Grandma’s Guide

to the LSAT

Disclaimer:
I’m not a Grandma. I am a 20-something college dude. When making my Reddit name I ran a
random two-word generator and got “GrandmaKnees”. So I’m sticking with it for this guide.

I also want to emphasize that I am not outstandingly bright nor am I a naturally gifted LSAT-
taker. My diagnostic was a 151, which is around the median for all test takers. I am writing
this guide because I think my experience is replicable by a majority of students. I’m confident
that success on this exam is just like success with any other skill-based activity. I think anyone
who works smart for long enough will ultimately see huge improvement - life changing
improvement.
Contents:
1. About me
2. Ballin’ on a Budget
3. General Training Method
4. Foolproofing Games
5. Performance

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About Me
I started “studying” for the LSAT in the summer of 2017. I took a timed diagnostic and got a
151. My section breakdown was:

LR1: -10

LR2: -11

LG: -13

RC: -5 (this proved to be an anomaly for early in my studying. -5 was probably my

absolute best case scenario at this time. My average was closer to -10)

I took the June 2018 exam and got a 171. I took the September 2018 exam and got a 171
again. I took the March 2019 exam and got a 177. I have a somewhat mediocre LSAC GPA
(around 25th percentile for most t14 schools) so these scores changed my life.

When I began, I didn’t have a goal score. I think this helped. If I had a goal score of say, 165
(a top 10% score), I think I may have gotten to 165 and been like “Hey, we are here.
Nowhere left to go, I’ve reached my goal” and limited my upside. If you need to have a goal
score, I propose you make it 180. Don’t let your upside be arbitrarily capped.

Now that I am done taking the LSAT, I need something to do with my mornings. This
guide is a way I feel I can give back to an LSAT community that helped me immensely.

This guide is more of the “what” than the “how”. So it addresses what I did, but not much
of how I solved the problems.

If you have any questions, about the guide or just the LSAT in general, feel free to shoot me
a message on Reddit. I also offer online tutoring on Saturdays and Sundays.

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Ballin’ on a Budget
This section is going list every resource I used during my prep, the prices, and how I used
each. I am a broke college student, so finding value was essential. A lot of times, it is easy to
fall into the trap of thinking that you can only prep for the LSAT if you have hella money in the
bank. It is definitely easier to prep for this exam with money to blow, but it is not necessary.
There is also the trap of buying every possible resource out there. Don’t do that.

10 Actual, Official LSAT Preptests Volume 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ....... $20 each ($120 Total)

Used these for taking full PTs, timed sections, drilling questions, drilling games, drilling
RC passages. These things are honestly the only thing you NEED to buy. The value of
these tests is wayyyy more than the cost of buying them. Having a copier or scanner
and being able to copy games, questions, and passages for drilling is huge.

Copier/Scanner Machine …………… $Depends

There should be some publically available to you if you don’t own (I didn’t own either).
Biggest cost here will be printing fees/expenses. I’d guess that over a year of studying,
I spent $100 on printing fees (might be underestimating idk.)

LG Bible (Used) …………… $10

This was ok. I greatly preferred the 7sage Youtube videos. The bible is extremely well
written but all the info in it is easily found elsewhere. I want to add that the Powerscore
guys are great and incredibly responsive to questions.

7Sage LG Videos on Youtube/7Sage score tracker ……. FREE

The GOAT resource for LG. I will outline the foolproof method I used in a bit. The score
tracker is a great way to store your data, see trends over time, and see if you are
missing certain question types.

Thinking LSAT Podcast …………….. FREE

This is the resource I attribute most of my improvement to. Nathan and Ben get you
thinking like an LSAT test taker. I’ve listened to every episode (at the time of writing
this there have been 186 of them). Their recent series of FUNdamentals is great.

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Scribd Subscription ………….. FREE (get the 3-month free trial. Towards the end
cancel it and say you can’t afford the subscription, they give you another free trial.
Rinse and repeat as necessary)

Scribd has a partnership with a few Manhattan Test prep books that serve as a valuable
resource (RC book mainly). As long as you are cool with reading them on a laptop or
tablet, scribd is a great resource. I haven’t found LSAT books to be particularly helpful,
but I suspect it is just my learning style.

Reddit r/LSAT ……… FREE

Awesome community that is always willing to explain things. Overall a very supportive
community with some great minds in it.

Manhattan Prep Forums for Explanations …….. FREE

I used these early in my study. Just whenever I was in a pickle and couldn’t understand
why a certain answer was right/wrong. Mostly enjoyed the discussion about questions
that gave me different ways to think about the questions.

LSAT Hacks Explanations ……… FREE

Graeme kills it here. Full explanations for every question from PTs 29-38, and 60-79.
Invaluable resource to explore where your logic fails, why the right answer is right, and
most importantly why the wrong is wrong.

Google …… FREE

Just google shit. We live in a time where you can learn about anything by searching it
on Google. The LSAT is no different.

Any Youtube LSAT Proctor……….. FREE

Timing is everything. When doing timed sections or full tests, use these proctors to
simulate test day.

TOTAL BILL: around $250

5
Training Method
I refer to the preparation process as training. The LSAT is closer to a sport than it is a
traditional test. Having this mindset is super helpful. I think about it like basketball. To be
good at basketball a few different skills have to culminate. One, having some natural ability
will definitely help. Your natural ability is where your starting point is, and to an extent, caps
your upside. From there, you also have to develop SKILLS: shooting, dribbling, and passing.
The LSAT is the same. Natural ability will give everyone a different starting point. But from
there you have to develop the skills for LG, RC, and LR. For a vast majority of you, I truly
believe that regardless of your starting point, a 170+ score is achievable.

I dicked around for a few months in the summer of 2017 flipping through the LG bible, doing
some of those drills, and taking notes. It was marginally helpful IMO. Maybe I just didn’t put
enough time into it. Once I found the 7sage free youtube videos, the bible was useless to me.

The way I approached training for this exam was in the following order (starting January
2018):

(1) Foolproofing LG with PT 7-30

a. This took a little over a month I think. So I only did LG during this time.
b. Foolproof method is outlined later
(2) 35-minute timed LR sections with review (PTs 12-22)
a. Admittedly, at this time, my review process sucked. I will outline in a bit how you
should review. This was over a period of 3 or so weeks. About 20 sections of LR.
(3) 35-minute timed RC sections with review (PTs 7-27)
a. Again, my review process sucked. This was over a period of 3 or so weeks. 20
sections of RC.
(4) One 35-minute timed section per day with review
a. Here I would just work through each PT section by section. By this point, I was
scoring pretty well into the 160s.

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 (5) This got me to one month before the June Exam. My weekly schedule was:
a. Monday through Friday
i. One 35-minute timed section with review per day
b. Saturday
i. Full timed PT (4 most recent PTs)
c. Sunday
i. Review PT

That was all the studying I did before the June exam. You may notice my fondness for the one
35-minute section with review. My review process was sucky, but just by doing more sections,
I made progress nonetheless. And that makes sense. The more you practice, the better you
will get.

I decided to take the exam again in September. Although I scored on the higher end of my PT
range for June (168 avg), I thought there was more progress to be made. My training process
from June to September was really the same as #5 above. I focused a little more on RC
because I had more trouble with it, but that is about the only difference. My review process
still sucked. I got a little caught up in taking PTs just to see what my score would be, and lost
the perspective of trying to learn from every PT. I still made progress, however. My PT
average over this time period was a 172.

I took the September exam and got another 171. I knew it was in my range of possibilities,
but was still disappointed. After this exam, I thought I was done with the LSAT. A 171 is a
great score. I completely intended on applying with that score until around mid-December. I
was convinced I could do better, so I decided to wait a cycle, and take it again.

I began the training process for the March exam right after the holidays. I thought about it a
lot over the few months I took a break and realized that I was not learning from my mistakes
enough. So I revamped my review process. This was still centered around a one timed-section
per day approach. It is just such a manageable workload and can fit into any schedule.

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My revamped review process was as follows:

(1) Complete the timed section

(2) Blind review, which can take a while.
a. 7sage has a great free resource on their website outlining how to blind review.
(3) Review the answers and compare to your original choices/any changes you made in
blind review.
(4) Type out an explanation in your own words for every question you get wrong.
This explanation includes why the right answer was right, but more importantly why the
wrong answers were wrong. This is where you really dig into your brain and figure out
where the disconnect was.
(5) After typing out the explanations, jot down a few lessons that you can take from that
section. Maybe it is something like "the negation of 'only if' is 'even if'. I messed that up
and that led me to choose the wrong answer".
(6) When you finish every section of a PT, type out explanations for every single question.
a. ALL OF THEM. If you can explain why every right answer choice on the exam is
right and why everyone wrong answer choice is wrong, you have unlocked the
LSAT. This takes a few days. Even on easy questions, explain it completely.
b. Writing it out allows you to see your thought process. Once I saw it typed out, it
was easier for me to identify where I fucked up.
c. The format of the explanations pretty much follows Graeme’s on his website,
LSATHacks.com

If you take one thing from this guide, it should be this review process.

My PT average leading up to the March exam was a 177. Generally, my scores fluctuated +/-
3. Also keep in mind, this is about a year and a half after I first starting training. This did not
happen overnight.

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Foolproofing the Games
This was the first real step I took in training for this exam. The games intrigued me. I figured
if I could get that -13 from my diagnostic down, I would be in good shape.

I can’t for the life of me find the original post on the 7Sage forums that outlines the foolproof
method I used. Whoever posted it, shout-out to you, you are a godsend. Here it is outlined
below from one of my comments on Reddit:

“The best way to get better at LGs is to do more LGs. Look up the 7sage foolproof
method. They suggest doing each game 10 times, which was excessive for me, so I
adjusted it to doing every game 4 times. I’ll outline it for you a bit below:

1. Do the game the first time with a stopwatch. Finish the game in however much
time it takes you. Keep note somewhere of your score and time (I used an Excel
sheet).

2. Watch the 7sage free YouTube video about that game and see how they
approached and solved it.

3. Do the game again after watching the video. Time and score yourself again.

4. The next day, do the game again. Time and score. Watch the video again if you
are still having any trouble.

5. A week after your first attempt, do it one last time. Score and time yourself
again.

This method does take a lot of time and kills a lot of trees, but it took me from a -
13 average to a 0/-1 in about a month and a half.”

Using this method, I drilled games from PTs 7-30. After doing about 100 games, each of them
4 times, you are going to be a logic games mastermind. So many of the same inferences and
diagrams are tested.

I suppose this whole process is not necessary to master the games, but it has been shown in
many (anecdotal) instances to be effective.

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Performance
This is something that I think may be commonly overlooked. Let’s go back to basketball. Even
the best players in the world have bad games. There could be so many reasons for a bad
game. But what the best players do to limit the chance of a bad game is control variables.
Some do the same thing every game day, eat the same foods, the same warmup routine.
Anything that allows them to control for a performance variable, they do it. When you get a
chance, look up Ray Allen's pregame routine.

The following was taken from a TLS forum, written by McGruff, and I could not put it better
myself. (Link to his guide here: http://www.top-law-
schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=224488)

“I think almost everyone, in spending most of their energies on learning the skills
that the LSAT explicitly requires, misses the simple fact that the LSAT is an
execution, a performance, a recital. Another way to put this would be that there
are really two sets of skill that the LSAT tests, one explicit set and one implicit set.
The first set is what you’re already spending time on: strategies to answer
questions correctly, strategies to get points. Learning all the necessary strategies
means becoming able (when your mind and body are sharp, well-rested, and “in
the zone”) to answer every kind of LSAT question correctly in the time allotted.
DON’T MISS THE IMPORTANCE OF THAT PARENTHETICAL! Do not look at being
well-rested, sharp, and “in the zone” as chance circumstances! It is not a matter of
luck whether you are sharp on test day. There is luck involved, as there always is,
but the effect of luck is overestimated by the excuse-inclined and mitigated by the
successful.”

Read McGruff’s entire post, it is probably better than this guide.

Find out what works for you. Find out what variables you need to control. Learn about
yourself. Just make sure that on test day, you are ready to perform.

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