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If I Wanted A 175+ LSAT Score in September 2024, This is What I’d Do [FULL BLUEPRINT]
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The good news is, if you're taking the LSAT in September, there's going to be less material for you to study. Today, I'm going to share with you what I would personally do if I wanted to score a 175 on the LSAT in September 2024 or beyond. For those who don't know me, my name is Steve Schwartz and I personally increased my LSAT score from a 152 to a 175 and I've been teaching the LSAT since 2005. Today, I'm going to share with you my laser approach to LSAT prep that I use to create my students day by day LSAT study plans. The laser is an acronym standing for learning, accuracy, sections, exams, and review. Learning is the first phase, building that strong foundation, getting a solid overview of the different sections and the different question types on the test. In logical reasoning, for example, there are roughly 15 different types of logical reasoning questions and you want to make sure that you properly understand the best way to approach each of these question types. After you get that familiarity down, move on to phase two, the A for accuracy, where you're drilling questions by type to get more familiarity with the patterns in terms of how to approach each one. Of course, not all 15 types of logical reasoning questions show up in equal proportion. Some are more common than others. For example, you probably want to spend more time devoted to necessary assumption, inference, and flaw. Since those are the three most common types of logical reasoning questions, then move on to other types like strengthen and weaken and save the least common types like parallel reasoning, parallel flaw, and evaluate the argument for last. Once you're doing reasonably well drilling, say you're getting roughly 70% accuracy, you move on to the next phase as per sections doing individual timed sections to work on your pacing. You have 35 minutes with standard timing, maybe more. If you have extra time accommodations and the pacing phases where you get down your rhythm as you go through the section, keep in mind that in logical reasoning, the questions are presented in a general order of difficulty, meaning they get harder as the section goes on. For this reason, if you're aiming for a 175, you want to make sure that you're blasting through those first 10 questions, solving them in roughly 10 minutes, building up a time bank that you can then apply to the tougher questions later in the section. Occasionally, I'll hear students asking me, "Should I go through the section backwards to do the hardest questions first when I'm most fresh?" You can try this out, of course, but I think it's a terrible idea because every question is worth the same. Why would you want to lock up those easy points first? Not risk getting bogged down in the tough questions, never even making it to the easier ones. Another way to avoid getting bogged down is to use the flagging feature in Law Hub, the same flagging feature that you'll have on LSAT Test Day. Personally, I'll flag three, four, maybe even five logical reasoning questions in a single section just because I don't want to deal with them in the moment considering that everything's worth the same. So you want to know which types of questions, which topics do you hate, which ones do you most want to avoid, skip, and come back to you later. For me personally, I'll share mine. Maybe they line up with yours as well. For me, I don't like the hard science ones, the technical ones, the ones on abstract topics like aestheticism or moral philosophy. I just don't want to deal with those in the moment. Same goes for lengthy parallel reasoning questions, by the way, if they're showing up later in the section. I'll flag them, skip them, come back them at the end. With the security of knowing I've locked up those other questions later in the section, I've secured those points. And by the way, surprisingly, the last couple of questions in the logical reasoning section are actually oftentimes slightly easier. Maybe to punish those who don't make it to the end of the section and to reward those who do. Anyway, after you move on from the pacing phase, these S for sections, phase three of the laser approach, you move on to phase four, E for exams and endurance. This is where you're doing full-length time to practice tests, ideally at least 10 of them before test day, under realistic test day conditions, simulating the pacing, simulating the full exam experience, four sections in total, two sections back to back, 10 minute break, two more sections, you're doing this over and over and over again, so that test day itself will ideally feel like just another run-through. And in order to strictly mirror test day itself, you're not pausing the clock to go to the bathroom or get a snack or check your phone, you're timing yourself strictly just as you would on test day itself. Now, as for the final phase of the laser approach or review, I'll get to that in just a moment. But before I do, I wanted to let you know that it's really important that you have a personalized day-by-day study plan, like what I'm laying out for you here, that laser approach framework. If you don't have one, we could help. At else, an unplugged, we create personalized day-by-day study plans for all of our students, whether in one of our one-on-one coaching programs or one of our small group coaching programs instead. And if you'd like our help on your journey to scoring a 175 or above on test day itself, you can check out the links below the video to book a call with me and my team. We'd be glad to help you out. Now, the final phase are for review. You want to make sure you're incorporating review thoroughly throughout the entire LSAT prep journey, for every question you get wrong, and every question you have difficulty with, maybe you got it right, but of course it could have gone the other way. And so I have a framework for this called the Socratic Review Method. The idea here is that you are systematically looking at every single element of the question that you got wrong or had difficulty with in logical reasoning. For example, did your mistake come from misunderstanding the stimulus, misidentifying the question stem type, or having difficulty in interpreting the answer choices, being led astray by attempting wrong answer choice or being discouraged by an unappealing right answer choice? You don't want to just look at the answer key and say, "Oh, I get it now. How could I have been so dumb?" You then move on to the next. You want to instead slow down and thoroughly examine what mistakes you're making and why, so that of course you can course correct for the future. Make sure you allow plenty of time to do this after every practice test that you take. Anyway, folks, it's all for now. In the meantime, I wish you all the best and take care.