Winning on the Facts (Ep. 168)
Thanksgiving is nigh (at the time of this recording), and Ben is just returned with a last-minute-Turkey-day bounty from Costco. Nathan grills him about his experience and the guys wax poetic about the infamous one stop shop. Today on the show: is it a bird? A plane? An LR question? Or an email advertisement? The guys dissect a missive from a popular online payments brand. Plus, two correspondents are getting frustrated with their respective study strategies. The guys weigh in with some pro tips on how to improve speed when your accuracy is high and how to smash main point questions when your accuracy is…meh. You’ll also get the inside scoop on the writing sample portion of the test during Pearls vs. Turds, and the guys wrap up with another personal statement.
As always, if you like the show and want to get more from the Thinking LSAT community, check out the links below. You can connect with other folks studying for the LSAT, and get more useful resources from Nathan and Ben.
5:14 – Ben gives you a weekly update on the latest developments from the LSAT Demon. This AI platform gives you the straight sh*t to help you beef up your LSAT chops on the double. No silly bells and whistles. Just LSAT prep, Thinking LSAT style. Log in and pick your poison—LR, RC, or Logic Games—then answer question after question. As you answer, the Demon learns where your strengths and weaknesses are and serves you up questions that will help you improve where you need it most. All along the way you’ll get written and video explanations from Ben and Nathan about how to break down and successfully answer each question. It’s been pretty popular since its launch this year, and the guys read a PSA from a recent Demon convert.
6:58 – Email 1—As y’all continue to prep for the LSAT, your soft impressionable minds will become (hopefully) ever sharper, and ever more resilient to the sweet siren song of advertisers who crowd your inbox. Nathan reads an email he received from a major online payments company and points out that it sounds like it’s right out of a logical reasoning section. The guys lay bare the flaws in this smarmy marketing, and note that you, too, can one day call bullshit on advertisers everywhere.
12:25 – Email 2—Best has been prepping for the LSAT by the Thinking LSAT playbook. He’s been listening to the show. He’s been working from Nathan’s books. And he’s been working on one practice section per day followed by deep review. He started prepping in late September, and the result by November? Exceptional accuracy. But only for the first 15 questions or so. Best is wondering how he can eek out a few more questions. He’s been “slowing down to speed up,” per the guys’ advice, but he feels like he’s just “slowing down to slow down.” Once your accuracy is high, how can you nab those extra questions? Nathan and Ben weigh in with some sound advice. Ben takes a look at Best’s strategy and makes some suggestions about predicting answers. Nathan suggests beefing up your study by adding more practice sections per day and including a full-length test or two in your prep each month.
23:00 – Pearls vs. Turds—It’s everyone’s favorite segment, dear listeners. The portion of the show where Ben and Nathan confirm or debunk some LSAT wisdom floating out there in the ether. This week the guys tackle some wisdom about the writing sample section of the LSAT. It’s been said that the writing sample is HUGE when it comes to schools deciding whether to give you a scholarship. Tune in to see if this wisdom is a pearl, or a turd.
27:22 – Email 3—Speaking of “wisdom,” Garault’s been digging into some 7Sage strategies, and she’s got some questions. Things like—”my main point question strategy isn’t working, what gives?” “Should I be checking all of the logic games answers every time?” And, “how do I handle those ‘append the final sentence of this paragraph’ questions?” It’s safe to say that the advice she’s been heeding thus far is not serving her well. Ben and Nathan weigh in with some pro tips to improve accuracy and speed in each of the LSAT sections.
46:42 – The guys read another personal statement fresh from the Thinking LSAT personal statement review service. This gleaming example of a well-written personal essay follows all of the Thinking LSAT pearls of wisdom. Anonymous writes about himself, he writes a lot about things he did, and he sticks to the facts to show rather than to tell the reader about himself. Nathan and Ben read through the statement, they talk about the process of getting to the final product, and they point out the aspects of the essay that make it stronger than the average personal statement.