How To Get A 165 On The Lsat
So, you're aiming for a 165 on the LSAT. That's a solid score. It’s the sweet spot where you can stop telling your grandma you’re “thinking about law school” and actually say you’re doing law school. And let's be honest, achieving it doesn't require a secret handshake with a grumpy owl or a pact with the ghost of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It’s more about a bit of strategic silliness and embracing the absurdity of it all.
First things first, forget what those glossy brochures tell you. They paint a picture of intellectual titans wrestling with ancient texts. While there are definitely some of those, most of us are just trying to figure out if “if P then Q” also means “if not Q then not P.” Spoiler alert: it does. Mind-blowing, right?
The LSAT itself is a bit like a weird puzzle competition. You've got your Logic Games, which are basically advanced Sudoku for people who like to overthink seating arrangements. Imagine you’re planning a dinner party where everyone has a weird vendetta against someone else. “Alice hates Bob, but only if Carol is wearing purple. If David is there, Bob must sit at least three seats away from Alice.” See? Fun!
My personal, slightly heretical take? Embrace the chaos of the games. Don't try to be perfectly neat. Draw diagrams. Scribble. Make little stick figures of people throwing pies at each other if it helps you visualize the rules. The more you treat it like a slightly insane board game, the less intimidating it becomes. Think Clue, but with more conditional statements. Who brought the wrong sandwich, and why does that mean the stapler can’t be next to the existential dread?
Then there's Reading Comprehension. This is where they test if you can read a dense paragraph about, say, the mating habits of the Patagonian toothfish, and then answer questions about it. The trick? The passages are often drier than a week-old cracker. Your brain will try to rebel. It will whisper sweet nothings about TikTok dances and pizza. You must resist. Think of yourself as a literary detective, but instead of finding a killer, you’re finding the main idea and the author’s subtle jab at capitalism.
For Reading Comprehension, I swear by the power of outrage. Find a passage that genuinely annoys you. Maybe it's about the inherent superiority of artisanal cheese. Get angry. Channel that righteous indignation. When you’re annoyed, you tend to pay attention. You want to find the flaw in their argument, or at least understand why they think brie is better than cheddar. This kind of engagement, even negative, is far more effective than passive reading.
And finally, the king of LSAT terror: Logical Reasoning. This is where they ask you to break down arguments. It’s like being a professional debater, but you don’t get to yell at anyone. They’ll give you a little argument, like, “All dogs are furry. Fido is furry. Therefore, Fido is a dog.” Then they’ll ask you to find the flaw. The flaw here is that lots of things are furry. My cat is furry. My favorite sweater is furry. Fido could be a particularly fluffy dust bunny for all we know.
My unpopular opinion on Logical Reasoning? Be a contrarian. Question everything. The LSAT is trying to trick you with shiny words and fancy phrasing. Whenever you read an argument, your first thought should be, "Okay, but what if they're wrong?" What if the premise is flawed? What if the conclusion is a leap? This skepticism, this almost gleeful disbelief, will serve you well. Think of yourself as a tiny, highly caffeinated lawyer, cross-examining every single sentence.
The secret sauce for hitting that 165 is practice, of course. Lots and lots of practice. But it’s not just about doing drills mindlessly. It’s about doing them with a sense of playful defiance. Treat each question as a challenge, a little mental obstacle course designed to test your wit. Laugh at the ridiculousness of some of the questions. Marvel at the convoluted logic. When you get a question wrong, don't despair. Just shrug, say, "Well, that was a fun thought experiment that didn't quite work out," and move on.
"The LSAT is not a test of your innate brilliance. It’s a test of your ability to play its weird game."
You're not trying to become a Supreme Court Justice overnight. You're trying to show you can think critically and solve problems under pressure. So, when you're staring down a Reading Comp passage that makes you want to nap, or a Logic Game that resembles a particularly aggressive game of Jenga, remember: this is it. This is the quirky adventure that leads to law school. Embrace the weirdness. Smile at the absurd. And before you know it, that 165 will be staring back at you, looking surprisingly approachable.
And hey, if all else fails, just remember the mantra of every great test-taker: "It's just a bunch of words on a page." (Okay, maybe not just words, but it sounds better, right?)