#lsat strategy

[trentteti]

Deep Existentialism: Why the LSAT Exists

At this point in your LSAT studying, there’s a halfway decent chance you’ve already cried a couple of times. You’ve probably become a much angrier driver. You’ve almost certainly had more conversations about the direction of your life during these past few months than you’ve had throughout all the lazy, drunken days of college.

I’m tempted to answer “because life is hard” but, if I have one guiding principle in my life, it’s that I always try to avoid making myself sound like an old man in a Western. So, let’s dive in.

Let’s make sure we all understand something at the get-go: for whatever reason, the LSAT is the number one indicator of law school success. That’s why the thing exists, and that’s why it’s never going to go away. What we’re going to get into here is why that is the case.

First, the argument that the LSAT doesn’t test anything you need for law school is more or less moot as far as I’m concerned. You could make the argument that the intensive reading comprehension you do on the test is great preparation for the intensive reading of nonsense you’ll do in law school, but you could also make the argument that reading an Economist article does the same thing. Law schools could just assign required reading lists for the summer before law school or something (hello, 9th grade). But I’m willing to go either way on that. As for logical reasoning, I’m pretty sure none of that has any relevance to the law, because most of the people who wrote our laws were idiots who wouldn’t recognize a contrapositive if it grew hands and bitch slapped them. We’ll not discuss logic games, because we all understand how clowns being fit into a car applies to law school.

Long story longer, I don’t assign much significance to the idea that the LSAT tests any kind of knowledge base or way of thinking that is applicable to law school. Or at least, I don’t think the correlation between LSAT skills and law school skills is strong enough to explain the much more obvious correlation between LSAT success and law school success.

But there’s one thing people seem to miss when they’re discussing the LSAT: how mind-numbingly, painfully hard it is. To do well on it, unless you’re just one of those naturally awesome individuals who could take a standardized test blind-folded, you need to study. And you need to study really, really hard. Probably harder than you’ve ever studied for anything.

That’s the equalizer, kiddies. The LSAT tests your ability to work like a dog, and so does law school. Law school means a ton of reading every night, hours and hours of writing and rewriting briefs, and more or less the most time-consuming work of your life. By showing you have the ability to excel on the LSAT, you’re showing law schools that you can at least focus for three months on a course of study. The ability to intensely focus on something is the key; it’s not the stuff you’re focusing on.

For what it’s worth, I imagine success on the MCAT would be an awesome indicator of law school success as well.

Deep Existentialism: Why the LSAT Exists was originally published on LSAT Blog

[trentteti]

Three Weeks Until The October LSAT: Not a Good Time to Quit Smoking

Basically, the more “normal” everything is, the better. You don’t want any massive earthquakes of change in your life at this point. Your life should be consisting of LSAT study, and keeping yourself happy (the latter to counteract the former). So don’t check yourself out of Flavor Country just yet.

Three Weeks Until The October LSAT: Not a Good Time to Quit Smoking was originally published on LSAT Blog

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Everything You’ll Ever Need to Know is on the LSAT Vol. 1

Over a decade ago, the LSAT tried to tell us all about “tree kangaroos.” When I first saw this I thought that the test writers were clearly dabbling some Dr. Moreau territory. As it turns out, though, tree kangaroos are totally real, and insanely adorable. They look like stuffed animals that would make an 8-year-old girl squeal with delight, forgetting about ponies forever. I mean, seriously, look at this picture.

That was the sound of the cuteness receptors in your brain exploding. They’re kangaroos. That live in trees. And they love you.

Tree kangaroos are also unbelievably good jumpers, being able to fall from 60-foot trees unscathed. And their stomachs are fermentation vats. I’m not sure what that means, but it makes me like them even more. In Australia, a place full of the most terrifying animals on earth (see: funnel-web spiders, Irukandji jellyfish, Australians), the tree kangaroo is probably revered as a god.

But what about when the LSAT said…

The subject of this LSAT question had to do with the fact that tree kangaroos don’t have opposable thumbs and grasping tails, which would be pretty sweet things to have in your possession if you lived in a tree. This is especially strange, considering that ancient-kangaroos did have these things. Where’d they go? Well, as we learn in the correct answer choice, the tree kangaroos evolved from land kangaroos that had already lost these traits, as they weren’t so useful on land.

This, too, is true. Sucks for the tree kangaroos, no? Maybe, but it’s pretty awesome news for us. Because ancient kangaroos were the things that nightmares are made of. Back in 1997 scientists found the “kangaroo Rosetta stone” (really), a super old kangaroo from which all other kangaroos would follow. Sure, it had some nice opposable thumbs and galloped rather than hopped, but it also had fangs and a taste for blood. Here’s what the little rascal looked like:

According to a real scientist, these saber-tooth kangaroos “used to leap out from behind trees and scare the bejesus out of prey and then calmly chomp it to pieces.”

What did we learn? Well, for one, the LSAT writers appear to keep up on science journals – this question came out just a year after finding the skeleton. For some reason, I don’t find this at all surprising. Also, kangaroos used to be ruthless killing machines, but traded in their thumbs for souls. Lastly, the LSAT has once again shown us what a horrible, horrible place Australia is.

Everything You’ll Ever Need to Know is on the LSAT Vol. 1 was originally published on LSAT Blog

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Why You Should Have Some "Fun" This Labor Day...Remember That Word?

Happy long weekend everyone! If you’re studying for the upcoming LSAT, you might find it a little bit difficult to take a day off. This post is meant to help you make the most of studying on Labor Day (while maybe still having some fun). I’m also going to touch briefly on my approach to days off more generally. Now, before we go any further, please don’t be the person that brings an LSAT book to a Labor Day barbecue. You don’t want to be that person. Also, please don’t be the person who only talks about the LSAT. You don’t want to be that person either. With that said, there are a couple things I would recommend doing to get the most out of your (hopefully) abbreviated studies on Labor Day.

First, I would recommend that you review your performance on the homework and on practice tests. It is getting close enough to the actual test date that you should probably start getting an accurate picture of your strengths and weaknesses, if they’re not already clear to you. For me, I was pretty strong on logical reasoning by this point in the course, but I realized that I was flagging behind a little bit in logic games (because they’re the worst). Obviously, you should stick to the curriculum and make sure that you keep practicing everything. But you should also know to ask questions or shore up any deficiencies in your approach toward certain question types.

Second, try to make sure you’re caught up on the homework. Hopefully, you’ve been completing the homework pretty diligently up to this point. But, if you haven’t, now is a great time to try to make sure you’re where you need to be before proceeding further. At this point, I would imagine that almost all the new material has been presented. The course is going to shift to drilling your comprehension of the methods that have already been introduced. As a result, you should be pretty comfortable with those methods. The best way to get comfortable is to complete the homework and review your results.

Those are the only two suggestions I have for studying today. I am a firm believer in the importance of taking breaks. As the course progresses, and especially in the days immediately preceding the LSAT, you should allow yourself some time off. For me, the last couple weeks of the course were the hardest part of the whole process because I approached them the wrong way. I obsessively took practice tests—one or two per day—leading up to the LSAT. By the end, I had a hard time psyching myself up to get started on the tests and my scores suffered. Consequently, I suffered because I thought my LSAT skills were eroding at the most critical time. All that to say, days off are important and I would recommend utilizing them effectively. You need to let your batteries recharge. Otherwise, you probably won’t get as much out of your study time and, as was the case for me, you’ll probably put yourself through a lot of needless stress.

I am a fairly neurotic person, so I probably studied a lot on Labor Day. Seeing as hindsight is 20/20, I can tell you with completely certainty that I should’ve been less obsessive about it. The LSAT is a cruel, cruel mistress, and you should take opportunities to get away from her for a few hours. Go out and enjoy your life! Just not too much…otherwise studying tomorrow will be pretty rough.

Why You Should Have Some “Fun” This Labor Day…Remember That Word? was originally published on LSAT Blog

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LSAT Strategy. Ways of the LSAT Winners

Ways of the LSAT Winners - eBook Spend Two Hours with this ebook and save weeks of prep time!! click here for details

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Does anyone else cry about the LSAT and just want a friend to make it though this law school dream life?

[lsatprepper]

LSAT Logical Reasoning Lesson 4: Premises and Conclusions

Now that we understand the basic methods for identifying conclusions and premises in an argument, we can move along to more complex arguments. 

Often, the stimulus will have multiple premises. They do not have to occur in any particular order. For instance, a premise can be placed before or after a conclusion and in some questions one or more premises will appear in the same sentence as the conclusion. 

The important thing to note is that no matter where the premises are in the paragraph, the structure of the argument does not change. 

A few examples of how they might present a premise and a conclusion in a way meant to confuse the reader: 

Therefore, since peas are good for you, you should eat them. 

Notice the above example begins with a conclusion indicator and is followed by a premise in between the commas before presenting the conclusion. 

This same sentence could be portrayed in others ways but the conclusion and premise would not shift. 

For example: Since peas are good for you, you should eat them. 

This time the conclusion occurs without an indicator but the part following the comma is derived from the first part of the sentence containing the premise. 

There are other types of premises that can be found in the Logical Reasoning section. 

Additional premises are those that add to the argument but are not necessarily integral to the argument. For example: 

Peas are good for you. So you should eat them. Furthermore, they are high in fibre. 

In order to understand whether the additional premise is important, we need to simply look at the argument. Is the fact that peas are good for you related to their fibre content? Or is this just an additional piece of information? 

The other kind of premises often used are counter-premises where the author presents one idea and then counters it with a sort of rebuttal. For example: 

Peas are good for you. But other vegetables contain a higher fibre content. Nevertheless, you should eat peas. 

The conclusion remains the same but the author throws in a second counter-premise to cover the bases of his argument. 

[lsatprepper]

LSAT Logical Reasoning Lesson 3: Identifying the Conclusion and the Premise(s)

We'll dive into questions and more complex material shortly. First, it's important to have a solid grasp of the basics. Identifying premises and conclusions is perhaps the most valuable skill in mastering the Logical Reasoning section so we'll focus on this first. 

Let's start with a list of premise indicators that appear frequently in these questions. Remember, not all stimuli will us indicators but many will and knowing these will give you that extra edge to quickly move through the problem. 

Memorize these Premise Indicators: 

- because 

- due to 

- since 

- for example 

- for the reason that 

There are many other indicators on the test but these are some of the most commonly used and knowing them will help you recognize statements as premises. 

Memorize these Conclusion Indicators: 

- therefore 

- consequently 

- hence 

- clearly 

- follows that 

- thus 

- as a result 

The premises and conclusion need not be in any specific order. The conclusion can come first, in the middle or last and the same is true of the premise(s). 

As you read a question stimulus, circle the premise and conclusion indicators. 

And BEFORE moving onto the question stem, IDENTIFY THE CONCLUSION.