Advice for LSATs

[jessicapearsonlol]

Hi, im in my first year of undergrad and don't know where to start with LSAT prep and would appreciate any general advice thank you. Ik its super early i just get very paranoid...

[StoneMason]

You should visit the LSAT subreddit. It has great resources in the sidebar that you can start with!

Also note that while the subreddit is great for general information and planning, the loudest voices on there make it seem like everyone is walking around with a 175 after 2 months of prep. Don't fall for that trap - everyone has their own pace. 

Edited April 30 by StoneMason

[GoatDuck]

Yes it is very early, and instead of indulging your paranoia and spiraling down that hole you should acknowledge the feeling and prioritize your undergrad academics instead. Or prioritize having good experiences and becoming a fun person to be around.
 

If you have aptitude for law school, then you will be fine if you start prepping in your last year of undergrad. But if you don’t aptitude for law school, then prepping for the lsat in year one of undergrad won’t ultimately change things. So might as well forget about the LSAT until you’re at least in your third year. 

[Dinsdale]

Also, it's an aptitude test.  Prep can help on the margins, but it's highly overrated.  Obviously it's good to do basic prep such as knowing the format of the questions you will be asked. After doing that basic familiarization, try a practice test if you're curious.  See how you do.  If you do great, proceed to actually writing the LSAT at a convenient time.  If you do not so great, then consider some formal prep.  You have oodles of time.

[StoneMason]

On 4/30/2024 at 10:16 AM, Dinsdale said:

Prep can help on the margins, but it's highly overrated.  

This is awful advice and should not be followed. Most test-takers spend several months prepping for it, spending up to several hundred hours. They also see drastic increases in scores between a cold diagnostic and the final result. To assume this is merely "on the margins" is simply ignoring the reality for many test-takers (not to mention the ~10-15 point increase many see between a cold diagnostic and final result). True, many have a natural knack for it, but that does not mean prep is overrated. 

[Scrantonicity2]

Agree with the advice to focus on your undergrad grades for now. Take courses you find it easy to work hard at and/or get good grades in (in my experience, this overlaps a good deal with the ones you most enjoy!). When the time comes, see how much progress you can make with study free materials. I scored high 160s studying with Khan academy alone for 3 months. Don't waste your money on expensive courses or materials unless you really need them to improve your score. 

[Yogurt Baron]

OP, it is very early. Take it from an old guy: it's far earlier than it feels. The difference between "first-year undergrad" and "time to prep for the LSAT" is only a couple of years, chronologically, but those particular years are very important in terms of your academic development, and you do yourself a disservice by worrying too much about the future now. Every second you spend on even thinking about law school right now is time better invested in school and in enjoying your youth.

Speaking to the broader issue of whether to prep: Dinsdale's comment is on point with how I think things maybe were and how I think things definitely should be - grades measure if you can grind, the LSAT measures how smart you are, and the whole notion of "LSAT prep" is just exceptionally weird to me. I don't know how old Dinsdale is or if their perspective is what it is because they're also old. That said, I feel like the culture has really shifted since my first go at applying, which was 15 years ago, and I'd love to see some data. Qualitatively: back then, it seemed like almost nobody did the kind of LSAT prep that it seems like almost everybody does today. I have no idea if either end of that is true.

So I'll say three things:

1. I can think of no area of life where "don't prepare! Just see if you're great at the thing, and if you are, do it, and if you aren't, don't!" (which is what my gut tells me on this) is really great advice. Practice can help people improve at things---even if, as Dinsdale says, marginally.

2. Whether or not it's a good idea to prepare for things, in a vacuum, it's stupid to not prepare for something where you're in direct competition with others and they will be preparing. Even if improvements are marginal, they're still improvements. So, yes, when the day comes, do whatever preparation you need to do in order to do the best you can - no one would tell you otherwise.

3. I am naturally good (not great) at the LSAT - now that they're doing away with the godforsaken puzzles, I might be naturally very good at the LSAT (I might take it again just to see how I do). I suspect I would have been solid at it when I was twelve. But to the degree that anything helped me "prepare" for it (I didn't "study"; I just went and took the damn test), it was the critical thinking skills I learned at university. We talk (I did it myself in my second paragraph here) about grades and LSAT as if they're unrelated, but actually, what do you know - school isn't just a hoop you jump through, it can actually make you smarter and better at things. If twentysomething me did better on the LSAT than 18-year-old me would have, it was because of skills I'd honed. You're young. You've got time. Hone away.

[Dinsdale]

13 hours ago, StoneMason said:

This is awful advice and should not be followed. Most test-takers spend several months prepping for it, spending up to several hundred hours. They also see drastic increases in scores between a cold diagnostic and the final result. To assume this is merely "on the margins" is simply ignoring the reality for many test-takers (not to mention the ~10-15 point increase many see between a cold diagnostic and final result). True, many have a natural knack for it, but that does not mean prep is overrated. 

Prep is overrated and unnecessary if you are already good at it.  Take a practice test and see! You could save yourself several hundred dollars (and hours).  If your performance is not what you think it could be, then by all means, prep away. Obviously, some prep (such as spending a day familiarizing yourself with the question format, since it is a speed test where every second counts and you don't want to waste too much time on instructions) is going to help anyone.  I meant shelling out good money and spending "hundreds" of hours.  In other areas of life (such as going to court) of course I agree that the more prep, the better.  

Edited May 3 by Dinsdale

[scooter]

Your final LSAT score is a product of your natural aptitude for the test + your preparation. Obviously studying will produce diminishing returns at some point, but that point is much further along than just "spending a day familiarizing yourself with the question format". 

If your first practice test is already "good enough" (say, low 160s?), then sure, follow Dinsdale's advice if you want. Just know that you are leaving 10+ points on the table by not doing some actual studying.

If you only see a marginal improvement from studying, you are studying incorrectly.

[Dinsdale]

Not my experience.  I don't think you guys understand the meaning of "aptitude".  However, perhaps the test has changed since I took it.

[scooter]

4 hours ago, Dinsdale said:

I don't think you guys understand the meaning of "aptitude".

Lol I understand what aptitude means. I'm saying that it's not the only factor in determining your LSAT score. Your aptitude is going to determine your starting point and your upper limit. Where you score in that range will be determined by how you prepare for the test. 

[GoatDuck]

Extensive prep is obviously good for increasing admission chances. The reason to not prep extensively is that too much prep will likely inflate your sense of competence. If it takes you a year of study to achieve the median score at your target school, you should really reflect on whether you should attend that school. Because I guarantee that most your future classmates won’t have taken a year of prep to get that score, and you’ll likely underperform compared to them, as learning to write the LSAT is not the same as developing mastery over the skills for which the LSAT tests you. 

By speaking about a year of prep, I’m picking an extreme. It’s all on a continuum, so it’s obviously not the same for those who needed less time to prep. But it’s not a bad idea to recognize when you’ve reached the limit of developing your natural aptitude and transitioned into purely grinding the test, stop there, just write the test, and apply with the score you get. 

[loonie]

Hmm. I scored in the ~95th percentile when I wrote the LSAT and was PT'ing in the 170s -- so, might be worth providing my own personal viewpoint here as it seems to be an alternative one. It's interesting to me that people believe the LSAT is more of a natural aptitude test opposed to a preparation test nowadays. I could see this being the case more in the past (before an abundance of prep materials were so widely accessible). However, I would definitely say preparation is more important for achieving a high score. 

The LSAT has become formulaic in a large sense. Preparation resources and platforms have made it so Logical Reasoning and Logic Games questions could be answered using quite foolproof systems. I remember when I was doing Games, I was able to break down the questions into one of four types. Based off that, I would use a specific chart and corresponding system that led to me always scoring 23/23 (I would get the odd substitution question wrong 1/10 tests). This was not really due to me having an aptitude for the LSAT but, instead, developing a strong, consistent system through preparation. The same was true for the LR section. If you could identify what type of question it is,  preparation resources nowadays provide candidates with a system to accurately answer these questions. 

To hammer this point home: I had a close friend who was writing at the same sitting as me who had a diagnostic score, in what I believe, was the low 140s. The LSAT did not come naturally to him at all. He really struggled for the first month or so. He ended up scoring higher than me and insane LSAT preparation is one of the main factors he attributes to getting into UofT. 

I guess I'll conclude by saying if the goal is a score of 159-162 (around ~80th percentile and usually good enough for law school admission to majority of the schools in Canada if you also satisfy the GPA requirements), then prep is still important but less so. This score is probably achievable by just doing some practice tests/questions. But, if you want anything higher, you're probably going to have to prepare heavily and develop strategies and consistent frameworks for answering questions. 

Edited May 4 by loonie

[BlockedQuebecois]

14 minutes ago, loonie said:

I remember when I was doing Games, I was able to break down the questions into one of four types. Based off that, I would use a specific chart and corresponding system that led to me always scoring 23/23 (I would get the odd substitution question wrong 1/10 tests). This was not really due to me having an aptitude for the LSAT but, instead, developing a strong, consistent system through preparation. The same was true for the LR section. If you could identify what type of question it is,  preparation resources nowadays provide candidates with a system to accurately answer these questions. 

This sounds exhausting, and I struggle to see how it’s a rebuttal of the point others are making, which is that they should do a diagnostic and see if they need to waste time learning about the four kinds of logic games or whatever. 

A bunch of people just have reasonably good logical reasoning skills and so don’t need to draw little doodles or whatever.

[CB2021]

lol. People here acting like the skills tested by the LSAT cannot be learned or developed through time. Given OP is in their first year of undergrad, instead of starting doing specific preps right now for the LSAT, it might be a good idea to focus on the skills tested by the exam. You can certainly develop these skills by taking classes in your undergrad program that focus on reading dense materials, writing, and subjects that require heavy abstract and logical reasoning. 

While I personally did not prep for a year for the exam as I did not decide on applying to law school until the year of apps, I did find that my background in math, stats, and CS prepped me well for logic games and logical reasoning on the exam. On the other hand, I had lots of difficulty with finishing RC with the same accuracy on time and I did spend a lot of time learning the requisite RC skills. After some time in law school, I find that my RC skills have drastically improved compared to the time of my LSAT; i.e., the skills tested can always be improved. So, I don't think it's good advice to focus too much on the aptitude element of the exam. That is certainly true to some extent, but you can def learn to develop the skills necessary to perform well, as long as you have average intelligence, which most of us do.

[loonie]

33 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

This sounds exhausting, and I struggle to see how it’s a rebuttal of the point others are making, which is that they should do a diagnostic and see if they need to waste time learning about the four kinds of logic games or whatever. 

A bunch of people just have reasonably good logical reasoning skills and so don’t need to draw little doodles or whatever.

I mean, it's their own opinion so I won't fault them for it, but when people start suggesting that "prep is useless, overrated, and unnecessary," I think it's helpful to provide an alternative viewpoint that preparation is, in fact, sufficient on its own to achieve a perfect score on certain sections. I don't even know if it was exhausting tbh. I feel like with the prep resources available nowadays, it was quite easy to learn the system I found most optimal, and then do a few practice tests to get used to doing it under timed conditions.

My diagnostic tests were high -- I also believe I had good logical reasoning skills at the time -- but prepping made these scores even better and more consistent. I offered a caveat in my OP that I think extensive prep is only necessary if you want to score very highly. For those were it's not important to do so, then yes, there is less of a need for extensive prep. 

Edited May 4 by loonie

[CB2021]

good for you @BlockedQuebecois (and them)

17 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

This sounds exhausting, and I struggle to see how it’s a rebuttal of the point others are making, which is that they should do a diagnostic and see if they need to waste time learning about the four kinds of logic games or whatever. 

A bunch of people just have reasonably good logical reasoning skills and so don’t need to draw little doodles or whatever.

[CB2021]

Also, OP, I think the logic games section has been or is being removed. 

Take challenging classes and consciously develop your skills in reading, reasoning, and writing during your undergrad. By the time you need to write your LSAT, you will probs be fine without much prep. The same skills will also serve you well during law school. I personally regret not taking writing courses in my undergrad lol.