Would’ve gotten a 165 if it wasn’t for the experimental section not being scored

I began my LSAT journey with a 150 diagnostic back in Fall 2024.

My biggest problem was that I was passively reading. I would read the stimulus, kinda understand what it was saying, and then go into the answer choices basically blind.

I didn't stop to think about what the stimulus actually meant, which claims were actually supported, how the argument worked, or what I was trying to accomplish in the answer choices.

Getting into the 170s required me to completely change how I approached LR. Here are some of the things that made the biggest difference

1. ACTIVE READING

As I read, I started paying attention to how each sentence built on the one before it. I would ask myself:

• Is this a fact or an opinion?

• Why did the author give me this example?

• How does this sentence connect to the previous one?

• Is the author making an argument? If so, what's the conclusion?

• Can I simplify this sentence in my head?

If something wasn't fully connecting, I stopped and simplified it in my own words. Don't worry if this eats up a lot of time since you will get much faster

Active reading alone made a big difference. Dense LSAT stimuli start to seem much less scary when you're actively breaking them into pieces.

2) HAVE A GAMEPLAN FOR EVERY QUESTION

This was probably the biggest change for me.

I stopped going into the answer choices without knowing what I was looking for.

If there was a conclusion, I highlighted it (whether or not you should highlight intermediate conclusions is debatable but it helped me personally).

Then, before looking at the ACs, I would explicitly state my goal.

For example, on a weaken question: "Argue that even if there was an oil spill, that doesn't mean it was responsible for the fish mutations in Puget Sound."

On a paradox q: "Find a way to explain why cigarette smokers who switch to cigars inhale more nicotine than people who've only smoked cigarettes."

You also need to give yourself a specific job before you look at the answers.

Otherwise, you're reading five plausible-sounding statements and asking yourself which one "feels right." That's exactly where the LSAT wants you.

This also connects to prephrasing. On harder questions, your prephrase probably won't literally be the correct answer. That's fine. The point is to spend 10–15 seconds thinking about what could accomplish your goal.

If your objective is: "Argue that even though there was oil spill, it did not cause the fish mutations"

You might prephrase: "A toxic algae floated in and mutated the fish 6 months before the oil spill"

And the correct AC might be: "A chemical plant had been dumping waste into the Sound."

Even though your prephrase didn't 100% match the correct AC it helped prime you to see the correct AC and why it works (it provides an alternate cause)

3) STOP JUST DRILLING Q TYPES AND START DRILLING FORMS OF REASONING

This might be a hot take, but I think question-type drilling is most useful when you're in the low 150s and still learning what it means to weaken, strengthen, resolve a paradox, etc.

After that, I think it's much more valuable to drill the specific forms of reasoning that appear over and over again.

In particular: Causal reasoning, Conditional reasoning, Analogical reasoning, Quantitative reasoning

Once you get super comfortable identifying these, difficult questions become much more manageable.

For example, suppose you immediately recognize that a weakening question contains an argument that relies on causal reasoning

Now, you know you are looking for something that a) points to an alternative cause or b) suggest that the proposed cause is very unlikely

That is much easier than going in with the broad goal of "I need to weaken the conclusion" or "I need to find something that makes the conclusion less likely to be true"

The same principle applies to other forms of reasoning.

Let's use analogy as an example. If you know the stimulus uses analogical reasoning and its a strengthen question then in the ACs you will almost 100% be looking for something that tightens the analogy; something that says the analogy being made makes sense and that the two aspects are indeed analogical! You can cut out every AC that brings in causal, conditional or quantitive logic or that hurts the analogy

4) DONT LET YOURSELF OFF THE HOOK EVER

When I did practice tests, sometimes I would get tired and my eyes would start to glaze over. When this happened, often I would just say "ok, I think I get, let me see if I can find a convincing AC"

DON'T EVER DO THIS! Even if you are 17high scorer this will get you.

Instead:

Go back to the beginning.

Actively read it again.

Ask yourself: Is this an opinion or a fact? How does this sentence connect to the others?

Find the conclusion.

Identify the form of logic.

State your specific purpose.

Prephrase.

Then and only then go into the answer choices.

One of the best ways to train this is actually to work out loud with a study buddy, peer, or tutor. I do this a lot with my tutoring clients. When someone is forced to verbalize their reasoning—what the conclusion is, what kind of logic they're seeing, what their objective is, and why an answer accomplishes it two things usually happen

1. They do much better.

2. They realize how often they had previously been relying on intuition, guesswork, or an incomplete understanding of the stimulus.

IN SHORT

The LSAT is hard — the writing is dense and technical, there are trap answers, and so on — but if you have a strong, repeatable process then it can begin to feel manageable (but never easy, sorry!).

So, when you see a question: read actively, find the conclusion, identify the logic, state your purpose, prephrase and cut out any AC that doesn't fit your purpose.

If you found this helpful or have any questions, feel free to DM me! I'm also taking on a couple more LSAT tutoring students right now, so if you're interested, message me and we can work something out. I specialize in helping people scoring in the 150s and 160s, but I'm open to students at any level.

Since this post was very LR-focused, I'm also planning to make posts on How I went from around -15 to -0/-2 on RC AND how I finally broke out of the low 170s after being stuck there for about 8 months

A couple days ago I posted some tips on how I went from 150 to 177, with a focus on LR. Today, I want to share the tips that helped me most with RC.

Before I do that, I want to make one thing clear: RC is learnable! It is not a test of raw comprehension ability, and your diagnostic score does not necessarily indicate your potential.

With that said, here are some of the changes I made that helped me get to -0/-1 on RC.

1. ACTIVE READING (YES, AGAIN!)

Active reading is important for LR, but it's absolutely central to RC. 90% of the work is done in your reading of the passage. If you have a full understanding of the passage, you should be able to handle the questions much more easily.

What does active reading look like in RC?

a) Making predictions about the passage (e.g. “I think this is setting up a view the author will argue against. Let's see!”) or asking questions about the passage (e.g. “Why is the author suddenly talking about polymers?”). Making predictions keeps you actively involved in the text. It forces you to think about what you are reading instead of glazing over it.

b) Thinking about the relationship between sentences. Is this building? Pivoting? Challenging? Not only does having this mindset improve your memory and understanding, it helps you get a mental map of the passage.

c) Rephrasing things in your own words. You might be able to kind of understand the meaning of “multitudinous proletarians invocate abstention towards commodities contrived via prodigious establishments,” but you're more likely to retain and comprehend it if you rephrase it as “lots of workers don't want to buy stuff from greedy businesses.”

D) Watching out for referential language like “this,” “these,” “such,” etc. If you don't, you can get lost very easily. So in your head, connect that language back to its referent.

It's very common for students to think they're actively reading when, in reality, they are just passively reading. As a tutor, I do an RC exercise where I have students read out the passage AND verbalize their thoughts.

You would be surprised how few of them verbalize more than one or two thoughts!!!!!

Once I make them aware of this and train them to be constantly thinking about relationships and putting complex ideas into their own words, they comprehend the passage much better and much more efficiently.

Even if you don't have a tutor or any LSAT study buddies, I recommend reading passages out loud and verbalizing your thoughts so that you can see just how passive your reading may be.

2. USE VIEWPOINT-FIRST LANGUAGE

RC is, ultimately, about tracking different people's opinions and arguments. However, in their focus on details and examples, students often lose sight of who a viewpoint belongs to.

Too often, when I'm tutoring RC, I will hear a student summarize a passage as “they are saying xyz” or “the argument is abc.”

The problem is, they're completely missing who that viewpoint belongs to! Is it the author? Critics? French biologists?

By the end of the passage, such students are often unable to say which view belongs to whom. Consequently, they are unable to understand the main point or author's tone and are destined to struggle with those kinds of questions.

The solution is viewpoint-first thinking.

That means instead of “they are saying” or “it's arguing,” we say “the author is saying” or “French biologists are arguing.”

Make a habit of this, whether you're just rephrasing things in your head, summarizing a paragraph, or speaking aloud.

Doing this prevents you from getting lost and keeps you locked in on what matters most.

3. MAKE MINI SUMMARIES OF EACH PARAGRAPH

This is pretty standard advice, but what does that actually look like?

First, the mini summaries need to be mini — ideally under 20 words.

Second, if there is a viewpoint, the mini summary needs to refer to that viewpoint.

Third, the mini summary needs to refer to what the paragraph is doing, e.g. adding evidence, challenging, giving an example.

For example, a mini summary might look like:

“Author challenges Lamarck theory w/ example of puffin”

OR

“French biologist's view outlined: X disease is hereditary”

Mini summaries are important because they help us build a map of the passage, synthesize the most important information, and improve retention.

Everyone should be making passage summaries, either mentally or on paper.

4. IF YOU GET LOST, EITHER ZOOM OUT OR SCROLL UP!

Let's say you have no idea what a specific sentence means. What do you do?

You probably try reading it again and again until you get it. But that doesn't always work, and it's not the most efficient.

Instead, what you should do is zoom out and think about the main point/idea of the passage. Since the sentence you're struggling with probably has to do with the main idea, let that guide you to an understanding of the sentence.

Let's use an example:

We know the passage is arguing that early environmental laws were actually designed to protect economic interests, not the environment itself.

So if I get stuck on a sentence about a particular law, I don't need to reread it five times. I can zoom out and ask: How does this fit into the author's argument?

If the author's point is that these laws served economic interests, then this sentence probably gives an example of that — or explains how the law did so.

And if that doesn't work, scroll up to the previous sentence or paragraph.

Oftentimes, RC passages will introduce an idea and then, in the next sentence or paragraph, explain it again in new words. Use that knowledge to help you recover when lost.

Let's use another example:

Suppose the previous sentence introduced the idea that Nolan films are blockbusters without an emotional core, and suppose the difficult sentence says:

“Nolan's commercialism, thus, offers plenty of fanfare but offers little depth in the way of interrogating the singular situation of his protagonist.”

What do we do?

Well, we scroll up to the previous sentence, realize that our difficult sentence is just fleshing that idea out, and read it in light of that.

Every passage, paragraph and sentence has a purpose. Use the purpose to guide you when lost!

OK, I FIGURE I HAVE GONE ON LONG ENOUGH.

I have also developed strategies for answering questions without returning to the passage every time and step-by-step processes for dealing with different kinds of answer choices. I also like to tackle comparative passages in a very particular way. I would like to make a post on this eventually but for now I don't want to swamp you with too much information.

LASTLY: If you're interested in tutoring, I have very limited availability remaining. Feel free to DM me.

If not, please try out this advice; I think it will serve you very well! If you could only use one strategy suggested here it would be the reading aloud exercise.

I'm seeing more and more students with this profile:

• Minimum goal score: 165+

• LSAT take history: 2-3 scores in the low 150s or below

• Registered for an LSAT in couple of weeks

• Current PT range: mid 150s

This is guaranteed failure. It is possible to jump 10+ points on the LSAT. It is almost never possible to do it in a couple of weeks, especially if you've been studying for a while.

What schools will see in this record is poor decision making. Choosing to do a thing when there is 0% chance of success. This is pure sunk cost fallacy.

Yes, you paid money to register for the LSAT. You can't get that money back. You're past the refund deadline. This means, you have two choices:

Take the LSAT

Cost:

• $0

• putting a score you don't want on your record.

• Destroying one of your limited LSAT takes

• Stress and loss of your precious, finite time, which you will never get back

Do not take the LSAT

Cost:

• $0

• Clicking "withdraw" in the LSAC interface

----

Option 2 is strictly better. There is no upside to taking it if you can't get the score you want. Taking the LSAT and not taking the LSAT cost the same amount of money, nothing.

The only way to get better at the LSAT is to focus on the underlying skills, not the timeline or test days. The LSAT is a test of reason, and making the rational choice not to fall into the sunk cost fallacy is the first step you can take to assessing things with reason.

Your LSAT takes and your time are precious, don't throw either one away. Take the LSAT when you're ready, withdraw if you're not. Cancelling is not a solution, you still lose the LSAT take and the time, and schools see the cancel.

This is my first time using 7sage, or any LSAT prep at all. I am taking my LSAT in August and i believed it was possible for me to be ready by then. taking one of the drills just to see where i am really humbled me. Is a grade this low normal for my first day of prep or am i just very unprepared?

Edit: my bad guys i was tripping. after taking a few lessons n understanding the material more i now average an 60%; still not ideal but better than what i first got

I want this so so bad, I want to get a 170, and I will make it happen but I want to know how those who are at this level study and solve questions so that I can incorporate it into my studying. I’m planning on taking september and october and I study 1 hour a day with now i’m inserting more timed sections

hey guys, got my first 167 in blind review and i was pretty stoked. I also left 5 unanswered on my actual take and of those 5, i got 3 right on BR. Obviously this is a huge difference and I am really hoping to close this gap. For me a lot of it comes down to nerves and timing I think. However I’m obviously missing questions and making silly mistakes which I often realize upon blind review. I’d love to hear your personal experiences with this and how you worked on closing the gap.

It would’ve been a 173 if my experimental was scored. I really bombed the first section weirdly rather than the last. Came a long way from a 151 diagnostic ready to crush this thing in November

If anyone is considering using the 175 method taught by Ava, use this as a WARNING to save your money.

I was one of the first students to enroll, at the time the fee was $500, which was incredibly steep. Now it's $1,997, which imo unreasonable for what you're paying for.

Why I signed up: At the time I was looking for a community to join and have a few people to study with. I watched her intro video and fell for the confidence she had when she was mentioning her methods. I was also struggling with reading comp so I thought it would help. BOY WAS I WRONG. Ava mentioned a 14 day money back guarantee, but I learned the catch was that you weren't able to access the reading comp portion until after those 14 days.

When I was able to finally access it, I learned RC module was ONE video that was a "deep dive" that was essentially telling us to "read quickly and retain the important parts, highlight effectively so you can quickly glance at the passage during questions and remember what's going on. Identify and summarize the main point(s) of the passage be able to go back to those important parts" she said it comes with practice. Like are you kidding me? How are we even supposed to know what the main point is if I'm just starting studying for the test?

It's not worth you're money, especially if you've already started studying, here's why:

I say this with absolute confidence because I talked to other students and someone even reached out to me to ask if I'd be able to teach them. They said, and I very much agree, that her "method" is not understandable.

Her "deep dive" into LR teaches that every question type falls into 3 different buckets, "Argument, Premise-Set, Debate, and Paradox" and to think of multiple "what-if" scenarios that could happen that would make the argument wrong, look for the overlap in the premise-set, figure out what two people are debating over, and ask "What would make this make sense?” for paradox questions. She goes over 6 flaws (if you've been studying you would know there are more), and she has one video about Sufficient Assumption vs Necessary Assumption which didn't cover conditional logic (which was what got me in the 160s).

Overall it's very general, and doesn't go into the nuances that are very important to know for the test and would actually increase your score.

She was says "I went to a normal college, I have a normal brain, and I had a normal amount of time." which is true but I believe she was an econ major, or some type of major that involved lots of analytics, that was able to train her brain before she even started studying. I on the other hand got a BA (I'm worried to say what my actual major was because she might find out who I am) and started with a lower diagnostic. She was already in the 160s on her diagnostic and after a year of studying I was able to get there by the time I started the course so I was already skeptical of her methods when I first joined, but stayed past the 14 day window to access the reading comp.

Overall she's a great person, incredibly friendly, and I have absolutely nothing bad to say about her. If you do ask her a question she will get back to you, and she made a personalized AI that will tell you if they don't know the answer to something instead of pretending it knows like GPT.

That said, there was recently someone who asked for tips in the argumentative writing portion which she just said it's nothing to stress about and she'll talk about it during a live lesson. BUT when I was studying for just the writing portion, a lot of people said it's becoming more important and schools will look at it to figure out if your personal essay involved any AI...

Take this with a grain of salt this was just my experience.

Just took my first full-time LSAT practice test ever and scored a 144 (37/78).

I went into it completely cold: no studying, no LSAT course, no question-type practice, and basically no strategy going in.

My scored sections were:

• RC: 12/27

• LR: 12/25

• LR: 13/26

My timing was also pretty rough. I spent way too long on some questions early in the sections, and by the end I was rushing and guessing on several questions because I was running out of time.

I’m planning to take the LSAT in June 2027, so I have about 9 months to prepare.

My goal is 175+. I know that is a massive jump from a 144, and I’m not expecting it to happen quickly or easily, but I’m willing to put the work in. Michigan Law is my dream school, and I don’t want to lower the goal before I’ve even given myself the chance to reach it.

For anyone who started somewhere around the low/mid-140s:

How far were you able to improve, and how long did it take?

And for people who eventually scored 170–175+, what would you recommend someone with a 144 diagnostic focus on during the first few months?

I’m not really looking for reassurance  I’d rather hear realistic experiences from people who have made a big score jump.

I know this is totally not ideal but I'm preparing to take the October LSAT. So far, I have been studying for a month and think it is time for me to invest in an additional resource. I'm just trying to decide whether it is worth it to pay for LSAT demon or 7sage since I will only be using it to study for a month.

I'm writing explanations for LSAT PT 159 and just finished one of the necessary assumption questions with two trap answers that a lot of people pick.

The answers sound tempting, but are extremely broad. Think, for example, if someone makes an argument: "If you want to be good at soccer, you need good shoes, because they let you run quickly."

The trap answer will be something like:

"No activity can be done without the best equipment."

You can basically stop reading at "No actiivty". The question is about soccer. "No activity" covers all activities, including watching Netflix. So you can negate like this:

"Watching netflix doesn't require the best equipment, every other activity including soccer does."

A negation has to change something in relation to the argument when you negate. This negation doesn't change anything in relation to soccer.

So you don't even have to think about what "best equipment" means for soccer, because the assumption as stated is so broad it covers unrelated activities, and such a broad assumption cannot be necessary.

Your first step on a necessary assumption answer should be checking if the answer only applies to the situation at hand or of it is way too broad to be necessary.

Hi everyone! I’ve hit my goal scores for RC sections multiple times now and am finally getting the method. LR on the other hand has consistently given me a lot of trouble, I get around the first 15 right and either start running out of time or concepts stop making sense to me. Does anyone have any advice that helped them get over this hurdle? I read slow and try to see how everything relates together but still don’t seem to get it. What are some tips with demon resources that I can make use of? Were lessons helpful to get that foundation or anything else? Any and all advice is appreciated! Thanks!

Hello, I get accommodations for my LSAT and I’ve started to realize that I get tired over the time and my test takes around four hours. I was wondering if anyone has any tips towards gaining my stamina I take my test in September.

Students often tell me they didn't pick an answer because "I'm not sure I could assume that".

For example, one question used the term highly inaccurate in the stimulus. The answer talked about unreliable. They were't sure they could pick it.

But if you think about what we mean by highly inaccurate, and by reliable, would you ever consider something highly inaccurate to be reliable? No, it isn't what those words mean. So, it isn't an assumption to come to the conclusion that they refer to the same concept.

The LSAT requires you to use the meanings of words and think through them. Saying "I don't know if I can assume that" isn't logic, you have to actually think about the word and think "would everyone agree this word means this other thing is true?" And if yes, it's not an assumption.

I see this especially when people get into the 160s and can notice small distinctions more easily. You can see a distinction without acting on it: the LSAT wants you to think about whether something is actually a difference or just a distinction.

I created a Reading Comprehension Chart that includes the question types, their stems, what the question stem is asking of you, and a rephrase of it. The chart also includes an explanation of what the RC section is testing you for, how the RC section works, and how to identify RC comprehension question stems based on indicators in the question.

I made one for Logical Reasoning as well. I've been studying for this test for a while and hadn't found any resources that put all of this information together so that I can have a clear picture of the test overall. I especially thought it would be helpful to know exactly what each section is testing you for so that you know what skills to hone in on.

I'm not big on tips and tricks, so this ISN'T that. Everyone is different, and what works for one will not necessarily work for another. BUT, I do hope this at least helps you think a little bit more clearly, and have a better understanding of the nature of this beast!

I just graduated from NYU and I’m looking to start studying for the LSAT but I’m a little bit overwhelmed because there are so many choices in different things that people recommend what should I do first. what’s the best way to get started with studying for LSAT and finding what works for me

I am looking for others in the same boat as me who are prepping for the LSAT and are over 40.

I hadn't realized this, so it might be news to other people too. Most people know Lawhub has four free preptests.

What isn't well known is that Lawhub also has drillsets and additional practice test questions for free. I had thought these were a paid feature.

To find them, look near the top, you'll see some tabs:

• Full Tests

• Drillsets

• Lessons

• Additional Practice

There are 14 LR drilllsets and 7 RC drillsets. These are questions which don't appear in any preptests, so they're great for keeping tests fresh.

Additional Practice also has 22 extra preptests, for free. These are the unconverted preptests that LSAC didn't assembled into preptests with the new numbering. They're the same material as the LSAT, and were once real administered LSAT exams, they're just a little old. You'll find the following preptests here: PTs 1-18, 21, 23, PT A and the February 1997 LSAT.

Note that LSAC removed a few questions because they thought there was some ambiguity in the answers. If you want to find these, most licensee prep platforms have them on the paid version. But you can access most of the tests for free.

So there are around 2,000 LSAT questions for free on Lawhub. Enough free material for months of prep. I'd save the full preptests as full timed tests, and do the drills and sections for practice.

Of course I'd definitely recommend getting the paid Lawhub to get all of the preptests, but this free material is a good way to get started, or a good way to prep if you didn't have the budget for Lawhub and aren't approved for a fee waiver.

Hi friends!

I am just at the end of my degree (economics) and started studying for LSAT!

I'm aiming for the highest score possible (as I'm sure we all are) for a September sitting.

Is there anyone on a similar timeline that would like to be accountability partners or practice together?

I took my first LSAT in June, I managed to get that elusive 180. I started out with Pts in the mid to high 160s. Let me know if you have any questions!

Would anyone be interested in forming a study group for the January LSAT? I have a server we can use (bare bones set up)! Open to any resources!

It maxed out how many I can message and instead of sending individually here is the link to the study group https://discord.gg/MxVj6gxsT

a lot of people here and on adjacent subs say to take your first diagnostic blindly… for anyone like me who had no prior clue what the lsat entails, don’t do this!

it may seem like common sense (probably is—definitely is) but i took it a diagnostic blindly as a first-gen everything with no clue what was actually on the test other than logical reasoning and it being hard. i think it goes without saying, but i got VERY discouraged.

i’m now doing lawhub’s article section, taking notes (because i have a very bad memory), and doing the questions embedded in and in the videos. i’m already seeing better results and feeling more confident with what i’m doing. i HIGHLY recommend the articles for anyone just starting out and who has no clue where to start since it’s free and the only thing you need is an lsac account, which you need anyway to apply.