The Only LSAT Affirmation You'll Ever Need (Ep. 333)
Pearls vs. Turds, personal statement advice, and a bucketload of listener emails! Tune in this week to hear the lowdown on LSAT affirmations, law school scholarships, part-time lawyering (is that a thing?), personal statement topics, and more. The guys also announce some new features that are coming soon to the Demon.
As always, if you like the show and you 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.
2.2.2022 — January LSAT Score Release
2.3.2022 — March LSAT Registration Deadline
2.12.2022 — February LSAT
3.3.2022 — February LSAT Score Release
1:42 - Pearls vs. Turds: Advice from a Baseball Coach
Listener Qiao writes in to share how the podcast and Demon have completely changed his approach to the LSAT. He also shares a piece of baseball advice that he thinks is equally valuable on the LSAT. Qiao recalls his coach telling him that to succeed as a pitcher, accuracy always comes before raw power and speed. “Slow down to speed up” is a strategy that Ben and Nathan have been recommending to LSAT students for years. It’s a pearl of advice that’s applicable in a wide range of contexts.
Qiao also shares a link to an LSAT Demon subreddit community that he created for fellow Demon subscribers to communicate with one another. Check it out here.
13:50 - Scholarship Estimator
Listener Nate reaches out with an update on his applications and notes how his real scholarship offers compare to the LSAT Demon Scholarship Estimator’s predictions. If you applied this cycle and received any offers that are dramatically different from what the estimator predicted, please email help@thinkinglsat.com.
21:46 - Part-Time Lawyering
Listener Alex wants to know if Ben and Nathan can speak to the possibility of lawyering part time. Ben suggests that if you want to practice part time, you would likely need to own your own practice. Most lawyers work more than full time. The guys encourage Alex to think carefully about whether this is the right career path for them.
If you know someone who works as an attorney part time or owns their own part-time practice, email us at help@lsatdemon.com
33:30 - Are Some PTs Harder than Others?
Another listener Alex reports starting with a diagnostic score of 165 but then getting a 157 on their most recent practice test (PT 88). Alex wants to know if this practice test is harder than others or what other factors might have caused this score deviance. The tests vary in difficulty to some degree, but not by much. Plenty of other factors could have contributed. Alex should examine what they did differently while taking this test.
48:25 - Pearls vs. Turds: LSAT Affirmations
Ben and Nathan review a Reddit post with a list of recommended “LSAT affirmations.” The writer claims that reading these every day has helped them become more consistent in their practice test scores. The guys approve of most of the affirmations on this list, but they decide that one is the most powerful: “I choose the correct answer because the test tells me everything I need to know.” This one’s a pearl.
Got a Pearls vs. Turds candidate? Email help@thinkinglsat.com, or find us on social @thinkinglsat. Current scoreboard: 17 pearls, 58 turds, 24 ties.
57:09 - Score Calculations and Personal Statement Ideas
Student Veronica writes in to ask specifics about how the Demon calculates practice test scores. The guys explain that scoring scales had to be adjusted when the LSAT switched from four scored sections to only three scored sections. The scoring differential may be the reason that Veronica saw a score discrepancy across two different LSAT prep companies’ websites.
She also requests help with choosing a personal statement topic. Veronica is involved in her school’s mock trial team, but a baseless internet rumor made her hesitant to write about it. Nathan and Ben advise Veronica that as long as she is succeeding at the experiences she describes in her personal statement, she will be able to showcase herself as a badass.
1:12:14 - March 2020
Listener Colton is contemplating writing his personal statement on March 2020. Not only is this when the pandemic began, it’s also when his mom went to prison, an experience that Colton says got him interested in the legal field. Ben and Nathan strongly advise against writing about a negative experience involving a family member. Your personal statement should be a success story and should be about you. Read more personal statement advice here.