I would like to score 173 plus..what will it take? Forum

[objctnyrhnr]

Btw, I am a she not he. Seems like a lot of people have reading comprehension issues sincr my screen name literally says Nicole....

This is a very trivial matter, but I rescind my previous comment. Didn't initially think moderator meant for me to take 10 yrs...just thought he did later after I read someone else thinking he meant that. Oops. Anyway, carry on.

You definitely have the right attitude.

My advice is to plan on getting a job of some sort, but one that you can clock out right at 5 or before.

Don’t take the test until you’re getting 100% on games every single time when practicing, and 100% on arguments virtually every time.

RC is way more subjective than the others, meaning it’s less learnable, so that’s usually what keeps top scorers from 180 (it’s what kept me from it). But if you hit most RC questions most of the time and all other questions virtually all of the time, that’s when you’ll be good to go.

Take every Lsat ever made 2 or maybe even 3 times and go back through your wrong answers and be able to internalize why they were wrong.

If you do that, a decade from now, you will be extremely glad that you invested the time required to do it.

I do believe the LSAT is learnable to an extent, but I think a baseline level of intellect is necessary to get a high score like a 173. Due to the timed nature of the test, you need to be able read quickly while understanding what you are reading. This is a skill that you start developing when you're a kid. A non-native speaker might be intelligent, but this is a barrier that they are going to face with the LSAT.

A 141 is a pretty low diagnostic for someone aiming to score a 173. If someone has a diagnostic of say, 155, then yes - I think it's a lot more realistic to say that if they put enough effort in, they can eventually score a 173 on the real thing. Sure, there may be a few people here and there that go from a low 140s diagnostic to getting a mid 170s score on the real test, but those instances are very rare.

Just look at OP's posts in this thread. They have a hard time spelling every-day words correctly and their sentences are riddled with grammatical errors. Does this prove that they have poor reading comprehension skills? No. But I have a hard time believing that someone with the reading comprehension skills necessary to eventually get a high score on the LSAT would be writing the way the OP is.

Studying for a decade for the LSAT is ridiculous. Is your post a troll? And I'm also not convinced that any given person can study for the LSAT for a decade and eventually get a 173.

Seems OP isn’t the only one with reading comprehension issues. I said in a decade (presumably by the time he’s been practicing for 4 or so years), he will have a much more informed idea regarding the doors that have been opened by going to a good school, minimizing debt, or both. At no point did I say he should study for a decade.

So the general point of that comment was that a lot of 0Ls don’t understand how many doors not going to a sub-t30 school effectively close (even if you’re super smart hardworking and yada yada) (and by t30 I mean a real t30 not like Minnesota or whatever other nonsense usnwr has up there now), and conversely how many doors going to t13 opens. Once one gets a few years into practice, one begins to understand the gravity of the distinction.

[LSATWiz.com]

Btw, I am a she not he. Seems like a lot of people have reading comprehension issues sincr my screen name literally says Nicole....

This is a very trivial matter, but I rescind my previous comment. Didn't initially think moderator meant for me to take 10 yrs...just thought he did later after I read someone else thinking he meant that. Oops. Anyway, carry on.

You definitely have the right attitude.

My advice is to plan on getting a job of some sort, but one that you can clock out right at 5 or before.

Don’t take the test until you’re getting 100% on games every single time when practicing, and 100% on arguments virtually every time.

RC is way more subjective than the others, meaning it’s less learnable, so that’s usually what keeps top scorers from 180 (it’s what kept me from it). But if you hit most RC questions most of the time and all other questions virtually all of the time, that’s when you’ll be good to go.

Take every Lsat ever made 2 or maybe even 3 times and go back through your wrong answers and be able to internalize why they were wrong.

If you do that, a decade from now, you will be extremely glad that you invested the time required to do it.

I do believe the LSAT is learnable to an extent, but I think a baseline level of intellect is necessary to get a high score like a 173. Due to the timed nature of the test, you need to be able read quickly while understanding what you are reading. This is a skill that you start developing when you're a kid. A non-native speaker might be intelligent, but this is a barrier that they are going to face with the LSAT.

A 141 is a pretty low diagnostic for someone aiming to score a 173. If someone has a diagnostic of say, 155, then yes - I think it's a lot more realistic to say that if they put enough effort in, they can eventually score a 173 on the real thing. Sure, there may be a few people here and there that go from a low 140s diagnostic to getting a mid 170s score on the real test, but those instances are very rare.

Just look at OP's posts in this thread. They have a hard time spelling every-day words correctly and their sentences are riddled with grammatical errors. Does this prove that they have poor reading comprehension skills? No. But I have a hard time believing that someone with the reading comprehension skills necessary to eventually get a high score on the LSAT would be writing the way the OP is.

Studying for a decade for the LSAT is ridiculous. Is your post a troll? And I'm also not convinced that any given person can study for the LSAT for a decade and eventually get a 173.

Seems OP isn’t the only one with reading comprehension issues. I said in a decade (presumably by the time he’s been practicing for 4 or so years), he will have a much more informed idea regarding the doors that have been opened by going to a good school, minimizing debt, or both. At no point did I say he should study for a decade.

So the general point of that comment was that a lot of 0Ls don’t understand how many doors not going to a sub-t30 school effectively close (even if you’re super smart hardworking and yada yada) (and by t30 I mean a real t30 not like Minnesota or whatever other nonsense usnwr has up there now), and conversely how many doors going to t13 opens. Once one gets a few years into practice, one begins to understand the gravity of the distinction.

Yep, properly studying for the LSAT requires the ability to plan for the long term. The reality is that your quality of life in law school won't be vastly different with a 150 or 170. It's the years that follow that make a big difference. I have yet to meet a single person who settled for a school with a bad LSAT score who believed they made the right decision 5-6 years later. Not one. Even if you win, you still lose because you are paying back much more than you otherwise would. You also have to deal with the difference in expected lifetime earnings between those who get good job offers coming out of law school versus those who don't.

The reason why prioritizing the LSAT is good advice is because you will never meet one person, not one who says they regret taking LSAT prep seriously but you will meet tons who wish they had taken LSAT prep more seriously. You don't lose anything more than a bit of time and maybe a few thousand dollars by taking LSAT prep seriously, but potentially lose millions between tuition and expected income by not taking it seriously. In the best case scenario.

I do agree that not anyone can study for a decade and get a 173. There is a requisite IQ needed to achieve such a score, but I'd argue that anyone that can score a 160 can score a 173. There is a percentage of the population that will never be able to crack a 160 no matter how much they tried, but the vast majority of such individuals would be miserable practicing law.

Regarding the diagnostic score - these can be misleading. Your maximum potential depends on why you lost points. Issues relating to the ability to understand the content you read tend to be much more difficult to correct than issues relating to the test itself (i.e. knowing what you are supposed to do on a particular question). The LSAT is an easily learnable test, but it does require skills that some will not be able to develop through LSAT studying alone.