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.

Many 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.

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.