Zen of 180 - Outfox the LSAT

LSAT Analyzer updated with PrepTest 65

2012-01-27T17:02:00.001-05:00

In case you haven't tried our free, online LSAT self study tracker, we've updated to a version where you can input your answer data from all of the official LSAT PrepTests 19-65. The analyzer will then track your performance (no need for a complicated Excel document) and prioritize the Zen task standards by how many questions we predict you'll miss on a modern LSAT. That way you know exactly how to target your self-prep!

We're also in the process of updating the data output to be graphical, so if you have any comments about what you'd like to be able to do with your data or have suggestions for the data entry parts of the site, we'd very much appreciate them at development@zenof180.com.

We'll be updating the site frequently so that you can track the older PrepTests, as well as providing more video explanations for how to approach each Zen task standard and eventually explanations for all LSAT questions, ever. That way you can only buy the explanations you need, rather than for all the questions in an entire PrepTest.

Below is the video explaining the general features of the analyzer, but be sure to check it out as there are even more features packed in that didn't make the 3:30 cut.

June 2012 LSAT: Time to Start Prep

2012-01-23T09:00:00.001-05:00

If you're preparing for the June 2012 LSAT and haven't yet tried out our free online LSAT tracker, now is a great time to start.

We've also updated our LSAT prep calendar--the Google Calendar gadget towards the top of the right side-bar--for the June 2012 test takers, which you'll see has our clients starting their law school research and LSAT preparation in a few weeks!

We're in the process of upgrading the analyzer to include video explanations, interactive graphs in addition to the interactive table, and personalized LSAT practice material based on your missed question and timing data. If you've been using the analyzer and have any suggestions for the upgrade, please let us know at support@zenof180.com.

Finally, we're officially opening the list of tutoring clients for the June 2012 LSAT, so read about our online LSAT tutoring, and get in touch with Bryan at tutoring@zenof180.com if you're ready for a free initial consultation!

Post October 2011 LSAT: PrepTest 64 Scale Score Graphs

2011-10-26T14:16:00.002-04:00

The October 2011 LSAT scores were emailed earlier this week, so we hope that you end up with the score you wanted (what should you do now?)! If you didn't, read up on our advice for retaking the LSAT.

Also, if you've somehow managed to get your hands on the PrepTest, you can already analyze your accuracy and timing performance at our online LSAT tracker for free.

For everyone else, you can still benefit from the graphs we've got showing how the raw score translates into the 120-180 scale score and what people mean when they ask "Was it a hard or easy curve?" At Zen of 180, we advocate calling it a generous or ungenerous curve.

All LSATs are normed against the previous so that, statistically speaking, a person who got a 172 on the December 2007 should score within a specified band, +/- 2 of the reported score. This is to normalize performance across LSATs that obviously have different questions: so, the same person might miss 8 questions on one LSAT and 12 on another, but still earn the same scale score of 172.

The first PrepTest (-8) would be a hard curve, and the second PrepTest (-12) would be a easy curve. Here's where it gets confusing: the latter test would have, on average, harder questions, making the same person miss more and still be performing at the same (scale score) level.

So, at Zen of 180, we refer to these scales as generous or ungenerous. A generous curve makes up for harder questions, while an ungenerous curve compensates for easier questions. The concepts are the same, but the language makes it more clear what the relationship is between the number of questions you can miss and your eventual scale score.
For you visual learners, here's a graph comparing the average and range fluctuations of PrepTests 53-62 in gray bands with the actual range of PrepTest 63 in red.

PrepTest 64 had an odd curve compared to the previous 10 PrepTests: average in the top 1 percent of scores (from ~172-180), and then generous through the bottom quartile (historically so at 158 and 152).

In the graph, the gray vertical lines for each scale score show the range of raw scores that produced that result in PrepTest 53-62. For example, the lowest raw score for 173 was 7 missed questions, and the highest was 10.

PrepTest 64 fit perfectly within the historical average for scale scores 180 through 171. However, 170-150 was a generous cuve, hitting a new record high at 158 and 152, and always well above the middle quartiles, which are shown by the darker horizontal bands cutting across the range lines.
Hopefully this makes it clear why you can take a PrepTest, miss four more questions than you're used to, and yet still get the same scale score. Worse yet is when you miss four fewer questions, and you still get the same scale score and feel like you were tricked by LSAC! Keep in mind that the scores are normalized across all PrepTests, so be sure to compare your scale scores to each other rather than just your missed questions.

Below is the complete graph for PrepTest 63, from 180-120, as well as a graph linking to an explanation of the scale score's interaction with the bell curve.

More about LSAT scale score/bell curve.

PrepTest 64 starts out as expected and ends up "generous," even setting new records. Click for larger view.

Post-October 2011 LSAT (What now?!)

2011-10-04T09:00:00.004-04:00

The following post is part of a series from one of our LSAT tutoring clients. You can read about their experiences by clicking on the "Zen Journal" label above.

Two days ago, I took the October LSAT for the last time ever. * Cue celebratory jig *

The week before the test, my body decided to throw a little coup d’état on me. At the beginning of the week, I had many different and conflicting symptoms, which was confusing and upsetting, to say the least. I coughed, felt light-headed and congested. My stomach ached, I wanted to throw up all the time and I saw the world as if looking through a haze. I’ve had the hazy feeling before and recognized it as a sign of stress – the last time it happened, I had come back from a research trip in Africa and was probably suffering from PTSD. At the suggestion of friends, I rushed to buy orange juice and Airborne, which I proceeded to gulp in large quantities. All the symptoms, besides the nervous stomach, subsided by Thursday. Maybe the second grade teacher who created Airborne really did know what she/he was doing…

I spent the day before the LSAT reading books and watching silly movies. A quick word of advice – don’t read anything potentially depressing before the LSAT, even if it’s billed as humorous (i.e., Dave Sedaris’ more recent works). Then, on Friday night, a party started up in courtyard of my apartment complex. Around 10pm, when I went to bed, a bunch of raucous grad students started having conversations under my window. My boyfriend and I went out three times to explain to people (first nicely, then not so nicely) that I was taking a test tomorrow and I needed to sleep, but the talking didn’t stop until almost 2 in the morning, despite the downpour that started happening around midnight! This type of thing almost never happens in my courtyard, since the building is mostly PhD students and post-docs with small children, so it was sheer bad luck.

I woke up weary-eyed on Saturday, ate breakfast, and went on my way. Frankly, I don’t remember much of the test, except that one of the proctors had a Mohawk and looked like she might smack people down forgetting their social security number, which a couple of college students did. As expected, the logic games section was still challenging under timed conditions and the lack of sleep certainly didn’t help. Since LG was my second section, I had to force myself to focus for the remaining three sections. The strange thing was that the names my two student organization co-leaders (both unique, ethnic names) showed up in one of the games.

I kept picturing them and thinking to myself, “Why are you doing this to me, guys?”

Logical reasoning was no harder than usual, but I have a feeling that I second-guessed myself more since it was the real exam. At the fifth section, the passages in the reading comprehension came as a relief. Since I had done so many five-section practice tests, I didn’t have a problem with losing focus by the end. What I didn’t anticipate was how nervous I would be during the test, but I don’t know that I could’ve prepared any harder than I have already done.

After the LSAT, my body went through a detox and I quickly cleared every single item on my desk that has been touched by the LSAT. Over the past few months, I finished around forty full-length practice tests. I have so many LSAT prep books that I had to get an extra large box because they wouldn’t fit in a normal sized one (when I tried to move that box, it wouldn’t budge). On Sunday, I reveled in doing ordinary things, like having brunch with my sister and prancing around the supermarket.

The LSAT is done and I will never have to take it again. Whatever happens, I’m grateful to my friends and family who have gone above and beyond to support me during this period. I’m also happy to have been Mr. Bennett’s student, because without him, my preparation would have been directionless and misguided. He encouraged me and honed in on my LSAT weaknesses in a way that no test prep company could have done.

By the end of this month, I plan to turn in my applications to a wide range of schools. At this point, I’m still doing a balancing act – trying to make sure my law school letters of recommendations are in order and that my personal statement and resume are the absolute best they can be, while catching up on all the schoolwork that I’ve been neglecting for the past month.

Good luck to everyone who’s studying for the upcoming LSATs! My parting pieces of advice – make sure you know why you want to go to law school before you take on this beast of a test, carve out enough time to prepare for it, and don’t take it if you don’t feel absolutely ready.

LSAT PrepTest Score Analyzer Live!

2011-09-28T14:30:00.001-04:00

In case you haven't tried our free, online LSAT self study tracker, we've updated to a version where you can input your answer data from all of the official LSAT PrepTests 40-63. The analyzer will then track your performance (no need for a complicated Excel document) and prioritize the Zen task standards by how many questions we predict you'll miss on a modern LSAT. That way you know exactly how to target your self-prep!

Also, if you take an LSAT with your browser open on the analyzer, you can input your answers in real time and the site will also record your timing data... which you can then analyze by Zen task standard. That way you can figure out which types of questions are causing you to go over the section time limit and address them specifically in your practice, as well!

We'll be updating the site frequently so that you can track the older PrepTests, as well as providing more video explanations for how to approach each Zen task standard and eventually explanations for all LSAT questions, ever. That way you can only buy the explanations you need, rather than for all the questions in an entire PrepTest.

Below is the video explaining the general features of the analyzer, but be sure to check it out as there are even more features packed in that didn't make the 3:30 cut.

Analyzer will be Down (and Updated) this Evening

2011-09-26T09:00:00.000-04:00

For those of you who haven't yet seen our free LSAT score analyzer, today is your last chance to do so.

By Tuesday morning, we should have the new version up and running, with the ability to time, categorize, analyze, and track your LSAT performance for any real LSAT from PrepTests 40 to 63. We'll be constantly updating the analyzer with all the PrepTest data and start rolling out video explanations and graphical displays of your LSAT performance.

If you plan on using the new service and have already entered your test data for the sample PrepTests in the old analyzer, we apologize as we'll have to wipe your data in the upgrade. We hope you like the new features so much that you won't be too miffed.

Plus, it's free! Go get your Zen on.

Week before October 1, 2011 LSAT

2011-09-20T15:50:00.001-04:00

In case you haven't already planned out the week before you take the LSAT, I wanted to repost my suggestions for what worked for me to stay calm and focused. Such a personal goal will obviously be subject to personal preference, so take these as a friendly-suggested checklist.

If you've already started prepping for the December 3, 2011 LSAT, check out our posts for our suggested LSAT training schedule, and then see if you'd like to sign up for one of our online tutoring spots. Also, keep an eye out for our updated LSAT Analyzer, which should be launched by next week and will tell you which question types to focus on in your self-prep.

I'll limit this post to things LSAT-related, but in general, I'd delay tackling any life decisions or drastically changing your life routine. The week before the LSAT is not a good time to bust out, "We need to talk."

In a nutshell:

Visit the site before the test day
Do not practice after Wednesday morning on the week of the test
Do relaxing activities throughout the weekend
The night before, sleep ~2 hours more than you usually do
Eat breakfast, bring food and drink (caffeine) for break
Bring your used pencils and highlighters… they should be your friends by now
Arrive EARLY

Read something before, like the NY Times, to warm up

Take one portion of each section type--one logic game, one passage, ~10 logical reasoning questions, from the most recent LSAT, and check them at end of each section

Compare your score from when you first took it, and I’ll guarantee that you did better

The weekend prior to my test date, I drove to the test center to make sure I knew exactly how I would get there, where I would park, and where the testing center was in relation to the parking. Trust me, these trivial things will seem monumental if any one of them might make you late to the LSAT. I worked backwards from what time I needed to be at the testing center, gave myself three hours to acclimate, eat breakfast, and warm-up my brain, and travelling time plus 15 minutes for "damage time."

I spent the first part of the week before the LSAT following my normal routine to a tee. I went to the gym in the mornings, I went to every class, and I read the New York Times. If you don't have healthy routines built up by the week before, try abstaining from the more cognitively detrimental ones: arguments with loved ones, drugs/alcohol, sleeping late or not enough, etc.

Since I was in the endurance part of my LSAT training, on Saturdays and Wednesdays I normally took two full LSAT PrepTests in a single sitting. I decided that preparing for a longer time than the actual LSAT was the best way to make sure that I was not going to wilt in the 5th section like I did the first time.

However, that last week I gave myself Wednesday morning off. In general, I don't suggest my clients spend any time with actual sections after you only have five days until the test day, as your body and mind will be completely rejuvenated for the actual exam.

I spent those last few days thinking happy thoughts while swimming laps or lifting weights. Staying calm and positive, through yoga, meditation, spa getaway, prayer, exercise, etc, is definitely the way to be spending your time this last week before the LSAT.

Also in those days, I printed out a few pages of the June 2007 PrepTest to use as warm-up material the day before. As that was the first modern PrepTest I used in my practice, I felt it would provide a nice full-circle narrative to my LSAT prep. When choosing your own warm-up material, choose one of each section type from a modern LSAT you feel comfortable with, and print out or copy that to use on test day. After making sure my warm-up materials were taken care of, I planned out my break menu, including healthy foods like apples and granola bars, as well as energy drinks. Obviously, this is personal preference, but if you can stand caffeine, I suggest a tiny bit during the break to bring you through the last two sections.

The night before, I packed up everything I was taking with me into a ziplock bag, including my trusty pencils and highlighters. By now, these objects should be your best friends, and make sure you feel comfortable with them.

I made sure to arrive at the testing site about three hours early. This gave me enough time to settle in a side hallway, eat my breakfast, read the newspaper, and do my LSAT warmup. Reminding myself of how much I had prepared while doing the warmup was incredibly calming; my mind was tuned up and ready for the LSAT, and I went in knowing I was going to do well.

The key to overcoming stress is to acknowledge why you're feeling it! Beating yourself up for be anxious will only make it worse, so allow yourself to think about why you're worried. After acknowledging, though, you must take control and remind yourself of how well prepared you are.

Counter each of the fears with a solid reason of why you will do well, and get your Zen on!

T-minus 1.5 months to October 2011 LSAT

2011-08-24T16:48:00.002-04:00

A lot of people who self-study for the LSAT prepare the same way throughout their training regimen. While they may vary the amount of their practice—as evidenced by people bragging on forums about how in their LSAT prep schedule, they took one real test a day for a month leading up to the test—most self-studiers do not adapt their LSAT practice to their individual needs or truly maximize the remaining time before the test.

This lack of variation is akin to a professional Olympic distance runner only training by running the actual length of their race. For those of you who are not aware of athletic training regimens, this would never produce results for a world-class athlete; similarly, creating an LSAT calendar filled with only 4 section PrepTests will not prepare you for the actual test.

In fact, most students will simply plop down with the latest PrepTest and call that an “actual” LSAT, forgetting that while the official LSAC books may be actual questions, they are not actual length. That is, they are missing the experimental section. Consistently training your mental endurance at only 80% of the actual test length is a recipe for a fatigue disaster. This is why we call it LSAT training, not prep, at Zen of 180.

Not only do people rarely meaningfully differentiate their practice based on time-to-test, they even more rarely meaningfully adapt their practice to their individual LSAT weaknesses. This is mainly due to a problem of classification. While everyone can say, “I have the most trouble with logic games,” it’s another story entirely to accurately say, “I have difficulty diagramming hybrid sequencing/grouping games.” Not only can LSAT self-studiers not jump the classification hurdle, another two lay beyond: finding material to practice solely those logic games, and accurate instruction or explanation in order to improve strategies.

The question becomes, “I have less than two months of time-to-test before the October LSAT (or circa four months of t-t-t for December), how should I be changing my LSAT study?” The answer is going to be different based on what practice you have already done, but we’ve laid out the ideal Zen study calendar. You can easily merge your personal Google calendar to either of our public ones by clicking on the "+GoogleCalendar" button on the bottom right of the widget.

The Zen calendar has five basic sections:
Pre-study (time-to-test: 1 year to 4 months)

Decide which law schools you want to attend, and what LSAT score you need in order to have favorable chances of acceptance
Buy LSAT practice materials, starting with the official LSAC administered tests
Take the free sample PrepTests from June 2007 and October 1996

Diagnosing (time-to-test: 4 months to 2 months)

Take 1 to 2 full (i.e. with experimental sections) LSATs per week for 5 to 10 weeks, until you have at least 10 full LSATs to analyze
Record the questions you miss into some meaningful classification system (either Zen task standards, or by question stem for LR and RC and game type for AR)

Self-correcting (time-to-test: 2 months)

Use one weekend to review the LSATs and analyze all of the questions you missed, grouping them by section and then whatever system makes the most sense to you
If you don’t have access to a complete classification system, the best way to group LR and RC questions is by question stem. For instance, group all the “follows if assumed” questions into one pile, and so on
I prefer an excel spreadsheet for this, but if you’re not computer savvy, simple tally marks will do, and the best way may be to physically cut out the questions and group them into piles
Identify your LSAT strengths and weaknesses, celebrating the former and considering explanations for the latter
There are tons of free resources online to offer you help on specific question types; search for your LSAT weaknesses by question stem and you’ll find advice on how to tackle that kind of problem
Go into a bookstore and browse through the various LSAT prep-books and see which ones, if any, offer solid strategies for the question types you identified as weaknesses

Develop an action plan for your weaknesses
Write, in your own words, a list of action steps you will take whenever you encounter one of your weaknesses
Do not allow these action plans to interfere with your LSAT strengths
Examples
“When I see a ‘follows if assumed’ question, I’m looking for a principle that justifies the argument”
“If the rules say the pieces go one after another and all must be used, it’s a simple sequential game”

Practice your action steps (time-to-test: 2 months to 1 month)

Take 2 to 3 concentrated study sessions of only one type of section for 3-5 weeks, alternating within the week between two section types
For example, if you have the most trouble with LR and RC, each week create an LSAT made up of four LR sections and another of four RC sections by combining different PrepTests
As you come to your weaknesses, consciously recognize them and employ your action steps
At the end of each section, spend 5-10 minutes analyzing your mistakes and evaluating your action steps

Ideally, this phase should be complete or nearing completion for LSAT self-studiers with about two months until the LSAT. In the weeks until the LSAT on October 1, 2011, we advocate between 10-20 hours a week in targeted practice. We do not advocate ever taking more than two full tests a week for the first month and a half of your LSAT self-study, as the mental (and physical) toll begin to noticeably wear on your ability to perform. The goal is to build endurance, not reach exhaustion.

After practicing your action steps, you may find that you are making systematic mistakes in another question stem or game type, or that your action steps are not accurately addressing the weaknesses. At this point, and if there’s time, you should repeat the self-correcting process and find new explanations that make more sense to you. It may be necessary to rethink your LSAT test date, as you should only have 1 month remaining until the test.

Build endurance (time-to-test: 1 month)

For the last month before the test, take two PrepTests (with all three section types) in one sitting, twice a week
Use the most recent PrepTests available right before you take the LSAT
For example, if you have 4 weeks left, you should be using PrepTests -44 in the first week and 60-63 in the last
Each session should be eight sections over ~5 hours, with breaks between sections 3-4 and 6-7
At the end of each session, analyze your mistakes and evaluate your action steps

If you follow the Zen calendar, not only will you differentiate your LSAT practice by your personal needs and time-to-test, you will also focus your efforts where they are needed most and build enough endurance to prevent fatigue on the test day. If you need help adjusting your personal situation to our LSAT schedule, please don’t hesitate to e-mail at tutoring@zenof180.com

Halfway Point to October 2011 LSAT

2011-07-29T12:45:00.001-04:00

The following post is part of a series from one of our LSAT tutoring clients. You can read about their experiences by clicking on the "Zen Journal" label above.

For those of us who are preparing to take the October test, we are almost to the half way point. Those few days at the end of every month that I’ve spent on LSAT prep seem like a mini-grace period. This week was a good one for breakdowns, moments of self doubt, bouts of procrastination, tantrums - just get it all out of your system before August 1.

My friend, who is taking the MCAT in a week, laughed when I described my version of ridiculous grace period behavior during the past few days. On Monday, I decided to take an afternoon off work to hang out with my partner when he had his wisdom teeth taken out. On this surface, it was an admittedly noble excuse – I even made the man two types of soup because I was sincere in my empathy, thank you very much! After we came back from the appointment, I realized that I needed that afternoon off as much as he did. I ended up cracking open a sappy New York Times best seller (for the record, I need to stop visiting the public library), finished it on speed-read mode under four hours and commenced sobbing on my bed.

This behavior clearly alarmed my partner; I could see his confused expression - wasn’t he supposed to be the one crying from the awful pain of wisdom teeth removal? I thought I was crying about the fact that the main character’s husband died, came back to life, fell in love with her over again, and died…again, but the first whiny words that came out of my mouth were: “I can’t do the LSAT…it’s too hard.”

Oh, I see. I’m kind of melodramatic, especially when there’s a willing audience.

However, I also believe that crying – when kept at a minimum – is one of the best ways of relieving stress. As is sleeping. In college, I was always amazed at my ability to con myself into taking 6-hour naps whenever a deadline approached. My lovely roommates refused my pleas to “wake me up after 30 minutes” because my semi-conscious self could charm/annoy them into leaving me alone. That said, I’m proud that I’ve never pulled an all-nighter in my life (the closest I came was going to sleep at 3am because of my high school science project) - because I simply can’t. That’s not all. Having exhausted my eyes from crying and given myself a raging headache that lasted all of the next day, I fell asleep at 9pm on Tuesday night and slept until 7:30 the next day. That’s 10.5 hours of sleep, which made me even sleepier on Wednesday.

So – what caused this little LSAT breakdown? PrepTest 34, which I diligently took according to the Zen schedule, last weekend. Up until this point, I’d been skipping Reading Comprehension sections on prep tests, because I knew it was my strongest section. On Prep test 34, I had no issues with RC timing and only got 1 question wrong overall. Still, I’m doing every RC section from now on because I heard the passages were getting harder (and I managed to get 7 questions wrong on the RC section of the real test because of nerves). The next two LR sections reflected improvement – the number of wrong answers had dropped by half. I now average about 3 – 4 wrong answers per LR section and Mr. Bennett is confident that I can get up to the point where I make no more than 1 – 2 wrong per section.

The last section was the feared LG. I delved straight into the first game, which took me more than 12 minutes to slog through. It was a rather undetermined game and even though I’d done it before without much trouble back in June, its undetermined nature scared me. In the past 2 months, I had improved enough to have certain games “crack open” after just a few deductions (for example, I really enjoyed the red/green/yellow lights in stores game, in section 4 of prep test 34 and also the red/yellow/blue clothes on the mannequins game from the October 1999), but this was not one of them. That was enough to throw me off my game (pun caught upon proof-reading, not intended) and I ended up missing about 10 questions, including an entire game that I hardly even finished diagramming. I tallied up the number of wrong answers per section and was too demoralized to check my score, until….

…this morning, when Mr. Bennett and I checked the score together during our tutoring session. I got a 165. Cue: “Welcome to the 60s!” from Hair Spray! That’s still 14 points lower than what Elle Woods got in Legally Blonde, but it’s more than 10 points higher than the score I got on my real LSAT in December.

“You need to believe that you can reach 170, young grasshopper.” Mr. Bennett said to me, “you’re not going to score lower than 165 unless something goes wrong, and you let it go wrong”. I added the part about the grasshopper – for the record, Mr. Bennett bears little resemblance to Mr. Miyagi, at least physically. Anyways, I still need to get my LG time way down if I’m aiming for above a 170, but at this point, a 10-point jump is more than enough to get me out whatever weird behavior I was exhibiting during my LSAT grace period.

During these past 2 weeks, I started to type up all the LR questions that gave me trouble, including which wrong answer I selected, what the write answer choice is and most importantly, why. I plan to do this for all the prep tests because typing up something – and I do mean manually (now where is my handy dandy personal assistant?) – is slow and boring. This is why the process writes the lesson on your brain in permanent marker. Incidentally, the Zen Google calendar agrees with me – it will start to instruct you to “SELF-CORRECT” in capital letters (and possibly in a drill-sergeant voice) in 2 weeks. Mr. Bennett has helped me identify and articulate the types of mistakes I tend to make and that awareness has led to a significant score improvement in LR.

Despite crying mishaps and nightmares, I know I have ample time to improve, and so do you. Enjoy throwing that tantrum (however you like to throw those - everyone is different) and move on!

Focus on Logical Reasoning in LSAT Prep

2011-07-15T09:54:00.006-04:00

The following post is part of a series from one of our LSAT tutoring clients. You can read about their experiences by clicking on the "Zen Journal" label above.

The time has come for a full onslaught of logical reasoning. I’ve always had mixed feelings about this section. On the one hand, LR is not as scary as LG – but on the other hand, I’ve seen some LR stimuli that are "wicked convoluted" (two words that don’t work so well together, I just realized).

It turns out that I’m not so great at LR either, but the fact that I can finish a section within the time limit (whether I get 1 question wrong… or 8) means a lower mental wall to breach. Skipping difficult games or LG questions gives rise to a panicky feeling in my throat, but I don’t mind skipping LR questions that I find confusing or not worth pursuing (i.e. – the really long parallel reasoning questions).

Mr. Bennett and I identified some areas of my LR weaknesses based on completed practice tests (I’m still on my LSAT schedule…what?!) and it turns out that I’m not really consistent in terms of where I mess up – not surprisingly. In the last two lessons, we went over the questions strands that gave me the most trouble: “definition assumption,” “fix by add”, “fix by remove,” “weakens” and “points at issue.” That seems like a long list, but I try to remind myself it's only a fraction of the 22 tasks the Zen LSAT system tracks.

Learning the correct way to think about how to answer a LR question has turned out to be trickier for me than tackling a logic game. When faced with a LG, I jump right in, drawing the diagram that makes the most sense to me. I deal with the consequences later.

A note from the editors: If your logic games diagrams are approaching complexity, think about how to simplify them.

LRs aren’t as straight forward because they contain words that actually have meaning, as opposed to LG, which have “multicultural” characters with names like “Fu” and “Mohamed,” whose diversity means nothing to the test taker. Also, the details in the tiny LR paragraphs are surprisingly hard to keep in your head, especially at 8:30am pre-coffee. In Mr. Bennett’s words, “the LSAT is evil!”

But we knew that already.

After a two-lesson mental wrestling match with LR, we finally had a “break through” today while I was working on one of the sample questions from a particular strand. I followed through on Mr. Bennett’s approach to this question time and voila! Many of the explanations for the logical reasoning question types can be found online – take a look and try to internalize how to do each type of question because the rules will help you (and save you time, as well as agony). What I’ll be doing this weekend is going through all the practice test LR sections, identifying the questions that I got wrong and making a note of why I got each question wrong on a Word document. There’s no sense in doing practice tests if you can’t learn from them. At least, that’s what I will aim to do…in between yoga, lunches, “The Tree of Life”, family time and a barbeque. Hey - shoot for the moon, right?

As of one hour ago, I am officially registered for the October 1, 2011 LSAT. Registering wasn’t a big deal because I’d done it before, but I’d probably get chills if I let myself think about it for too long.

This is probably my last attempt at the LSAT. While I was in New York last weekend, LSAT nightmare #2 came my way. It was the same dream as the first time – I was in a room taking the test even though I knew I still had 2.5 months to study. I wish my LSAT nightmares would at least get more creative – can’t I be taking the LSAT while flying and/or sitting next to Adrien Brody, who clearly also aspires to go to law school? His face is so mesmerizing that I wouldn’t even score above a 140.

To all of you who are pretending to be undecided (but who have actually decided), you should register before your closest, least noisy test center runs out of room! If you need some inspiration and are into soulful advice columns of the literary variety, check out this one, a letter written by a struggling woman writer and answered by the “Sugar” on the online lit magazine The Rumpus. In some ways, the letter writer’s question is specific, but the beauty of the answer is that it applies to every one who has ever struggled to produce, whether it’s their first novel or a desired LSAT score. “The only way you’ll find out if you ‘have it in you’ is to get to work and see if you do,” writes the wise Sugar. “The only way to override your ‘limitations, insecurities, jealousies, and ineptitude’ is to produce.” Everyone – we still have time. Let us produce.

October LSAT Grind

2011-07-08T09:41:00.002-04:00

The following post is part of a series from one of our LSAT tutoring clients. You can read about their experiences by clicking on the "Zen Journal" label above.

The good news is that I haven’t had another LSAT nightmare since the first one I wrote about. The bad news is that last week, while I was in that twilight place between awake and asleep, I made up a logic game in my head! I was earnestly trying to diagram it (I remember drawing little slots) before I realized what I was doing and nearly fell off my bed. As I remember, it was a linear sequencing game –because, clearly my subconscious mind isn’t sophisticated enough to make up other types yet. Maybe in a few months, I will start making up games with sequencing, grouping and assignment elements involving 5 tiered-matrix and 12 conditionals.

I can’t wait.

Last week I passed an important tutoring milestone – I’ve finished all my official Logic Game lessons with Mr. Bennett. I’ve gotten to the point where I can (usually) get 3 out of 4 games right, which is definitely progress. Unfortunately, however, this is the where the slow, hard work kicks back in. Causal chains (for example: if Liam eats oranges, Kelly does not eat melon) are still very problematic for me. Mr. Bennett wants me to practice reading chains forward and backwards instead of drawing out the contrapositives, which, according to him, not only shaves away precious time but also are not helpful in most cases. Still, the habit of drawing contrapositives is hard to break after Testmasters and the LG Bible stamped it into my poor head.

In addition to the weekly assigned practice tests, I have also started doing individual LGs by category. When I run into LGs that are particularly hard to diagram, I write down what the necessary deductions were and do the game again over on a rotating basis until I’m comfortable with the diagramming and the deductions. If I have trouble diagramming a game from the beginning, I go over the game with Mr. Bennett, who first looks at my diagram and comments on how I could improve it. If my diagram proves to be completely scatterbrained, he diplomatically suggests a new one which I then attempt to incorporate into my mental filing cabinet of diagrams.

It’s impossible to study for the LSAT using memory alone (if only the LSATs were the SATs – alas), but memorizing certain things, such as how to diagram conditionals and remembering what deduction I didn’t make the first time, does help me solidify the permutations of LG question patterns in my mind. My policy school friend, who will be going to Columbia Law School as part of her concurrent degree in the fall, told me that it was really helpful for her to summarize all the LG LSAT tips on a Google Doc and refer back to it once in a while. My goal for this week is to go back over the games Mr. Bennett and I completed during our tutoring sessions and write down as much of his wisdom as I can recall.

Now that my LG skills are no longer shameful, I’ve only started to realize that I need up my Logical Reasoning score as well. The word on the street is that it is harder to improve in the LR section than the LG because the tricks of the difficult questions are that much more subtle. Luckily, Mr. Bennett has categorized the LR into types and most of these types are linked to explanations on how to attack them. I’ll have more on that in my next journal entry.

This weekend I’ll be taking a small mental vacation from the LSAT in New York City where my partner and I will be visiting his friend, who landed a professorship at Columbia straight out of his PhD (how cool is that?!). I thought about taking a prep test with me (and I probably will just out of guilt), but ended up running over to my lovely local public library just before it closed and getting some books (glorious, non-LSAT/work related books!). I’m taking “The Adderall Diaries”, “Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses” and - I couldn’t resist because I was raised by one and will most likely morph into one – “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” for the road.

Editors note: we are aware this isn't the subject matter of Amy Chua's book, but we couldn't resist.

This long-awaited weekend will be a good detox session my humming-LG-creating mind.

Three Months Until October 2011 LSAT

2011-07-05T07:18:00.002-04:00

The following post is part of a series from one of our LSAT tutoring clients. You can read about their experiences by clicking on the "Zen Journal" label above.

There’s less than 3 months to the actual LSAT in October and the anxiety is starting to creep into my daily routine. My partner is in feverish dissertation finishing mode, so the atmosphere in our apartment, which is usually pretty relaxed, can all of the sudden become very tense. I had a minor freak out this morning when he suggested turning off the noisy air conditioning, but gave in when I reminded myself that he was probably under even greater stress. I’ve stopped having any desire to cook or bake, which are activities that usually help me de-stress – now it just seems like a waste of time (not that I don’t waste time procrastinating). While I’ve been pretty successful in cutting down on the amount of summer social events, I found that too little socializing is not ideal either (the feeling is one of getting sucked down an interminable rabbit hole). The goal is to have effective and efficient periods of study time with sufficient “rewards” to keep myself from going absolutely crazy.

October will be the last time that I’ll take the LSAT and recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I would do if I don’t get the score that I want. I concluded that I would probably apply for a master degree in law (LLM), for which the LSAT is not a requirement. An LLM does not provide as rigorous of a training as would a JD and of course, I would not be able to practice law in the US. On the plus side, it’s a 1 year degree (meaning that I would get both my MPP and law degree in 3 years rather than 5), you get to forgo the supposedly horrifying 1L experience and the classes would be related to my field of interest because LLMs programs are more specialized than JD programs. All this is not to say that I won’t try my best this October, but – coming up with a backup plan as to how I would still work in the legal field without a JD takes some of that intense pressure off my already compressed mind. Just something to think about.

In Logic Games Land, Mr. Bennett and I have been working on games that combine elements of sequencing, assignment, grouping games. While I’ve gotten much better at combining rules together and making “high level” inferences, my weakness lies in the lack of awareness of details (which derives in part from my lack of patience in general). In some games, I would make the crucial first step in an inference and then move onto the questions without taking a few minutes to think about the implications of that first step. Mr. Bennett is great about pointing out these bad habits, but when I’m practicing on my own, I tend to regress.

At this point, Zenof180’s instructional videos on Viddler become helpful; Mr. Bennett is preparing them as part of the next phase of the LSAT score analyzer's development, which should hopefully be up and running in August. In the LG videos, Mr. Bennett take the viewer step by step through the diagramming of the games on Preptest 62, which I incidentally took last December. Going into the actual test, I had very little training and practice in how to diagram LG, so I remember the games to be exceptionally hard. In particular, game 2 (stained glass windows), made my crash-and--burn all the more epic.

If it looks deceptively complicated, it probably is. Check out Barcelona Photoblog for more amazing pictures.

However, armed with my past month of lessons with Mr. Bennett, the two games, including the maniac stained glass game, that tried to do again didn’t seem so daunting. Doing the game before watching the explanatory video was really helpful in terms of seeing where Mr. Bennett’s and my diagrams differed and what inferences I had failed to make. Be sure to check them out once the full analyzer launches.

I hope you all took a barbecue or fireworks break during the long weekend and emerged refreshed for another week of INTENSE studying. Stay sane, stay on track but don’t fall down the rabbit hole.

June 2011 LSAT, PrepTest 63 Raw Score to Scale Score Conversion

2011-07-01T12:56:00.001-04:00

The June 2011 LSAT scores were emailed earlier this week, so we hope that you end up with the score you wanted! For everyone else, you can still benefit from the graphs we've got showing how the raw score translates into the 120-180 scale score, and what people mean when they ask "Was it a hard or easy curve?" At Zen of 180, we advocate calling it a generous or ungenerous curve.

All LSATs are normed against the previous so that, statistically speaking, a person who got a 172 on the December 2007 should score within a specified band, +/- 2 of the reported score. This is to normalize performance across LSATs that obviously have different questions: so, the same person might miss 8 questions on one LSAT and 12 on another, but still earn the same scale score of 172.

The first PrepTest (-8) would be a hard curve, and the second PrepTest (-12) would be a easy curve. Here's where it gets confusing: the latter test would have, on average, harder questions, making the same person miss more and still be performing at the same (scale score) level.

So, at Zen of 180, we refer to these scales as generous or ungenerous. A generous curve makes up for harder questions, while an ungenerous curve compensates for easier questions. The concepts are the same, but the language makes it more clear what the relationship is between the number of questions you can miss and your eventual scale score.

For you visual learners, here's a graph comparing the average and range fluctuations of PrepTests 53-62 in gray bands with the actual range of PrepTest 63 in red.

PrepTest 63 had an odd curve compared to the previous 10 PrepTests: ungenerous in the top 1 percent of scores (from ~172-180), and then generous through the bottom quartile.

In the graph, the gray vertical lines for each scale score show the range of raw scores that produced that result in PrepTest 53-62. For example, the lowest raw score for 173 was 7 missed questions, and the highest was 10.

PrepTest 63 was at or below that lowest range for scale scores 180 through 171, making it an ungenerous curve in that range. However, 170-163 were par for the course, hitting the average middle quartiles, which are shown by the darker horizontal bands cutting across the range lines. Finally, below 163, the number of missed questions was significantly higher than the range and average, making this part of the curve generous.

Hopefully this makes it clear why you can take a PrepTest, miss four more questions than you're used to, and yet still get the same scale score. Worse yet is when you miss four fewer questions, and you still get the same scale score and feel like you were tricked by LSAC! Keep in mind that the scores are normalized across all PrepTests, so be sure to compare your scale scores to each other rather than just your missed questions.

Below is the complete graph for PrepTest 63, from 180-120, as well as a graph linking to an explanation of the scale score's interaction with the bell curve.

More about LSAT scale score/bell curve.

PrepTest 63 starts out "ungenerous" and ends up "generous." Click for larger view.

Post-June: Should You Retake the LSAT in October?

2011-06-28T17:52:00.004-04:00

It's that time of year. It comes around in early March and July and again in late October and December. Thousands of people around the world start asking themselves "Should I retake the LSAT?"

What people rarely realize, though, is that many thousands more are asking themselves another question, "What LSAT score do I need?" And even fewer people realize that these questions are really two sides of the same coin. If you're still mystified by how your mistakes (the raw missed score) translated into the final three-digit score (the 120-180 scale score), we already explained the LSAT scale score conversion.

If statistics held true, at most 5 people scored a 180 on the June 2011 LSAT. Everyone else has some room to be wondering if they could've done better if they had just spent more time studying those tricky logic games where there are only two rules and tons of deductions to make from there.

If you're wondering either question, we have some excellent information and tools for you to consider. We spent a month going over the LSAT scale score statistics made available by LSAC's research arm and describing how our founder moved from a 172 to a 180--and in the process developed the system Zen of 180 is based upon.

You can read more about improving from 172 to 180 on the LSAT and exactly what the graph means.

We also asked some of our clients to describe their experience using the LSAT goal setting process we advocate, which can also help you see what scores you need for your list of law schools. Once you know that information, you can tell if the three digit number that arrived in your e-mail will be high enough to start the law school application process. If not, get your Zen on in time for the October 2011 LSAT!

How does the average re-taker's scores change the second, or third, time they take an LSAT? Some information from LSAC:

Data shows that scores for repeat test takers often rise slightly. Most people take the test only once; last year 70.2% of the total number of test takers took the LSAT just one time; 24.5% took the test twice; and approximately 5.3% took the LSAT more than twice.

While that information is somewhat helpful, it's really not an accurate glimpse of the whole picture. When we disaggregated the data into how each person performed on the retake by their initial scale score, some illuminating trends developed.

Please note that in this graph we have excluded the repeat test takers who made the same scale score or only marginal improvements. We chose each standard deviation's cut-off point as the definition for "significant gains" because of the stress caused by preparing for the LSAT: if someone decides to retake the test, they need to have a solid return on their investment.

For each scale score along the x-axis, if the blue "significant gains" bar is visible above the red "harmed" bar, then more people scored in a higher standard deviation than scored lower on the retake. Conversely, if the blue bar is hidden by the red, then more people with that scale score actually lost points on the LSAT retake.

What this graph clearly shows is that people who initially score below the cutoff of one of the LSAT scale score's standard deviations at ~158 or ~170 have the most likelihood of benefiting from retaking the LSAT. While this could be an artifact of our definition of "significant gains" as moving into a new standard deviation bracket--that is, they only have to improve a few points to be counted--it could also be because those test takers knew how much they had to gain by improving their score only a few points. Regardless, the trend is striking and has held across modern LSATs.

Settling into an LSAT Routine

2011-06-24T13:22:00.001-04:00

The following post is part of a series from one of our LSAT tutoring clients. You can read about their experiences by clicking on the "Zen Journal" label above.

The doldrums of summer rains has come to Boston; cold and rainy weather, combined with too much florescent lighting at my workplace, has affected my mood and made me heavy-headed. Except for my year abroad, I’ve lived in Massachusetts since I moved to America (Geneva is not the sunniest place in the winter either, because it’s in a valley that gathers clouds). People keep telling me that I should consider moving to California – something that I would definitely do if most the career opportunities in international relations weren’t located in the Northeast. Sigh.

I was a little bit ahead of the Zen October 2011 LSAT schedule when I first started with LSAT tutoring from Mr. Bennett. However, I attended an Indian wedding (that unfortunately didn’t have choreographed Bollywood dancing, but did feature the groom arriving on a horse and the bride arriving in what looked like Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis) in Maine last weekend, which set me back a week. It was glorious to witness the lovely traditional ceremony and dance all night to the best wedding playlist ever, but it’s also great to be back on track with studying again.

This week, I’ll be finishing PT 25 and 26 according to the schedule with the rest of the October crowd – hopefully I can stay on this schedule until the bitter end.

In the last two LG sessions, Mr. Bennett and I worked on grouping and assignment rules, the latter of which is apparently one of my many nemeses. I think that my diagramming skills has improved (thanks to Mr. Bennett and my purple highlighter), but I’m still not synthesizing rules in a way that contributes to my understanding, which according to the Zen system is key to solving games fast. This is partly due to both lack of practice and lack of patience. The question that I consistently get wrong on any LG is often the most straightforward one – the “list” question at the very beginning. All you have to do, most of the time, is check off the rules one by one. But in my mind, the ticking of the phantom clock becomes louder and more distracting to that process. As Mr. Bennett assures me all the time, “you may spend a long time on the diagram or one question, but that helped you do these other questions in 2 seconds flat, so don’t get frustrated.” On the LSAT, frustration gets you nowhere.

In happier news, I think I’m still on a slight upward trajectory. In PT25, I was able tackle 3 of the 4 games and get most of the questions right (again, very unprecedented for me). However, in every LG section I encounter at least one game that stops me short in my tracks. I have a few more weeks of LG instruction with Mr. Bennett to learn all the LG material and meanwhile, I need to dedicate more time practicing each type of LG (grouping and assignment) and examining Zen’s free online explanations of LSAT logic games. Meanwhile, since I love making lists, here are some of the other goals I have in mind for the next 2 weeks:

Try to spend no less than 11 minutes on each game (that I can diagram)
Do an additional 5-7 games for practice in addition to the assigned PTs
Go over games done during the lesson and write up a “best practices” worksheet for how to approach games
Practice correctly interpreting various versions of the “if-then” statements
Try not to get impatient when I run into a roadblock
Work during weekend mornings when my energy level is highest

I’ve also made slight progress on the Logical Reasoning sections through concentration, awareness and word matching, which Mr. Bennett alluded to briefly at the end of one of our LG sections. On my best day, I’m getting no more than 2 wrong per section. I’m also starting to develop a weekday routine, which goes something like this: yoga/running/tutoring session, breakfast, 2 – 3 hours of LSAT practice, lunch with a friend, work at my research jobs from 1:30 – 5:30pm, gym, drinks with friends/dinner and 2 hours of LSAT before bed (if I’m lucky and there are no distracting social events happening that night…yeah, still working on that). It’s such a luxury to have such a regular routine, because the school year was punctuated by periods of alternating high stress and quiet lulls. I’m still feeling like I’m spreading myself too thin, but routine definitely helps me get the assigned work done and getting into shape doesn’t hurt either (the past few months have been the first time in my life that I’ve gone to the gym consistently).

I’m also starting to annoy my friends by saying things like “Wow – that analogy you just made reminds me of a logical reasoning practice question I did this morning!” Don’t let it happen to you. I hope everyone has a productive, relaxing weekend. Here’s to the sun coming back to Boston soon!

Getting over LSAT Mental Roadblocks (and Nightmares)

2011-06-18T10:25:00.001-04:00

The following post is part of a series from one of our LSAT tutoring clients. You can read about their experiences by clicking on the "Zen Journal" label above.

My second week of tutoring started off with a BANG (hey - I’m trying my best to make LSAT prep sound dramatic and exciting)! I met Mr. Bennett for two 1-hour sessions for early morning sessions on Tuesday and Thursdays at the Harvard Law School library, which is thankfully empty of bar review students so early in the morning. I’m not naturally a morning person, but I’ll go out of my way to create reasons (whether it’s yoga, running, or LSAT tutoring) to get up before 8. There’s something about the early morning that makes me feel refreshed and renewed; I always think to myself, “It’s a new day! Perhaps I won’t procrastinate today!" Ha.

On Tuesday, we addressed an issue that had been on my mind the week before - the timing of the tutoring sessions. Like the rest of you who are following the Zen schedule for the October LSAT, I had been doing prep tests 23 and 24. I understood that doing prep tests was important for Mr. Bennett’s evaluation of our strengths and weaknesses, I was getting frustrated every time I ran into a hard LG that I couldn’t do. We had only had 2 lessons on sequencing games, and while I could do those relatively well, the panicky feeling came back every time I ran into a more complicated game type, followed by me throwing my pencil across the room. We decided we would spend the next 3 weeks working on LG lessons, so I can learn the material as fast as possible and focus on practice games starting in July.

On top of my frustration with full length Preptests, I had my first LSAT nightmare, in which I was sitting in an exam room, about to take the June 2011 LSAT (which, in real life, had already passed). I kept saying, “No – this is a mistake, I’m not ready yet! I still have 3 more months to prepare!” – but of course, no one listened to me and I ended up being bulldozed by the first section, which was not even LG (I think it was LR). Ouch.

The nightmare was symptomatic of the root cause of my inability to face the LG section: FEAR. After our 1-hour lesson, I revisited the LG sections of Preptest 23 and 24 (where I’d tried out every game but completed very few) and discovered, to my surprise, that I could make my way through them and get at least half of the answers right per game (major progress for me). In our 1-hour session, we covered no more than 3 games (sequencing and assignment types) and while I’d picked up a variety of useful tips on how to approach LGs from Mr. Bennett, I’d also gotten an unexpectedly powerful mental boost. This was partly due to Mr. Bennett’s encouragement and partly due to realization that I could trust and develop my LG “intuition” as I tackled more and more games with his guidance (side note: I wonder how whether the “perceptual knowledge” concept featured in this NYtimes article has anything to do with improvement on the LG section). I need to keep this momentum going.

I was also pleasantly surprised that I actually liked diagramming games in a combination of boxes, circles and arrows using my highlighter and pencil (how crazy is that?). I used to draw a great deal when I was young and to this day, drawing still has a powerful calming effect on me; thus, my newest frustration with LSAC is that I cannot bring rulers into the test to make neat grids. None of this means that I’ve suddenly become a LG whiz, but I think that finding new ways to reduce fear (whether it’s LSAT or anything else in life) will always lead to substantial progress.

Sad hulk, indeed. Check out Chris Uminga's work.

Besides good old hard work, one of the keys to achieving LSAT competence, at least for me, is sacrifice. I’ve given up a few important things that I wanted to do in order to study for the LSAT. I might have mentioned in my last blog post that I originally planned to intern in Kenya this summer for one of the many interesting local NGOs working on justice sector reform. I forced myself to decide in March that I wouldn’t apply for these internships because the mental energy required for adjusting to another country would mean the end of LSAT studying. Several of my classmates are currently interning in Nairobi for the US government and various development organizations; I fume and turn a Hulk shade of envy green every time I see the albums they post on Facebook or read their travel blogs. On top of that, I just turned down a teaching assistant position for the criminal justice class that I took last semester, because the bulk of the responsibilities for organizing student fieldwork happened to fall in August and September. Being a teaching assistant for a professor I admire was something I’d really wanted to do for a long time as a way of deepening my own learning and earning some work-study money, so I was really sad about having to say no.

Of course – the term “sacrifice” is relative; my parents sacrificed all their free time working for the past few decades so I could go to college and one day have the luxury of sitting around complaining about much I’m sacrificing to prepare for the LSAT. But all I’m saying is that it’s not possible to focus on studying for a juggernaut of a test like this without giving up some things you enjoy. For me, that means cutting out time with friends that I really want to see. I’ve had the fortune of going to graduate school in Boston area, where I went to both high school and college. This means that most of my family and social networks are still nearby, which makes focusing on the LSAT more difficult. A 3-hour catch up dinner with a college school friend means that I’ll be too tired to study when I get home. Multiply that a by a few times per week and that means I’ve lost 10 – 15 hours of potential study time. I’m still trying to figure out how to deal with the challenge of simplifying my life in order to maximize my study hours this summer without alienating my friends.

I’d actually love to hear from all of you – whether you’re just starting to think about taking the LSAT or have been taking prep courses or tutoring lessons from Mr. Bennett for a while. What is it about this test really scares you (have you had any LSAT nightmares)? What other challenges get in the way of your studying LSAT? How do you address and overcome these challenges? What do you have to sacrifice to focus on this test? And lastly - why do you want to go to law school, or - in other words – is the LSAT really worth your time? Let’s get it all out there in the open.

Mobile Version from Blogger

2011-06-10T11:11:00.001-04:00

Blogger finally got on the ball and updated its services to point mobile devices to a mobile version of Blogger created material; I've been pining over Wordpress' beautiful mobile iterations for almost a year.

It's a good first crack at a universal transfer, and for the pricetag, it's hard to complain.

Mobile version of the site, with the various links and new logo banner.

However, the horizontal views are much better than the vertical. Let us know if you have any trouble accessing the site from your mobile device, and we'll forward along suggestions!

Choosing the LSAT because of the Law

2011-06-03T16:31:00.000-04:00

The following is the first blog post from one of our Zen students who is preparing for the October 1, 2011 LSAT. You'll be able to read about their experiences throughout the summer. You can also contact us if you'd like to sign up for online or in-person Boston LSAT tutoring.

This is my first blog post after two tutoring sessions with Mr. Bennett, who is a classmate of two good college friends of mine, both now at Harvard Law School. I have struggled (and continue to struggle) with the LSAT since my sophomore year of college, but I have only come to the realization of why I wanted to go to law school in the last three months. The explanation is rather long winded, but in order to talk about the LSAT, it’s important to how I got to this point. After this one, I promise that my future blog posts will focus on my LSAT progress. Your comments on content, length and style are more than welcome.

About a month ago, I finished the first year of my 2-year masters in a public policy school, where I’m studying international relations with a focus on human rights. Before I started graduate school, I interned for less than a year at a small (but burgeoning) human rights organization based in Geneva that focuses on legal rights and criminal defense in several countries in Asia and Africa. To avoid literally starving in one of the most expensive European cities where your basic Starbucks coffee costs $7, I became a part-time au pair for the wonder woman who founded my NGO. I also became a fairly decent cook, which has gotten me through the first intense year of grad school scurvy free!

I’ve wanted to go to the policy school that I now attend since I was in middle school; my family immigrated to this country when I was eight and it had always been my father’s dream (deferred, as most immigrant dreams seem to be) to work in international relations. But even throughout college, I didn’t think of law school as a real possibility because I simply didn’t see how it was related to me. As I started to express my particular interest in policy, my very nervous parents – understandably, the voices of pragmatism –began pressuring me to consider law school in the hopes that I would one day make a good living as a corporate lawyer. As much as I respected their fears and reasons for pushing me, I resisted. It was still easier to tell my parents that I was studying for the LSAT when I knew (and they knew) that I wasn’t.

The wall I put up against the legal profession started to break down when I realized that upholding human rights is about protecting those who aren’t able to protect themselves; in this regard, law is one of the most powerful weapons in a limited cache. In particular, I became interested in transitional justice after a trip to Rwanda in college, where I attended a “grassroots” gacaca trial that represented a devastated society attempting to come to terms with the tricky balance between justice and peace. This past March, my program funded me to Kenya to research corruption in the judicial system in the context of the recent International Criminal Court investigation of politicians accused of inciting post-election violence that killed more than 1200 people in 2007-2008 (note: grad school is pretty awesome).

In Kenya, I realized that 1) every internship that I’d done in the past 3 years had been law related; 2) the knowledge of law is crucial to the field in which I eventually want to make a career; and 3) it’s NOT fun times when you don’t have a law degree and lawyers decide to talk down to you. The first layer of my mental Berlin Wall had fallen, only to reveal another layer – the LSAT.

The LSAT, or more specifically, the Logic Games, has become my arch nemesis. Half of the problem was that I could never justify spending 3 – 5 months preparing for it! I “took” a Testmasters course last summer before I started school, but I spent most of that summer running around Queens and Brooklyn collecting immigrant housing surveys for (yet another) legal nonprofit. The other half of the problem I shall call Fear of Logic Games. I’d never been good at math or logic; for a time, it was hard to even look at a game without wanting to take a nap (ie - my natural coping mechanism). Since Testmasters wasn’t a targeted program, I got better at the sections (RC and LR) that I was already doing fairly well in, but I didn’t get any specific help on LG where I needed direction the most. Daunted by LG, I barely completed a quarter of Testmasters’ practice questions and allowed the summer internship to become too time-consuming. As a side note, my New York apartment was too creepy, even during the day, to be a good study environment – which turned out to be key for an incredibly unfocused person like me.

Graduate school started with a roar and I took the exam in October 2010 (my “practice run”), canceled my score and took it again in December, which was just GREAT timing because it landed smack in the middle of my two quantitative finals and my 3 final papers. I was actually doing well in the first 4 sections until LG smacked me in the face during section 5 – it was all crash and burn from there. I’ve heard that December 2010 had a particularly harsh LSAT, but since I never learned how to do LG systematically, I wouldn’t have gotten half the questions right even if I hadn’t panicked in such an embarrassing way. I kept my score and applied to law schools on the off chance that I would get in, but my heart wasn’t in my applications and I got rejected so fast that it was tragically comical. I only applied to the schools that had a concurrent or joint degree with my policy school and my score was nowhere close to being competitive. So much time, energy and money (that I did not have) – wasted.

I was rejected and very burned out; but then again, I realized (much like one of the previous Zen students) that I hadn’t done my best on the test. For the lack of a more eloquent way to say this – it really REALLY SUCKS to responsible for my own failure, but honestly – I didn’t have a shot at winning this game before I came to terms with why I was doing this. But now that I have an inkling of my motivation, I will try my best to destroy this bizarre section of this arbitrary standardized test that still stands in my way. This summer, I will be working mostly on LG (and a bit of LR). We started at the very beginning with sequencing games. So far, the lessons have been very useful in helping me work through the setups with minimal frustration. Mr. Bennett is encouraging and patient, but he doesn’t waste time coddling my insecurities; this is good because I can’t make excuses for myself any longer. October will most likely be my last shot at the LSAT; if I don’t go up a good 15 points, I will find a job in the expanding human rights field that doesn’t require a JD. But I have 4 months – and though I still can’t bring myself to do all LSAT all the time just yet (I’m working on a few research projects part time) – I hope to spend 20 hours a week plugging away, ever so slowly.

SOLIDARITY to everyone who’s in the October 1, 2011 LSAT boat, GOOD LUCK to the June test takers (you are so close to freedom) and GO Mavericks!

Week before June 6, 2011 LSAT

2011-06-01T14:26:00.001-04:00

In case you haven't already planned out the week before you take the LSAT, I wanted to repost my suggestions for what worked for me to stay calm and focused. Such a personal goal will obviously be subject to personal preference, so take these as a friendly-suggested checklist.

If you're prepping for the October 1, 2011 LSAT, check out our posts for our suggested training schedule, and then see if you'd like to sign up for one of our online tutoring spots.

I'll limit this post to things LSAT-related, but in general, I'd delay tackling any life decisions or drastically changing your life routine. The week before the LSAT is not a good time to bust out, "We need to talk."

In a nutshell:

Test Day

Visit the site before the test day
Do not practice after Friday morning on the week before
Do relaxing activities throughout the weekend
The night before, sleep ~2 hours more than you usually do
Eat breakfast, bring food and drink (caffeine) for break
Bring your used pencils and highlighters… they should be your friends by now
Arrive EARLY

Read something before, like the NY Times, to warm up

Take one portion of each section type--one logic game, one passage, ~10 logical reasoning questions, from the most recent LSAT, and check them at end of each section

Compare your score from when you first took it, and I’ll guarantee that you did better

The weekend prior to my test date, I drove to the test center to make sure I knew exactly how I would get there, where I would park, and where the testing center was in relation to the parking. Trust me, these trivial things will seem monumental if any one of them might make you late to the LSAT. I worked backwards from what time I needed to be at the testing center, gave myself three hours to acclimate, eat breakfast, and warm-up my brain, and travelling time plus 15 minutes for "damage time."

I spent the first part of the week before the LSAT following my normal routine to a tee. I went to the gym in the mornings, I went to every class, and I read the New York Times. If you don't have healthy routines built up by the week before, try abstaining from the more cognitively detrimental ones: arguments with loved ones, drugs/alcohol, sleeping late or not enough, etc.

Since I was in the endurance part of my LSAT training, on Saturdays and Wednesdays I normally took two full LSAT PrepTests in a single sitting. I decided that preparing for a longer time than the actual LSAT was the best way to make sure that I was not going to wilt in the 5th section like I did the first time.

However, that last week I gave myself Wednesday morning off. In general, I don't suggest my clients spend any time with actual sections after you only have five days until the test day, as your body and mind will be completely rejuvenated for the actual exam.

I spent those last few days thinking happy thoughts while swimming laps or lifting weights. Staying calm and positive, through yoga, meditation, spa getaway, prayer, exercise, etc, is definitely the way to be spending your time this last week before the LSAT.

Also in those days, I printed out a few pages of the June 2007 PrepTest to use as warm-up material the day before. As that was the first modern PrepTest I used in my practice, I felt it would provide a nice full-circle narrative to my LSAT prep. When choosing your own warm-up material, choose one of each section type from a modern LSAT you feel comfortable with, and print out or copy that to use on test day.
After making sure my warm-up materials were taken care of, I planned out my break menu, including healthy foods like apples and granola bars, as well as energy drinks. Obviously, this is personal preference, but if you can stand caffeine, I suggest a tiny bit during the break to bring you through the last two sections.

The night before, I packed up everything I was taking with me into a ziplock bag, including my trusty pencils and highlighters. By now, these objects should be your best friends, and make sure you feel comfortable with them.

Time to Start Thinking About October, 1 2011 LSAT

2011-05-23T13:18:00.000-04:00

While the June test takers should be getting ready to be getting ready for the week before their LSAT date (...!) it's time for those thinking about taking the October 1, 2011 LSAT to get cracking.

We still have the larger Zen calendars floating around the blog, but we're phasing it out for the simpler calendar on the right-hand toolbar, underneath the Zen cloud.

Press the "+ Google Calendar button (not here... on the toolbar, silly!)

Those October preppers will also be able take advantage of the free analyzer, which we're furiously working to make perfect. If you want to get started with the demo and the free sample LSATs, be sure to check out analyzer.zenof180.com.

For those of you who are curious, here's what it will look like... Notice the timing features and get excited!

Timing and accuracy data recorded while you take the test... Looking forward to its launch!

Time to Change Study Mode for June 6, 2011 LSAT

2011-05-07T09:46:00.001-04:00

If you're following the Zen Self-Prep Calendar for the June 2011 LSAT, you know to start endurance practice this upcoming week. Merging your personal Google calendar to our public one is the first step to making your you’re on track for the LSAT, and that you’re differentiating your practice to fit your time-to-test and individual LSAT weaknesses.

You should have just finished the phase of practicing your action steps, which is where you apply the strategies you found from the Zen of 180 or other sources for your individual weaknesses.

You may have found that you are still making systematic mistakes in several question stems or game types, or that your action steps are not accurately addressing the weaknesses. At this point, and if there’s time, you should repeat the self-correcting process and find new explanations that make more sense to you. It may be necessary to rethink your LSAT test date, as you only have 1 month remaining until the test.

Now it's time to start building endurance (time-to-test: 1 month)

For the last month before the test, take two PrepTests (with all three section types) in one sitting, twice a week
Use the most recent PrepTests available right before you take the LSAT
For example, if you have 4 weeks left, you should be using PrepTests 47-50 in the first week and 59-62 in the last week before the LSAT (check the calendar as it's broken down for you!)
Each practice session should be spent taking eight sections over ~5 hours, with breaks between sections 3-4 and 6-7
At the end of each session, analyze your mistakes and evaluate your action steps

The calendar is well and good as long as you've still got material to cover. If you're planning on retaking the LSAT, that's not always the case, and you might need to get more creative with your material.

Now, creative doesn't mean finding something different from official LSAT PrepTests, it just means recombining and adding older material in. Because the question stems and overall tasks have significantly changed in logic games and reading comprehension since the early 1990s, as well as the relative density of tasks in logical reasoning, we typically don't suggest using the oldest of the PrepTests.

That said, if you're running out of material because you're preparing for a retake, or more likely, you've already used all the most recent PrepTests, you can pair this oldest book with the newest so that it becomes helpful during the endurance phase.

Here's a complete breakdown of how to use older LSAT material, but basically, take one complete old PrepTest right before a modern one... build your endurance while also seeing how you'll perform when that LSAT fatigue starts to kick in!

LSAT, Taxes, and Zen Data Visualization

2011-04-27T10:43:00.002-04:00

In case you couldn't tell, I'm a pretty big geek. As a more-verbal-acuity-inclined person, I have a healthy respect for those who are fluent in manipulating numbers and a love for well-designed graphical presentation. In the process of updating the online LSAT analyzer to track your accuracy and timing data for all the PrepTests, I'm also looking ahead to see how we can better present the information than a dynamic, interactive table.

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information has been helpful in describing the what of what I'm looking for, but being clueless as to any coding more complex than touchups to this blog--like floating that book link to the right of the post!--I've often times been more worried about the how. More specifically, the how long and how much.

And then, people surprise you. Or, more accurately, one of my favorite crowdsourcing methods, this time utilized by Google, inspired a lot of people to take up the challenge of creating a compelling narrative for U.S. federal spending... as a graphical breakdown of your tax dollars. The Data Viz Challenge had a lot of really interesting--so go look at them now--projects, but the winner was so close to what I hope to do with Zen of 180 that I had to share it.

Where Did My Tax Dollars Go? by Anil Kandangath won the prize for obvious reasons. I hope he won't mind me using the graphs as a base for what I hope Zen of 180 will look like by year's end, but he is apparently thinking about posting the code for the project as open source work. Talented and principled is a hard combo to beat.

Be sure to visit the original project and play around with it to see where your tax dollars went.

On to the more verbal side of quantitative information, we also added an infomous interactive tag cloud on the sidebar. We think it's fun to use and helps you keep up with what's been on the blog recently. Let us know what you think--but we're pretty excited to be using the same tools as the Economist...

Update on Flowcharts for Law School Outlines

2011-04-23T12:21:00.003-04:00

One of our readers thankfully pointed out another free online tool for creating flowcharts. Although gliffy.com still holds a place in my heart for its more professional look, lucidchart.com takes my (free) business because its offers a student "professional" upgrade, much larger capacity, and some key, simple features.

Quick comparisons

1 GB space if you sign up for a free account then upgrade it to a student account with your .edu email address versus 5 charts, period

The goal of outlines is to streamline and simplify, but the student/professional upgrade means I don't have to worry about the 60 object maximum. I now don't have to create multiple files for related legal concepts or place text over every line to completely capture the meaning.

user interface is much easier to do the things I need, especially adding qualifying text for whatever line connection I'm drawing between shapes

better publishing features (to image, PDF, website, etc)

AUTOSAVE feature, which can be key when you're on the second hour and 1.5 coffee of crafting a perfect flowchart at midnight

HTML5 versus Flash: although I don't see myself editing on the iPhone--perhaps the iPad would be OK--viewing the flowchart might somehow serve useful...

Here's the final result for how to define a market for antitrust analysis. Overall, not too bad for a free service!

Flowchart for how a US federal court or the European Commission would define a market in an antitrust case.

Game 4: September 2009 LSAT, PrepTest 58 Section 3

2011-04-21T16:32:00.003-04:00

If you're looking for free interactive explanations for LSAT logic games, you've come to the right place.

This game is from PrepTest 58, which was administered in September 2009. The pencast form is pretty good for showing how a 180 LSAT test-taker attacks the logic games section and has 15 minutes to spare.

Questions 18-23 make up a fairly rare matrix game. Although there are lots of different ways to diagram any logic game, we think this game is a prime example of how a matrix is both easier and faster than the alternatives. The seemingly complex restrictions between the different actors are easier to see when they're visually plotted next to each other.

The general task is to select at least three courses from a pool of seven--history, linguistics, music, physics, statistics, theater, and writing--for a summer school session. This kid is clearly still in highschool, and a nice one, at that (statistics over summer anyone?).

As per the real world, some classes cannot be taken together; the game never states that it's because they're in the same time slot, but we like to think of it that way because then it becomes one of the most real-life applicable logic games ever.

Harvard's class registration system is partying like it's 1999, so be warned about multiple-hour waits to register or see grades

September 2009 LSAT PrepTest 58 LG 18-23

Law School Outlines or Flowcharts?

2011-04-18T09:00:00.001-04:00

It's that time of year when many of us law students are creating outlines, forming study groups, and answering practice exam questions. Oh yes, if you're preparing for the June 2011 LSAT, don't think you're off the hook once you get in.

I just wanted to share a quick and free online tool that I've found helpful while creating flowcharts for doctrinal classes. I made the two examples below for corporations using gliffy.com. Unfortunately, to save more than five original documents, you'd have to get a premium membership. I work around this by "printing" to PDF and then starting a new flowchart on the same workspace; rinse and repeat.

The work in progress. I'm not sure I have a good reason for the shapes I use, but there are so many to choose from I feel bad only using rectangles!

I'm not a full-fledged visual learner, but I've found it incredibly helpful to get all the associated ideas linked up in a question and answer flowchart rather than a typical word document hierarchy outline. (If those are for you, the HLS Student Government has brand new, freely accessible outline bank that may or may not be helpful if you're studying or want to see what the hubbub is about.)

The best part about the flowcharts is that I can "print" them into Microsoft OneNote and then link them to my existing class notes. Good times; well, as good as can be considering the circumstances, anyway.

Do not take this as any advice concerning corporate law; as a 1L, no court would find it reasonable to rely on my flowcharts.

Game 3: September 2009 LSAT, PrepTest 58 Section 3

2011-04-11T08:57:00.000-04:00

Questions 13-17 make up an interesting sequencing game because it utilizes a lot of barriers keyed to a supergroup and subgroup. Barriers dramatically limit the permutations in a game, but are difficult for many people to draw cleanly into their diagram; this game is a perfect chance to practice how to visually lock in more complex sequential interactions.

The general task is to order planes--P, Q, R, S, T--into subgroups of domestic and international flights, while taking into account the supergroups of two different companies, Flyhigh and Getaway. There are, of course, some rules governing which type of flight a given plane makes, but all the sequencing rules are contingent on assignment rules.

No wonder flights rarely take off on time. If your diagram looks like this, email so we can schedule some online LSAT tutoring.

September 2009 LSAT PrepTest 58 LG 13-17

Time to Change Tactics for June 2011 LSAT

2011-04-09T09:30:00.000-04:00

If you're following the Zen Calendar for the June 6, 2011 LSAT or are thinking ahead to the September 2011 LSAT, this post will help answer your questions--maybe before you even know to ask them! Merging your personal calendar to our public one is the first step to making your you’re on track for the LSAT.

For you June takers, the pre-study and diagnostic phases for LSAT study should be complete or nearing completion for LSAT self-studiers with about two months left until the LSAT. Now you should be starting to analyze your weaknesses and strengths; find and practice strategies to address those weaknesses; and track your progress to your LSAT goal.

Self-correcting (time-to-test: 2 months)

Use this next two upcoming weekends to review your PrepTests and analyze all of the questions you missed, grouping them by section and then whatever system makes the most sense to you
If you don’t have access to a complete classification system--here are the Zen ones for AR, LR, and RC--the best way to group LR and RC questions is by question stem. For instance, group all the “follows if assumed” questions into one pile, and so on
We currently use an excel spreadsheet for this--we'll have the analyzer ready to do it for you automatically soon!--but if you’re not computer savvy, simple tally marks will do, and the best way may be to physically cut out the questions and group them into piles
Identify your LSAT strengths and weaknesses, celebrating the former and considering explanations for the latter

Read one of our most popular posts from a Zen client about having a "safe space" on the LSAT

Search for your LSAT weaknesses by question stem and you’ll find advice on how to tackle that kind of problem
Go into a bookstore and browse through the various LSAT prep-books and see which ones, if any, offer solid strategies for the question types you identified as weaknesses

Develop an action plan for your weaknesses
Write, in your own words, a list of action steps you will take whenever you encounter one of your weaknesses
Do not allow these action plans to interfere with your LSAT strengths
Examples
“When I see a ‘follows if assumed’ question, I’m looking for one of the four types of assumptions that causes a gap between the evidence and conclusion”
“If the rules say the pieces go one after another and all must be used, it’s a simple tree sequencing game”

Practice your action steps (time-to-test: 2 months to 1 month)

Take 2 to 3 concentrated study sessions of only one type of section for 3-5 weeks, alternating within the week between two section types
For example, if you have the most trouble with LR and RC, each week create an LSAT made up of three LR sections and another of three RC sections by combining different PrepTests
As you come to your weaknesses, consciously recognize them and employ your action steps
At the end of each section, spend 5-10 minutes analyzing your mistakes and evaluating your action steps

Updating the Zen Blog and LSAT Analyzer

2011-04-06T12:43:00.001-04:00

These are exciting times at Zen of 180!

We only have a few LSAT tutoring spots left open for the June 2011 LSAT, we'll be expanding the analyzer to including timing and all the PrepTests with the help of JG Visual, and we're working on a new logo/header with le petite elefant.

Also, we should have a contract with LSAC in the mail that will let us start offering repackaged LSAT material with high quality video explanations. You can bet that we'll be following our vision of helping everyone afford LSAT prep by offering the absolute cheapest practice materials possible.

Here's a rough sketch of the new header; looking forward to the final version.

Below is a short video explaining how the analyzer will help you self-prep for the LSAT. We're excited to roll out the site's new features in time for the June LSAT. Best of all, we'll keep the analyzer completely, absolutely free!

Game 2: September 2009 LSAT, PrepTest 58 Section 3

2011-04-01T09:00:00.001-04:00

If you're looking for free interactive explanations to LSAT logic games, you've come to the right place.

This game is from PrepTest 58, which was administered in September 2009. The pencast form is pretty good for showing how a 180 LSAT test-taker attacks the logic games section and has 15 minutes to spare.

Questions 7-12 make up a rare causal chain game, which is a subset of the assignment strand that can be tackled in many different diagrams, but we think ours is the most efficient. It also has a two limiting rule conditions which make the game easy to finish in less than five minutes.

The general task is to determine which parent-employees volunteer to help set up a company's on-site day care. As can be expected (on the LSAT at least), the parents do not get along and are extremely cliquey. The game centers around whether Felicia, Leah, Masatomo, Rochelle, Salman, Terry, and Veena can get along in a focus group.

At least two of the seven employees potentially included are men. Paternity leave is still a hot topic in Big Law, where men get about half as much time off as women.

September 2009 LSAT PrepTest 58 LG 7-12

Contrapositive: Fair Use of Rastafarians?

2011-03-25T12:51:00.001-04:00

If you aren't at all interested in fair use doctrine for copyrights...

On left is Patrick Cariou's original photograph, one in a series of Rastafarians. On right is Richard Prince's appropriation art and his justification for the transformative prong of the fair use doctrine.

Should a well-known appropriation artist be able to profit from (arguably) minimal changes to the original, (arguably) painstaking work of a lesser-known artist?

What about if the appropriation artist makes several million dollars and museums won't display the original art because "it's already been done"? And what if he never seeks permission of the original artist, and states that he doesn't care about that artist's expressive purpose?

I personally feel this decision came down perfectly, but several of my art-background friends are all about protecting the rights of appropriation artists. You can read the text of the court decision, as well as the original artist's thoughts on his successful suit.

Game 1: September 2009 LSAT, PrepTest 58 Section 3

2011-03-23T12:47:00.000-04:00

Questions 1-6 is a fairly straightforward sequencing game, although it focuses on barrier rules rather than traditional tree rules. It also has a slight twist that throws people off, where the slots are not finite, but can either hold 1 or 2 actors.

The general task is to determine the year in which, from 601-5, and emperor started six different monuments. Mercifully LSAC just named them F, G, H, L, M, and S, although they could spiced up the game with some real-world monuments.

Would monument 'T' have been for 'Terra Cotta Army'?

This game is almost strictly a sequencing game, relying on a free agent monument and three(!) meta-awareness questions to to keep things interesting. On older PrepTests, there wouldn't even be three "fully determined" et al. questions on an entire section. We think this shows that LSAC is committed to increasing not only the complexity of the rules in logic games but also the questions.

September 2009 LSAT PrepTest 58 LG 1-6

HLS Spring Break Video Challenge

2011-03-15T13:28:00.000-04:00

HLS is on spring break! Nothing like the Boston sun in March...

To spice up the only post for this week, anyone who leaves a comment describing the import of each video below will receive a free hour of online LSAT tutoring.

Game 4: June 2009 LSAT, PrepTest 57 Section 1

2011-03-09T09:00:00.000-05:00

If you're looking for free interactive explanations to LSAT logic games, you've come to the right place.

This game is from PrepTest 57, which was administered in June 2009. The pencast form is pretty good for showing how a 180 LSAT test-taker attacks the logic games section and has 15 minutes to spare.

Questions 18-23 is noteworthy only because it came after the dreaded Dinosaur Game, so many people taking the test never even got to this fourth game or don't remember the aftermath.

However, the different types of grants (medical, theater, wildlife, and youth services) can present their own challenge and opportunities. As a Teach For America alumnus, I'm particularly partial to anyone who errs on the side of too many youth services grants.

If you're in a grant-giving mood, check out donorschoose.org

This game has a few elements of each major strand in logic games, but ultimately is a calendar matrix game. It's rare for LSAC to put more than one matrix diagram on a given LSAT, so PrepTest 57 can be good practice for that type.

This game is has a relatively small number of permutations, but if your diagram isn't set up well, the limits aren't immediately obvious. The Zen system of setting up one diagram to display all the interactions and doing the must/cannot be questions first, however, can make sure you make up any lost time with more difficult games.

June 2009 LSAT PrepTest 57 LG 18-23

2011-2012 Law School Application Cycle

2011-03-07T09:00:00.001-05:00

If you're thinking about taking the June 2011 LSAT and want some tutoring help, we have some open spots left! Today we'll outline all the steps you should be taking for the June 6 test date, as well as for the 2011-2012 application cycle.

If you haven't already done so, you should definitely be taking practice tests, using our Zen LSAT calendar to plan everything out week by week. If you're just jumping in, start with our LSAT score analysis for the two sample PrepTests (we're working as fast as we can with our web developer to get all the PrepTest data available)!

If you're still in school, work extra hard to get those As or A+s to boost your GPA. LSAT prep oftentimes consumes students for months, but remember that the two combine to make your "hard factors." Although very few law schools admit that they have cutoff ratios, lawschoolnumbers.com can help show you the types of numbers getting in to your choices. Also, keep in mind that many schools, such as Boalt, seem to highly value GPA.

Everyone should be researching law schools and programs in which you are willing to invest three years of your life and ~$100k. Do not apply willy-nilly to schools, as it's a huge commitment and will cost you application fees if nothing else.

Calculate your chance of admission at these schools.
Develop a tiered list of "dream," "likely," and "safeties" at chance <25%, <50%, and <75%, respectively.

You should also be thinking ahead to your "soft factors," e.g. your resume and personal statement for law school. There's still plenty of time over the summer and fall to worry about them, but push yourself to find a summer internship, win an election for a student group executive board, etc, and think about what stories you can tell an admissions officer that will show how you are both ready for law school and stand out from the crowd.

Last, start thinking about who (and how many!) will write your law school letters of recommendation. Many schools have different minimum, maximum, and preferred number of letters, so be sure to read the post to start planning. Stanford and schools offering merit-based aid are notorious for favoring specialized letters, so be sure to think about all the ways to show your commitment to each school you apply to. Keeping that task manageable is another reason to develop a small but solid list of schools from the beginning of your application cycle!

Meanwhile, get your Zen on with PrepTests 31 and 32!

Dinosaur Game: June 2009 LSAT, PrepTest 57 Section 1

2011-03-02T09:00:00.001-05:00

Questions 12-17 are infamous, often collectively characterized as (at least one of) the hardest LSAT logic games ever. Hopefully everyone will recognize where this picture is from, but the video below will help if you can't figure out what the topic of the game is.

If you said the game was about "color," specifically mauve, you win!

Okay, so it's actually the "color" of "dinosaurs," and they're only toys for a display and not nearly as scary as those in Jurassic Park. But a tyrannosaurus rex does appear, as well as a tricky velociraptor.

The actors are assigned subgroups (colors) and then either selected in or out. The assignment and selection affects which other actors can be assigned and selected, creating a recursive logical nightmare for anyone not using a matrix diagram to sort it all out.

This game is obviously a hybrid of just about every non-sequencing rule that the LSAT can throw at you. The Zen system of setting up one diagram to display all the interactions and doing the must/cannot be questions first, however, can make sure you not only survive the encounter, but that you can do so with five minutes to spare.

June 2009 LSAT PrepTest 58 LG 12-17

Understand your LSAT Raw Score to Scale Score Conversion

2011-02-28T09:00:00.003-05:00

The February 2011 LSAT scores should be emailed sometime this week, so we hope that you end up with the score you wanted! For everyone else, you can still benefit from the graphs we've got showing how the raw score translates into the 120-180 scale score, and what people mean when they ask "Was it a hard or easy curve?" At Zen of 180, we advocate calling it a generous or ungenerous curve.

All LSATs are normed against the previous so that, statistically speaking, a person who got a 172 on the December 2007 should score within a specified band, +/- 2 of the reported score. This is to normalize performance across LSATs that obviously have different questions: so, that the person might miss 8 questions on one LSAT and 12 on another, but still earn the same scale score of 172.

The first PrepTest (-8) would be a hard curve, and the second PrepTest (-12) would be a easy curve. Here's where it gets confusing: the latter test would have, on average, harder questions, making the same person miss more and still be performing at the same (scale score) level.

So, at Zen of 180, we refer to these scales as generous or ungenerous. A generous curve makes up for harder questions, while an ungenerous curve compensates for easier questions. The concepts are the same, but the language makes it more clear what the relationship is between the number of questions you can miss and your eventual scale score.

For you visual learners, here's a graph comparing the average and range fluctuations of PrepTests from 52-61 with the actual range of PrepTest 62.

PT 62 has a generous curve, and thus harder questions: the higher the curve, the more questions than you could miss and still get the same scale score.

In the graph, the gray vertical lines for each scale score show the range of raw scores that produced that result in PrepTest 52-61. For example, the lowest raw score for 173 was 7 missed questions, and the highest was 10.

PrepTest 62 was beyond that highest range at 11 missed questions--making it a generous curve--and it was 3 missed questions more than the middle quartiles, which are shown by the darker horizontal bands cutting across the range lines.

Hopefully this makes it clear why you can take a PrepTest, miss four more questions than you're used to, and yet still get the same scale score. Worse yet is when you miss four fewer questions, and you still get the same scale score and feel like you were tricked by LSAC! Keep in mind that the scores are normalized across all PrepTests, so be sure to compare your scale scores to each other rather than just your missed questions.

Below is the complete graph for PrepTest 62, from 180-120, as well as a graph linking to an explanation of the scale score's interaction with the bell curve.

More about LSAT scale score/bell curve.

PrepTest 62's is a "generous" curve. Click for larger view.

Logic Game 2: June 2009 LSAT, PrepTest 57 Section 1

2011-02-21T09:00:00.001-05:00

Questions 6-11 are a about three actors--Gombrich, Otto, and Raines--who are going to audition twice over a four-day period. If it sounds like you want to have a secretary draw you up a calendar, you're on the right track.

This game is a pure sequencing game, with very little going on besides the fact that the actors all return for a callback. As someone who has done some casting in his day, that is just not realistic.

The Rockettes also don't give everyone a callback...

June 2009 LSAT PrepTest 58 LG 6-11

What should I be doing for the June 2011 LSAT?

2011-02-19T10:06:00.000-05:00

We've already discussed the Zen of 180 overarching approach to LSAT self-prep, including the distinct phases of pre-study, diagnosing, self-correcting, practice, and endurance. If you're self-prepping for the June 2011 LSAT, we suggest you should have started your calendar last week. If not, don't worry, there's still plenty of time to catch up to our LSAT calendar by taking extra PrepTests!

The pre-study (time-to-test: 1 year to 4 months) should already be finished, but double check that you have set an LSAT goal and know what materials you should be using.

Decide which law schools you want to attend, and what LSAT score you need in order to have favorable chances of acceptance
Only buy official LSAT practice materials
Take the free sample PrepTests from June 2007 and October 1996 if you don't already have materials in-hand
Input your mistakes on the sample PrepTests into our free LSAT score analyzer to see where you'll focus your prep

The diagnosing phase (time-to-test: 4 months to 2 months) is where we are now, so make sure that you've got the materials on hand.

Take 1 to 2 full (i.e. with experimental sections) LSATs per week for 5 to 10 weeks, until you have at least 10 full LSATs to analyze
Record the questions you miss into some meaningful classification system (like the Zen task standards for logic games, reading comprehension, and logical reasoning)

If you look at the Zen of 180 LSAT self-prep calendar, then you'll see a week-by-week breakdown of what material you should be using. For instance, during this first week of the diagnosis phase, you should take PrepTests 23 and 24 with an added experimental section. This means you should be spending about seven hours split across two sessions.

Zen LSAT Self-Prep Calendar for June 2011 LSAT

We wanted to clarify what we mean by an "added experimental section from PrepTest 19."

LSAT 101: the LSAT has four scored sections, two of logical reasoning and one each of analytical reasoning and reading comprehension. In addition to these sections, there is a fifth, unscored section, termed an "experimental" by LSAC. It serves as a balancing test for new LSAT questions. While individual test-takers' experimental sections vary--even those taking it on the same day in the same site--it always occurs during the first three sections.

Thus, in order to accurately diagnose your ability to perform on the LSAT, you should practice as closely to the conditions of the actual test. That means five full sections, not four. And in order to maximize your practice, we suggest using actual LSAT material from older PrepTests in order to fill in the "experimental" role.

So, the steps to appropriately using LSAT materials for your diagnosing phase:

Get the older PrepTests in the the "10 Actual, Official LSAT PrepTest" series. The cheapest place we've found is the Amazon store, where you can get a 4-for-3 deal.
Take the first section from PrepTest 19 and use it as an experimental section mixed in as section 1, 2, or 3 when you sit down to take PrepTest 23. (Our calendar supposes you've already done this, so you should be using sections 3 and 4 with PrepTests 25 and 26, respectively).
Be sure to give yourself a 10-to-15 minute break after the third section, as that will also happen on the day of the test. So, 15 + 35x5 = a little more than 3 hours for each practice session.
Continue using the remaining sections from PrepTest 19 as "experimental" sections for PrepTests 24, 25, and 26, then repeat the process for later PrepTests as outlined in the Google calendar.

And that's how to use the experimentals in your diagnostic phase! If you'd like to read about our general approach to LSAT training, and why we even care about approximating the real thing during your first practice, read this original post on the matter.

June 2009 LSAT, PrepTest 57 Section 1, Logic Game 1

2011-02-15T20:12:00.003-05:00

Questions 1-5 are a about a student doing six different activities in a particular order, grocery shopping, hedge trimming, jogging, kitchen cleaning, laundry, and motorbike servicing. This is a pure sequencing game, and deals exclusively with tree rules.

(LSAC was reaching for that M, IMO.)

June 2009 LSAT PrepTest 57 LG 1-5

Zen Student Journal - Why Online LSAT Tutoring?

2011-02-09T17:36:00.002-05:00

The following is the first journal entry from an online tutoring client for the February 2011 LSAT. She's currently in Pakistan, working for democratic reform. The Internet is pretty darn cool. You can also read all the previous entries in the full Zen Student Journal.

Towards the very end of my LSAT take, I stumbled across Zen of 180. I remember wishing I had found it sooner, but while my prep was a little shaky, my last few PrepTests had been in the range of 170-75. I was confident that, at worst, I would get a 170 on the actual day.

However, the exam did not go as planned, and from what I have read on the forums, it does not for most people. Most LSAT re-takers would agree, once the flow of LSAT prep is broken, it is really hard to get it back. Even though I knew that my exam had not gone as smoothly as I was expecting, I still hoped for the best and delayed the inevitable. Yep, procrastination, my ultimate flaw. When my result came in, I had a 165, and while not surprised, I felt a little saddened.

A voice in my head echoed "this is not reflective of your skill". So I registered for a re-take.

It was already the 10th of January by the time I registered. I immediately found my bookmark of the website, and contacted Mr. Bennett for a consultation, as I wanted my prep to be more focused and efficient due to the lack of prep time.

My free initial consultation with Mr. Bennett went really well, and I decided to hire his online tutoring services. He asked me to take a few prep-tests, so that he could customize a prep plan for me.

Some of the features available in our online LSAT tutoring.

So far, I have had two sessions with him, and we have been working on the Logical Reasoning section.

Even though I had been consistently tracking my mistakes, I had been unable to find much of a pattern towards the end of my last prep cycle. I would only get 3-4 questions wrong on average, and they didn't seem to be from a single question type. However, Mr. Bennett picked up on my problem as not having to do with a certain question strand, but various aspects of the entire "extrapolation" strand.

From then on, we have been working on different questions that require extrapolation. According to my study schedule, I will be taking a double Prep-test tomorrow, and will find out about my progress. From the PrepTest I took three days ago, I seemed to be smoother on those types of questions. Sometimes, its the re-calibration of our internalized thinking processes that is the hardest.

In our next sessions, we'll start on Logic Games and Reading Comp.

During my last prep cycle, I had become quite efficient at the LG section. Though I was still struggling with timing, my accuracy rate was almost perfect. I am counting on retaining my accuracy as I proceed with more practice and will dedicate a whole day of doing 5-6 LG sections. I am, more than anything, counting on Mr. Bennett to identify problem areas and help me focus my prep, as all I have left now is one week. I know that given the time, I could do so much better, but because I do not want to wait another year, this is a chance I have to take.

It is truly comforting to have Mr. Bennett in my corner. I have come to appreciate that a more experienced third person can notice weaknesses we ourselves can consistently miss.

Week before February 12, 2011 LSAT

2011-02-07T09:46:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't already planned out the week before you take the LSAT, I wanted to repost my suggestions for what worked for me to stay calm and focused. Such a personal goal will obviously be subject to personal preference, so take these as a friendly checklist.

If you're prepping for the June or September 2011 LSATs, check out our posts for our suggested training schedule, and then see if you'd like to sign up for one of our online tutoring spots.

I'll limit this post to things LSAT-related, but in general, I'd delay tackling any life decisions or drastically changing your life routine. The week before the LSAT is not a good time to bust out, "We need to talk."

In a nutshell:

Test Day

Visit the site before the test day
Do not practice after Wednesday morning on the week before
Do relaxing activities throughout the end of the week
Sleep ~2 hours more than you usually do
Eat breakfast, bring food and drink (caffeine) for break
Bring your used pencils and highlighters… should be your friends by now
Arrive EARLY

Read something before, like the NY Times, to warm up

Take one portion of each section type--one logic game, one passage, ~10 logical reasoning questions, from the most recent LSAT, check at end of each section

Compare your score from when you first took it, and I’ll guarantee that you did better

The weekend prior to my test date, I drove to the test center to make sure I knew exactly how I would get there, where I would park, and where the testing center was in relation to the parking. Trust me, these trivial things will seem monumental if any one of them might make you late to the LSAT. I worked backwards from what time I needed to be at the testing center, gave myself three hours to acclimate, eat breakfast, and warm-up my brain, and travelling time plus 15 minutes for "damage time".

I spent the first part of the week before the LSAT following my normal routine to a tee. I went to the gym in the mornings, I went to every class, and I read the New York Times. If you don't have healthy routines built up by the week before, try abstaining from the more cognitively detrimental ones: arguments with loved ones, drugs/alcohol, sleeping late or not enough, etc.

Since I was in the endurance part of my LSAT training, on Saturdays and Wednesdays I normally took two full LSAT PrepTests in a single sitting. I decided that preparing for a longer time than the actual LSAT was the best way to make sure that I was not going to wilt in the 5th section like I did the first time.

However, that last week I gave myself Wednesday morning off. In general, I don't suggest my clients spend any time with actual sections after Tuesday of the week prior, as your body and mind will be completely rejuvenated for the actual exam.

I spent those last few days thinking happy thoughts while swimming laps or lifting weights. Staying calm and positive, through yoga, meditation, spa getaway, prayer, exercise, etc, is definitely the way to be spending your time this last week before the LSAT.

Also in those days, I printed out a few pages of the June 2007 PrepTest to use as warm-up material the day before. As that was the first modern PrepTest I used in my practice, I felt it would provide a nice full-circle narrative to my LSAT prep. When choosing your own warm-up material, choose one of each section type from a modern LSAT you feel comfortable with, and print out or copy that to use on test day.
After making sure my warm-up materials were taken care of, I planned out my break menu, including healthy foods like apples and granola bars, as well as energy drinks. Obviously, this is personal preference, but if you can stand caffeine, I suggest a tiny bit during the break to bring you through the last two sections.

The night before, I packed up everything I was taking with me into a ziplock bag, including my trusty pencils and highlighters. By now, these objects should be your best friends, and make sure you feel comfortable with them.

I made sure to arrive at the testing site about three hours early. This gave me enough time to settle in a side hallway, eat my breakfast, read the newspaper, and do my LSAT warmup. Reminding myself of how much I had prepared while doing the warmup was incredibly calming; my mind was tuned up and ready for the LSAT, and I went in knowing I was going to do well.

The key to overcoming stress is to acknowledge why you're feeling it! Beating yourself up for be anxious will only make it worse, so allow yourself to think about why you're worried. After acknowledging, though, you must take control and remind yourself of how well prepared you are.

Counter each of the fears with a solid reason of why you will do well, and get your Zen on!

Next Step in LSAT Data Analysis

2011-02-04T09:00:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't heard, we also have an LSAT analyzer that will tell you what parts of the test you need to focus on in order to improve your score.

If you've used it before, we're conducting a survey to guide the next stage of the website development. We're planning to add a feature to collect timing data, include all the released PrepTests, and display the information in graphical form. Depending on your answers, we might even add the ability to input data from your smartphone while you take the paper test!

Below are the videos describing what the analyzer does exactly, so check it out, especially if you're thinking about the June 2011 LSAT.

Planning for the June 2011 LSAT

2011-01-31T07:00:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again, when the winter snows start to make anything look better than walking outside.

That's no LSAT book... is it?

Hopefully that means you're ready to gear up for the June 2011 LSAT, which means you also need to take the two sample PrepTests, June 2007 and October 1996, input the data in our free LSAT score analyzer, order the official LSAT material, and set your LSAT goals based on your GPA and your dream schools’ entering profiles.

I wanted to take this chance to clarify the Zen calendar, how our free LSAT analysis and explanations fit into it, and what exactly the diagnosis phase entails.

There was some confusion on a forum about what exactly we recommend to do while taking two full, five-section LSATs a week for five weeks. We talked about how to add experimental sections to the LSAT so you get used to the full time length, but the most important part of the diagnosis phase is gathering enough relevant data on your strengths and weaknesses.

This doesn't mean however, that you don't go back over the tests you take. In fact, if you're planning self-prep for the LSAT, this phase is the most intuitive and least groundbreaking of the Zen calendar.

As you are taking the PrepTests in the order suggested, you should be reviewing the questions you missed, looking up explanations, and grouping them by type. This will help you get a better picture of how much work you need to do in order to reach your LSAT goals, and will better prepare you to address your weaknesses in the self-correcting stage of your preparation.

The most interesting way that we have seen Zen students group their missed questions is by physically cutting out the questions and placing them into a review notebook. This can of course be done digitally as well, which is similar to what I do for the online LSAT tutoring. That way you can create your own review material for your weaknesses, without having to pay again for a test prep company’s materials, which may or may not fit your needs.

The LSAT PrepTest Score Analyzer will help you target your weaknesses from the beginning of your self-prep, as well as introduce you to the free categorization system we use at Zen of 180 for logical reasoning, reading comprehension, and logic games. That way you don't even have to buy a book from some test prep company. Hopefully we'll have the system updated for all of the PrepTests, not just the two sample ones, in time for the June 2011 LSAT.

In case you haven't already added the Zen Calendar, here it is with a video explanation:

December 2010 LSAT Logical Reasoning, PrepTest 62 Analysis

2011-01-24T11:27:00.002-05:00

This is the last of the analysis for the December 11, 2010 LSAT, which will become PrepTest 62. I'm most interested in making sure that the Zen of 180 algorithms correctly predicted the point distribution for each task strand so that the data in our free analyzer is accurate.

For today, here's the logical reasoning data broken out into task strand. The first number after the strand or task name is the number of questions allocated on the December 2010 LSAT, and the (+/-x) is the deviation from what we expected based on the average across all modern PrepTests.

We did the same analysis for both the reading comprehension and logic games sections.

For the most part, the predicted values were right on target. Even the ones that weren't were in tasks we have already identified as highly volatile across different PrepTests, like justify in the principles strand. Evaluating evidence use still appears to be on the downswing, with the extra questions divided between assumptions, extrapolation, and principles.

Overall, a very standard set of logical reasoning sections with nothing much to comment on beyond the global trends we already found.

Analyze Logical Structure 10

Evaluate Evidence Use 10 (-2)

Strengthen 5
Weaken 3
Fix by Adding 2 (-2)
Helps to Evaluate 0

Identify Assumptions 9 (+1)

Extrapolation Logic 8 (+1)

Most Strongly Supported by [Stimulus] 3
Infer 1
Must also Be True 3 (+2)
Most Logically Completes 1

Principles 8 (+3)

Analyze Details from Different Sources 4

Resolve Discrepancy 4
Point at Issue 0

Identify Similar Logic 3

Most Similar in Flawed Reasoning 2
Most Similar in Reasoning 1

December 2010 LSAT Reading Comprehension, PrepTest 62 Analysis

2011-01-19T09:00:00.001-05:00

I'm still analyzing the LSAT administered on December 11, 2010 to see how generous the curve was, but more importantly, to make sure that the Zen of 180 algorithms correctly predicted the point distribution for each task strand.

For today, here's the reading comprehension data. The first number after the strand or task name is the number of questions allocated on the December 2010 LSAT, and the (+/-x) is the deviation from the expected based on the average across all modern PrepTests. In other words, I'm making sure that the weights we assign to each task in order to predict your performance in the sample PrepTest analysis are correct!

I used to think that the topic of the passage didn't matter enough to be incorporated into the Zen classification system, but then I did some research into the effect content knowledge has on reading speed, which in turn affects how consistently the section gets finished on time. Which is pretty important, so I thought of some ways to increase content knowledge and practice reading opinion pieces at the same time.

If you have a suggestion for a different content-categorization system, let us know in the comments!

Meanwhile, if you compare the deviation for this LSAT to the deviation on the October 2010 reading comprehension section, the Zen system was much more accurate this go around. Overall, the December 2010 reading comprehension section was par for the course.

Passage Content/Structure

Science/Expository - geology, biology
Law/Opinion - medical evidence, expert testimony
Social sciences/Comparative - archaeology, nutrition
Arts and humanities/Transition - comparative, domestic novelists

Passage Structure 8 (+2)

Main Idea or Title 2
Primary Purpose 3 (+2)
[Passage Piece] Function 2
Overall Organization 1

Explicit Evidence 6 (+1)

Passage or Author Says 3
Meaning of or Referring to 1
Mentioned by Both 2
Expert Says 0

Evaluating Evidence 2 (-2)

Refers to [Piece] in Order to 1
Evidence for or Against 1
Additional Info Strengthens 0
Additional Info Weakens 0

Opinion and Tone 4

Passage or Author Implies 2
Attitude on Piece 1
Expert Implies 1

Extrapolation 7

Would Agree About 1 (-2)
Application of or Analogous to 2
Most Supported by Passage 3 (+2)
Continue Argument 1

December 2010 LSAT Logic Games, PrepTest 62 Analysis

2011-01-17T09:00:00.001-05:00

I've just about finished analyzing the December 2010 LSAT, which will become PrepTest 62.

For today, here's the logic games data. I've broken down the games by their rule type and overall classification so you can figure out why you excelled (or had trouble with) a particular rule combination. The number after the rule type indicates how many rules there were for that particular type, and they're ordered by density, not how they appeared on the LSAT.

The story is the same from the October 2010 LSAT logic games in terms of long-term trends in the analytical reasoning section. The more traditional (sequencing) games are more difficult by adding meta-cognitive tasks like "restate the rule."

This trend has even continued into the most difficult game--the stained glass windows--which had one rule each from the entire grouping strand mixed with fluid slot assignments. In addition to the tricky rules, it also had four questions about how actors in a certain fluid position affected both of the other fluid groups! Historically, the "[if] could be [there]" questions are extremely limited, perhaps having one or two on an entire games section!

Look for the logical reasoning and reading comprehension analysis later this week!

Game 1 - Metal operator scheduling appointments

Sequencing (86%), General (14%)

Tree (2)
Barrier (2)
Slot (1)
Min/Max (1)

Game 2 - Artisan creating three stained glass windows

Grouping (71%), Assignment (14%), General (14%)

Together (1)
Separated (1)
Conditional Together (1)
Conditional Separated (1)
Fixed (1)
Fluid slots (1)
Min/Max (1)

Here's the diagram I used for the stained glass windows game: note the three separate groups that must have two and could have up to four each. Be sure to figure out the must mother f-ing remembers!

Stained glass windows: grouping game with a fluid slots assignment component, plus four rare question stems!

Game 3 - Conference with five talks and four employees

Sequencing (50%), Assignment (25%), Grouping (13%), General (13%)

Calendar (2)
Slot (2)
Finite Slots (1)
Subgroup (1)
Separated (1)
Free Agent (1)

Game 4 - Six witnesses testifying in a trial

Seqeuncing (100%)

Slot (2)
Conditional (2)
Tree (1)
Finite (1)

About to Breakdown the December 2010 LSAT

2011-01-14T17:52:00.001-05:00

It has been about a week since the LSAT scores and sections have been released for the December 2010 LSAT.

What did you think of the stained glass game?

I'm sure many of you would have liked to have broken down some of your own stained glass, and I'm looking forward to analyzing the sections to see how they fit within the Zen system. If you're interested, here's the breakdown for the October 2010 LSAT.

So, if you'd like to figure out exactly what went wrong--or why you did so well!--or would like to learn from a cautionary tale, check back next week when we'll breakdown the task distribution on the December 2010 LSAT.

How to (Re)-Incorporate Used and Old LSAT Material

2011-01-12T21:30:00.002-05:00

If you've been preparing for the LSAT on a non-traditional timeline like many of our clients have--say, more than 6 months--you've probably already used the vast majority of real LSAT questions published by LSAC. And since that's the only material that we suggest using in your LSAT prep, it sometimes can become an issue if you're retaking or had to hit the pause button on your LSAT plans. We've already addressed re-using the older LSAT material, so today we wanted to reiterate that solution and apply it to the oldest of the real LSAT books.

If you missed the earlier posts from our LSAT statistics, we've already explained why the older material for logical reasoning and reading comprehension is not ideal. The LR sections have changed noticeably for an LSAT connoisseur, and even a child could see the difference in the comparative passage structure. However, the biggest change is arguably in logic games, where the scenarios seem off the wall and are usually not hybridized like modern games. It's kindof like early versus late Calvin and Hobbes: they're still getting at the same idea, but with completely different levels of polish.

In our professional opinion, prepare so this doesn't happen during the LSAT.

So, is there a place for the oldest PrepTest material in your self-prep? If you are following the normal Zen LSAT calendar, no: you won't run out of material in ~5 months, and PrepTests before 19 won't meaningfully add to your practice.

However, here's a way to modify the Zen calendar to incorporate the oldest LSATs if you've run out of material or want to retake the newest PrepTests.

It's kindof like incorporating experimental sections, but with an entire PrepTest and as part of your endurance practice. Zen students take 6-8 sections back to back to simulate the length of the actual LSAT day and to help prevent LSAT fatigue. While part of the point is to go over all the modern material, another is simply to put your brain through its paces.

So, instead of doing PrepTests 43-46 this week, someone who has already done that material might take PrepTest 7 back to back with 51. Since there are 10 of the oldest PrepTests and five weeks left to the LSAT, that's one way to spread out the material and reuse the newest in a way that will truly test your ability to perform on the real deal.

Trust me, even if you've seen the questions before, having the newer material as sections 5-8 is taxing in a way that will provide some great feedback on your preparedness and ensure you're in top condition come February 12.

Start Building Endurance for February LSAT

2011-01-09T18:32:00.003-05:00

If you're following the Zen Calendar for the February 2011 LSAT, you know to start endurance practice this upcoming week. Merging your personal Google calendar to our public one is the first step to making your you’re on track for the LSAT, and that you’re differentiating your practice to fit your time-to-test and individual LSAT weaknesses.

Now it's time to start building endurance (time-to-test: 1 month)

For the last month before the test, take two PrepTests (with all three section types) in one sitting, twice a week
Use the most recent PrepTests available right before you take the LSAT
For example, if you have 5 weeks left, you should be using PrepTests 41-44 in the first week and 57-60 in the last (check the calendar as it's broken down for you!)
Each session should be eight sections over ~5 hours, with breaks between sections 3-4 and 6-7
At the end of each session, analyze your mistakes and evaluate your action steps

Check back on Wednesday for a complete breakdown of how to use it, but basically, take one complete old PrepTest right before a modern one... build your endurance while also seeing how you'll perform when that LSAT fatigue starts to sink in!

December 2010 LSAT Score Release, Now What?

2011-01-04T22:00:00.001-05:00

LSAT scores for the December 2010 LSAT have not been released before the week of the scheduled date, which is historically very strange. Over the past five years, the December LSAT scores have been emailed out an average of 9 days earlier, with a high of 13 and low of 4. Looks like we're in for an even longer wait than those suffered in 2005.

I'm in my own stew because Harvard doesn't release grades until January 24th-ish, which means it will be almost a month since the exams. In other words, I feel your pain, but expect it to continue.

Meanwhile, I wanted to summarize and link to the information on the blog about how to interpret your score and how to decide whether or not to retake.

More about the LSAT scale score bell curve.

If you're happy with your score, congratulations! You should proceed to the posts about drafting your law school resume and personal statement, as well as how to get the best law school letters of recommendation.

If you're unhappy with your score, it's time to start planning what you'll do differently when you retake the LSAT. You're not alone, as a huge number of people retake, and often to better results on the second LSAT.

Happy Winter Break! Time for June 2011 LSAT...

2010-12-22T17:43:00.001-05:00

I'm on winter break for the next few weeks, and wanted to post this picture my niece drew as the blog's Holiday Card. Although it says Merry Christmas, it also has an uncut evergreen being decorated by forest creatures, so I think it's pretty non-denominational.

If you're preparing for the February or June 6, 2011 LSAT dates, be sure to check the Zen Calendar, and if you're interested in what a 1L does on winter break, check the Twitter feed at the top of the blog.

And Happy Holidays! Get your Zen on.

LSAT Score Cancel or Keep: From View After 1L Finals

2010-12-18T10:01:00.004-05:00

Contrary to many people's misconception, I did not earn a perfect score on the December 2007 LSAT. No, this isn't a confession, it's a clarification. I wanted to write this before the score cancel deadline for the most recent LSAT, but I had some exams of my own going on.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find the "don't disturb me while I'm trashing your hotel room or I'll tell the press we were running a crack ring from your brand-new hotel and that'll ruin your business" scene. While he ended up getting an A in Contracts, he obviously deserved an A+ in Contract Negotiation.

Anyway, this is the reality of the situation: Hart got a 93%, I missed two questions on the December 2007 LSAT, and I can positively identify a significant mistake that I made on each of my recently completed 1L exams. That's not counting all the mistakes I don't remember or didn't even know I made.

And here's the lesson I've tried to learn: it doesn't change one damn thing.

I've always been a perfectionist; it was a badge I wore with pride while growing up. You cannot be a perfectionist in law school. An 8-hour take-home exam with a 1300 word cap on each essay question is not a mode that tolerates perfectionists.

And neither does a 5.5 hour standardized test designed to be physically impossible for most people to complete in time tolerate perfectionists. The two questions I missed my second time around were not difficult questions: each was a simple logical reasoning task that for some reason tripped me up. When I got my score report back--after a few days of sheer joy--I was like, "WTF? Why did I miss that one?" The distractor I chose was boneheadedly stupid.

It happened to me, and it's happened to more deserving people. And it's OK.

172 + 180 / 2 = 174 to 178, not 176.

LSAC tries its darnedest to explain that the scores it releases are part of a band; the number is not a hard value that indelibly quantifies your ability to achieve anything, not even on the LSAT. Almost everyone drops a few points from their practice tests to their first actual score; a few people go higher; a few go much higher or lower. Clearly there are factors at play that don't perfectly measure performance, let alone ability.

Am I trying to say that you should never cancel your LSAT score because you can't sweat the small stuff? Absolutely not.

Here are reasons to cancel your score:

1) You didn't finish at least one entire section of the test.

This one has multiple possible causes: walking out after freaking out, puking on your test materials and passing out, falling asleep, missing the start time, etc. This one is the easiest to spot, and you should cancel on the answer form itself (after cleaning it off, if necessary).

2) You didn't finish enough of the test for you to mathematically reach your lowest target score.

This one requires some calculation and speculation as to the curve, but you can use our LSAT statistics section to help with that. Basically, count the number of questions you didn't reach, and treat them as if you got them wrong. Then multiply your accuracy rate from your practice by the remaining questions. Take that product of your raw score and compare it to the scale score chart. If it's below an acceptable range for your purposes, then send in the fax to cancel.

3) You feel really, really bad about your performance. And you have a chance to retake for the same application cycle.

This one is your call, but I'd advise against cancelling because you can always retake and write a supplemental essay explaining why your second score is better. As one of our Zen students mentioned, it's a whole different ball game the second time around.

4) You feel really really crappy about your performance. And you don't have a chance to retake for the same application cycle.

Don't let this happen! The December is a makeup for the current application cycle. The February test dates are for the following application cycle. Anyone who tells you otherwise is actively trying to undermine your future. Probably.

Overall, I have learned that it's OK to make some mistakes because they, literally or figuratively, don't affect the eventual outcome. LSATs and law school exams are graded on a curve. They are not perfect measures of your ability, so don't expect perfection.

Zen Student Journal - Retaking the LSAT October to December

2010-12-15T07:00:00.000-05:00

The following is the last post for the 2010-2011 LSAT application cycle from our Zen Student. You can read about his entire LSAT journey here.

This past Saturday, almost exactly two months to the day after taking the LSAT for the first time, I took it again.

I’m convinced that I did better this time around. Why?

Geez, where should I start? Suffice it to say that it felt better – all of it: the night before, the morning of, afterwards, and throughout its taking. My second bout with the LSAT was, without at doubt, different – an altered experience for the better.

For starters, my seat was better. In the second row, with no one in front or to the right of me, I didn’t feel like I was taking my test on the subway with someone watching over my shoulder. I was able to ignore the roaming test administrator, who insisted on circulating the room every two minutes. I didn’t become distracted trying to figure out how much time was remaining. Instead, I worked steadily throughout each section and wasn’t bogged down by any logic games, reading passages, or reasoning stimuli.

I was focused, worked with an efficient clarity of thought, and paced myself with the internal clock I had developed after countless practice sections with the timer in front of my face.

Did I get an all-time great score? I’m not counting on it. What I am counting on, though, is a better score; a more comfortable range that will hopefully land me at the school of my choice.

There are two major lessons I learned from this retake. First, as Mr. Bennett and the Zen staff recommend, the 4.5 month training schedule is best. I didn’t follow it exactly as outlined – partly because we initially thought that October (after two months) would be my one-and-done test – but the extended time nonetheless proved valuable. I don’t really enjoy the LSAT. Going into preparation for it, if you know you’ve got four months as opposed to two, you can ease into it a bit and not allow it to consume your whole life. I personally resisted that during my first two month stint.

The second thing I learned is that, if time and funding allow, take the test twice. Honestly, the biggest difference, for me personally, between October and December was that there had even been an October. I wasn’t distracted by the newness of the whole thing. I was all business going in the second time.

Above all, Mr. Bennett was there for me all along. Now, I don’t mean that to be sappy. Also, that’s not to say Mr. Bennett held my hand throughout the process. He didn’t tell me what to do; rather, he guided me.

Mr. Bennett was ever the patient LSAT Zen master. When I didn’t turn in my data on time or hadn’t finished as many practice tests as I planned or failed to report on what I wanted to focus our session on, he was always willing to regroup and adapt. Mr. Bennett proved more than capable and willing to adjust his program to fit my needs and habits.

I’m happy that my LSAT test-taking days are behind me. Although I would have liked to say those words back in early October, I’m ultimately even happier that I decided to retake the test in December and reshape my LSAT story.

Logic Games Were Difficult on December 2010 LSAT?

2010-12-13T07:00:00.001-05:00

Of the clients who have gotten back to us, it seems the logic games were particularly difficult on the December 2010 LSAT. Leave some comments if you had similar or a completely different experience. I'm particularly excited when people allege tricky logic games, as I look forward to analyzing them for the Zen system.

If you're thinking about retaking the LSAT, check out the calendar for the February 2011 LSAT and how I went about preparing for my second LSAT.

Meanwhile, I'm in the middle of an 8-hour Property exam--don't worry, I wrote this early Sunday and had it automatically post!--and I wanted to use that experience to make a couple points.

Logic games are relevant to law school: they measure your ability to creatively apply rules to novel situations and test whether you can see the interactions of different actors, groups, and competing interests. In fact, if a section type needed to be removed while minimizing the damage to predictive validity, it would be reading comprehension. The two more traditional sections tell law schools relatively similar information, while the logic games add an entirely separate group of information.

For this reason, some researchers and law school admissions officers have argued--unsuccessfully and at least since the 1990s--that the LSAT sections should be reported separately, similar to how the GMAT breaks its reports into quantitative and verbal scores.

For those of you who can't imagine ever using you logic games diagramming skills, let me assure you that it has helped me multiple times in simplifying party relationships in common law courses like Contracts and Property. Still don't believe me? Here's an example outline I created for a practice exam question.

Actors, groups, transfers, relationships, and conditionals. Sounds like a logic game to me!

Why You Should Apply to Law School -- Geek Test

2010-12-08T11:55:00.002-05:00

This vignette is how I know that I belong at law school; hopefully it will help those of you who are considering whether to start preparing for the LSAT if this path is right for you. Be warned, I am a big nerd (in case you couldn't tell from my graphs of LSAT statistics).

In the middle of my morning routine, I listen to NPR streaming from my iPhone plugged into a speaker. This morning, there was a story about Arizona's immigration law that allows state officials to revoke businesses' licenses after using a federal database.

Click on the image to go hear or read the original story.

Although I'm in the middle of reading week--that is, preparing for my final exams on Friday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday (eight hours each day on the first three, three hours the last Friday but with only paper notes allowed)--I couldn't stop myself from walking through the different theories of statutory interpretation the court would use that I'd learned in my legislation and regulation course.

My professor, probably the leading scholar in the world on the subject, had taught me so well that I couldn't help but see the opinion forming. And by opinion, I mean the structure and argument of the court's opinion, not my own reaction to the policy matters involved. I have complicated views on immigration, but what's important for you to understand is that in law school, you have to learn to understand someone else's reasoning first.

Then I shot off an email to the professor; I promise only the second email I'd sent (the first being that I would miss class to have my wisdom teeth removed). I'm horrible about visiting professors during their office hours or outside class, even when I truly love the subject and think they're a top-notch teacher/researcher/etc.

I think Chamber of Commerce of the United States v. Whiting is a fantastic case to highlight the intersection of texualism and dynamic purposivism. In fact, I think you need both in order to fully analyze the issues.

The text is unambiguous--in my opinion--in that it has a savings clause allowing states to flesh out the federal statute within "licensing and similar laws." Arizona arguably shifted the level of generality of that text, and maybe runs afoul of a term of art in "license," by imposing penalties on businesses for hiring illegal immigrants--as measured by a federal data system--and then revoking the license for a second offense. Beautiful case for textualism, and I think more interesting and timely than Moskal.

However, there's more! The federal preemption doctrine appears to have express--i.e. textual--AND "ordinary working of conflict"--i.e. Congress' intent/purpose--prongs, opening the court for a discussion of the doctrine within the scope of the INTENT of the federal statute, and in my opinion, a litmus test for the court's view on federalism. The 9th circuit's opinion, which I looked up after walking through all the arguments I'd make, talks about all of these issues, but please let me know if I've drastically misunderstood the factpattern or the court's opinion. I'm fascinated to see who writes the SCOTUS opinion and what tools of statutory interpretation they'll use.

Anyway, if you don't use it for the casebook, I think it'd be a humdinger of an exam question or a great review example.

If you don't see yourself as the kind of person who can't stop themselves from doing research on a case because you're freaking out about the purpovist prong of federal preemption, then you're going to have a rough time in law school. I love reading cases, and make no mistake, it is a very specific and idiosyncratic genre of American Literature. I know I couldn't handle reading stacks of mid-century poetry, which is why I didn't go after a PhD in English. Make sure you're ready for some heavy doses of Scalia, because even if you can't stand his views, he can be an entertaining read.

If you're a geek.

Week before December 11, 2010 LSAT

2010-12-06T09:28:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't already planned out the week before you take the LSAT, I wanted to repost my suggestions for what worked for me to stay calm and focused. Such a personal goal will obviously be subject to personal preference, so take these as a friendly checklist.

If you're prepping for the February or June 2011 LSATs, check out our posts for our suggested training schedule, and then see if you'd like to sign up for one of our last open spots for online tutoring.

I'll limit this post to things LSAT-related, but in general, I'd delay taking on any life decisions or drastically changing your life routine. The week before the LSAT is not a good time to bust out, "We need to talk."

In a nutshell:

Test Day

Visit the site before the test day
Do not practice after Wednesday morning on the week before
Do relaxing activities throughout the end of the week
Sleep ~2 hours more than you usually do
Eat breakfast, bring food and drink (caffeine) for break
Bring your used pencils and highlighters… should be your friends by now
Arrive EARLY

Read something before, like the NY Times, to warm up

Take one of each section type from the most recent LSAT, check at end of each section

Compare your score from when you first took it, and I’ll guarantee that you did better

The weekend prior to my test date, I drove to the test center to make sure I knew exactly how I would get there, where I would park, and where the testing center was in relation to the parking. Trust me, these trivial things will seem monumental if any one of them might make you late to the LSAT. I worked backwards from what time I needed to be at the testing center, gave myself three hours to acclimate, eat breakfast, and warm-up my brain, and travelling time plus 15 minutes for "damage time".

I spent the first part of the week before the LSAT following my normal routine to a tee. I went to the gym in the mornings, I went to every class, and I read the New York Times. If you don't have healthy routines built up by the week before, try abstaining from the more cognitively detrimental ones: arguments with loved ones, drugs/alcohol, sleeping late or not enough, etc.

Since I was in the endurance part of my LSAT training, on Saturdays and Wednesdays I normally took two full LSAT PrepTests in a single sitting. I decided that preparing for a longer time than the actual LSAT was the best way to make sure that I was not going to wilt in the 5th section like I did the first time.

However, that last week I gave myself Wednesday morning off. In general, I don't suggest my clients spend any time with actual sections after Tuesday of the week prior, as your body and mind will be completely rejuvenated for the actual exam.

I spent those last few days thinking happy thoughts while swimming laps or lifting weights. Staying calm and positive, through yoga, meditation, spa getaway, prayer, exercise, etc, is definitely the way to be spending your time this last week before the LSAT.

Also in those days, I printed out a few pages of the June 2007 PrepTest to use as warm-up material the day before. As that was the first modern PrepTest I used in my practice, I felt it would provide a nice full-circle narrative to my LSAT prep. When choosing your own warm-up material, choose one of each section type from a modern LSAT you feel comfortable with, and print out or copy that to use on test day.
After making sure my warm-up materials were taken care of, I planned out my break menu, including healthy foods like apples and granola bars, as well as energy drinks. Obviously, this is personal preference, but if you can stand caffeine, I suggest a tiny bit during the break to bring you through the last two sections.

The night before, I packed up everything I was taking with me into a ziplock bag, including my trusty pencils and highlighters. By now, these objects should be your best friends, and make sure you feel comfortable with them.

I made sure to arrive at the testing site about three hours early. This gave me enough time to settle in a side hallway, eat my breakfast, read the newspaper, and do my LSAT warmup. Reminding myself of how much I had prepared while doing the warmup was incredibly calming; my mind was tuned up and ready for the LSAT, and I went in knowing I was going to do well.

Time to Start Thinking About June, 6 2011 LSAT

2010-12-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

If you're following the Zen Calendar for the February 12, 2011 LSAT or are thinking ahead to June 6, 2011, this post will help answer your questions--maybe before you even know to ask them! Merging your personal calendar to our public one is the first step to making your you’re on track for the LSAT.

For you December takers, be sure to check back in on Friday for your last-week preparations for the LSAT. February people should be finishing your diagnosis phase and getting ready to develop your action steps.

Ideally, the pre-study and diagnostic phases for LSAT study should be complete or nearing completion for LSAT self-studiers with about two months left until the LSAT. Now you should be starting to analyze your weaknesses and strengths; find and practice strategies to address those weaknesses; and track your progress to your LSAT goal.

Self-correcting (time-to-test: 2 months)

Use this next two upcoming weekends to review your PrepTests and analyze all of the questions you missed, grouping them by section and then whatever system makes the most sense to you
If you don’t have access to a complete classification system--here are the Zen ones for AR, LR, and RC--the best way to group LR and RC questions is by question stem. For instance, group all the “follows if assumed” questions into one pile, and so on
We currently use an excel spreadsheet for this, but if you’re not computer savvy, simple tally marks will do, and the best way may be to physically cut out the questions and group them into piles
Identify your LSAT strengths and weaknesses, celebrating the former and considering explanations for the latter
Search for your LSAT weaknesses by question stem and you’ll find advice on how to tackle that kind of problem
Go into a bookstore and browse through the various LSAT prep-books and see which ones, if any, offer solid strategies for the question types you identified as weaknesses

Develop an action plan for your weaknesses
Write, in your own words, a list of action steps you will take whenever you encounter one of your weaknesses
Do not allow these action plans to interfere with your LSAT strengths
Examples
“When I see a ‘follows if assumed’ question, I’m looking for one of the four types of assumptions that causes a gap between the evidence and conclusion”
“If the rules say the pieces go one after another and all must be used, it’s a simple tree sequencing game”

Practice your action steps (time-to-test: 2 months to 1 month)

Take 2 to 3 concentrated study sessions of only one type of section for 3-5 weeks, alternating within the week between two section types
For example, if you have the most trouble with LR and RC, each week create an LSAT made up of three LR sections and another of three RC sections by combining different PrepTests
As you come to your weaknesses, consciously recognize them and employ your action steps
At the end of each section, spend 5-10 minutes analyzing your mistakes and evaluating your action steps

Questions about Zen Logical Reasoning Approach

2010-11-29T08:42:00.002-05:00

The following are some questions from one of the blog's readers. If you ever have any questions that aren't answered in the blog FAQ or analyzer FAQ, please don't hesitate to shoot an email to zenof180@gmail.com

I'm scoring around the [whatever your score is now] range and I am trying to figure out how to boost it up. I guess usually you recommend much more studying time but as of now I just don't have it. I am signed up to take the LSAT [at the next date].

You definitely answered your own question! Finding at least two times in your week for full 5-hour practice sessions is the key to making sure your PrepTests are actually the best preparation for your test day. Make sure that in the last month before the test date you are doing the endurance training, which is made up of at least 6 but no more than 8 sections in a single session. This helps simulate the full length of the test day to help prevent fatigue.

What is your basic approach to each LR question, such as question stem or stimulus first, highlighting on every question, etc?

You can watch how I tutor clients to attack almost all of the logical reasoning tasks at this page. Once my own life as a 1L calms down a bit, I'll continue updating the explanations so that each task has a least a few free examples.

Also while I'm practicing (untimed) how can I make sure that I am highlighting and bracketing correctly?

As I will eventually do with the logic games rules types, I will also create "meta-pencasts" for logical reasoning that show the system of marking stimuli I use with my clients. The specifics aren't necessary to score your best, as long as you are processing the information that the system expects you to notice.


My favorite highlighters for the LSAT.

For instance, some of my most successful clients don't use a highlighter or mark logical reasoning stimuli at all, as they find it to be distracting. However, they still pay attention to the conclusion, bridge, and evidence, including actors, relationships, and degree of certainty; they just don't physically mark them.

Overall, make sure that your notation system works for you. I have some clients who only highlight conclusions, while others who only circle degree indicators. Unlike some of the other test prep companies, the point of the Zen system is to adapt to your own needs.

When will you have updated calendars for the February and June 2011 LSAT dates?

If things go as planned, later this week! However, if you're already chomping at the bit, go ahead and read the overall 4.5 month plan.

1L Job Search Options

2010-11-18T08:17:00.002-05:00

Part of the reason the blog has not been updated regularly is that I've started researching possibilities for my 1L summer. While I understand that the vast majority of the Zen of 180 readers are worried about the December 2010 LSAT--how's that endurance training working out for you?--it's also time to start comparing law schools that you've been accepted to, applied to, are or are thinking about applying to.

Those topic and concluding sentences are actually related, I promise, in that I want to share some personal experiences I've had that slightly add to my list of things to consider when applying to law schools.

One of my very first clients had to compare NYU, Yale, and Harvard law schools; in fact, those were the only places she applied. She knew that she was exclusively interested in public interest law, probably working for the government, and could tailor her comparison of the schools in that lens. When she visited the schools' accepted student weekends, she made sure to visit their respective offices of career services/development. But Harvard had an office explicitly devoted to public interest law, and her interactions with those advisors greatly impacted her decision to choose Harvard.

Do not forget that law school is a trade school, and the vast majority of graduates from the top schools are not going to be starting their own practices. You will need to either make connections with people in the field you hope to be employed or go to a well-regarded school with strong national or regional placement in law firms. A huge part of doing either route is made easier with a well-developed career services office.

While Yale's calendar of events is not open to the public, it appears that Harvard's--and thus at least some other schools'--will show you the types of events and services provided by the law school's placement offices. I'm especially interested in entrepreneurial law, intellectual property, and business law. You'd think I should be at one of the Bay-Area schools.But when I visited Harvard and spoke to potential employers, I was convinced that my career options would be similar despite being on the east coast. I'll keep you posted on my 1L job search after it's complete.

While some of this may be premature for those of you getting ready for the LSAT, please be aware of the problems of going to a top law school without knowing what you want to do. Anymore, it's a whole lot of time and money for a market that is both extremely competitive and unrewarding for people who end up at a firm but don't want to be there.

Contrapositive: When are you ready for the LSAT?

2010-11-12T11:06:00.000-05:00

An updated classic from our Contrapositive collection. Sorry for the lack of updates this week: 1L has finally started catching up with me!

If drawn, Contrapositives are by the creator of Wingmen. Check it out.

October 2010 LSAT Scale Score Breakdown, Logic Games by Rule

2010-11-08T09:00:00.001-05:00

I've just about finished analyzing the LSAT administered on October 9, 2010.

As you can see, the general trend of sequencing rules dominating the games has continued, as well as the trend to make more traditional games more difficult by adding more meta-cognitive tasks.

For instance, game 2 is a fairly straightforward sequencing tree game with only tree and conditional rules. However, three questions on this game involve higher-order thinking about the game, including the relatively rare "restate the rules and deductions you know about [actor]."

On many old PrepTests, you'd be surprised to find three meta-cognitive tasks on an entire section, let alone within one game! LSAC is clearly beefing up its "simpler" games with more difficult tasks, perhaps to even out the overall difficulty of the section.

Look for the logical reasoning analysis later this week!

Game 1 - Six workers driving to a convention

Grouping (60%), Assignment (20%), General (20%)

Conditional Together (2)
Together (1)
Fluid Slots (1)
Min/Max (1)

Game 2 - Archaeologist ordering artifacts by age

Sequencing (80%), General (20%)

Tree (2)
Conditional (1)
Finite (1)
Free Agent (1)

Game 3 - Women's track team race ordering

Sequencing (44%), Grouping (44%), Assignment (12%)

Slot (4)
Conditional Separated (2)
Conditional Together (1)
Fixed (1) (Grouping)
Fluid Slots (1) (Assignment)

Game 4 - Nurses conducting information sessions

Seqeuncing (86%), General (14%)

Slot (3)
Tree (2)
Finite (1)
Limited (1)

Start Endurance Practice for December 11, 2010 LSAT

2010-11-06T09:24:00.001-04:00

If you're following the Zen Calendar, you know to start endurance practice this upcoming week. Merging your personal Google calendar to our public one is the first step to making your you’re on track for the LSAT, and that you’re differentiating your practice to fit your time-to-test and individual LSAT weaknesses.

You should have just finished the phase of practicing your action steps, which is where you apply the strategies you found from the Zen of 180 or other sources for your individual weaknesses.

Take 2 to 3 concentrated study sessions of only one type of section for 3-5 weeks, alternating within the week between two section types
For example, if you have the most trouble with LR and RC, each week create an LSAT made up of four LR sections and another of four RC sections by combining different PrepTests
As you come to your weaknesses, consciously recognize them and employ your action steps
At the end of each section, spend 5-10 minutes analyzing your mistakes and evaluating your action steps

After practicing your action steps, you may find that you are making systematic mistakes in another question stem or game type, or that your action steps are not accurately addressing the weaknesses. At this point, and if there’s time, you should repeat the self-correcting process and find new explanations that make more sense to you. It may be necessary to rethink your LSAT test date, as you should only have 1 month remaining until the test.

Now it's time to start building endurance (time-to-test: 1 month)

For the last month before the test, take two PrepTests (with all three section types) in one sitting, twice a week
Use the most recent PrepTests available right before you take the LSAT
For example, if you have 5 weeks left, you should be using PrepTests 41-44 in the first week and 57-60 in the last
Each session should be eight sections over ~5 hours, with breaks between sections 3-4 and 6-7
At the end of each session, analyze your mistakes and evaluate your action steps

How to Categorize LSAT Logic Games

2010-11-03T12:24:00.000-04:00

We recently received an excellent question regarding the Zen of 180 logic games classification system, which organizes the section by rules and also question stem.

It seems clear to me that each LSAT AR question (as with LR and RC questions) is described by a single task, but I feel the same cannot be true of the rules associated with each question. That is, the rules are designated by the setup for a particular game (i.e. a group of questions). What's more, there are multiple rules per game. So each question in a given group could have 3 or 4 or more rules associated with it, and all questions in that group would seem to share the same rules. Is that a fair and complete characterization of your system, or do I misunderstand something?

This question shows a solid general understanding of how the Zen system breaks down the logic games. The rules are categorized for an entire game, then the question stems are separately categorized. The best analogy is to how other test prep companies keep track of how you do on a reading comprehension passage subject (like law or science), while also paying attention to each question type.

So we use two different but intersecting systems for logic games: how you perform on a given rule type, and how you perform on a question stem type. For instance, some of our clients are great at sequencing games in general, but whenever they are faced with a metacognitive task of redefining a rule, they mess up no matter WHAT kind of game it is. Hope that makes the dual system more clear.

Additionally, I'm not sure I understand the distinctions between some of your rule types and rule strands. For example, what is a "Tree" sequencing rule and how does it differ from a "Conditional" sequencing rule? How does the Assignment strand differ from the Grouping strand?

Great questions that I unfortunately haven't had time to create the content to answer! The plan is to continue expanding on the free LSAT PrepTest Score Analysis so that the explanation pages will include explicit instructions on how to diagram a "tree" rule versus a "conditional."

What you are looking for is in the works, I promise!

October 2010 LSAT Scale Score Breakdown, Reading Comprehension

2010-11-01T12:05:00.003-04:00

I'm in the process of analyzing the LSAT administered on October 9, 2010 to see how generous the curve was, but more importantly, to make sure that the Zen of 180 algorithms correctly predicted the point distribution for each task strand.

For today, here's the reading comprehension data. The first number after the strand or task name is the number of questions allocated on the October 2010 LSAT, and the (+/-x) is the deviance from the expected based on the modern PrepTests.

As you can see, the general trend away from finding explicit evidence and towards evaluating evidence use has been remarkable, especially within the single task of Refers to [Piece] in Order to. That's where the question asks you how the author used a specific quote from the text to further their argument.

Look for the logic games and logical reasoning analysis next week!

Passage Structure 5 (-1)

Main Idea or Title 2 (-1)
Primary Purpose 1
[Passage Piece] Function 1
Overall Organization 1

Explicit Evidence 2 (-3)

Passage or Author Says 1
Meaning of or Referring to 1
Mentioned by Both 0 (-1)
Expert Says 0

Evaluating Evidence 7 (+3)

Refers to [Piece] in Order to 4 (+2)
Evidence for or Against 2 (+1)
Additional Info Strengthens 1
Additional Info Weakens 0 (-1)

Opinion and Tone 3 (-1)

Passage or Author Implies 0 (-2)
Attitude on Piece 1
Expert Implies 2 (+2)

Extrapolation 10 (+3)

Would Agree About 4 (+1)
Application of or Analogous to 4 (+2)
Most Supported by Passage 2 (+1)
Continue Argument 0 (-1)

October 2010 LSAT Score Release Day

2010-10-29T08:37:00.002-04:00

Typically the LSAT scores are released the Friday before the Monday that LSAC guarantees them by. Which would make "How hard was the scale score curve for the October 9, 2010 LSAT?" one of the most popular Google searches today.

For this weekend, check again to see what LSAT score and GPA combo you'll need to be competitive during your application cycle. If you hit your target, congratulations! If not, take the weekend off to relax and refocus before deciding whether to retake in December or change your application targets.

Meanwhile, was it section 1 that killed you or saved you? Section 4? Thank goodness the logic games were your experimental? Let us know how you feel about your score in the comments using this helpful "LSAT score emotion chart" as a guide.

October 2010 LSAT Score Release Day Emotions

Teach For America Law Newsletter - LSAT Prep

2010-10-27T19:44:00.002-04:00

I'm so excited to share that Teach For America has started listing Zen of 180 as one of their suggested LSAT prep systems to current corps members and alumni!

For the record, the Zen of 180 discount is more than Kaplan's 15%.

It's worth noting that we give all AmeriCorps grant recipients a discount, not just Teach For America alumni. Be sure to let us know that when you check out our online LSAT tutoring.

And everyone can take advantage of the free LSAT score analysis!

Logic Games Diagram Flowchart System

2010-10-25T08:53:00.003-04:00

One of our clients from the October 2010 LSAT date was kind enough to let us post his visual checklist for the Zen approach to logic games diagrams.

I'm probably going to take his idea and turn it into something a little more self-prep friendly, including with designations for how to draw each type of individual logic game rule type. That's right, at Zen of 180, we don't classify the game in aggregate, we classify them by the logic games rules.

For those of you just learning the Zen system for logic games, be sure to watch the free interactive explanations showing how you "Must Mother F-ing Remember." (Min/Max, Free Agents, Restricted Agents).

LSAT Logic Games Diagram System

Law School Recruitment Forum Review, Part 2

2010-10-20T15:11:00.002-04:00

The following is the second part of one of our client's experiences while visiting the Boston LSAC Law School Recruitment Forum. The first part dealt with more general questions about when to take the LSAT and pet peeves about law school applications.

Diversity Panel

The Diversity Panel session might have been a poor choice on my part, especially as a follow-up to the Forum 101. This session was geared towards minority students. Minority was taking in its most general sense and encompassed race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability/differing ability, weight, etc. We watched a video that might have been made in the early 90’s and was way too cheesy to be shown to adults. However, the panelists were very engaging and had great responses to sometime mediocre questions.

Q: Diversity Statement v. Personal Statement

A: The Diversity statement is an opportunity for background explanation and will help pinpoint how you as a minority student can benefit from the school and vice versa. The Personal Statement is more a way to highlight skills, strengths and ability. Most of the time, these two are squished into one and many people don’t see the need for a diversity statement. However, they made a point to say that everyone could and probably should write a diversity statement. One of the panelists said that “you could be a white male and still be able to present a diversity statement” because everyone applying to law school brings something diverse with them.

Q: How personal is too personal in your personal statement?

A: Basically it boiled down to, if the information is relevant to your personal statement and getting to know you as an individual, USE IT. If you just throw it in there and then forget about it, or don’t use it as a spring board for discussion, get rid of it. Be yourself.

There were two phrases that came out of this session that I loved. The first is that the application process for law school is competitive and comparative. Not only are you competing for a limited number of spots, you are being compared to metrics, each other and to a certain degree past graduates. The other phrase was “survive and thrive.” Panelist Sehee Foss, Associate Director of Admissions for U of Iowa College of Law, said the “most people can survive at any law school. You want to find the law school that will help you thrive.” I couldn’t agree more!

Financing a Legal Education

This was the most complicated session, yet it was by far the best. Everyone thinking of going to law school, going to law school should be FORCED to take this session. It was phenomenal and was way informative. I am not going to go into specifics, but if you are able to take this session, DO.

Speaking with Representatives

After I had attended the three sessions first thing in the morning, I decided to make my way into the expo room. It looked like an anthill that some misfit of a child had poured water down. I had a game plan about what Universities I wanted to visit, so I knew exactly where I was going beforehand. But like all good plans, they only last until the first shot is fired, or in my case, until I stepped through the door. I went to all of the school on my list, and found that they all had long lines and didn’t look like they were moving quickly at all. So I did what Adam had suggested earlier in Forum 101 and visited a school that I had no intention of going to but that was empty. I spoke with the admissions rep about general questions that I had about law school and she helped me refine my questions for later. It was a great strategy: I got to practice and learned more about a school that I had never even heard of. I swung back to the schools on my list and met with a few of them. I swung by the tables of some of the panelists that had been great. It made me jump the fence: law school was for me.

Overall What I Learned:

Proofread
Prepare
Be Yourself
Ask Your Questions and make sure that you get an answer
Take Business Cards
Underwater Basket Weaving will be talked about at least 10 times

This might be the second most import step of your law school preparation (the first being the LSAT prep) so take the time to go, ask questions, and have a good time. And best of all, it's free!