it is common sense, and a lot of it is stuff you can learn. But there are some things that can't be learned quickly and that take a lifetime to master.

The number one issue I see holding people back in terms of a score ceiling is a combination of reading speed, understanding complex texts, and vocabulary. The LSAT doesn't test those things directly most of the time (RC obviously does a lot more than the others), but it is an absolute prerequisite to being able to score in the upper percentiles.

That's why when people ask me what else they can do to improve beyond taking exams and doing problems I almost always tell them to spend time reading dense and complex writing. The unfortunate reality here is that this isn't something that you can cram for. It takes a lifetime to become a great reader, and some people just don't read very much--particularly dense non-fiction and academic writing. When younger students reach out to me (college freshman and sophomores) I tell them to not worry about the LSAT right now and to just read, read, read.

All that being said, if you do have a strong reading level already, then I think 170 is definitely something that can be attained for most. There are some people that really struggle with Logic Games because their brains just don't think abstractly naturally, but it is learnable with lots of repetition--I've seen some incredible improvements from students who come to me claiming that "I just can't do games." Most high level students (that are already scoring well in the other sections) are able to master games with some diligence. That's just like the gym--reps, reps, reps.

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In my experience, the students that can score in the 165+ range that don't end up making it into the 170s aren't really suffering from either of those 2 issues above. It's actually more often than not work ethic. You really have to do a ton of practice before scoring goes up--it wasn't until I had done A LOT of practice before I "got it," and after that it took about as long before I was consistent. The easy things have to become automatic and lightening fast before you start having time to adequately tackle the harder questions. But, only a rare percentile of the test taking population is going to put in the kind of effort to master the material at that level. Out of the 2% that hit above 170, my guess (completely subjective) is that .5% or less are naturally going to get into that level from raw intelligence and some practice, .5% are just work horses that brute force their way into that realm through sheer work and willpower, and about 1% (probably more) are a combination of the two.

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To the discussion earlier re: using exams over again, I think it is a huge misconception that re-using material lessens its utility or predictability (at least not as much as you think). Generally, I have students re-take and re-use material until things are really mastered before moving on. This is soooooo important and stops people from building bad habits and moving on before really getting things down. Unless you have a wicked memory--maybe I just have a bad long term memory--you aren't going to remember the precise inference in most questions. This is particularly true the more problems that you do. If you do 100 strengthen questions over a couple of weeks, and then go back to a PT where you missed a bunch of those, I doubt you are going to remember much about the question if you just reviewed it once. And, even in the questions where you do remember the answer, it's extremely helpful to go back through the problem and think through it using the "model thinking pattern" that you know is the best way to get to the answer. When you do this, you are massaging the brain into remembering the proper techniques for that type of situation, not just that question. This pays massive dividends in future questions.

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Just some stuff to chew on. But, the big takeaway I'd offer is that if you have a strong vocabulary and good reading skills, then most of the time the main limitation you have is not the ability to get a 170+ score--the main thing to get over is to be willing to make the sacrifices of time/energy to get your mastery of the material to that top level (and spending that time working in the right way--not using inefficient study techniques and really getting down into the nitty-gritty to work on things that are hard for you).

HTH, I'm sure you'll get a wide range of opinions on here about this--and I'm sure people are going to disagree with some of the above. But in the last year of teaching 100s of students, the effort thing is usually the difference maker for those that can already read at a high college level. My 170+ students have all been very hard workers and came to me with a solid command of the English language. After that, it really is just skill building for the LSAT-specific challenges and reps.

Remember that some people get low diagnostics because they're unfamiliar with the test format or skills required, while other people do poorly because they're just dumb. The former group improves rapidly, while the other group probably won't break 170 no matter how much they study.

UpandDown97 wrote:

everton125 wrote:

dnptan wrote:Of all the major entrance exams (SAT, GMAT, GRE, MCAT) the LSAT is the least learnable. You can't "study" for the LSAT the conventional way. You just have to keep doing practice tests and improve from there.

That being said, the human brain is an amazing piece of hardware. Given enough time I think pretty much anyone can get a 170+. How much time it takes is dependent on the person. Also, there are only so many practice tests, and once you start re-using you can't be confident if your answer is properly derived or just remembered. I still have nightmares of mauve dinosaurs.

The LSAT is very learnable, and everyone is capable of bettering their score over time. However, most people are not capable of getting a 170 no matter how much they study. A huge percentage of test takers just can't read and process quickly enough to finish the sections in time.

What does "very learnable" even mean? I don't think it means that you can get better at it; that's far too general.

What do you even mean by "that's far too general"?

Very learnable means you can get better at it through practice fairly easily. The logic games, for example, are incredibly learnable. I personally went from only being able to get a little over half the questions right in 35 minutes to getting every question right on the actual exam with a few months of hard practice. Being able to go from 60% to 100% on a section after a few months of study makes something, by definition, "very learnable."

everton125 wrote:

UpandDown97 wrote:

everton125 wrote:

dnptan wrote:Of all the major entrance exams (SAT, GMAT, GRE, MCAT) the LSAT is the least learnable. You can't "study" for the LSAT the conventional way. You just have to keep doing practice tests and improve from there.

That being said, the human brain is an amazing piece of hardware. Given enough time I think pretty much anyone can get a 170+. How much time it takes is dependent on the person. Also, there are only so many practice tests, and once you start re-using you can't be confident if your answer is properly derived or just remembered. I still have nightmares of mauve dinosaurs.

The LSAT is very learnable, and everyone is capable of bettering their score over time. However, most people are not capable of getting a 170 no matter how much they study. A huge percentage of test takers just can't read and process quickly enough to finish the sections in time.

What does "very learnable" even mean? I don't think it means that you can get better at it; that's far too general.

What do you even mean by "that's far too general"?

Very learnable means you can get better at it through practice fairly easily. The logic games, for example, are incredibly learnable. I personally went from only being able to get a little over half the questions right in 35 minutes to getting every question right on the actual exam with a few months of hard practice. Being able to go from 60% to 100% on a section after a few months of study makes something, by definition, "very learnable."

Ah yes, what is true for you is 100 percent true for everyone. Work hard in life and you'll definitely get ahead right? Worked for me, so it should work for you.

Don't be arrogant. It's not "very learnable." Sure, it is learnable, but there is definitely a limit.

And your post is contradictory. If the LSAT was "very learnable," wouldn't everyone, under your logic, be able to get 170+?

Yes, let us argue over the meaning of the word "very".

UpandDown97 wrote:As I've written before, sometimes people take a lot of time off trying to etch out one or two more LSAT points when they've already maxed out what is possible and are just deluding themselves. It becomes not worth it to take time off, even if those one or two more LSAT points get you a bit more money since the value of the money might not outweight the downsides of taking more time off.

I think there are very few people applying to law school for whom more money doesn't outweigh the downsides of taking more time off, mostly because for most people there are no downsides to taking more time off.

UpandDown97 wrote:

everton125 wrote:

UpandDown97 wrote:

everton125 wrote:

dnptan wrote:Of all the major entrance exams (SAT, GMAT, GRE, MCAT) the LSAT is the least learnable. You can't "study" for the LSAT the conventional way. You just have to keep doing practice tests and improve from there.

That being said, the human brain is an amazing piece of hardware. Given enough time I think pretty much anyone can get a 170+. How much time it takes is dependent on the person. Also, there are only so many practice tests, and once you start re-using you can't be confident if your answer is properly derived or just remembered. I still have nightmares of mauve dinosaurs.

The LSAT is very learnable, and everyone is capable of bettering their score over time. However, most people are not capable of getting a 170 no matter how much they study. A huge percentage of test takers just can't read and process quickly enough to finish the sections in time.

What does "very learnable" even mean? I don't think it means that you can get better at it; that's far too general.

What do you even mean by "that's far too general"?

Very learnable means you can get better at it through practice fairly easily. The logic games, for example, are incredibly learnable. I personally went from only being able to get a little over half the questions right in 35 minutes to getting every question right on the actual exam with a few months of hard practice. Being able to go from 60% to 100% on a section after a few months of study makes something, by definition, "very learnable."

Ah yes, what is true for you is 100 percent true for everyone. Work hard in life and you'll definitely get ahead right? Worked for me, so it should work for you.

Don't be arrogant. It's not "very learnable." Sure, it is learnable, but there is definitely a limit.

And your post is contradictory. If the LSAT was "very learnable," wouldn't everyone, under your logic, be able to get 170+?

I said there was a limit in my first post quite explicitly.

This is an outrageous mischaracterization of what I wrote: "Ah yes, what is true for you is 100 percent true for everyone. Work hard in life and you'll definitely get ahead right? Worked for me, so it should work for you." I by no means was intent on suggesting everyone should be able to see such an improvement, but the scale of the improvement furthered my point and served as a strong example that portions of the LSAT can be learned.

Why are you so upset that I used the word "very"? All I mean is that by studying, one can learn how to do better on the test. That, by no means, entails that everyone can get over a 170+, but I would suggest that a test where almost everyone can score 5 to 10 points higher than their initial diagnostic is "very learnable." Very is a fairly relative term anyways. From the perspective that I think most first time thread readers are coming from (my target audience with the comment), namely that their LSAT score is largely predetermined, the LSAT is actually very learnable, as significant improvement of upwards of 20+ points are possible for a lot of people.

everton125 wrote:

UpandDown97 wrote:

everton125 wrote:

UpandDown97 wrote:

everton125 wrote:

dnptan wrote:Of all the major entrance exams (SAT, GMAT, GRE, MCAT) the LSAT is the least learnable. You can't "study" for the LSAT the conventional way. You just have to keep doing practice tests and improve from there.

That being said, the human brain is an amazing piece of hardware. Given enough time I think pretty much anyone can get a 170+. How much time it takes is dependent on the person. Also, there are only so many practice tests, and once you start re-using you can't be confident if your answer is properly derived or just remembered. I still have nightmares of mauve dinosaurs.

The LSAT is very learnable, and everyone is capable of bettering their score over time. However, most people are not capable of getting a 170 no matter how much they study. A huge percentage of test takers just can't read and process quickly enough to finish the sections in time.

What does "very learnable" even mean? I don't think it means that you can get better at it; that's far too general.

What do you even mean by "that's far too general"?

Very learnable means you can get better at it through practice fairly easily. The logic games, for example, are incredibly learnable. I personally went from only being able to get a little over half the questions right in 35 minutes to getting every question right on the actual exam with a few months of hard practice. Being able to go from 60% to 100% on a section after a few months of study makes something, by definition, "very learnable."

Ah yes, what is true for you is 100 percent true for everyone. Work hard in life and you'll definitely get ahead right? Worked for me, so it should work for you.

Don't be arrogant. It's not "very learnable." Sure, it is learnable, but there is definitely a limit.

And your post is contradictory. If the LSAT was "very learnable," wouldn't everyone, under your logic, be able to get 170+?

I said there was a limit in my first post quite explicitly.

This is an outrageous mischaracterization of what I wrote: "Ah yes, what is true for you is 100 percent true for everyone. Work hard in life and you'll definitely get ahead right? Worked for me, so it should work for you." I by no means was intent on suggesting everyone should be able to see such an improvement, but the scale of the improvement furthered my point and served as a strong example that portions of the LSAT can be learned.

Why are you so upset that I used the word "very"? All I mean is that by studying, one can learn how to do better on the test. That, by no means, entails that everyone can get over a 170+, but I would suggest that a test where almost everyone can score 5 to 10 points higher than their initial diagnostic is "very learnable." Very is a fairly relative term anyways. From the perspective that I think most first time thread readers are coming from (my target audience with the comment), namely that their LSAT score is largely predetermined, the LSAT is actually very learnable, as significant improvement of upwards of 20+ points are possible for a lot of people.

My concern is this: when people like you throw around the term "very learnable"- suggesting any idiot who can learn can get 20+ improvements, but really only 5-10 points, which might be only 15 percentage points- then you're deluding 0Ls who come onto this forum. You affect future behavior of naive people who come onto this site looking for advice. You can put people down a potentially retaking and retaking, wasting more time, money and effort, all for marginal or no gains at all. Calm the rhetoric. It has an effect.

I'll add another point: your final LSAT is probably to an extent predetermined. Since the LSAT tests your reasoning and pattern recognition skills, it in a sense tests your IQ, which though flexible, is probably somewhat inelastic.

As to Anon above- your position is general, so it's impossible to prove you wrong. One thing I'll note is that delaying law school may delay higher wages. And getting a point or two more on the LSAT, gaining a bit more of scholarship, and a bit of savings might not outweigh the value of future wages plus the non-financial costs of taking time off.

The prerequisite is that you don't hate reading, otherwise no matter how learnable LSAT is you'll never break 170

The test is probably less learnable than TLS wisdom would suggest and more learnable than what is believed by the average college student thinking about law school who gets advice from his/her prelaw advisor, checks out a Princeton Review LSAT book from the public library and calls it a wrap. I'll be a senior in the fall, and I can't even begin to tell you all how many times I've heard "the LSAT isn't really a test you can study for" from advisors/professors/employers/and other students in my position. And I go to a top 5 public. Idk where this notion came about that the LSAT is basically an IQ test. I feel like a significant portion of the 98% that doesn't score >170 simply doesn't know how much improvement can be accomplished through proper, intensive studying and/or doesn't know how to study correctly. Why? Because they're not all on TLS and there's a lot of crap LSAT/law school knowledge floating around out there

My concern is this: when people like you throw around the term "very learnable"- suggesting any idiot who can learn can get 20+ improvements, but really only 5-10 points, which might be only 15 percentage points- then you're deluding 0Ls who come onto this forum. You affect future behavior of naive people who come onto this site looking for advice. You can put people down a potentially retaking and retaking, wasting more time, money and effort, all for marginal or no gains at all. Calm the rhetoric. It has an effect.

I'll add another point: your final LSAT is probably to an extent predetermined. Since the LSAT tests your reasoning and pattern recognition skills, it in a sense tests your IQ, which though flexible, is probably somewhat inelastic.

As to Anon above- your position is general, so it's impossible to prove you wrong. One thing I'll note is that delaying law school may delay higher wages. And getting a point or two more on the LSAT, gaining a bit more of scholarship, and a bit of savings might not outweigh the value of future wages plus the non-financial costs of taking time off.

If you go back to my first post, to which you responded so oddly, you will note that my actual point was that not everyone can score a 170. I was responding to someone who was arguing that "everyone" can score a 170 with enough practice, which I just don't believe is true. In reality, I was arguing in favor of the same point as you, which you might have noticed had you read the entirety of my post or placed my post in its proper context. You should probably just admit you misread the post rather than dig yourself a deeper hole....

Again, this is a complete mischaracterization of my argument: "when people like you throw around the term 'very learnable'- suggesting any idiot who can learn can get 20+ improvements, but really only 5-10 points." First, it should have been fairly clear that I was talking about 20+ point improvements from diagnostics, not from one formal taking of the test to another. Secondly, I never said that "any idiot" can improve 20+ points on their diagnostic score. In fact, most people can't, and it takes a weird reading of my post to suggest I believe otherwise. A lot is not synonymous with a majority. Lastly, it is you who is guilty of conflating lower lsat scores with a lack of intellectual ability, not me. There probably is a reasonably strong correlation between the two, but there are bound to be numerous individuals who are intelligent but are unable to hit a 170 on the LSAT even with extended practice. Also, I am in the camp that intelligence is amorphous, and I certainly don't believe IQ tests are all that representative of some people's capabilities.

Obviously some individuals would be better off not retaking, but on the whole retaking is generally the better option, and, a lot of the time, you can't really know if it isn't except in the retrospect. Therefore, I would rather push "naïve" readers towards retaking than not retaking.

I hope my rhetoric has an effect. I would be more worried about your rhetoric. It might lead some first time reader to believe they should rest on their laurels after scoring a 160 following a month of studying, when that same reader might be have been capable of scoring a 170+, and avoided attending the tier 2 law school with a 55% employment score. I almost made that exact mistake in college, and am so, so grateful I did not.

Of course my score was, in part, predetermined. Intelligence and learned abilities absolutely help determine an individual's outcomes on the LSAT, as does practice. You are presenting a straw man by suggesting I would argue otherwise.

All I know is tls told me it was learnable and I ended up improving about half of the available points lol if you guys were wrong, thank god you were so vocally wrong!

Clearly wrote:All I know is tls told me it was learnable and I ended up improving about half of the available points lol if you guys were wrong, thank god you were so vocally wrong!

I also don't disagree with this point. My point, which others have also made in this thread, is that the LSAT is a highly learnable test, and individuals can make huge improvements by studying, but not everyone is capable of scoring a 170 no matter how much they study.

everton125 wrote:

Clearly wrote:All I know is tls told me it was learnable and I ended up improving about half of the available points lol if you guys were wrong, thank god you were so vocally wrong!

I also don't disagree with this point. My point, which others have also made in this thread, is that the LSAT is a highly learnable test, and individuals can make huge improvements by studying, but not everyone is capable of scoring a 170 no matter how much they study.

As an lsat tutor, i agree 100%

tskela wrote:The test is probably less learnable than TLS wisdom would suggest and more learnable than what is believed by the average college student thinking about law school who gets advice from his/her prelaw advisor, checks out a Princeton Review LSAT book from the public library and calls it a wrap. I'll be a senior in the fall, and I can't even begin to tell you all how many times I've heard "the LSAT isn't really a test you can study for" from advisors/professors/employers/and other students in my position. And I go to a top 5 public. Idk where this notion came about that the LSAT is basically an IQ test. I feel like a significant portion of the 98% that doesn't score >170 simply doesn't know how much improvement can be accomplished through proper, intensive studying and/or doesn't know how to study correctly. Why? Because they're not all on TLS and there's a lot of crap LSAT/law school knowledge floating around out there

This is 100% true. I thought that when I took the LSAT. I wish I would have known otherwise but I didn't know about TLS back then. This place is such a great resource.

Since I found this place, I found out that I made pretty much every mistake possible while applying to law schools.(except for the writing portions of the applications)