A message from San Francisco LSAT Instructor
November 13, 2008 at 4:58 am | In Assumption Questions, Getting High LSAT Score | Leave a CommentTags: lsat class, lsat course, lsat score improve, private tutoring
Welcome to my blog dedicated to helping students maximize their scores on Law School Admission Test. I have been teaching LSAT classes and providing individual LSAT lessons in San Francisco, Bay Area, and Sacramento areas for the best 4 years. I had a chance to witness through my own teaching experience what techniques and what strategies work and help people improve their LSAT performance.
There is no doubt in my mind that any student can have a much greater benefit from private LSAT instruction rathen than being in class. This is because students come to LSAT class with such a wide range of skills and abilities. It makes little sense for people with different initial test taking abilities to take the same class, as some of them will be bored, thinking that the class is too slow and rudimentary, while others will think that the class is too fast, they won’t keep up and won’t be able to keep and won’t get the benefit from the instruction receive either.
It is thus crucial that the LSAT tutoring be customized to address the specific needs, goals and challenges of a specific student. This has proven to be by far the most effective way to work to increase the LSAT score for a student of any initial abilities and goals.
If you just started thinking about law school and taking the test or you are just about to take the test and need to refresh/polish your logic game skills or put a finishing touch on the other parts of LSAT test, and you live in San Francisco Bay Area or Sacramento area, contact San Francisco LSAT instructor to discuss what you can do to improve your LSAT score at the upcoming test.
Tip on answering questions faster
February 5, 2009 at 7:43 pm | In Answering Questions Faster | Leave a CommentTags: answering lsat questions faster
Often, what makes a difference between a hard question and an easy question on the LSAT is not the question itself but the kind of answer that we are expected to find.
Sometimes, the question might look very challenging, but before you decide to delve into it, it’s often worth looking at the answers and seeing if you can eliminate one or more obviously wrong answers. Sometimes, you will only be left with one possible answer, which will eliminate the need to thoroughly understand the question altogether.
If you have any questions about the LSAT and the strategies to help you get a higher score, feel free to contact San Francisco LSAT instructor at (415) 640-6765.
A common mistake in LSAT preparation
February 2, 2009 at 8:10 am | In Answering Questions Faster | Leave a CommentMany LSAT takers I encounter in San Francisco and around the Bay Area believe that all the need to succeed at the LSAT and get a high score is learn a few techniques and tricks and they will be on their way toward a 170 or higher score. The reality, however, is that while the “tricks” are important to learn and incorporate into solving the LSAT problems, time and practice are essential to improving the score.
Obviously, LSAT is just as much about solving questions quickly as it is about solving them correctly. And speed only comes with experience, with practice with “mileage” if you will. Solving LSAT questions faster is like a muscle that you need to train after learning and feel comfortable using all the effective techniques.
This is especially true with regards to games sections. There is a limited amount of kind of games that you will encounter on the lsat, but to be able to solve 4 games in 35 minutes as required on the LSAT, you have to be thoroughly familiar with how to go about solving each kind. This ability comes after solving many games of each kind, and there is no shortcut to this process.
How to do LSAT games faster
January 14, 2009 at 9:07 pm | In Answering Questions Faster, Logic Games | Leave a CommentTags: faster answers for lsat games, Logic Games
One of the common mistakes that students make when preparing for the LSAT is timing themselves when solving games from the very beginning of preparing for the LSAT. When you don’t allow yourself sufficient time to understand what the game is about and you don’t struggle through it to solve it, but instead you put a time limit of 8.5 minutes per game, you are much less likely to improve your game solving skills. You will be skimming over games, stressing out about not being able to finish the games quickly enough and will not improve your score.
Instead, at the beginning, you should focus on solving the games at any speed, understanding the strategies and not worrying about the time at least until the time that you are thoroughly familiar with all the kinds of games that might be included in the LSAT test.
Once you are comfortable enough to solve games without the time limit, you shold start working in increasing the pace, as solving the problems faster is ultimately a matter of repetition and experience.
“Extreme” answer choices are not always obvious
January 3, 2009 at 6:03 am | In Analytical Reasoning Tips, Extreme Answers | Leave a CommentTags: analytical reasoning, Extreme Answers, LSAT
One of the kinds of answer choices that you might already be familiar with and know that they are usually not the right choices in analytical reasoning sections of the LSAT are “extreme” answers choices. These are the answer that start with “all,” “always,” “everywhere,” etc… making an absolute and unqualified statement, such as “all people are good,” “all money is evil,” etc…. Usually, these incorrect answer choices are also shorter as it takes fewer words to make an extreme statement than a qualified one.
However, it’s important to remember that some “extreme” answers are not that obvious. For example, even though the key words, such as all, everywhere, always, all the time, etc… indicate that the answer choice is extreme, absence of those words doesn’t mean that the answer isn’t extreme.
For instance, consider the following statement: People are good.
Is it extreme? At first, it might not look like it, but it is. It doesn’t say that some people are good, or that some people are good in some places and under some circumstances. This statement implies that all people are good without saying “all” and therefore is extreme.
So, look for the key words that would suggest that the answer is extreme, but also be on the look-out for brief, generilinzg statements that don’t have those key words as these statements are also usually extreme and are incorrect choices in the analytical reasoning arguments of the LSAT exam.
Important tip for LSAT assumption questions
December 31, 2008 at 7:23 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a CommentOne of the most frequently used kinds of questions in the arguments sections of the LSAT is the assumptions questions, in which you are supposed to figure out, which assumption out of the four or five possible answers the argument depends on. The most common reason for the wrong choice of answer out of the two competing, seemingly valid answers is the following: one of the answers that seems to be correct is not the right answer because, while it might be the general assumption that’s necessary for the argument to be valid, it’s not an assumption which is necessary to support that particular argument.
For example, consider the following argument:
“David decided to go to Starbucks instead of Peet’s Coffee because he wants to lose weight. “
The correct answer to the assumption question would probably look like this:
Starbucks serves a lower-calorie food/drinks that Peet’s.
The writers of the LSAT will try to mask the correct answer with another option that will generally look like an assumption that’s also needed, such as: the assumption that there are both Starbucks and Peet’s are located in your area; or that you have the money to pay for what they sell, etc…
When you are faced with those competing answers, remember this very important fact: you are not asked to just find a valid assumption in the argument, as there are many of those, including such facts as that you are able to walk, that you are not allergic to coffee, that you can speak the language and explain what you need to the coffee barista, etc… You are asked to identify the assumption on which that specific argument depends. All the other assumptions are generally necessary for just about every argument, but they are not needed to link the permise and the conclusion of the specific argument that you are dealing with. To link loss of weight with the choice of coffee store you are going to go to in the above example, you only need one assumption: the assumption that one store’s products are less fattening than the other’s. The rest of the possible assumptions, while theoretically necessary, are not necessary to connect the two parts of that specific argument.
Keep this tip in mind, and it will be of great help to you when you are dealing with the so common assumption questions in the arguments section of the LSAT.
San Francisco LSAT: Group classes v. Individual LSAT tutoring sessions
December 7, 2008 at 9:40 pm | In Getting High LSAT Score, How to study for LSAT, Private LSAT tutuoring | Leave a CommentTags: lsat high score, San Francisco LSAT instruction classes
One of the typical mistakes that LSAT students make when preparing for the exam is that they place too much value and rely too heavily on the prep course. They believe that once they learn all the “tricks” and all the techniques for solving games and arguments, they will be ready to go and get a high score on the LSAT exam. This is hardly ever true, however, as there is much more to succeeding on LSAT exam than just knowing the tricks; it’s is mostly about knowing how and when to apply the useful LSAT strategies, and this only comes with experience.
Like any other skills, becoming good and quick with lsat logical games and analytical reasoning arguments takes time and parctice. You must develop that intuition of what was on the mind of the author of any given question and what he is trying to test you on in order to answer any given question quickly and correctly. This comes only with the quantity of work done and with trying to solve a variety of problem as well as going over the questions you haven’t answered correctly and trying to understanding what pevent you from solving any given question or problem.
Thus, if you have a few months before taking the test, you must be planning to do at least one LSAT section per day every day in order to develop that necessary experience for a high LSAT score.
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