Cracking the 170 LSAT Score: Strategies and Insights from Top Scorers

The Law School Admission Test (LSAT) is a critical component of the law school application process. A high LSAT score, particularly in the 170s, can significantly enhance your chances of admission to top law schools. While achieving such a score requires dedication and strategic preparation, it is attainable with the right approach. This article consolidates advice from LSAT instructors and high scorers, offering a comprehensive guide to help you break through score plateaus and achieve your target score.

Understanding the LSAT Score Landscape

The LSAT is scored on a scale of 120 to 180, with the average score around 150. A score of 170 or higher places you in the top 5% of test-takers, while a 175 or higher puts you in the top 1%. A perfect score of 180 is rare, achieved by only about 1 in 1,000 test-takers. Top law schools typically have median LSAT scores in the 170s, making this a desirable target for ambitious applicants.

It's important to remember that law schools view the LSAT as one factor among many, including GPA and other qualifications. While a 180 will stand out, it's not a guarantee of admission. Aiming for the mid-170s gives you a strong chance at top schools.

The Mindset of a Top Scorer

Scoring high on the LSAT isn't just about intelligence; it's about adopting the right mindset. Here are some key mental shifts to cultivate:

Embrace Mistakes as Learning Opportunities: Top performers react to wrong answers with curiosity, seeking to understand why they erred and how to avoid similar mistakes in the future.
Find Intrinsic Motivation: Engage with the LSAT material in a way that makes it interesting and rewarding. This reduces stress and fosters deeper insights.
Trust Yourself: Avoid second-guessing your initial instincts, especially after you've put in the necessary study time.
Stay Calm Under Pressure: Develop strategies to manage test anxiety and maintain focus throughout the exam.

The Importance of Methodical Practice

Many test-takers mistakenly believe that taking endless practice tests is the key to LSAT success. However, practice is only helpful when it is methodical and purposeful. A thoughtful study plan is essential.

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Building a Solid Foundation

Learn the Right Techniques: Master effective strategies for tackling each question type, using methods that align with your learning style. This may involve self-study, a course, or working with a tutor.
Master Common Flaws: Familiarize yourself with common flaws in logical reasoning. This skill is helpful not only for Flaw questions, but is often critical for other types of LR questions. It can also help you rule out wrong answer choices that commit these flaws.
Consistent Studying: Study for the LSAT like you are learning a language. Consistent students see the most growth. It is better to do five questions a day for six days of the week than 30 questions once a week. Treat your study times like appointments you need to attend.

Identifying and Addressing Weaknesses

To achieve a score in the 170s, you need to identify and address your weaknesses.

Analyze Your Performance: Use tools like 7Sage to analyze your practice test results and pinpoint areas where you consistently struggle.
Drill Targeted Questions: Focus on practicing questions that target your specific weaknesses, whether it's a particular question type, game type, or passage topic.
Timed Practice: Incorporate timed practice sections to assess your progress and simulate test conditions.
Review, Review, Review: Review questions you got right as well as the questions you got wrong. Even if you got a question right, you may have been unsure or you may have gotten it right for the wrong reason. There’s usually something more you can learn from a question. Make sure you study the questions until you really understand the reasoning. It should have a feeling of “clicking into place” when you finally figure it out.

Refining Your Review Process

Effective review is crucial for transforming mistakes into learning opportunities. Here's how to deepen your review process:

Blind Review: After completing a practice section, review the questions without looking at the answers. This allows you to re-engage with the material with fresh eyes.
Identify the Root Cause: Drill down into why you missed a question. Was it a misread, a misunderstanding of the argument, or a flawed application of a strategy?
Create Takeaways: Turn each mistake into a takeaway - a specific lesson you can apply to future questions.
Track Recurring Errors: At the end of your review session, identify recurring errors and develop systems to prevent them.
Future-Focused Review: Make sure you are also looking forward. Try to drill down into why you missed a question. Did you miss that LR question because you didn’t notice the subtle shift in wording? Because you didn’t initially see how the correct answer was relevant to the stimulus? Or because you didn’t diagram some of the formal logic?

Section-Specific Strategies

Reading Comprehension (RC)

RC is often cited as a major obstacle for those aiming for a 170+ score. Here are some strategies to improve your RC performance:

Read Actively: Engage with the passage by asking yourself questions like, "Has the author's voice appeared yet?" and "What is this sentence actually saying?"
Analyze Carefully: Break down complex sentences into their core components, separating filler information from keywords.
Focus on the Author's Purpose: Understand the author's main argument and how they support it.
Read Slowly, Analyze Fast: Don't rush through the passage. Read carefully and deliberately, focusing on comprehension.

Logical Reasoning (LR)

Anticipate the Answer: Before looking at the answer choices, try to predict the correct answer based on your understanding of the argument.
Identify Flaws: Hone your ability to spot flaws in arguments quickly and accurately.
Eliminate Wrong Answers: Systematically eliminate answer choices that are incorrect or irrelevant.
Ask "How Could This Be Wrong?": When choosing between two tempting answer choices, ask yourself how each one could be wrong. The correct answer will always be 100% correct.

Logic Games (LG)

Master Diagramming: Develop efficient and accurate diagramming techniques for each game type.
Make Inferences: Identify all possible inferences before answering the questions.
Practice Under Time Pressure: Simulate test conditions to improve your speed and accuracy.
Use Previous Work: Use your previous work effectively. Do answers sometimes seem irrelevant even if it actually turns out to be relevant (or vice versa)? Do you diagram when it’s helpful to do so?

Additional Tips from Top Scorers

Put Yourself in the World of the LSAT: Act as if the author of an RC passage is speaking right to you-this makes it easier to understand the message they are trying to convey and how. Identify flaws in arguments by picturing your least favorite person as the one making the argument-this makes it much easier (and more fun) to find gaps in the logic.
Hold Off on Looking at Explanations Right Away: Do everything you can to try to figure out why the right answer is wrong and why the right answer is right first. Only look at explanations when you are truly stuck in your review. This is because we remember the things we discover MUCH better than the things we simply read. If you read an explanation, 9 out of 10 times, you will go, ‘Ohhh’ and then promptly forget it.
Find Your Missed Layups: When reviewing a practice test, ask yourself, ‘What are the 3-5 easiest questions I’m getting wrong, and how can I get them right?’ Improving your score is about finding more points. Don’t worry about the three-pointers and half-court shots for now. What are the simple, correctable mistakes? Find those weaknesses and attack them relentlessly.
Be Brutally Honest With Yourself: Anytime you feel confused by language in a passage, whether it’s a word you don’t know or a phrase that doesn’t make sense. Our instinct in those moments can be to zone out and lose focus, but try to pinpoint exactly what part is confusing you and then turn that moment into a question for yourself.
Stay Curious and Experimental: Stay curious and experimental with your application of strategies and focus on consistency of easier questions. If you can get a near perfect score on lowest through medium questions and comfortable with the underlying strategies, you’ll give yourself more time and margin for error on those tougher questions. On tougher questions, try to focus on what the LSAT is relying to separate right from wrong answers and identify what they are testing on a given question. There are often multiple tempting answers on tougher questions because they all are doing something, but if you zoom in and don’t talk yourself into or out of answers, there will be something objectively wrong with all but one answer that makes only one answer truly plausible.

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