Studying for the LSAT can be a trying time for most students. The questions test your ability to reason and synthesize, making them substantially different than most college exams we’re all used to. To top it off, test takers are told that you have to do well to get into the school of your choice. That is way too simplistic to be useful, so here’s the scoop on how the LSAT actually affects your choices.

First, know this is not the SATs. You are not being tested on whether you have the background knowledge necessary to take the basic courses of the school. Nor are you being tested on what level of classes you can take. The LSAT is designed to be a predictor of how well you are likely to do in your first year of law school. If you’re scoring particularly low, it indicates that you’re likely not analyzing arguments the way you need to as a lawyer.

That said, the immediate concern for most test takers is not how they’ll do in the first year of law school, but just making it to that first year of law school. Your LSAT score is the single most important factor in acceptance (no pressure). An average LSAT score is 150, meaning that a 150 is generally in the 50^th percentile. At ManhattanLSAT, average is not the goal. It’s time to put a number on “good.”

A good LSAT score is one that is likely to be accepted by the majority of law schools. Note; that’s not the same thing as you getting accepted to the majority of the law schools. Those schools will look at your GPA, essay, and a variety of other factors, but a good LSAT score means your application is at least in the running. The number value on a good score? Right around 160. If you’re scoring in the 160’s, you’re doing well. Read more

Here are the free LSAT events we’re holding this week. All times local unless otherwise specified.

10/14/13 – Online- Free Trial Class– 8:00PM-11:00PM (EDT)

10/14/13 – New York- Free Trial Class–  6:30PM- 9:30PM

10/16/13 – Online- Games Intensive Online Fall- 8:00AM-11:00PM (EDT)

10/20/13 – Online- Free Trial Class–  7:00PM- 10:00PM (EDT)

Looking for more free events? Check out our Free Events Listings Page

Recently I was in the car with some friends. I was sitting in the backseat and wasn’t driving. The person who was driving didn’t know where she was going. The person sitting in the passenger seat was supposed to be navigating for her, and he was doing an absolutely horrible job. I could tell he was driving her nuts. This is the kind of stuff he was saying:

Okay, you need to make the third right up here. I mean you could turn right before it, like now, but you don’t have to—oh, wait, you did. Okay, so now that we turned here, hmm. Well, we could keep going straight or we could take the next left, but we’ll need to end up taking a right eventually—why did you take a right?! No, I said we need to eventually! Since we’re now going back the other direction, we could take a right or a left, but somehow we have to turn around…

See how annoying that is? As it was happening, I thought of logic games (because I’ve been doing this way too long). It seemed like a great illustration of a very important logic games principle. When it comes to diagramming, do not write what could be true and what must be true all in the same place. That is, don’t mix up what has to be true with what might be true.

In the same way that it is confusing to receive driving directions that mix what could happen in with what has to happen—“we could turn here but have to turn before four streets up but we could also turn on the next street”—it’s confusing when you look at a diagram where slots 2 and 3 are filled with the letters M and R, but M has to go in slot 2 and R could go in slot 3.

For this reason, it’s best only to write in what must be true, and save what could be true for side diagrams, or “clouds” as we call them at Manhattan LSAT (bubbles with possibilities listed in them)—basically, any diagramming tactic that denotes “this is different from what must be true…this is only what could be true.”

If you’re used to writing it all in one place, it may take some time to break the habit. But start now. It’s worth the struggle.

Here are the free LSAT events we’re holding this week. All times local unless otherwise specified.

10/9/13 – Washington, DC- Free Trial Class– 9:30AM-1:30PM

10/9/13 – Online- Free Trial Class– 8:00AM-11:00PM (EDT)

10/13/13 – Online- Zen and the Art of LSAT with Brian Birdwell–  8:00PM- 10:00PM (EDT)

10/13/13 – La Jolla, CA-  Free Trial Class- 6:30PM-9:30PM

Looking for more free events? Check out our Free Events Listings Page

Hey October LSAT takers! Here are a few tips for the rest of the week.

DO get a good night’s sleep this week! Start going to bed earlier and waking up earlier if you don’t already so that your body is not shocked by the time on Saturday morning. Better yet, wake up the next couple of mornings and do an LSAT problem or two.

DON’T work too hard on Friday. If the idea of taking the day off to watch the new Arrested Development on Netflix panics you, read over your notes or do a game or two, maybe a few hard logical reasoning questions you’ve done before. But it’s not the day to take a full-length test.

DO continue to do timed, mixed practice through Thursday.

DON’T make the mistake of believing that every practice test score from now until Saturday is exactly what you’re going to score. While they are certainly in the range of what you should expect, just because your practice test drops from a 169 to a 167 tomorrow doesn’t mean you’re suddenly 2 points LSAT-dumber. Learn from your mistakes, review carefully, and move forward.

DO get a passport-size photo of yourself this week if you haven’t already. (This is in addition to your identification. See the email you recently received from LSAC for details.)

DON’T dwell on what you wish you’d done differently over the last few months. To do so is a waste of critical energy at this point, and your mind should be focused on…

DO think positively. Someone is going to teach this test who’s boss, and it’s not Tony Danza. It’s you. YOU. If you don’t believe you’re going to do your best, you’re less likely to. If you do, you’re more likely to. And if you can see that those two statements are not contrapositives, give yourself a high-five right now, please.

DON’T forget your analogue (big hand, small hand) watch. (If you want, set it to 12 o’clock at the beginning of each section so you can easily track your 35 minutes without arithmetic.)

DO take a snack.

DON’T mistake the LSAT for a mythical tool that measures your self-worth. It’s just a test. Plus, you have more friends than it, and they’re cooler.

Now go put those red and blue and yellow balls in order like you’ve never put them in order before!

We incorporate the latest discoveries in learning science into our LSAT course to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of your prep. Want to see? Try the first session of any of our upcoming courses for free.

Lately, I’ve been getting asked a lot about notating “unless.” I figured that with the LSAT so close, it might be helpful to write up a quick-and-dirty how-to designed specifically for those of you who need to lock it in last minute. Read more

Here are the free LSAT events we’re holding this week. All times local unless otherwise specified.

9/22/13 – Austin, TX-  Free Proctored LSAT Practice Exam– 9:30AM-1:30PM

9/25/13 – Online- Zen and the Art of LSAT with Brian Birdwell–  8:00PM- 10:00PM

9/28/13 – Washington, DC-  Free Proctored LSAT Practice Exam- 9:30AM-1:30PM

9/29/13 – New York, NY- Free Trial Class– 2:00PM- 5:00PM

Looking for more free events? Check out our Free Events Listings Page

We incorporate the latest discoveries in learning science into our LSAT course to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of your prep. Want to see? Try the first session of any of our upcoming courses for free.

Say it’s officially late September and you’re still ten points under what you want to be scoring. What do you do? Do you take October? Or do you push it off a few months? Read more

Here are the free LSAT events we’re holding this week. All times local unless otherwise specified.

9/18/13 – Boston, MA- Free Proctored LSAT Practice Exam– 6:00PM- 10:00PM (EDT)

9/21/13 – Boulder, CO-  Free Proctored LSAT Practice Exam– 9:30AM-1:30PM

Looking for more free events? Check out our Free Events Listings Page

No, that’s not an order, but it is a great idea. Here’s the problem; there’s a limit to how many tests you can work through without completely tuning out and not getting anything out of it. The good news is you can study the LSAT everyday while minimizing your exposure to the actual test.

Quick disclaimer: this is NOT a recommendation to ditch practice tests or strategies. This is a way to supplement your test studying so you are always in LSAT mode.

That said, consider what the LSAT is actually testing. It is a test that evaluates your ability to think logically. You are presented with chances to think logically all the time (though if you’re like me, you may not always live up to the potential). If you identify and use those opportunities, they become excellent chances to study.

Start with reading comprehension. Whether you’re in school or at work, you have to read, probably pretty often. We read for content – to find out what the article is saying. Start reading for perspective as well. As you go through your books and articles, ask yourself these questions: Read more