LSAT

This LSAT Hack Is Also A Life Lesson

What is the biggest mistake people make, both in studying for and taking the LSAT?

By  
on

bar exam multiple choice exam testI am about to come up on my ten year anniversary since tutoring my first LSAT student. Tutoring was something I started doing when I was in law school to help pay the bills and I went back to tutoring LSATs to ease the pain of giving up my Biglaw salary (although that pain still won’t go away). It was around this time every year that I would start to get my first panicked calls from LSAT takers who realized that their [INSERT NAME OF TEST PREP COMPANY] course was not improving their score, and their parents just would not love them if they did not get accepted to a top law school.

But, believe it or not, tutoring wasn’t all about the money. I actually love the LSAT and, for what it’s worth, I think it’s a good measurement of how well someone will do in law school (in that respect, I was an outlier). The LSAT is a very tricky test, and part of the problem is that it is hard to find a good teacher. Many of the test prep companies do not even require their teachers to have done very well on the test, and many people who do really well on the LSAT are just, well, smart and, as a result, they are not always able to explain to all of us regulars how they always seem to choose the correct answer. This was where I filled a need because, despite figuring out how to get a good score on the LSAT, I am not too smart.

And this gets to the crux of what I really loved about the LSAT. Everyone assumes that to get a great score, you have to be Will Hunting.

You don’t.

There are hacks. Some of the LSAT hacks are tactical and some, like the one I want to share with you today (that you can share with your friends who are studying for the LSAT right now), is purely psychological.

The biggest mistake people make, both in studying for and taking the LSAT, is wasting time worrying. When students would come to me for the first time, I would often spend time observing them taking different sections where they were struggling. What I noticed is how much time they would spend agonizing over how long it was going to take them to solve a problem. They were actually spending more time worrying then they were doing the work to solve the question. I would often see students staring at a problem for thirty to sixty precious seconds before putting pencil to paper. This would show up more often with the games, but I saw it happen on reading and logical reasoning as well.

Being aware of the problem is half the battle. The other half is consciously forming a habit to immediately put pencil to paper and solve the problem. Avoid the temptation of trying to answer questions by just staring at them without writing something down. Leaving no space in time to worry is the best way to prevent worrying. And, once you put that time back on the clock, you will have the time to actually do the work required to answer most questions correctly. You can spend time being nervous or you can just do the work, but you cannot do both.

Sponsored

It occurred to me recently that there is a great, if not particularly novel, life lesson in this particular LSAT hack. To date, my career (other than the LSAT tutoring) has consisted of working in Biglaw and in start-ups, both high stress environments with tasks that often feel insurmountable. Translation: lots of space for worrying. I remember getting documents dumped on me on 6:30 p.m. the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I remember feeling incapable of even getting started. That feeling of paralysis has been even more pronounced in start-ups. In difficult moments, I have tried to remember my LSAT hack, and it turns out that, like the LSAT, the best remedy for anxiety is just getting started and putting pencil to paper.

Have any good LSAT hacks or life experiences to share? Email me, tweet to me or leave a comment.

Zach Abramowitz is a former Biglaw associate and currently CEO and co-founder of ReplyAll. You can follow Zach on Twitter (@zachabramowitz) or reach him by email at zach@replyall.me.

Sponsored

Topics

, , , ,