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Very tempted to say no. Only wouldn't due to obvious impossibility of really knowing (a lot would just give up as it became frustrating).

Spend some time with your former high school classmates. If you thought your university classmates were.. ummm.. you know?

Your high school classmates are even more... ummm... you know?

I'm operating under the pretense that we're talking about takers that don't suffer from any significant mental distortions, etc.

I see that the vast majority of voters said that 170 is simply not feasible for everyone. Interested in learning why! (Even if they had an extensive period of time to study?)

A 170 is probably achievable for an average or above-average intelligence person who puts in the time and effort and uses the best available study materials and methods.

Some people are just too stupid to break 170 though. A 170 isn't a gimme even for smart people who usually do well on tests.

stego wrote:A 170 is probably achievable for an average or above-average intelligence person who puts in the time and effort and uses the best available study materials and methods.

Some people are just too stupid to break 170 though. A 170 isn't a gimme even for smart people who usually do well on tests.

Thanks for your opinion! I think you make some good points.

I've edited the question accordingly!

id say for sure. to think otherwise would be foolish. what person of at least average intelligence would not be able to break 170 only practicing lsat techniques for years and years and years, spending day in and day out on it ? for most people going to law school, the amount of time it would take to master the test like that, would not be worth it though.

darthlawyer wrote:id say for sure. to think otherwise would be foolish. what person of at least average intelligence would not be able to break 170 only practicing lsat techniques for years and years and years, spending day in and day out on it ? for most people going to law school, the amount of time it would take to master the test like that, would not be worth it though.

This is preposterous. If it was possible for everyone to score 170+, then it would absolutely be worth it to spend years and years preparing. Start as soon as you are done with the SAT, study every chance you get during college, skip the summer job to study LSAT, even take a year off to study LSAT after graduation, then go to law school for free. The incentive is there. If people could do it, they would do it.

HYPSM wrote:The presumption, of course, is that the individual puts in the necessary time -- whether that be 6 months or a year (perhaps two, three, etc.).

Does everyone have the capacity to score 170, or are some people just "intellectually" limited, even if they put in the hours? I'm more interested in what people think about those with average intelligence, though (it goes without saying that those with lower than average intelligence will probably not score 170.)

Please explain down below!

I absolutely believe anyone could break 170 with enough time & preparation. It's not unfathomable. Your average individual could become extraordinarily proficient at logic games with a month of dedicated prep and study. Proficient to the point of -0. From there, they just need to not drop more than -4 for the other 3 scored sections and voila.

I'm not sure what would be considered "average intelligence" though. I'm a strong proponent of the nurture>nature theory though and think most of us are probably "average" in some way. I think intelligence itself is defined in an extraordinarily limited manner that doesn't account for social adeptness, perceptiveness in ways that can't be measured via pen and paper response as well as kinetic awareness (Olympic athletes for example). But that's an entirely different conversation so I'll leave that one alone.

HYPSM wrote:The presumption, of course, is that the individual puts in the necessary time -- whether that be 6 months or a year (perhaps two, three, etc.).

Does everyone have the capacity to score 170, or are some people just "intellectually" limited, even if they put in the hours? I'm more interested in what people think about those with average intelligence, though (it goes without saying that those with lower than average intelligence will probably not score 170.)

Please explain down below!

Also, I didn't ask this before I initially responded but what materials does that person have? And what position are they in? Are we assuming unlimited resources and time and can afford as many books, prep materials and tutors that money can buy? Do they work a full time job? Do nothing? In or out of school already? Is their motivator the same as ours? (law school acceptance, scholarship, career salary)

These questions all make a huge difference to me honestly. If someone with average intelligence had nothing in life to do except study for the LSAT and someone is dangling a million dollar prize in front of them and they have access to all the books, knowledge and info about the LSAT in addition to tutors then hell yeah they'd kill it. The average person might get a 180 under those conditions.

But if they're still in school or working full time with a limited budget and little to no access to a tutor or a prep course and their motivator is no higher than ours, then I'd have to say no.


I'd have to say only a retard would botch a 170+ in the former conditions.

Shemp wrote:

darthlawyer wrote:id say for sure. to think otherwise would be foolish. what person of at least average intelligence would not be able to break 170 only practicing lsat techniques for years and years and years, spending day in and day out on it ? for most people going to law school, the amount of time it would take to master the test like that, would not be worth it though.

This is preposterous. If it was possible for everyone to score 170+, then it would absolutely be worth it to spend years and years preparing. Start as soon as you are done with the SAT, study every chance you get during college, skip the summer job to study LSAT, even take a year off to study LSAT after graduation, then go to law school for free. The incentive is there. If people could do it, they would do it.

"If it was possible for everyone to score 170+ then it would absolutely be worth it to spend years and years preparing."

Disagree. At that point, the opportunity cost would just be too high for law school to be a worthwhile investment and there is a point at which your age works against you. Also assuming you aren't feeding off your parents forever, you'd have to look for a decent paying job and wedge yourself in a career for a period of time, making it even more difficult to study for the LSAT. God forbid you fall in love or start a family with someone like normal people while you're studying for "years and years". And after you've studied for "years and years", you might have to sacrifice your 60-80k paying job to pay for law school for 3 years and then hopefully crack into a sufficiently paying legal position. Total losses, factoring in opportunity cost, could be in the regions of $400-500k. Sorry, not worth it.

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

HYPSM wrote:The presumption, of course, is that the individual puts in the necessary time -- whether that be 6 months or a year (perhaps two, three, etc.).

Does everyone have the capacity to score 170, or are some people just "intellectually" limited, even if they put in the hours? I'm more interested in what people think about those with average intelligence, though (it goes without saying that those with lower than average intelligence will probably not score 170.)

Please explain down below!

Also, I didn't ask this before I initially responded but what materials does that person have? And what position are they in? Are we assuming unlimited resources and time and can afford as many books, prep materials and tutors that money can buy? Do they work a full time job? Do nothing? In or out of school already? Is their motivator the same as ours? (law school acceptance, scholarship, career salary)

These questions all make a huge difference to me honestly. If someone with average intelligence had nothing in life to do except study for the LSAT and someone is dangling a million dollar prize in front of them and they have access to all the books, knowledge and info about the LSAT in addition to tutors then hell yeah they'd kill it. The average person might get a 180 under those conditions.

But if they're still in school or working full time with a limited budget and little to no access to a tutor or a prep course and their motivator is no higher than ours, then I'd have to say no.


I'd have to say only a retard would botch a 170+ in the former conditions.

OP, here.

Good question. My assumptions are that the given individual would have access to what most would consider a reasonable amount of resources and study tools; specifically, he or she would have copies of the LR and LG Bibles as well as most (if not all) of the PTs. I would also assume that the given individual was making a reasonable and concerted effort to score 170 or higher and that he or she was treating the LSAT as a primary responsibility (even if he or she had a job; for simplicity's sake, let's assume that person is devoting most of her time to the LSAT).

HYPSM wrote:

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

HYPSM wrote:The presumption, of course, is that the individual puts in the necessary time -- whether that be 6 months or a year (perhaps two, three, etc.).

Does everyone have the capacity to score 170, or are some people just "intellectually" limited, even if they put in the hours? I'm more interested in what people think about those with average intelligence, though (it goes without saying that those with lower than average intelligence will probably not score 170.)

Please explain down below!

Also, I didn't ask this before I initially responded but what materials does that person have? And what position are they in? Are we assuming unlimited resources and time and can afford as many books, prep materials and tutors that money can buy? Do they work a full time job? Do nothing? In or out of school already? Is their motivator the same as ours? (law school acceptance, scholarship, career salary)

These questions all make a huge difference to me honestly. If someone with average intelligence had nothing in life to do except study for the LSAT and someone is dangling a million dollar prize in front of them and they have access to all the books, knowledge and info about the LSAT in addition to tutors then hell yeah they'd kill it. The average person might get a 180 under those conditions.

But if they're still in school or working full time with a limited budget and little to no access to a tutor or a prep course and their motivator is no higher than ours, then I'd have to say no.


I'd have to say only a retard would botch a 170+ in the former conditions.

OP, here.

Good question. My assumptions are that the given individual would have access to what most would consider a reasonable amount of resources and study tools; specifically, he or she would have copies of the LR and LG Bibles as well as most (if not all) of the PTs. I would also assume that the given individual was making a reasonable and concerted effort to score 170 or higher and that he or she was treating the LSAT as a primary responsibility (even if he or she had a job; for simplicity's sake, let's assume that person is devoting most of her time to the LSAT).

Ok. That's reasonable.


Hmm...

I'd still say yes. If they're able to dedicate a legitimate amount of time toward it infinitely until they've reached that level then I don't see why not.

I never understood the concept of a 'threshold' on this exam. I think if you can get 1 LR question right, you have the potential to get them all right. And if you're scoring a 160, you have the potential to score 180. I think its abut how much of the test you're willing to learn.

I'm sure many will disagree with me since the 'false' votes on your poll overwhelmingly outnumber the 'true' ones, but this is my story and I'm sticking to it! Lol

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

HYPSM wrote:

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

HYPSM wrote:The presumption, of course, is that the individual puts in the necessary time -- whether that be 6 months or a year (perhaps two, three, etc.).

Does everyone have the capacity to score 170, or are some people just "intellectually" limited, even if they put in the hours? I'm more interested in what people think about those with average intelligence, though (it goes without saying that those with lower than average intelligence will probably not score 170.)

Please explain down below!

Also, I didn't ask this before I initially responded but what materials does that person have? And what position are they in? Are we assuming unlimited resources and time and can afford as many books, prep materials and tutors that money can buy? Do they work a full time job? Do nothing? In or out of school already? Is their motivator the same as ours? (law school acceptance, scholarship, career salary)

These questions all make a huge difference to me honestly. If someone with average intelligence had nothing in life to do except study for the LSAT and someone is dangling a million dollar prize in front of them and they have access to all the books, knowledge and info about the LSAT in addition to tutors then hell yeah they'd kill it. The average person might get a 180 under those conditions.

But if they're still in school or working full time with a limited budget and little to no access to a tutor or a prep course and their motivator is no higher than ours, then I'd have to say no.


I'd have to say only a retard would botch a 170+ in the former conditions.

OP, here.

Good question. My assumptions are that the given individual would have access to what most would consider a reasonable amount of resources and study tools; specifically, he or she would have copies of the LR and LG Bibles as well as most (if not all) of the PTs. I would also assume that the given individual was making a reasonable and concerted effort to score 170 or higher and that he or she was treating the LSAT as a primary responsibility (even if he or she had a job; for simplicity's sake, let's assume that person is devoting most of her time to the LSAT).

Ok. That's reasonable.


Hmm...

I'd still say yes. If they're able to dedicate a legitimate amount of time toward it infinitely until they've reached that level then I don't see why not.

I never understood the concept of a 'threshold' on this exam. I think if you can get 1 LR question right, you have the potential to get them all right. And if you're scoring a 160, you have the potential to score 180. I think its abut how much of the test you're willing to learn.

I'm sure many will disagree with me since the 'false' votes on your poll overwhelmingly outnumber the 'true' ones, but this is my story and I'm sticking to it! Lol

Interesting! I agree with your prior statement about how at some point, getting a 170 is simply not worth it (i.e., if you're studying it for years and years and have no way to support yourself).

But what if we set more reasonable parameters and assume that the person has about a year (perhaps less?) to study for the LSAT?

HYPSM wrote:

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

HYPSM wrote:

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

HYPSM wrote:The presumption, of course, is that the individual puts in the necessary time -- whether that be 6 months or a year (perhaps two, three, etc.).

Does everyone have the capacity to score 170, or are some people just "intellectually" limited, even if they put in the hours? I'm more interested in what people think about those with average intelligence, though (it goes without saying that those with lower than average intelligence will probably not score 170.)

Please explain down below!

Also, I didn't ask this before I initially responded but what materials does that person have? And what position are they in? Are we assuming unlimited resources and time and can afford as many books, prep materials and tutors that money can buy? Do they work a full time job? Do nothing? In or out of school already? Is their motivator the same as ours? (law school acceptance, scholarship, career salary)

These questions all make a huge difference to me honestly. If someone with average intelligence had nothing in life to do except study for the LSAT and someone is dangling a million dollar prize in front of them and they have access to all the books, knowledge and info about the LSAT in addition to tutors then hell yeah they'd kill it. The average person might get a 180 under those conditions.

But if they're still in school or working full time with a limited budget and little to no access to a tutor or a prep course and their motivator is no higher than ours, then I'd have to say no.


I'd have to say only a retard would botch a 170+ in the former conditions.

OP, here.

Good question. My assumptions are that the given individual would have access to what most would consider a reasonable amount of resources and study tools; specifically, he or she would have copies of the LR and LG Bibles as well as most (if not all) of the PTs. I would also assume that the given individual was making a reasonable and concerted effort to score 170 or higher and that he or she was treating the LSAT as a primary responsibility (even if he or she had a job; for simplicity's sake, let's assume that person is devoting most of her time to the LSAT).

Ok. That's reasonable.


Hmm...

I'd still say yes. If they're able to dedicate a legitimate amount of time toward it infinitely until they've reached that level then I don't see why not.

I never understood the concept of a 'threshold' on this exam. I think if you can get 1 LR question right, you have the potential to get them all right. And if you're scoring a 160, you have the potential to score 180. I think its abut how much of the test you're willing to learn.

I'm sure many will disagree with me since the 'false' votes on your poll overwhelmingly outnumber the 'true' ones, but this is my story and I'm sticking to it! Lol

Interesting! I agree with your prior statement about how at some point, getting a 170 is simply not worth it (i.e., if you're studying it for years and years and have no way to support yourself).

But what if we set more reasonable parameters and assume that the person has about a year (perhaps less?) to study for the LSAT?

Then definitely not. If we're assuming a person is starting from pure scratch to 170+ in a year and with average intelligence, I don't think so. It might be possible, but not sure how likely, especially given the caveat of them having a full time job. I think for a lot of above average intelligence people a 170+ might be a stretch in that situation. Although, who knows. Very very few people have put their nose to the grindstone for an entire year straight. I'm falling under the assumption that this pseudo-person we've created is someone with an ordinary amount of motivation and doesn't have an extraordinary gift of focus that would allow them to dedicate their entire lives (outside of mandatory priorities) to studying for the LSAT. If the former statement were true, then mayyyyyyyyyyybbbeeee. If this is average joe with average attention span and work ethic then naw.

.

A 170 is probably achievable for an average....intelligence person

Impossible, assuming that you are using the IQ average of ~100. Such a person just does not possess the (brain) processing power to score high on standardized timed tests.

If you attended college, which I'm going to assume most if not all posters here have or are doing, your notion of "average" is completely skewed.

The "average" person doesn't even graduate from college.

Regardless, you don't need an IQ in the top 2% to score a 170 on the LSAT.

Absolutely! No question...

If length of study time before the test and access to adequate resources aren't an issue then I believe anybody could

UVAIce wrote:If you attended college, which I'm going to assume most if not all posters here have or are doing, your notion of "average" is completely skewed.

The "average" person doesn't even graduate from college.

Regardless, you don't need an IQ in the top 2% to score a 170 on the LSAT.

I completely agree and think that the term "average" requires clarification on my part.

When I say "average," obviously I do not mean the average person walking on the street who only graduated from high school with an IQ of 100. I'm talking about the "average" person who has graduated from college, is applying to law school, and is probably smarter than the average Joe.

HYPSM wrote:

UVAIce wrote:If you attended college, which I'm going to assume most if not all posters here have or are doing, your notion of "average" is completely skewed.

The "average" person doesn't even graduate from college.

Regardless, you don't need an IQ in the top 2% to score a 170 on the LSAT.

I completely agree and think that the term "average" requires clarification on my part.

When I say "average," obviously I do not mean the average person walking on the street who only graduated from high school with an IQ of 100. I'm talking about the "average" person who has graduated from college, is applying to law school, and is probably smarter than the average Joe.

In that case then undoubtedly. And from the looks of it your friend is very close to that dream scenario I posed earlier in the thread; i.e., nearly unlimited resources, no exterior responsibilities like work, and a high motivation to achieve. I don't think anyone graduating college is really of 'average' intelligence', especially if that person's GPA is in contention for law school. I'm assuming your friend's GPA was 3.x right?

He can do it if he studies and works hard. He can't afford to procrastinate until 4 or 5 months out though. He should start chipping away at it now.

I'm slightly confused by the disparity between the opinions offered here and the result of the poll: I don't fully understand why some people simply think that 170 is beyond reach for so many people, regardless of factors such as time, resources, above average intelligence, etc.

Well, you made a very large clarification.

I, likely like many others, thought you were referring not just to college students.

Even then I'm not sure. Maybe if you could build psychological resilience. But I knew A LOT of students in college that would become mentally exhausted if they had to think about the same thing for longer than a minute.

Kids that might take 7 minutes to read an RC passage, still not understand it, and not recognize a bunch of words.

Hubris? Frivolous? Yes, I've encountered enough students that don't know words like those (and much worse).

I'm still not confident that they could crack 170 under your new stipulations.

If by "enough time" you mean 20 years to go academically train the way top students did the first go around... then sure.

Realistically, though, some people worked hard in elementary and high school while others did not.

How about the following poll: "given enough time, anyone can make it onto a Division 1 university football team"?

You either trained in football as a kid or you didn't. Very difficult to make up for all those years that your competition invested in.

These tests are completely learnable. That isn't the issue. The issue is that they are graded on a curve and a bunch of your competition for those 170+ scores have been practicing these skills for 2 decades already....

Voyager wrote:If by "enough time" you mean 20 years to go academically train the way top students did the first go around... then sure.

Realistically, though, some people worked hard in elementary and high school while others did not.

How about the following poll: "given enough time, anyone can make it onto a Division 1 university football team"?

You either trained in football as a kid or you didn't. Very difficult to make up for all those years that your competition invested in.

These tests are completely learnable. That isn't the issue. The issue is that they are graded on a curve and a bunch of your competition for those 170+ scores have been practicing these skills for 2 decades already....

Great points. I definitely agree that your analogy would be fitting for RC, but I wonder if mastering LG, for instance, is truly comparable to making it onto a Division I football team in college, and whether some people would simply be unable to do it because of inadequate education early on (even with resources and a year to study for example).