Natalie went from the 140s to a 170 while working full time

Student story

• Early scores: Stuck in the 150s across 2018 (155, 154, 157), starting from a 147
• Restart: Took about 1.5 years off, came back with the LSAT Unplugged course during 2020
• Official scores: 165 (July 2020), 169 (January 2021), then 170
• Situation: Working and in a graduate program the whole time
• Program: LSAT Unplugged course, accountability group, the Socratic Review Method

In her words

Don't gaslight yourself if you're not ready. You know you're not ready.

Natalie

Once I finally slowed down and took my time, the speed came automatically.

Natalie

The amount of questions you do doesn't mean anything if you don't take the lesson from each one.

Natalie

What actually moved her score

I've been coaching the LSAT since 2005, and Natalie's is the story I send to anyone studying around a job. She'd already failed at this once. The second run worked for 3 reasons.

She cancelled a score instead of keeping a bad one. April 2020 wasn't ready, and she knew it. Three months later she had a 165.

She slowed down before she sped up. Untimed accuracy first, then timing. Her words: the speed came automatically.

She kept a Google Doc of every missed question, right answers included, and pulled 1 lesson from each. That's the Socratic Review Method with a day job.

Individual results vary. Score increases depend on starting point, study time, and effort.

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Full interview transcript

Recorded July 2021, after her 169. She went on to score 170. Logic Games references are from the old format; that section was removed in August 2024.

Natalie: I'm excited to share my journey through the LSAT with everyone today. I initially started my LSAT journey a few years ago, a bit on and off, but I've been studying for a little bit over a year now. When I took the LSAT initially a few times on record, I kept scoring in the 150s, and I felt frustrated that I just could not break into my goal of breaking 160 for almost 5 months. Now I'm hoping to break 170 this upcoming test, which I honestly thought I would never say at the beginning of this journey. So I thought sharing my journey and how I got there could inspire or help anyone else going through this process. I want to share the main breakthroughs that helped me achieve 160s and beyond, my biggest mistakes from each section, and the lessons I learned moving forward.

The first section, Logic Games, has always been kind of my best section because I have somewhat of a math background, but even then I had larger issues that prevented me from achieving my full potential. One of my most significant mistakes at the beginning was drawing out rules immediately and going into the questions without taking time to diagram. I came to learn over time that taking the time to diagram and making inferences in your initial diagram helps you quickly answer questions later on. Another lesson was to not be afraid to do the questions out of order, particularly local questions before global questions. I know Steve and some of the other instructors have brought this up. To me this means answering all the questions that start with "if" first, then moving on to questions that start with "which." The local questions create new diagrams that help me answer global questions more quickly later.

Logical Reasoning is probably the section I improved the most on throughout my journey. One of my biggest mistakes was not actively engaging with the stimulus as I read it. I'd identify the conclusion through indicator words, then move on to the question stem without thinking much about the space between the evidence and the conclusion. I was reading words on a page the same way I did for school, artificially learning the information to reiterate it later, which is not a useful reading strategy for the LSAT. One way I improved this was by visualizing the stimulus as a mental picture, a movie in my head as I read it. If the argument was about boats on the ocean, I'm literally picturing boats on the ocean. That's a personal preference because I'm more of a visual learner. Another breakthrough was breaking the argument down little by little. If I didn't understand the first sentence, I wouldn't move on to the second. If necessary, I'd rephrase the argument in my own words to keep the same ideas in a manner I could understand better. And as a personal preference, I like to read the stimulus first and then go to the question stem, so I'm more engaged with the argument and don't go in with a biased point of view of a certain question type. Most questions will have an argument with a gap in it, so I approach all questions kind of like method of reasoning or flaw questions, actively thinking about what the author assumes or overlooks, almost a flaw point of view for all the argument types.

Lastly, Reading Comprehension had always been my worst section. It's the most difficult section, and I think it's one of the most personal sections on the LSAT, because the variance in how high-level test takers approach it is larger than in any other section. My biggest mistake at first was worrying about finishing all the passages, which made me not engage with the passage and not double-check my answer choices against the information. To fix that, I slowed down to read for structure and the main point. The way I now approach Reading Comprehension is having the mindset of why did the author write this and how did he or she go about writing it, which is my way of saying: what's the main point and structure. There are other features you need to know, like tone and viewpoints, but just thinking about why it was written and how it got there covers everything I need in the time, and I don't focus on the details. After reading a paragraph, I also like to pause and think about what I just read and anticipate where the passage is going. That increases my level of engagement, and whether I'm right or wrong about where it's going next, the anticipation forces an engagement that helps my understanding. Something that helped more with my review was knowing that every answer choice will have some sort of support directly in the passage, and not choosing an answer until I can point to where in the passage that support comes from. That really changed the way I reviewed incorrect and correct questions. And I learned from Steve to not be afraid to skip difficult questions and do them out of order, through the questions referring to lines and inference questions.

Overall, my lessons learned, and this goes for test-taking strategy and studying both, are: go for quality over quantity in problems. The amount of questions you do doesn't mean anything if you don't take the lesson from each one, especially in Logical Reasoning. In a non-testing situation, one of my biggest mistakes was worrying about the number of questions I was cramming instead of how much I was learning from each question. In a testing environment, go for accuracy over speed. As my familiarity with the test increased, my speed naturally increased too. I was never able to complete a single section for a really long time, and then I naturally started finishing each section with time to spare. Also, take review seriously. You should review your wrong questions, but you should review the ones you got right as well. Looking at the ones I got correct and understanding the reasoning helped me get a deeper understanding of the test. And don't be afraid to skip questions in a testing situation. I typically skip longer questions that take more time, like parallel reasoning, and come back to them later, and I skip my least favorite question types first too, like weaken questions.

If anyone has questions, let me know. Thank you.

Steve: That was fantastic, Natalie, well done. So many nuggets there. I feel like it was a great overview of your LSAT journey up to this point. I've got plenty of thoughts, but I saw a question come in first. Natalie, that was a wonderful presentation. I'm hoping to one day have your problem, trying to keep going once you've seen a 170. For Logical Reasoning specifically, what was your review process like? Did you have a specific journal? Are there things you did in the beginning that you'd change now? How do you structure your LR review?

Natalie: I keep a master Google Doc with every question I've ever gotten wrong. What really changed my engagement with the reasoning is the Socratic Review Method: writing out, in your own words, the argument by evidence and conclusion, and then writing out the answer choices, right and wrong, in your own words as well. Another one of Steve's tips, about restructuring an argument to fit different question types, also really helped, especially with flaw and reasoning questions in particular, changing different answer choices to fit the flaw in question. I know Steve has a whole class on that too, and that class really helped me.

Steve: For those curious about that class, I think it's the "My Second Role of Statement" workshop in the Logical Reasoning section of the course, where I'm transforming a stimulus from one question type to another, just changing the perspective. Glad to hear that was helpful. One thing that stood out to me, among so many things in your presentation, is the accuracy over speed element. I think too often students rush right into timing, when in fact slowing down and focusing on accuracy first, for longer than you might want to, can actually help you speed up in the end by giving you that deeper understanding. Is that where you're coming from on that?

Natalie: Yes, that's exactly what I experienced. At first I was so frustrated I couldn't finish a section that I got into a terrible habit of just speeding through to say I'd finished at the end, and my score went down. That actually happened in a real test-taking situation when I first took the LSAT a few years ago. Once I finally slowed down and took my time, the speed came automatically. It's kind of insane how that works, but it's real, and you have to trust the process.

Steve: Would you mind sharing more about your overall timeline, when you started, when you got your 169, and your steps after that?

Natalie: I started studying at the end of my undergrad in 2018, because I initially wanted to go to law school directly after undergrad. I studied for maybe 4 or 5 months and couldn't break even a 150. Finally, after about 5 months of on-and-off self-studying, I scored a 155. I tried going in a few more times and got a lower score, a 154, then a 157. At that point I took a complete break from it, then picked it back up about a year and a half later and started from scratch. That's when I did more of a course, and that's when I also found Steve. I started self-studying over COVID and took the test in July. I'd had to cancel a score before that, but my first score on record since the 155 became a 165. I retook the test in January and got the 169.

Steve: You got your 169 in January. I think you took a break for a bit after that, to focus on school?

Natalie: Yeah, I'm in a graduate program right now, so I took a break. I also had some health concerns going on, so I had to take a break for 2 months. I'm picking it back up now, hoping for the best for June.

Steve: It all kind of comes naturally if you've been studying for a while. If you put in several months of studying, countless hours, it comes naturally in the end.

Natalie: Exactly. But also, if you feel like you're not ready, don't force it. That was one thing I did during COVID that was a mistake on my end. I tried to pick it back up in April of 2020, told myself I'd be ready for the June test, and I ended up having to cancel the score I got, because I just wasn't ready at all. Don't gaslight yourself if you're not ready. You know you're not ready.

Steve: Thanks for tuning in to the show. Please subscribe if you haven't already, to be notified of new episodes as I release them, and feel free to reach out if you need anything as you move through your prep. I'm happy to help however I can. In the meantime, I wish you all the best, and take care.

Individual results vary. Score increases depend on starting point, study time, and effort.

More student stories: Zach, 151 to 176, Annie, 153 to 170, Stanford Law, Judy, 161 to 171, Columbia Law, James, 157 to 168, Kenny, 154 to 164, full scholarship All LSAT Unplugged reviews

I've written free explanations for every question in LSAT PrepTest 159, 158, 157, 156, 155 and 154, with the right answer and why each wrong answer fails. All LSAT explanations are here.

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