Intelligent, but just can't seem to score high on LSAT Forum

[AffordablePrep]

I'm reminded of a guy that once told me that he was the smartest guy that I had ever met. (btw, he was an RF engineer)

So, I was very quiet for a few moments and then asked him a question that would give him a chance to prove his brilliance to me.

I asked him how many digits of Pi he knew. This would show me the degree of accuracy of his calculations. (i.e. using 3.14 will not return the accuracy of using 3.14159)

Of course, with him being the self-proclaimed "smartest guy that I had ever met" and an RF engineer, I assumed he would rattle off several digits of Pi. After he got to 3.14159... he started making up numbers until he got to about 20 decimal places.

He stood there with a smug look on his face. I could not contain my laughter!

When he asked me, "what's so funny?" I responded that he was making up a majority of the digits.

Then he asked, "how would YOU know?"

Unfortunately for him, he was not the "smartest guy that I had ever met."

I used to hang out with a group of "brainiacs" that would (accurately) recite 20 decimals of Pi, for fun. One of the things I learned from them was to perform calculations using 3.14159265358979323... from memory. I never did remember 20 decimals but I remembered enough of them to know this guy was full of B.S. when he started making up digits!

I love to hang out in groups of people where I'm the least intelligent of the bunch. I tend to learn quite a bit in situations like that. One thing I would never do is begin by telling any group of people how smart I am.

"We're each born with two ears and one mouth...to listen twice as much as we speak." (I stole this last line from someone wise...Confucius or some guy with grey hair)

I tend to believe the least intelligent person on this site is probably very intelligent... So, yes... I believe you (OP) are probably very intelligent.

Just sayin'.

Reminds me of a girl I met. She was also a self-proclaimed genius and thought she was the most attractive person in the room to boot. The second time I met her she told me "Most people remember me because I'm so interesting." I thought she was joking but I quickly learned she was dead serious. Started talking about how she was going to be a Senator and how she tutored kids in math when she was younger. Then she brought up the fact that she was a strong believer in Astrology and I couldn't help but be reminded of Dunning-Kruger. She did something like what you did to me (even though I didn't claim to be a genius or even intelligent, I think she just wanted to show she was smarter than me), she started rattling off a theatre-major's vocab list and seeing if I knew what they meant lol.

Gotta hand it to her parents. Many beautiful women have no confidence. That right there is good upbringing or a lot of compensation for a poor upbringing.... terrible person though, but maybe a good upbringing.

[roaringeagle]

I believe that it is very possible to be smart and suck at standardized testing. I know people who went to crappy law schools and came out on top thanks to their networking and talent.

[dingbat]

I believe that it is very possible to be smart and suck at standardized testing. I know people who went to crappy law schools and came out on top thanks to their networking and talent.

Networking and being smart are two entirely different things

[Ded Precedent]

I believe that it is very possible to be smart and suck at standardized testing. I know people who went to crappy law schools and came out on top thanks to their networking and talent.

So I see you are trying to convince yourself that you will be ok. Good luck with that.

[Aequitas_]

Lol @ thinking memorization of pi can give insight as to how intelligent someone is.

Secondly, you trolls make me laugh.

[JohnV]

Gotta hand it to her parents. Many beautiful women have no confidence. That right there is good upbringing or a lot of compensation for a poor upbringing.... terrible person though, but maybe a good upbringing.

She wasn't beautiful. I wouldn't say she was ugly, she may have had a small weight issue, but she definitely wasn't as attractive as she thought she was. Although my bias probably made her even less attractive to me. She did say that her parents/friends/everyone always told her how smart/attractive/brilliant she was though I don't remember the context of that statement, I do remember it was odd that she brought it up like that was a good reason to behave like that.

JohnV

That chick sounds like a riot! LOL

Not only is she the best looking person in the room...

She's a genius and super interesting!

If only any of it was true. I really can't even accurately describe this person because the most revolting part was her attitude.

[PDaddy]

This is going to sound arrogant, but I'm sure others can understand where I'm coming from. I'd like to think I'm pretty intelligent. My IQ is in the top 99th percentile and have always been in advanced classes/curriculums "curricula" and have always had very high marks without much effort.

It doesn't sound arrogant at all. Many intelligent people perform poorly on the LSAT. Some people improve (with varying degrees of success), and a few don't. Don't beat yourself up over it. Just work to improve.

Note: I am sorry, but I just had to correct the use of the word "curriculums". I also hate it when people use the word "addendums". I believe addendum in plural form is "addenda". I know it was likely the result of typing too quickly to get your thoughts out. We all do it.

[fronkman]

I believe that it is very possible to be smart and suck at standardized testing. I know people who went to crappy law schools and came out on top thanks to their networking and talent.

Networking and being smart are two entirely different things

Social intelligence brah, it's a thing.

[jgloster]

I believe that it is very possible to be smart and suck at standardized testing. I know people who went to crappy law schools and came out on top thanks to their networking and talent.

Nope, not true. Read the Bell Curve or the G-factor.

[bruss]

Self study. Logic games bible. Logical reasoning bible. Manhattan RC. For Rc make sure you read passage in less than 3mins.

Pike guide that we all use: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... =6&t=41657

Fuck a course get a private tutor if you need. I just use the free sources from posters and http://www.manhattanlsat.com/forums/

Start studying now and following pike guide

my stats:Dia 143. Pting 167. IQ 130+ iq doesn't really mean shit if you get tired during the test and other variables.

Edit:Good Luck and happy studying

[TheRainMan]

I believe that it is very possible to be smart and suck at standardized testing. I know people who went to crappy law schools and came out on top thanks to their networking and talent.

So I see you are trying to convince yourself that you will be ok. Good luck with that.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

[AffordablePrep]

I don't think that doing well on the LSAT means you're smart, but I think it is a necessary condition to being a genius, at least in terms of how I define what a genius is. The LSAT is a test of analytical thinking, which is one part of intelligence. It tests this pretty well, and the LSAT is more of an IQ kind of test than the SAT or MCAT that can purely be memorized. To me, a genius is someone who is very smart in many different areas.

[Aequitas_]

bump

[fatduck]

bump

how's your prep going, OP? up to 50 digits of pi yet?

[Ohiobumpkin]

bump

how's your prep going, OP? up to 50 digits of pi yet?

you made me lol you creepy duck!

[Glaucon]

If the OP is interested, a LSAT score of 163 qualifies you for MENSA; not 167.

[Scotusnerd]

If the OP is interested, a LSAT score of 163 qualifies you for MENSA; not 167.

http://www.us.mensa.org/join/testscores ... ores/#prep

It's not the number, it's the percentile.

Also...I don't know why people insist on intelligence being only defined as one way ("smart" or "dumb".) Empirical evidence is pretty obviously to the contrary.

[TERS]

I find it almost impossible to believe that a 99th-percentile IQ cannot, after studying, break 80th-percentile on the LSAT. No. Have an official IQ test taken again so you can find out that's the problem.

[Nova]

^^ Right, the 95th percentile. So, i guess its a 168 now. But whatever, Mensa is a joke.

OP, youre not as smart as you think you are. IDK why you bumped this.

[Glaucon]

If the OP is interested, a LSAT score of 163 qualifies you for MENSA; not 167.

http://www.us.mensa.org/join/testscores ... ores/#prep

It's not the number, it's the percentile.

Also...I don't know why people insist on intelligence being only defined as one way ("smart" or "dumb".) Empirical evidence is pretty obviously to the contrary.

Whooops. I was told by someone in MENSA that it was a 163. Shoulda probably verified it myself

[Nova]

[bycron77]

Jeez, I should've expected to get trolled.

I don't really know what kind of response you were expecting with an OP like that. I doubt there is very much correlation between IQ and LSAT scores, and the same general concept of studying applies to everybody. FWIW my diagnostic was in the 170s but I still had to prep and take more PTs like everybody else when I wanted to improve my score.

Kind of a ridiculous statement.

The same people who do well on the LSAT tend to do well on the GMAT, GRE, etc. This is why OP's post is kind of ridiculous. If he was as much of a genius as he claims the LSAT would be a joke.

Well, I don't really know about that. Obviously I think some sort of general concept of intelligence would correlate with scores on the LSAT, but automatically assuming high IQ = high LSAT seems rather sweeping. Anyway, the OP hasn't really established that he's a genius; 132 is certainly an above average IQ but not 99% and not genius territory.

Actually, an IQ of 132 is pretty close to the top 1%. It is at least in the top 2%. That is a very high score, but may not be what most people would call "genius." It would, however, in technical terms, put you in the "very superior" range of intellectual functioning as it is measured on IQ tests. Technically, from a psychological standpoint at least, genius is generally considered limited to a specific area of intelligence. So it is probably more useful to say someone is a genius in X. The three areas in which "genius" is generally recognized are chess, math, and music. These are areas in which you get prodigies who may show immense aptitude at two years old. Standard IQ tests, at least the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV) (by far the industry standard), follow a normal statistical distribution where 100 is average, 15 is one standard deviation from the mean in either direction (i.e., 85 to 115), and a 130+ puts you in the top 2% ("very superior"). IQ also tends to be relatively stable throughout life. Since IQ norms are based on other people your age, your IQ when you're ten years old will probably be pretty close to what it is when you're 30. Standard IQ tests are not a good way of distinguishing people with extremely high IQs from one another; they are geared toward the vast majority of the population. Scoring in the top 2% is meaningful, but the difference between the top 2% and the top 1% doesn't mean much on a regular IQ test. The extent to which IQ is a meaningful and useful measure of intelligence is, justifiably, a highly debated and controversial subject, but it is worth getting your facts straight about how it is actually measured and conceptualized.

Also, to the extent that there are significant variations in scores on different IQ sections and subtests -- which there usually are and which are generally far more valuable and informative than the full-scale IQ number that people like to throw out there -- the people who score very high do not tend to have a profile where their nonverbal, visual/spatial/motor skills scores are higher than their verbal IQ scores -- it tends to be the opposite. A high verbal IQ with a much lower nonverbal IQ (I am simplifying these concepts to illustrate the general point) is a recipe for academic underachievement. As was and to some extent still is the case with me, these people may have difficulty expressing and organizing their abilities in a way that translates to as much success in producing tangible products of intellectual work as would be expected on the basis of their aptitude. This is a finding that is well established in neuropsychology and is not something I'm saying just to justify my own strengths and weaknesses. Verbal IQ is more similar to what we think of when we say someone is super smart, and correlates more with traditional academic intelligence. People who are really smart in difficult intellectual pursuits but lack common sense (e.g., many of the lawyers I work with) are likely to have much higher verbal IQs than nonverbal IQs.

Conversely, people with the opposite profile might tend to be seen as more "street smart" and skilled in navigating the practical, day-to-day aspects of life. These people are often in some ways far more intelligent than people recognize, because people focus more on academic/educated professional smarts. For instance, I had a psychology professor who tested a professional baseball player (I don't remember why), and his processing speed score was extremely high -- over 130. Processing speed is basically measured using hand-eye coordination tasks that draw almost entirely on automatic processing and speed, and next to nothing on complex psychological processes or deliberative thinking. This makes sense if you think about what skills are entailed in hitting a baseball traveling 95 mph. Otherwise, if I remember correctly, his IQ was about average. Personally, I have terrible processing speed but strong verbal skills. I am a moron when it comes to a lot of tasks involving good visual sense and motor skills. For instance, I'm not good at fixing things and can't put together a folded cardboard box for shit -- when I have to do this at work, I usually have an intern do it for me. She does it in a minute or two, while I can wrestle with the thing for probably 15-30 minutes.

For what it's worth, I find the LSAT extremely difficult despite having very high verbal IQ scores -- my nonverbal IQ scores are MUCH lower, which is somewhat of an issue when it comes to sketching/diagramming logic games. I have gone through extensive neuropsychological batteries and am basing these claims on hard data. Also, I was in a clinical psychology doctoral program for several semesters. This by no means makes me an expert on psychometrics, but I think I know a lot more about it than the typical intelligent layperson.

I have been self-studying the LSAT rigorously for about two months (I still have four months of self-study and a class to go), and, as I said, I find the LSAT very challenging. Actually, I have definitely seen improvement in the percentage of questions I get right, it's just that time is a MAJOR issue for me, which is consistent with my neuropsychological data and my academic experiences over the course of my lifetime. For instance, I'm sure this is not terribly uncommon, but I can get almost 100% of logic games right when time is not a factor or when I use a lot more time than I would have on the LSAT. Add in time, though, and it's a different story. I can still get a pretty high percentage right, but I'm lucky to get through two logic games in 35 minutes.

[poptart123]

Can't believe I just read all of that

[Hikikomorist]

.

[A. Nony Mouse]

good lord people. why are any of you responding to a 5 year old thread??