Acing The LSAT

Taking the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) is fun. Really fun. That’s F-U-N?fun! So fun, in fact, that you may want to skip that date with the hottie next door and take some practice LSATs instead. Seriously, it’s better than?Cats. You’ll want to take it again? and again? and again?

OK, we did our best to convince you otherwise, but the truth is that the LSAT is a royal pain. An evil combination of #2 pencils, ugly proctors, and silent stopwatches, to get into any accredited law school in the country, you are required to take the LSAT.

But there is good news: even though you have to take this standardized test, there are many methods to cracking the test and getting a much better score than you deserve. After all, a secret to those standardized tests is that the writers always write the same types of questions. So if you can just study the question?types?(and practice them a lot), you’re virtually guaranteed to get a higher score and getting a respected law degree (or at least one that won’t appear on Sally Struthers commercial alongside TV/VCR repair).

By the way, since you’re obviously interested in going to law school (people do not take the LSAT for kicks), you may as well read our excellent SYW titled “SYW get into law school?” With these two SYWs, you’ll be fully on your way to out-legalizing Ally McBeal. (While you’re at it, please buy her some food.)

Know What?s On The Test

First thing’s first: the LSAT is a test. Need more details? The LSAT is a tricky test that will make your brain hurt. The test basically poses many puzzles to you that you have to solve. The more puzzles that you solve correctly, the better legal mind you supposedly have and the higher score you’ll receive.

Format

• The test lasts about 3 ? hours on a Saturday morning (there are alternate dates available if you can’t attend for religious reasons).
• The test consists of about 101 question.
• There is NO PENALTY FOR GUESSING. This means that you absolutely must answer every single question, even if it’s a complete guess. Don’t argue with us over this one.
• After your test is graded, your score will be converted into an LSAT score ranging from a low of 120 to a high of 180. Your score (and percentile) will roughly follow along a bell curve pattern: a 150 is completely average, and a 170 is the 99th percentile.
• Here’s what kinds of questions will be on the test:

As you can see, there are three main types of questions on the LSAT:Analytical?reasoning?questions (which involve solving logic puzzles);logical reasoning?questions (which involve finding the weak point of an argument); and?reading comprehension?questions (which involve reading boring passages and answering questions about them).

• There will be one?experimental section, which will be either a games, arguments, or reading section. You won’t know which is the real section and which is the experimental one, so you should just try your best on every single section. The good news is that if at some point you have a bizarrely difficult section that makes no sense, there’s a strong chance that it was the experimental section.
• There is also a?writing sample?section. But before you begin to cry, realize that the writing sample does NOT count towards your score. The law schools to which you apply will receive a copy of your essay, so don’t think writing your name and favorite ice cream flavor 100 times will suffice. However, this section has no right or wrong answers, and might not even be read.

Rules

The LSAT has a bunch of rules you have to follow. We’re not going to bore you with them here, so when you do your?practice tests, read all of the rules carefully. But because we don’t want you to forget, here are the most important rules:

• Choose the best answer for each problem. A question will often seem to have more than one possible answer (or no possible answer). Ignore those feelings: every question does have an answer, and one of them will be the best answer. If you encounter a question with two seemingly correct answers, read over the question again and decide which directly answers the question better (without you having to make strange logic leaps).
• You can not jump around between sections. So if you’re doing the reading comprehension section and finish early, you can’t fill in those last bubbles for the analytical reasoning section.
• Do not even attempt to cheat. Not only will you get in major trouble (that is, you can’t take the LSAT again, meaning that you can’t get into law school), but chances are that your neighbor is taking a different test (actually, the same test, but with the sections in a different order).
• If after the test you feel like you did atrociously poorly and you don’t any schools to see your score, you then have up to 5 business days to cancel your score (by faxing a signed letter). No one will ever know you took the test, and you won’t know your score. So use this option with caution: only do it if you are absolutely POSITIVE you tanked and you have enough time to take the test again.
• Speaking of taking the test again, it is allowed. However, keep in mind that most schools will not take the higher of your two scores; they’ll take the average of your scores. Furthermore, a good portion of people actually get lower scores their second time around. The LSAT isn’t like the?SAT; people don’t usually take it more than once. So only take the test again if you are positive that your score doesn’t reflect your true ability and you know that you can do better.

Registering

It would really stink to show up at the test center and then not be able to take the LSAT. No, law schools wouldn’t accept that excuse, crafty one! To make your life easier, the LSAC allows you to register?online?Have your credit card handy, because it’s gonna cost you $90.

If you miss the deadline, you can also register up to the day before the test, as long as you pay the $54 late fee and you find a center that has room.

Ace The Analytical Reasoning Section

Not every LSAT-taker prepares in advance, so you’re already one step ahead of the game by reading this SYW. OK, enough hand-holding. Now it’s time to really learn about the questions on the test and know what to expect.

The secret to acing the analytical reasoning section of the LSAT is to merely think of the section as one big game. Kinda like Chutes and Ladders. Each game will requires you to use basic logic skills to order, group, or assign characteristics to things or people.

Here is an example of how a game may be set up:

You will then be asked a bunch of questions about this scenario (possible seating arrangement’s, who can’t sit in seat 8, etc.). Every single game will start out just like the scenario above: you will be given a situation with particular rules, and you’ll have to figure out what those rules mean.

Here are our tips to acing these game questions:

Before you begin?

• Draw a picture.?Before you do anything, you should draw the picture of what is described. If people are sitting around a table, then draw a table. For the example above, it may look like this:

• Abbreviate each clue. So for the days of the week, keep track by writing M, Tu W, Th, F. In our example, you’ll notice that you can abbreviate each person to A, B, C, D, E, F, and G.

• Write down every clue. There are many ways to write down clues effectively. Let’s look at our example above…

The first rule?says that Brendan’s seat is in the last row, so let’s put him there.

The second rule?says that Charles is next to Deiter AND an unassigned seat. So write it down. That means that there always must be a row only containing Charles and Deiter, and Charles must be in the middle. And because Brendan is in the last row, Charles and Deiter must either be in row 1 or 2. So at this point, your sketch may look like this:

The third rule?says that Deiter is the row behind Anton. That means that Deiter can’t be in row 1. Since we earlier established that Deiter can’t be in row 3, then Deiter and Charles must be in row two, with Charles in the middle. This means that Anton must be in row 1. So now your sketch might look like this:

The fourth rule?states that neither Echelle nor Geoff is sitting immediately besides Anton. Not that this doesn’t mean that neither can go in row 1; it just means that they can’t sit next to each other.

So your final sketch might look like this:

Now you’re all ready to start answering the questions! So imagine getting this question:?Which of the following passengers can be assigned to seats 2 and 8, respectively?

1. A) Anton, Echelle
   B) Brendan, Geoff
   C) Charles, Brendan
   D) Deiter, Echelle
   E) Geoff, Fanny

So look at your picture and figure it out! You know that B is out, because Brendan must be in the last row, so he can’t sit in seat 2. You also see that Charles must be in seat 5, and Deiter must be in seat 4 or or seat 6, so you can cross out C and D. You finally realize that Geoff can’t be in seat 2, because that would force him to sit next to Anton (thus breaking the fourth rule), so E is out. So the only choice is A! See how quick that was? And all because you drew the picture in advance.

There are other types of rules that you should write down:

• Convert two negatives to a positive. If it is not true that Frank can not come to school, then Frank can come to school.~(~F) –> F
• Symbolize ‘Only if’s. Billy is at school only if Frank is at school.B –> F
• Symbolize ‘Unless’s. Dylan is not at school, unless Eva is at school.~E –> D
• Combine clues. If Anna comes to school Chelsea comes to school. And if Chelsea comes to school, Frank will come too. So, if Anna comes to school, Frank will also learn his ABCs that day.A –> C; C –> F

  therefore A –> F

• Symbolize the conditions. For example, if you are told that either 3 or 4 students will come to school, your paper should look like this:____ ____ ____ ( ____ )
• Most people can eventually figure out all the answers; the tough part is answering all the questions within the time limit. We hate to say it, but?PRACTICE?is the best way to speed up your performance time. These questions will all begin to look very familiar.
• If you look through the different games really quickly at the beginning of the section, you might want to choose to?do the easiest ones first?(to guarantee that you get to them). Imagine wasting all that time on the first puzzle when you could’ve breezed through the rest.
• When in doubt,?eliminate and guess. You’ll always be able to eliminate at least one “duh!” choice, so cross it out and just guess from the remaining ones.

Ace The Logical Reasoning Section

You want to be a lawyer, right? So you should love arguments! And the logical reasoning section is nothing except handling arguments.

While there’s only one reading comprehension and one games section that will count toward your final score, TWO logical reasoning sections will count, so you should spend twice as much time practicing these questions.

The main tip we can give you is to remember, above everything else,?that you must ONLY consider what is said in the argument you are given. Yes, you may be asked to prove a blatantly false argument, but welcome to LSAT Land. The test-writers don’t care about whether you agree or disagree; they only want to see if you’re able to see where the weaknesses in the arguments lay. So read every question VERY carefully.

The secret to acing the logical reasoning section is to realize that almost every question is trying to find out how well you can find “assumption gaps.”

• Assumptions gaps:?An assumption is when an arguer makes a logical leap without explaining it; he/she just “assumes” that you’ll accept a particular hidden part of the argument as true. Your job will be to uncover the assumption. For instance:

So before you even see the choices, you know that you’re looking for the hole in the argument.

These assumption questions make up the VAST majority of the LSAT. There are lots of different ways of asking about assumptions. Here are some common phrases:

We could go on and on. The point is, you will always be a step ahead if you search for the argument’s central assumption. The way to solve these is to:

1. Identify the set-up.
2. Identify the conclusion.
3. Figure out what must be true to get from the set-up to the conclusion.

“EXCEPT” questions: Those LSAT-writers are tricky? they will often present you with an argument and tell you that all five options are correct EXCEPT for one? which you have to find. These can be intimidating, because you have to think backwards — but they’re just the same as normal assumption questions.

Let’s go back to the question above:

The central assumption is that because red cars are in more accidents, then removing red cars would remove the accidents. Before you even look at the choices, you have a “feeling” that this is a flawed argument. These might be some of the flaws you noticed:

1. Just because red cars are in more accidents doesn’t mean that they are death-causing accidents.
2. Bad drivers might prefer flashy red cars, so if you take red cars away, the bad drivers will still be out there causing accidents.

So let’s look at the possible choices:

So what’s the answer? Let’s go through one by one:

So there you go! The answer is C.

A quick hint: be wary of the words every, never, all, always, and none. They usually indicate a wrong answer, because nothing is that simple.

There are some other types of questions in the arguments section, including:

• Parallel reasoning: You will be given an argument and asked which of a series of presented arguments most resembles the logic of the original.
• Argumentative techniques: You may be asked to recognize?how?someone responds to an argument (for instance, attacking the character of the arguer instead of the content of the argument, citing a specific example to counter a general claim, responding to a factual statement with an emotional claim?). Here, you just have to (say it with us), find the assumption and figure out how the technique gets around it.

At the risk of being repetitive, all you have to do is identify the assumption, and you’re 95% home free.

Ace The Reading Comprehension Section

Of the three sections you’ll encounter, Reading Comprehension is the most old school – you’ve been taking tests since second grade that require you to read something and then answer questions on it. Not so bad, right?

A reading comprehension section will offer?four?passages, about 500 words each, and some questions following each passage. The good news is that this section tests how well you read, not what you know. So this means that you could have a passage about the biological mating patterns of the tsetse fly, and you’ll still have the chance to do fine. The reading comprehension does?not?test your knowledge, just how well you’re able to gleam hidden information from the passage. Again, it’s like a puzzle!

Here are our tips:

• It sounds obvious, but?read carefully?- rushing through will force you to need second and third glances, wasting even more time.
• You have the choice of reading the questions first or reading the passage first. Whatever works best for you. But as you read the passage, you should underline the key arguments. Don’t underline too much; just the most important points (because you?will?be asked about them).
• As hard as it may seem,?pretend that the passages are fascinating. If you go into the reading comprehension section with a bad attitude, you won’t remember anything you read. But if you can actually convince yourself that the passages are interesting, then you’ll process the information much more quickly.
• Anticipate?the question types you’ll face:

Practice, Practice, And Practice Some More

This is the most important point we can make about acing the LSAT. More important than any little tricks and tips, more important than what you have for breakfast the morning of the test, and more important than how much your mom loves you.?YOU MUST PRACTICE LIKE CRAZY FOR AT LEAST 3 WEEKS.?This means that you must take constant practice exams, and even take each one two or three times. Get your hands on at least 20 former LSATs, and take every single section multiply until you’ve figured out the patterns. Yes, this is a lot of work, but it’s cheap and easy (just like us!).

Some people lack the self-discipline to just sit and practice, so here’s our advice:

• Before you invest in prep books or classes, you should determine your starting score (hey, maybe you’ll get a 180? you never know?). So download a?free sample LSAT?and see how you do. (You’ll need Adobe Acrobat too.)
• As you take the test, CROSS OUT the answers that you know are wrong as you go along, and try not to skip around too much (it makes it tougher for you to know which questions you answered and which ones you didn’t). However, if you get stuck on a particular question, put a huge circle around it and move on.
• Treat your first sample test like the real thing: stick to the time limits, take it in one straight afternoon, and keep the distractions to a minimum.
• After you’ve taken the practice test, go carefully through every question, and see which ones you got right and which ones you got wrong. Try to find a pattern in your wrong answers. For instance, did you do OK on the games, but you couldn’t get to the last 2 sections? Did you miss a lot of reading comprehension questions about the tone of the passage? Did you have problems in the arguments section identifying a parallel line of reasoning?
• Now all you have to do is take more LSATs. By far, the best book to get is the?Official LSAT Preptests, which are?real?LSATs from recent years. There are tons of ways to get copies of previous tests, but the best way is to either get them from the LSAT website or from your local bookstore. Whatever you do, try to get at least 15 practice LSATs in your hands.
• For the first week, don’t bother timing yourself. Just take the time you need to finish every question. After all, it does you no good to stay in the time limit if you can’t even get the questions right.
• Once you’ve gotten more comfortable with the questions, start trying to stay under the time limit.
• If you got a particularly bad score on the games section (as most people do their first time), then don’t cry; it’s the easiest section to improve on, because it’s all about familiarity. Just stick to our advice: draw lots of pictures and figure out the rules in advance.
• Early in your practice, feel free to do a section and to immedately check your answers afterwards. But as the test date nears, try to do an entire test or two without looking at the answers in between.
• As we said, you have to get your hands on as many tests as possible. It may cost you a few bucks (up to $100), but it’s well worth it. When you’re a lawyer, you’ll make $100 for picking your nose.

Preparing For The Big Day

You know this test, and you are ready to show the LSAT that you can take it down. Grrrrrrrrr?! Thanks to weeks of preparation and studying, you’re good to go.

To help you deal with your nerves, here’s some last minute advice on how to deal with the butterflies:

The night before

• Do NOT study anymore; perhaps review a little bit just to give you some confidence, but don’t take any practice tests; it’ll just freak you out. 
• Do something relaxing. While we don’t suggest you chug a Heiny, we would recommend that you read, watch a movie, or go out to dinner. 
• Go to sleep relatively early, and set your alarm early enough so that your brain has enough time to wake up and get moving. 
• Make yourself a bag for the exam day, full of the following necessities:

The test day

• If you’re a breakfast eater, make sure to include protein. If not, consider a light snack for energy. 
• If you must have caffeine, make sure to use the bathroom – multiple times – before the test begins. 
• Arrive at the test center at least 40 minutes EARLY – you’ll need to check in, make fingerprint cards, find your appropriate room, and account for getting lost. 
• Dress is layers so that you’re prepared for any classroom temperature. 
• Take deep breaths – often. After all, it’s only your career.